[House Hearing, 116 Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] 75 YEARS AFTER THE HOLOCAUST: THE ONGOING BATTLE AGAINST HATE ======================================================================= HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION __________ JANUARY 29, 2020 __________ Serial No. 116-86 __________ Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] Available on: govinfo.gov, oversight.house.gov or docs.house.gov _________ U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 39-577 PDF WASHINGTON : 2021 COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of Jim Jordan, Ohio, Ranking Minority Columbia Member Wm. Lacy Clay, Missouri Paul A. Gosar, Arizona Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts Virginia Foxx, North Carolina Jim Cooper, Tennessee Thomas Massie, Kentucky Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia Mark Meadows, North Carolina Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois Jody B. Hice, Georgia Jamie Raskin, Maryland Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin Harley Rouda, California James Comer, Kentucky Ro Khanna, California Michael Cloud, Texas Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida Bob Gibbs, Ohio John P. Sarbanes, Maryland Clay Higgins, Louisiana Peter Welch, Vermont Ralph Norman, South Carolina Jackie Speier, California Chip Roy, Texas Robin L. Kelly, Illinois Carol D. Miller, West Virginia Mark DeSaulnier, California Mark E. Green, Tennessee Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan Kelly Armstrong, North Dakota Stacey E. Plaskett, Virgin Islands W. Gregory Steube, Florida Jimmy Gomez, California Fred Keller, Pennsylvania Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts Rashida Tlaib, Michigan Katie Porter, California Deb Haaland,, New Mexico David Rapallo, Staff Director Russ Anello, Chief Counsel Amy Stratton, Clerk Contact Number: 202-225-5051 Christopher Hixon, Minority Staff Director C O N T E N T S ---------- Page Hearing held on January 29, 2020................................. 1 Witnesses * Opening statements and the prepared statements for witnesses are available at: https://docs.house.gov. Nat Shaffir, Holocaust Survivor Oral Statement............................................... 7 Brad Orsini, Senior National Security Advisor, Secure Community Network Oral Statement............................................... 10 Jonathan Greenblatt, Chief Executive Officer, Anti-Defamation League Oral Statement............................................... 12 Hilary O. Shelton, Director, Washington Bureau and Senior Vice President for Advocacy and Policy,National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Oral Statement............................................... 13 Dore Gold (Minority Witness), President, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Oral Statement............................................... 15 Dr. Edna Friedberg, Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Oral Statement............................................... 17 INDEX OF DOCUMENTS ---------- The documents listed below are available at: https:// docs.house.gov. * Letter and article of explanation; submitted by Rep. Hice. * ``Bail Reform Is Setting Suspects Free After String of Anti Semitic Attacks'', article, submitted by Rep. Roy. * ``Barr Says Justice Department Will Get More Involved in Fighting Anti Semitic Attacks'', article; submitted by Rep. Roy. 75 YEARS AFTER THE HOLOCAUST: THE ONGOING BATTLE AGAINST HATE ---------- Wednesday, January 29, 2020 House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Reform, Washington, D.C. The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Carolyn B. Maloney [chairwoman of the committee] presiding. Present: Representatives Maloney, Norton, Clay, Lynch, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Rouda, Wasserman Schultz, Sarbanes, Welch, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, Lawrence, Plaskett, Khanna, Gomez, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, Porter, Haaland, Jordan, Foxx, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Grothman, Comer, Gibbs, Roy, Miller, Green, Armstrong, Steube, and Keller. Also present: Representatives Malinowski, and Doyle. Chairwoman Maloney. Good morning. The committee will come to order. And without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time. With that, I will now recognize myself to give an opening statement. Two days ago, the entire world came together to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. In addition, 75 years ago this week, in January 1945, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated from the Nazis. It was one of the most infamous sites of the Nazi genocide. More than 1 million people were murdered there. The purpose of today's hearing is to commemorate these grave anniversaries, to remember those we lost, and to honor those who are still with us. But it is not enough to simply recognize these dates. We must also contemplate what led to these atrocities. We must remember the Holocaust in order to help combat bigotry, hate, and violence of all kinds today. I am so pleased to have our distinguished panel here today. I have asked them to help us come together on today's solemn occasion, help us rise above issues that may divide us, and help us unify our efforts around a common purpose of hope and inclusion. On this day of all days, I hope we can all do that. One issue we will discuss today is what we can do to ensure that future generations never forget the lessons of the Holocaust. This may sound hard to believe, but the Pew Research Center recently issued a report finding that fewer than half of Americans surveyed knew how many Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Another report found that only 38 percent of American teens surveyed knew the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, and only a third knew that Hitler was democratically elected. The best way I know to help people remember the Holocaust is to hear firsthand from the people who went through it. We are very fortunate to have that opportunity today. In addition, the Holocaust Memorial Museum, just a few blocks from here, is an outstanding and gripping institution, dedicated to remembering the Holocaust in order to fight hate today. I am also pleased to announce that on Monday, the House of Representatives passed bipartisan legislation