Expressing the sense of the house regarding safety and security of european jewish communities

Floor Speech

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Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I want to thank Mr. Engel for giving me this
opportunity to speak, and I want to thank my colleague and neighbor,
Congressman Chris Smith, for introducing this resolution. I stand in
proud support of the resolution, and I urge its passage.

Mr. Speaker, more than 70 years removed from the Holocaust, Jewish
residents in Europe face renewed waves of anti-Semitic violence. The
Pew Research Center reported that global harassment of Jews has reached
a 7-year high. This violence is pronounced in Europe, where the
desecration of synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and other violent
incidents have spiked over the past few years.

The Jewish Community Security Trust reported more than 1,100 anti-
Jewish incidents in the United Kingdom in 2014, including 81 violent
assaults. That same year, according to the French Jewish advocacy group
CRIF, anti-Semitic incidents doubled in that nation. Troubling,
violent, and even deadly anti-Semitic attacks have also occurred in
countries such as Denmark, Belgium, and Germany.

As the leader in the international community, the United States plays
a very vital role in denouncing anti-Semitism and hate. The national
director of the Anti-Defamation League has attributed U.S. public
figures speaking out against hate as contributing to steady decreases
in anti-Semitic attitudes domestically.

As a nation founded on equality and religious freedom, we share a
responsibility to stand against anti-Semitism and against hate in all
its manifestations, whether it is the hate that manifested as four
people were killed at the HyperCacher Jewish supermarket outside of
Paris this past January, or the hate that manifested as the nine
Americans killed in the massacre at Mother Emmanuel AME in Charleston,
or the hate manifested as six killed at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek,
or the hate that manifested in the flames that have recently burned
countless Black churches to the ground. We must join together as a
nation and a global community to denounce hate wherever it may appear
and uproot weeds of hate wherever they may sprout.
With that, I urge my colleagues to support this.

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