WASHINGTON, DC – Today, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV) released the following statement honoring the memory of the victims of the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the deadliest attack on the Jewish American community in American history.
“One year ago, our country witnessed a horrific and hateful act of violence and white supremacy against the Jewish community that took 11 innocent lives and wounded six others who were in the act of prayer,” said Senator Rosen. “May the memories of those whose lives were lost forever be a blessing. We must stand up to and confront anti-Semitism and white supremacy wherever present, so that no other community faces this kind of tragedy.”
BACKGROUND: Senator Rosen holds the distinction of being the third female Jewish Senator in U.S. history, as well as the first former synagogue president to serve in the United States Senate. As such, Senator Rosen has been an outspoken advocate of combating anti-Semitism in the United States, the Middle East, Europe, and around the world.
Senator Rosen is a cosponsor of the bipartisan Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2018, which adopts a broad definition of anti-Semitism for the purposes of enforcing federal antidiscrimination laws in education. Specifically, the bill requires the Department of Education to consider this new definition of “anti-Semitism” as part of its assessment of whether an action based on an individual’s Jewish ancestry was motivated by anti-Semitic intent, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in education. Among other things, the definition includes making stereotypical allegations about the power of Jews as a collective, denying the Holocaust, and accusing Jewish citizens of a country of being more loyal to Israel to than to the interests of their own nation.
Earlier this year, Senator Rosen helped introduce bipartisan legislation to upgrade the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism to the rank of an ambassador and require its Presidential appointment and Senate confirmation.
Senator Rosen attended the swearing in of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Rosen was the only sitting Member of Congress to attend the swearing-in ceremony for Special Envoy Elan Carr. Last Congress, Rosen co-sponsored this bipartisan legislation and helped advance it in the House, where it passed by a vote of 393-2.
While serving in the House, then-Congresswoman Rosen served as a member of the Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism.
###