with 393 votes that I introduced and authored called the ``Never Again Education Act,'' to give teachers additional resources to teach about the Holocaust. I hope the Senate will pass this bill and send it to the President as soon as possible, because the lessons of the past must inform our approach to fighting hate today. For example, this morning, we will hear testimony about the horrific shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, the most deadly assault against the Jewish community in American history. After that massacre, a group of Holocaust survivors who volunteered in the Holocaust Museum wrote to the Pittsburgh Jewish community in solidarity explaining why they dedicated their lives to sharing the horrors they experience. They wrote, and I quote, ``We seek to remind people, especially young people, our country's future leaders, that hate can never be ignored. Complacency is dangerous. Standing up and pushing back is the only way we can make a better future,'' end quote. Unfortunately, there has been a sinister increase in hate crimes recently, not only against Jewish communities, but against African Americans, Muslims, immigrants, and others. In November, the FBI released data showing the highest number of reported violent hate crimes in the United States in 16 years. The number of hate groups exploded to more than 1,000 in 2018. This was a record high and a 30 percent increase over the past four years. To take just one example, when we watched the gruesome video footage of the Neo-Nazi attacks in Charlottesville, we see in excruciating detail the evil that still poisons our society to this day. I want all of our members to know that our committee is dedicated to fighting bigotry, hate, and violence of all kinds. Today's hearing, which commemorates the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, is one in a series we are holding on these issues in the 116th Congress. Chairman Raskin has held four hearings in the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee to confront white supremacy, religious persecution, and our government's response. Chairman Lynch, from the National Security Subcommittee, has worked with Chairman Raskin to investigate the national security implications of these threats. Going forward, we are planning additional hearings, including one on voter suppression in minority communities, anti-Muslim discrimination, anti-immigrant actions, and issues facing the LGBTQ communities. I have been in touch with many of you over the past weeks, and I hope you'll come to me with any additional thoughts, ideas, or proposals that you think our committee should take up as part of this series. We mark this day of remembrance just weeks after a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks in New York City, including an attack at a rabbi's home during the festival of Hanukkah. It was heartening to participate in the solidarity march in New York following these attacks, and I hope we can work together with that same spirit of solidarity today. I now want to recognize Ranking Member Jordan, but before I do, I'd like to thank him personally for his support of the Holocaust Never Again Education Act. Thank you, Mr. Jordan, and you're recognized. Mr. Jordan. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you for calling this hearing today, and thank you to all our witnesses for being with us today and your testimony. I want to apologize on the front end, I have to head across to the other side of the Capitol here in a few minutes. There's a proceeding in the U.S. Senate that's been going on for a couple weeks. I need to get over there for a meeting. On Monday, we recognized the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We pause to remember the 6 million innocent lives taken by this evil. As Vice President Pence said last week, we have, quote, ``an obligation of remembrance to never let the memory of those who died in the Holocaust be forgotten by anyone anywhere in the world. We must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust, and we must always condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms.'' I would like to take a moment to recognize Mr. Nat Shaffir, a witness who I just met, here today with us, who is also himself a Holocaust survivor. It's an incredible honor to have you with us today, sir. Thank you. Thank you, again, for your testimony. One of the most important ways in which the United States continues to support the Jewish people is through our unwavering support for the state of Israel. Since the formation of Israel in 1948, the United States has had a special bond with the Israeli people. Since President Trump took office three years ago, he has made it his mission to strengthen this important bond. President Trump has worked to ensure the whole world knows that the United States stands firmly with the state of Israel. President Trump, in just three years, in just three years, here's what has happened: He's recognized the Golan Heights as a part of Israel; he has withdrawn from the failed Iranian nuclear deal; he has taken decisive action to eliminate Soleimani, one of the greatest terror threats to Israel and in the Middle East; he has opposed the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement championed by those who want to diminish Israel; he's issued an executive order to curtail anti-Semitism on college campuses around the United States; and just yesterday, President Trump released a groundbreaking peace plan. But maybe most importantly, President Trump fulfilled a decades'-old promise to the people of Israel in recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of that state. Past Presidents have routinely made this promise and failed to deliver. 