Press Release

Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) released the following statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day:

Today I join with the Jewish community and all people of good will in commemorating the more than six million Jewish victims who the Nazis murdered in the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism, the world’s oldest hatred, fueled that genocide and today’s Iranian denial of the Holocaust and threats to wipe Israel off the map.

It also fuels violent, deadly attacks on European Jews by ISIS, like those on the Jewish Museum of Belgium, kosher supermarket in Paris, and Great Synagogue in Copenhagen, where together ISIS followers killed nine people. Neo-Nazis, some from members of Muslim communities, and people across the political and philosophical spectrum, have also physically attacked European Jews.

Even in the United States 56.8 percent of the victims of anti-religious motivated crimes in 2014 – the latest year for which the FBI has complete public statistics – were victims of anti-Jewish bias. Anti-Semitic rhetoric and vandalism has also been on the rise on college campuses and in cities and towns in different parts of America.

Remembrance without also taking action is hollow. We must urgently prioritize the safety and security of Jewish communities by strengthening partnerships between law enforcement agencies and Jewish community groups. That is why I wrote, and the House of Representatives unanimously passed last November, a blueprint for action focusing on the role of law enforcement in Europe, where Jews have been most at-risk and recently victims of fatal attacks.

When we encounter anti-Semitism, we must call it out and call for it to end. Last month I held a hearing on “Anticipating and Preventing Deadly Attacks on European Jewish Communities,” highlighting how that blueprint can be operationalized. Nationwide here in the U.S., education efforts are needed to cut the roots of anti-Semitism and prevent it from becoming deadly.

Anti-Semitism is neither inevitable nor invincible and must be defeated. I have always been and always will be committed to fighting this evil.  

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