Bipartisan group of lawmakers introduce bill targeting antisemitism

A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives introduced a pair of bills Wednesday to counter antisemitism, calling for a federal interagency task force against the hate.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.) led the Senate’s Countering Antisemitism Act, while Reps. Kathy Manning (D-N.C.), Chris Smith (R-N.J.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), and Randy Weber (R-Texas) brought forward a House version.

Rosen, Lankford, Manning and Smith lead the House and Senate task forces against antisemitism.

The bill would establish the position of “National Coordinator to Counter Antisemitism,” an executive director whose role would be implementing the Biden administration’s antisemitism strategy announced last May.

“Antisemitism has been dramatically rising in the United States in the last several years and skyrocketed in the months since the horrific October 7 terror attack on Israel,” Rosen, who is herself Jewish, said in a statement. “There have been countless disturbing stories of Jewish families accosted and assaulted on streets, Jewish businesses and places of worship vandalized and desecrated, and Jewish students threatened at colleges and universities.”

“My bipartisan legislation would establish a National Coordinator to Counter Antisemitism for the first time ever, and take other much-needed steps across the federal government to fight anti-Jewish hatred, bigotry, and violence in the United States,” she added.

The bill would also designate May to be Jewish American Heritage Month in federal law, instruct the Department of Education to name an advisor on antisemitism in higher education, as well as conduct a study on Holocaust education.

“In America, we have the right to have a faith and to live that faith. No American should live in fear that they will be attacked simply because of their religious views,” Lankford said in a statement. “As the number of acts of antisemitism continues to rise, Jewish communities across the US deserve action to protect this basic freedom.”

The bill was lauded by major Jewish organizations, including the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The AJC called the measure the “most comprehensive legislation to date to counter domestic antisemitism and protect Jewish communities across the country.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt similarly labeled the bill “the most far-reaching antisemitism initiative ever to be introduced in Congress.”

“The U.S. Jewish community is facing the worst crisis of antisemitism that we have seen in a generation,” he said in a statement. “The Countering Antisemitism Act offers a smart, innovative whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to combating this hatred and protecting Jews around the country.”