Diverse Jewish voices converge to back US anti-Semitism bill

A bipartisan congressional resolution urging increased action by the United States and other countries to address resurgent anti-Semitism has wall-to-wall Jewish organizational support.

In a letter to colleagues in the US House of Representatives seeking co-sponsorship of the nonbinding resolution, the initiators of the resolution make a point of noting the range of Jewish organizations backing the resolution, among them the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Zionist Organization of America and J Street — groups that rarely if ever join together in any action.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), Pete Roskam (R-Ill.), Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Kay Granger (R-Texas) initiated the resolution, which was introduced on July 31. The August 28 letter now circulating had garnered 93 co-sponsors, also covering a political range among Congress members, by Monday.

The resolution condemns anti-Semitism particularly when it is used “as an acceptable expression of disapproval or frustration over political events in the Middle East or elsewhere.”

It also “decries and condemns the comparison of Israel to Nazis perpetrating a Holocaust or genocide as an insult to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust.”

The resolution calls for increased education in the United States and Europe against anti-Semitism, and it urges “governments to ensure that adequate laws are in place to punish anti-Semitic violence and hate crimes as well as establish mechanisms to monitor, investigate and punish perpetrators.”