June 13, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 99 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S3620-S3622]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ANTI-SEMITISM

  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, today, I would like to thank Senator Kaine 
for joining with me in introducing what should hopefully be a simple 
but crucially important matter for the Senate--to issue an unequivocal, 
direct, and clear condemnation of all forms of anti-Semitism.
  Unfortunately, we are living in an era where the need for a strong 
and clear condemnation of anti-Semitism has become acute. We are in the 
midst of a wave of anti-Semitism seen both here in the United States 
and all over the world.
  In just the last few years, we have seen repeated anti-Semitic 
comments made publicly, including insinuations questioning the loyalty 
and the patriotism of American Jews. We have seen physical violence 
against Jews, including shootings in Jewish places of worship, such as 
the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and the Chabad of Poway. We 
have seen a wave of physical attacks against Jews in the streets of New 
York. And we have seen the growth on our college campuses of movements 
to aggressively boycott products made by Jews in Israel.

[[Page S3621]]

  As we have learned this week, things have gotten so bad that the New 
York Times has announced it will simply stop running political cartoons 
in their international edition after being criticized and forced to 
apologize for recently running a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon.
  This resolution was also prompted, unfortunately, by the inability of 
the House of Representatives to come together and vote on a resolution 
straightforwardly and directly condemning anti-Semitism.
  Too many in political life have given in to the extremes, including 
the embrace of boycotts and at times outright hatred for Israel, the 
world's only Jewish state.
  So when the House tried to condemn anti-Semitism, sadly, they were 
instead forced to water it down into a general resolution decrying 
bigotry of all sorts, listing every group they could think of.
  There is, of course, nothing wrong with condemning bigotry and hatred 
in general, but anti-Semitism is a unique prejudice with a unique 
history that has led to unique horrors throughout history.
  Jews today are the most targeted religious group in the United States 
for hate crimes, according to the data compiled by the FBI. We need to 
be able to acknowledge that clearly and directly, and that is what this 
resolution does.
  This resolution outlines how ancient forms of anti-Semitism continue 
to live on today. It emphasizes that anti-Semitism is a unique form of 
prejudice stretching back millennia, and it condemns the modern form of 
those ancient prejudices. It talks about how, for centuries, anti-
Semitism has included exactly what we are seeing here today, including 
physical attacks against Jews, attacks on the loyalty of Jews, 
accusations of dual loyalty, campaigns to boycott, to confiscate, or to 
destroy Jewish businesses, and accusations that Jews use money to 
purchase political power. These are all false and vicious slurs.
  This resolution also speaks to the unique prejudice Jews here in 
America experience, which we must acknowledge. I would like to read one 
clause in particular in the resolution: ``[I]n the United States, Jews 
have suffered from systematic discrimination in the form of exclusion 
from homeownership 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.''
  This is a shameful legacy, and it makes it all the more incumbent 
that we in the Senate speak in one voice and stand resolved that the 
U.S. Senate condemns and commits to combating all forms of anti-
Semitism.
  This bipartisan resolution has 56 cosponsors, including 14 Democratic 
Senators. I am particularly grateful to Senator Kaine for his 
leadership, which has been pivotal in bringing us together to speak 
united with one clear voice, and I am hopeful that just moments from 
now the Senate will come together and pass a clear denunciation of 
anti-Semitism, 100 to 0, so that we are clearly understood and clearly 
heard.
  With that, I yield to my friend Senator Kaine.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, I applaud my colleague for reaching out to 
see if we could work together on this important resolution--a 
resolution that, coming to the Senate in 2013, as did my colleague, 
neither of us believed we would need to stand on the floor of this body 
to introduce.
  In August of 2017, students and their families had just arrived in 
the town of Charlottesville to move in at the University of Virginia. A 
close friend of mine, Rabbi Jake Rubin, is the Hillel rabbi at the 
University of Virginia. The students and their families, many of whom 
were coming to Charlottesville or to Virginia for the first time, 
excited to begin their college career, gathered with other Hillel 
students on campus on a Friday, together with members of the 
Charlottesville Jewish community, for fellowship and worship. Soon, 
they heard chants outside the place where they were worshipping, and 
they saw individuals dressed in a sort of uniform of khaki pants and 
white shirts, carrying torches and marching. They were marching at 
something that was a 2-day rally billed as a Unite the Right rally. But 
it was the words that were coming out of the marchers' mouths that 
terrified these worshippers and students because what they were 
chanting were slogans from Nazi youth rallies from the 1930s: ``Jews 
