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Floor Speech

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Ms. ROSEN. Mr. President, I am compelled to start my remarks today by highlighting absolutely horrible things that were posted by someone who wants to serve as a Member of Congress and who is allegedly a member of the Democratic Party. Running for a House seat in Texas, she said she wanted to turn an ``ICE Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists.''

Yes, you heard that right.

And while this is clear and direct anti-Semitism that everyone, on both sides, has rightfully called out, it is not the first time that she has shown herself to be an anti-Semite. Earlier this month, it was reported that she posted a video where she talked about the ``Jews who own Hollywood'' as members of the ``synagogue of Satan.''

I called it out right away. But perhaps this was not as overt as calling for putting Jews in internment camps. It did not get the same overwhelming condemnation as her more recent comments.

Similarly, there was a Republican Member of Congress in Kentucky who lost his primary election just last night and made a joke in his concession speech that his opponent was ``in Tel-Aviv,'' simply because he is a strong supporter of Israel. It similarly did not get an avalanche of condemnation.

There lies the problem. It usually starts with a joke, a slur, a comparison. It starts with what might be called casual acts of anti- Semitism that can be just easy to brush off. If left unchecked, this rhetoric can manifest into overt acts, like the vandalism of Jewish institutions and houses of worship, threats and verbal abuse meant to intimidate Jewish communities, and so on and so on and so on.

If those acts are left unchecked, the next and final step is physical violence: beating up Jewish college students, arson and destruction of Jewish institutions, and, horrifically, the murder of Jewish individuals.

These are patterns that are starting to emerge once again. Over the last decade, anti-Semitism has been on the rise. Year after year, we are seeing record numbers of anti-Semitic incidences, especially after the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel.

According to an ADL report released a few weeks ago, 2025 was the third highest year for anti-Semitic incidents since the ADL began collecting data, and physical assaults against Jews were higher in 2025 than ever before.

Just think about that. Physical assaults against Jews were at the highest since ADL began tracking this data nearly 50 years ago.

We are fortunate we live in a country that values and protects our freedom to express our beliefs, with our words, through our acts of peaceful protest, and at the ballot box. But it does not protect or condone acts of violence or incitement of violence. Surely, we can all recognize that political and ideological disagreements and differences never--never ever--justify hatred or violence. And we all must agree that the intimidation, discrimination, violence, and even murder of Jews is just plain wrong and unacceptable.

As one of only a few Jewish women to ever serve in the U.S. Senate and as the first and only former synagogue president in the Senate, for me, this distinction is deeply personal. This work is not abstract. As a Jewish American, I, too, have faced instances of hate where I was targeted simply because I was Jewish.

When I was just a little girl--about 2 years old--my family took a trip to Florida. My mom had me in the hotel pool, and, out of nowhere, a lifeguard told my mom to get me out of the pool because I was ``dirty.''

My mom was confused. She was kind of taken aback. She looked at the lifeguard. She said: I just gave her a bath. She is clean.

She was clearly confused by what the lifeguard had told her.

Then the lifeguard told my mom what he really meant. I was dirty because I was Jewish. Get that dirty little Jewish girl out of the pool.

My mom didn't say another word. She scooped me up. She packed up her stuff. We left. I know she never brought me back to this pool. In fact, my parents switched to another hotel.

I know this story so well because my mother told it over and over and over again as a life-changing moment for her, as I heard my parents recall the pain throughout my entire life. It stayed with them, the hurt, the humiliation, the shame. As I got older, and now my parents are gone, that story stays with me too.

And if you think becoming a U.S. Senator puts a stop to those attacks, well, I am going tell you that you are sadly mistaken. A few years ago, a man called my office, said some very vile things. He threatened my life. And among other things, he promised to--and I guess I will quote here, sadly, ``finish what Hitler started.''

Thanks to the swift work of law enforcement--I am grateful for law enforcement--this man is now behind bars. But if he thought that he would intimidate me and force me to be quiet, the effect was quite the opposite because here I am. Here I am. And it fueled my passion to continue working across party lines in the U.S. Senate to raise awareness and fight back against anti-Jewish bigotry.

That is why I have been working for the better part of a year with my friend James Lankford on our bipartisan Jewish American Security Act, which we introduced yesterday, to take sweeping action to combat anti- Semitism at the Federal level.

This comprehensive bill will help keep Jewish students safe, help secure community institutions, and help fight anti-Semitism online.

It will protect Jewish students by establishing a new position, an anti-Semitism coordinator at the Department of Education to lead efforts to combat anti-Semitism. It will create a comprehensive title VI infrastructure on college campuses, and it will make sure that campus hate crime--that hate crime data actually shows all of us who is being attacked and who is being threatened.

This bill will protect Jewish communal institutions, houses of worship, community centers by making a historic investment of $1 billion toward the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and will keep our houses of worship safe.

This bill will also make a series of long overdue reforms to this program to make sure that it actually works for at-risk institutions. And this bill will combat rising anti-Semitism online by requiring transparency from social media companies, well, about how they really treat anti-Semitic content, including instances of such content, how much anti-Semitic content was promoted, recommended by their platform, and whether such content was leaked to an inauthentic account, and consider it an FTC violation if they fail to provide us with this information.

I know the road ahead for this legislation will be long, but I am hopeful that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle will provide their support because at the end of the day, we can all agree that Jewish Americans deserve to be treated--and to be safe--treated with respect, meant to be safe, well, the same as every other American.

But at its core, this is more than just about policy. It is about people. It is about dignity. It is about ensuring that no child, no family, no little girl like I was at a public swimming pool had to experience what I did and my family did or even worse.

You know, I often think back to that little girl in the pool. She is still there. That little child is in all of us, and I think about the world that I want for her, a world where she is not told that she is less than for being Jewish, a world where she is not excluded from activities because of her faith, and a world where she is safe, respected, and proud of who she is.

I have a daughter. That is the world I am creating and hoping for her and for all the other children in this world as well. This bill will go a long way in helping to make a difference in making that world a reality.

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