00:00Tragically, anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States.
00:05It is outrageous, it is wrong, and we cannot and we must not tolerate it.
00:11We saw it when white supremacists marched in Charlottesville with swastikas yelling
00:16blood and soil.
00:18We saw it when a man walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue and killed congregants in
00:22their house of worship.
00:24We see it when synagogues are threatened and vandalized, and we see it when Trump administration
00:29officials support far-right Holocaust deniers.
00:34Anti-Semitism is a threat to our most basic freedom in the United States, the freedom
00:39to pursue faith without fear.
00:42But rather than seriously address anti-Semitism and protect Jewish student safety, this administration
00:48is cutting funding for the Office of Civil Rights.
00:51And Trump is cynically using the rise in anti-Semitism as a tool to restrict freedom, stroke fear
00:59and silence dissent.
01:01And it is as terrifying as it is evil.
01:06Under the guise of combating anti-Semitism, this administration cut off $400 million in
01:11funding for Columbia University, funding that, amongst other things, supports critical Alzheimer's
01:17and cancer research.
01:20We can't have cut-offs in Alzheimer's and cancer research in America.
01:25This month, ICE officers arrested students in Columbia and Georgetown and elsewhere lawfully
01:31here in the United States but haven't charged them with a single crime.
01:34We're the United States of America, it's 2025.
01:37You need evidence, you need a crime, you have to say what it is.
01:41And on Tuesday, masked ICE officers grabbed Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University,
01:52off the street as she was on her way to break fast for Ramadan.
01:56She has not been charged with a single crime.
02:00As far as I understand it, the Trump administration arrested these students because they engaged
02:04in the freedom of expression that is explicitly protected under the Constitution of the United
02:09States.
02:10What these individuals said or believed is besides the point.
02:14What matters is that we have a president arresting people because he disagrees with their constitutionally
02:19protected right to freedom of expression.
02:23And that imperils the basic democratic principles on which all of our freedoms relies.
02:28When the government of the United States is sending mass police to grab students off the
02:32streets and from their homes, holding federal dollars or threat of investigation as blackmail
02:39to force institutions into silence and routinely violating the Constitution, the law is passed
02:44by the United States in order to do what he wishes while using the Jewish people and
02:50others as a shield for its transgressions, we have crossed a dangerous, dangerous threshold
02:56from which we cannot return unless we call it out for what it is, authoritarianism.
03:02We have a very serious anti-Semitism problem in the United States of America.
03:09It is a problem that deserves a real and a forceful response.
03:15But the answer to anti-Semitism will never be authoritarianism.
03:19We cannot guarantee freedom if we let Trump march in and steal freedom while we remain
03:25silent.
03:26So, Rabbi Saperstein, in your testimony, you state, quote, anti-Semitism, the hatred of
03:34Jews as Jews thrives in an authoritarian environment where civil liberties are curtailed,
03:41not in spaces of robust, protected democratic discourse.
03:45So please expand on how Trump administration's authoritarian actions are a threat to the
03:52safety of the Jewish community and the role that Congress should play in response to it.
04:02I said before that the Jewish community in America has thrived to enjoy more rights,
04:07more freedoms, more opportunities than anywhere else.
04:10There are a number of reasons for that.
04:12One is the rule of law, which is at the core of our democratic system, our constitutional
04:20system.
04:21A second was the separation of government and religion.
04:28That government would not interfere with religion, be a wall keeping government out
04:32of religion.
04:34This was the first country in the history of the world in which we said your rights
04:38as a citizen will not depend upon your religious identity, your religious beliefs, or your
04:45religious peaceful practices, which is a standard in my work as U.S. Ambassador for Religious
04:50Freedom.
04:51I try to hold every other country accountable to its embodying in the international human
04:57rights covenants.
05:00We have always thrived better in open pluralistic countries than we have in dogmatic and authoritarian
05:09countries.
05:11We are always the other in those authoritarian countries.
05:16The reason we have thrived here has been the opportunities that higher education has given
05:21us, that the public schools brought us up through for generations in this country, and
05:28the attacks on each one of those that we're seeing.
05:32On higher education, on cutting back, even restricting funds, the public schools in terms
05:38of the attacks on the rule of law, on judges, the judicial system, ignoring judicial decisions
05:46that are being made, all of this undercuts the safety of not just Jews, but everyone
05:53who is a victim of discrimination in this country.
05:57Anti-Semitism is the problem.
05:58Authoritarianism is not the answer.
06:00Indeed.
06:02Senator Hawley.
06:03Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
06:07Thanks for calling this important hearing.
06:09Thanks to our witnesses for being here.
06:11Mr. Stern, if I could just start with you.
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