WASHINGTON—In response to the alarming escalation of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, Helsinki Commission Chair Rep. Chris Smith (NJ-04) today introduced a resolution calling for critical, concrete actions to support Jewish community groups that focus on safety awareness, crisis management and response, as well as preparedness and prevention.
H. Res. 354 is cosponsored by all seven of the other co-Chairs of the House of Representatives Bipartisan Taskforce for Combating Anti-Semitism: Reps. Ted Deutch (FL-21), Nita Lowey (NY-17), Eliot Engel (NY-16), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL-27), Kay Granger (TX-12), Steve Israel (NY-03), and Peter Roskam (IL-06). The resolution urges the U.S. Administration to work closely with European governments, law enforcement agencies, and intergovernmental organizations – including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – to formally recognize and partner with Jewish community groups to strengthen crisis prevention, preparedness, mitigation, and responses related to anti-Semitic attacks.
“Around the world – most notably in Europe – we continue to see an alarming increase in violent anti-Semitic activity,” the Taskforce co-Chairs said in a joint statement. “This bipartisan resolution highlights some key ways the U.S. government can best partner with our allies in Europe to prevent deadly anti-Semitic attacks like we saw in Paris, Copenhagen, and Brussels. While individual governments have the primary responsibility for protecting all of their citizens, Jewish community groups play a vital role in keeping their communities safe, and deserve our support. We believe European governments should enhance their partnerships with Jewish community security groups, thereby ensuring access to the agencies, resources, and expertise they need to guard against such vicious, hateful attacks. Establishing baseline standards across Europe, including for law enforcement personnel specifically trained to prevent and respond to anti-Semitism, would also improve the safety and security of many Jewish communities.”
Models of such formal partnerships include those between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Secure Community Network, the Government and police of the United Kingdom and the Community Security Trust, and the Government of France and the Service de Protection de la Communauté Juive (Jewish Community Security Service).
Rep. Smith has a long record as a congressional leader in the fight against anti-Semitism. He is the author of the provisions of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act of 2004 that created the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism within the U.S. State Department.
Following his 2002 landmark hearing on combating the escalation of anti-Semitic violence in Europe, “Escalating Anti-Semitic Violence in Europe,” he led a congressional drive to place the issue of combating anti-Semitism at the top of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) agenda, as a result of which in 2004 the OSCE adopted new norms for its participating States on fighting anti-Semitism. In 2009, he delivered the keynote address at the Interparliamentary Coalition Combating Anti-Semitism London conference.
In the 1990s, he chaired Congress’s first hearings on anti-Semitism and in the early 1980s, his first trips abroad as a member of Congress were to the former Soviet Union, where he fought for the release of Jewish “refuseniks.”
