WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) released a statement applauding the passage of a bipartisan resolution she helped introduce along with Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) condemning anti-Semitism in the United States and committing the U.S. Senate to taking action to combat it.
“I applaud the Senate’s actions to condemn the growing threat of anti-Semitism in all its forms, and pledging to take action to combat this very real and dangerous form of hate,” dijo el Senador Rosen. “We have a moral obligation to put a stop to this disturbing trend, wherever it might rear its ugly head, left, right, or center. I will continue to use the power of my office to fight back against bigotry and hate in whatever form it takes.
BACKGROUND: Senator Rosen holds the distinction of being the third female Jewish Senator in U.S. history, as well as the first former synagogue president to serve in the United States Senate. As such, Senator Rosen has been an outspoken advocate of combating anti-Semitism in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and around the world.
Senator Rosen is a cosponsor of the bipartisan Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018, which adopts a broad definition of anti-Semitism for the purposes of enforcing federal antidiscrimination laws in education. Specifically, the bill requires the Department of Education to consider this new definition of “anti-Semitism” as part of its assessment of whether an action based on an individual’s Jewish ancestry was motivated by anti-Semitic intent, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in education. Among other things, the definition includes making stereotypical allegations about the power of Jews as a collective, denying the Holocaust, and accusing Jewish citizens of a country of being more loyal to Israel to than to the interests of their own nation.
Earlier this year, Senator Rosen helped introduce bipartisan legislation to upgrade the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism to the rank of an ambassador and require its Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation.
Senator Rosen attended the swearing in of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Rosen was the only Member of Congress to attend the swearing-in ceremony for Special Envoy Elan Carr.
Last Congress, Rosen co-sponsored this bipartisan legislation and helped advance it in the House, where it passed by a vote of 393-2.
While serving in the House, then-Congresswoman Rosen served as a member of the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism.
Read the full resolution below:
Condemning all forms of antisemitism.
Whereas antisemitism is a unique form of prejudice stretching back millennia that attacks the equal humanity of the Jewish people;
Whereas antisemitism has long perpetrated myths about Jews, including the Russian fabrication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the wide circulation of libelous falsehoods about the Jewish murder of infants;
Whereas, in its most extreme form, antisemitism aims at the physical destruction of the Jewish people, as seen in pogroms, forced conversions and Nazi Germany’s murder of over six million Jews;
Whereas antisemitism has included attacks on the livelihood of Jews including prohibitions on land ownership, campaigns to boycott, confiscate or destroy Jewish businesses, and denial of the ability of Jews to practice certain professions;
Whereas, in the United States, Jews have suffered from systematic discrimination in the form of exclusion from home ownership in certain neighborhoods, prohibition from staying in certain hotels, restrictions upon membership in private clubs and other associations, limitations upon admission to certain educational institutions and other barriers to equal justice under the law;
Whereas, in the United States, Jews have faced, and continue to face, false accusations of divided loyalty between the United States and Israel, false claims that they purchase political power with money, and false accusations about control of the financial system, along with other negative stereotypes; and
Whereas Jews are the targets of the majority of hate crimes committed in the United States against any religious group, including attacks on houses of worship and Jewish community centers:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the United States Senate condemns and commits to combating all forms of antisemitism.
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