The Senate Judiciary Committee opened its hearings on hate crimes on Tuesday, the first of its kind since Palestinian Hamas carried out a massacre in southern Israel on October 7th.
In May, it was announced that the hearings would be focused on the “rise in hate incidents across the country, particularly targeting the Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities” from October 7.
The recent announcement opening the hearings described them as dealing with “A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America.” This description omits any reference to antisemitism.
It should be noted that the Anti-Defamation League reported that in the first two months after the massacre, antisemitic incidents in the US hit an unprecedented record, representing a 337% increase over the same period the previous year.
The issue of antisemitism is quickly becoming partisan. When the hearings were announced in May, every Republican on the panel sent a letter to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who chairs the committee, requesting a hearing “on the civil rights violations of Jewish students” and “the proliferation of terrorist ideology — two issues that fall squarely within this Committee’s purview.”
Democrats responded by organizing a hearing on the “rise in hate incidents across the country, particularly targeting the Jewish, Arab, and Muslim communities.”
As a result, Democrats were allowed to bring two witnesses to the hearings while Republicans were permitted one witness.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) criticized the hearings, focusing on the two Democrat witnesses.
“Two witnesses called by Democrats to testify before today’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes, which was originally supposed to be about the rise of antisemitic hate crimes since Oct. 7th, are causing potentially irreparable damage to the Jewish community,” the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) said.
“The two witnesses are Kenneth Stern, a former Jewish communal official who opposes the overwhelmingly supported global definition to identify and combat antisemitism, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism, adopted by dozens of countries and most U.S. states, and Maya Berry, the director of the Arab American Institute, which has made statements that some have deemed antisemitic and has stymied many efforts to combat antisemitism.
“The fact that two witnesses were called, one a fig leaf for Jewish representation, and another who works for an organization that singles out the one Jewish state for boycotts, to speak about the incessant rise of antisemitism, is a travesty and a danger to Jews across the country,” said CEO of CAM Sacha Roytman. “By denying the right of the Jewish people to define hate against it, like any other minority community, they are giving immunity and impunity to antisemites.”
“Their testimony could be seen as a green light for antisemitism, because they openly attack the one tool the Jewish community and law enforcement has to defend against hate attacks, the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism,” he added.
“Stern has defended the use of the term ‘intifada’ on college campuses, even though the word is commonly used as a violent and even genocidal call to target Jews, and Berry works for an institution that has accused Israel of “genocide” and advocated for a boycott of Israel.
“These two witnesses are like two fingers in the eyes of the Jewish people, their only connection to antisemitism appears to be its appeasement, at best,” continued Roytman. “It must have been quite a struggle to find two such unsuitable witnesses to speak about antisemitism and represent the challenges and fears of the Jewish community, with hundreds if not thousands more appropriate witnesses, but they seem to have succeeded despite the odds.”
