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Remaining Vigilant Against Anti-Semitism
I

n his letter to the members 
of the Touro Synagogue 
in 1790, President George 
Washington affirmed to the 
American Jewish community 
the government of the United 
States would give “to bigotry 
no sanction, to persecution 
no assistance.” For more than 
two centuries, 
those words 
have stood as a 
guiding light to 
those in public 
service who 
wish to eradicate 
the millen-
nia-old preju-
dice of anti-Semitism from 
our shores.
In recent years, the world’
s 
oldest hatred has sadly 
emerged from the darkest 
corners of America. The 
Jewish-American commu-
nity has been faced with the 
sobering realization that its 
synagogues are under threat 
and anti-Semitism has once 
again been normalized. Anti-
Semitism knows no ideolog-

ical boundaries. It manifests 
itself across the political spec-
trum, whether it is targeted 
violence, hateful rhetoric and 
intolerance, or the indifference 
and apathy of those who do 
not see anti-Semitism as their 
problem to fight.
That is why, as your U.S. 
senator, I believe it is my 
moral obligation to speak out 
against anti-Semitism and to 
build consensus around the 
actions that must be taken 
to strengthen and defend the 
Jewish community. Following 
the worst attack on the Jewish 
community in our nation’
s his-
tory, I had the honor to join 
Shabbat services at Temple 
Israel in West Bloomfield. 
Together we mourned, and 
together we sought solace and 
solidarity to continue taking 
action to defeat this hateful 
ideology and the violence it 
has inspired in our commu-
nities.
I have always found it 
important to add my voice to 
those who seek to create unity 

in the face of division, which 
is why I joined my colleagues 
on the Senate Bipartisan Task 
Force for Combating Anti-
Semitism — a group united 
in our efforts to call out hate, 
support legislation to combat 
anti-Semitism and educate 
Americans about the dangers 
of this abhorrent ideology. 
In 2017, following a surge in 
threats against Jewish commu-
nities in Michigan and across 
the country, I partnered with 
Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) to 
lead all 100 senators in a rare 
display of unity by authoring 
a letter asking the Trump 
Administration to investigate 
and take action to address 
anti-Semitism and secure our 
communities against these 
pervasive threats.
As ranking member of 
the Homeland Security 
and Governmental Affairs 
Committee, I convened the 
committee’
s first hearing on 
white supremacist violence, 
which included powerful 
testimony from the Anti-

Defamation League. This past 
year — as threats against syn-
agogues and religious institu-
tions continue to rise — I led 
a bipartisan effort with Sen. 
Portman to help secure hous-
es of worship against these 
deadly attacks. Just last month, 
President Trump signed our 
bill into law, providing $75 
million in federal funds to 
faith-based organizations 
across the country.
If the massacre at Tree of 
Life Synagogue shocked us, 
the events that followed in 
Poway, New Jersey and New 
York have served as a stark 
reminder that Americans 
live in a country where these 
attacks cannot be dismissed as 
isolated incidents. More work 
must be done to help us secure 
Jewish community spaces, and 
more work must be done to 
expel the darkness caused by a 
rising cloud of anti-Semitism. 
We recently observed the 
75th Anniversary of the lib-
eration of Auschwitz and 
International Holocaust 

Sen. Gary 
Peters

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