will not replace us,'' ``blood and soil,'' and other horrible and 
chilling statements terrified these young people and the adults who 
were with them.
  The next day, this rally/riot continued--White supremacists, White 
nationalists, neo-Nazis, and neo-Confederates. An individual in a 
vehicle ran his car into a crowd, injuring many and killing Heather 
Heyer, a paralegal from the Charlottesville area.
  Two State troopers, both of whom I knew because they were part of the 
Governor's security detail during my tenure as Governor and also the 
tenure of then-Governor McAuliffe, were patrolling in a helicopter to 
try to provide order in a difficult situation. Their helicopter went 
down, and both of them were killed, trying to protect public safety.
  We didn't think that would happen in Virginia. We didn't think that 
would happen in the hometown of an archetypal American political leader 
who believed that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of 
religion was one of the most important things about our country--that 
you could worship as you like or not and not be preferred or punished 
for the choice that you make. Yet it did happen in Virginia. It did 
happen in our country.
  As my colleague mentioned, this day was a day that extended a long 
history of anti-Semitism in the country: lynchings--the Leo Frank 
lynching in Atlanta, GA, in the early 1900s--Jews wrongly accused of 
crimes and then killed, crimes that they didn't commit; American 
boycotts of Jewish businesses in Michigan in the 1930s; restrictive 
covenants that prohibited Jews from moving into certain neighborhoods; 
restrictions on access to country clubs and educational institutions; 
bars that made it difficult to become members of certain professions; 
and even in addition to formal restrictions, a culture of intolerance, 
a culture of segregation that treated Jews as not fully equal in this 
land of equality. I had hoped that those days were behind us.
  But it is not just Charlottesville. There is a Jewish day school, the 
Gesher Day School a few miles from here in Virginia, that experienced 
bomb threats in 2017 and 2018. The Jewish Community Center in Fairfax, 
VA, has been repeatedly defaced with Nazi graffiti and anti-Semitic 
graffiti. In a heartening sign, when that happens, the faith 
communities of Virginia--Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Baha'i--
gather to scrub the graffiti off. Yet this hasn't happened just once; 
it happens over and over again.
  The shootings at the synagogue in Pittsburgh; the shootings in 
California; the assassination of Jewish senior citizens at a senior 
center in Overland Park, KS, near where my parents live; the uptick in 
reported hate crimes against Jews, as my colleague mentioned--hate 
crimes directed against any religion in this country are often directed 
against Jewish Americans. So we stand at a time when, regardless of 
where it comes from and regardless of who perpetrates it, we have to 
acknowledge that it is real, that it is dangerous, and that it is 
growing. Those of us in leadership positions have to be able to stand 
against it as firmly as we can.
  I applaud my colleague for reaching out to see if we could work on 
this together. This is a topic that could be used for partisanship and 
that one side could point at things folks on the other side have said 
that they didn't like. Senator Cruz and I talked about that, but what 
we realized is that this is just too important an issue to get bogged 
down in partisan politics, that the clear and present danger felt by 
members of the Jewish community and the escalating rhetoric against 
Jews in many parts of the country and around the world are things that 
call for a bipartisan response, a clear condemnation, and also a Senate 
commitment that, as a Senate, we will do all we can to combat anti-
Semitism so that we can be true to the equality principle that is our 
Nation's North Star, so that

[[Page S3622]]

we can be true to the freedom of religious worship that is enshrined in 
the First Amendment. It is in the First Amendment for a very important 
reason.
  I applaud my colleague, and I hope it is the pleasure of this body to 
accept the motion he will soon make by unanimous consent that we pass 
this strong statement of where the Senate is on this most important 
topic.
  With that, I yield the floor back to my colleague from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Virginia for his 
powerful and eloquent remarks decrying anti-Semitism and implore all of 
us to stand united with one clear bipartisan voice, Democrats and 
Republicans all on the same page, 100 to 0, saying that anti-Semitism 
has no place in the United States of America.
  With that, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be 
discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. 
Res. 189.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 189) condemning all forms of 
     antisemitism.

  There being no objection, the committee was discharged, and the 
Senate proceeded to consider the resolution.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution 
be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider 
be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The resolution (S. Res. 189) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  (The resolution, with its preamble, is printed in today's Record 
under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  Mr. CRUZ. Thank you.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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