1976, former President Carter ran on a platform that said, quote, ``We recognize the report for the established status of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The U.S. Embassy should be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.'' In 1993, former President Clinton said, Jerusalem is still the capital of Israel. In 2000, former President Bush said, ``As soon as I take office, I will begin the process of moving the U.S. Ambassador to the city of Israel as its chosen capital.'' And in 2008, Democratic nominee for President, Barack Obama, said, Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel. I've said that before and I will say it again: President Trump fulfilled that promise last year. Recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and officially moving our embassy there shows the Israeli people that they have the support of the United States of America. We should all be proud of this close friendship with Israel and the Israeli people, and the work the President has done to solidify the relationship. As the committee continues to address hate crimes and violent extremism, we would be wise to listen to and learn from the testimony today. Thank you, again, Madam Chairwoman, and I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you very much. I would now like to recognize two of my colleagues, Representative Lawrence and Representative Wasserman Schultz. They are both founding Members of the congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations. Mrs. Lawrence. Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney, for holding this hearing and drawing the attention to the alarming rise of anti-Semitic acts and hate crimes in the United States. I'm glad to see our community--our committee will be using our oversight authority to find innovative ways for the government to combat anti-Semitic and the rise in white supremacy ideology. Last year, I formed the congressional Caucus on Black- Jewish Relations to discuss the relationships between African American and Jewish communities; also to highlight our shared history of combating racism, and how the two groups in this country can work together to combat hate crimes moving forward. Our shared history of slavery and the Holocaust has given us a heightened sensitivity to hatred and to racism in our country. The two cochairs, or the cochairs of the caucus--it is bipartisan--are Representatives John Lewis, Lee Zeldin, Will Hurd, and my colleague on this committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz. We are all committed to advancing the needs of these two communities. Unfortunately, anti-Semitic acts have become far too prevalent in our society. Since the beginning of 2020, already--we are still in January--there has been at least three reported anti-Semitic incidents in my home state of Michigan, and more than 25 across the United States. The last few years have seen a disturbing spike in anti-Semitic attacks, with more than 1,800 reported in 2018 alone, according to the Anti-Defamation League. The most recent audit of anti-Semitic incidents, a 57 percent increase over 2017. As local communities experience this substantial rise in hate crimes, the Federal Government must assist state and local government and law enforcement entities to develop ways to combat a rise in identity-based hate crimes. This pattern of hate illustrates a disturbing trend in our country that must be reversed. Hate-filled, anti-Semitic acts will not be tolerated, and I will not stand by idly as predators of these senseless attacks seek to sow fear across our country. The First Amendment gives all Americans the right to freedom of religion and will not allow--and we will not allow that right to be hindered by a small fraction who use their awful agenda to spread hate and crime. I look forward to working with the leadership of this amazing Chairwoman Maloney of this committee, members of the Caucus on Black and Jewish Relations, and all the Members of Congress. In the words of Martin Luther King, ``Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'' And I want to thank you, again, Madam Chair, for holding this hearing. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the gentlewoman for convening this important hearing. I serve proudly as the first Jewish woman to represent Florida in the U.S. Congress, and I just returned from Israel and Auschwitz-Birkenau with a bipartisan delegation led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the 75th anniversary of its liberation. Over 1 million men, women, and children lost their lives at Auschwitz-Birkenau alone. We walked train tracks that transported innocent people to captivity in the gas chambers, and visiting this historic monument to genocide only reaffirmed for me that we cannot ignore the resurgence in hate that we see now. To live the moral imperative of ``never again,'' we must hold hearings like this and shine a light on bigotry and white supremacist ideology. It is important to underscore for this hearing that the fight against anti-Semitism and bigotry is about more than support for the state of Israel. The story of the Shoah must also be clear: This systematic mass extermination did not happen overnight. It began with hate speech, harassment, and attacks on vulnerable communities. As these symptoms reemerge, we must speak out and act. Today, we will do that. We must also educate the American people by highlighting the amazing accomplishments of persecuted communities in the United States during important events, like the upcoming Black History Month in February, and the Jewish American Heritage Month, which we celebrate in May. Educating one another about our unique cultures, traditions, and accomplishments, when so many people across the country are unfamiliar with minority communities' achievements and traditions is essential. I bet if each of us thinks about it, there are many of us who have populations of communities in our own districts that are either tiny or minuscule, and the first time that many Members of Congress interact with a minority community is when they join the U.S. Congress. That is why it's important to hold hearings like this one today, Madam Chair, and I appreciate our ability to make sure that we can rid our Nation of every denial of one another's humanity. I want to thank the panelists, especially, for being here, for being in the fight every day to make sure that we continue to shine a spotlight and root out bigotry and hate in all its forms. I particularly want to thank my colleague and dear friend, Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, for her leadership and vision to establish the congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations, and I am proud to join her as a cochair of that organization and look forward to our work. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I would now like to welcome our witnesses. And I recognize Representative Raskin to introduce our first distinguished witness. Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Madam Chair, for calling this hearing, and for giving me an opportunity to introduce to everyone a remarkable constituent from my district. Nat Shaffir was a little boy in Romania when a policeman arrived to arrest him, his two sisters, and his parents, and to take them to a ghetto for the crime of being Jewish. Astonishingly, remarkably, they survived the Holocaust, but Mr. Shaffir lost 32 other family members to the genocidal war waged upon the Jewish community of Europe. Since the Holocaust ended, the civilized world has come together with one refrain: Never again. Yet, we live in a time of resurgent authoritarianism, propaganda, conspiracy theory, mass psychological manipulation, human rights violations, anti- Semitism, racism, and religious persecution, fanaticism, and violence. Just yesterday, the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee, Madam Chair, held a hearing on accelerating global religious persecution taking place under the guise of the blasphemy, heresy, and apostasy laws and ideological reeducation, including the internment of millions of Muslim Uyghurs and the genocide against the Rohingya in Burma. Here at home, the last decade of dirty work by Cambridge Analytica and Vladimir Putin injecting racial and religious poison into the social media has helped to propagandize and activate the most dangerous and unstable elements of our society, creating a wave of white supremacist violence and terror against synagogues, black churches, Jews in their homes, Hispanics shopping at Wal-Mart, and anyone deemed to be an outsider. We have got to get ahold on the convergence of rising white supremacist violence, and off-the-charts gun violence. We must continue to pressure the Federal Government, as we've been doing in this committee, to devise a strategic plan to combat the rise of violent white supremacy and domestic terror here in the United States. Today, we can focus on Mr. Shaffir, whose indomitable and soaring resilience is a lesson to all Americans in these dark times. Last year, at 82 years old, remarkably he became the only Holocaust survivor known ever to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, a feat that he accomplished by keeping in mind the words that his father repeatedly spoke to him during the Holocaust: ``Never give up.'' We are honored by Mr. Shaffir's presence, and I yield back to you, Madam Chair. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much for that introduction, and we are honored to have you, Mr. Shaffir. And congratulations on your recent achievement. We look forward to your testimony. We are also fortunate to have Brad Orsini. He is the senior National Security Advisor for the Secure Community Network and the former director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. I want to thank Representative Doyle for his assistance in putting us in touch with him, and we look forward to his testimony. Mr. Doyle may be able to join us later. He has a conflict right now. We also welcome Dr. Edna Friedberg. She is a historian for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Jonathan Greenblatt is the chief executive officer for the Anti-Defamation League. And Hilary Shelton is the director of the Washington Bureau and the senior vice president for advocacy and policy for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. We also welcome Ambassador Dore Gold. He is the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and the former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, and the former director general of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So, if you would all rise and raise your right hand, I will begin by swearing you in. Do you swear to affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God? I do. Let the record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. Thank you and be seated. The microphones are very sensitive so please speak directly into them. And without objection, your statement will be made part of the record. With that, Mr. Shaffir, you are now recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. Thank you. STATEMENT OF NAT SHAFFIR, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR Mr. Shaffir. Thank you, Chairman Maloney, Ranking Member, guests, and Congresspeople. I'm honored to be here today and share with you a little bit about my personal experience---- Chairwoman Maloney. Pull the microphone a little closer to you so we can hear better. Thank you. Mr. Shaffir. I'm honored to be here and share with you a little bit of my personal experience as to what happened to me and my family during the Holocaust years. In 1924, my father established a farm on the northeastern part of Romania. For 18 years, he and my mother worked the farm. My two sisters and myself were born there. I went to kindergarten. I started first grade. Everything was okay in the farm for a child, in particular. One of our neighbors was a priest who used to come by once a week to ask my father for a donation to the church and also some dairy products for some of his constituents, or some of his congregates who could not otherwise afford it. In 18 years, my father never once refused such a weekly request. One day, in November 1942, the same priest showed up; however, this time he showed up with an armed police officer and two armed guard soldiers, also armed. We did not know why that happened this time, so we all went to find out what was going on. Whether we came close to the priest, he's looking at the police officer, pointing at us and saying, ``estee Jidans,'' ``these are Jews.'' So, we were turned into the authorities by a priest. The police officer stepped forward, and he said to us we have four hours to vacate the farm because he has orders to relocate us in a different part of the city. Now, at this point, my father and my mother both tried to convince him, perhaps he can forget the order for relocating us, but it didn't help. At this point, we also knew that--where we were going, because in 1941, the ghetto of Iasi was established. It was a year earlier. After four hours were over, we came into the house, we packed whatever valuables we had. When the four hours were over, the policeman told us it was time for us to leave, and we were escorted to the ghetto. Once we arrived there, we were turned over to the ghetto police where we received our orientation, what we can and cannot do, mostly things that we were not able to do, no longer able to go to school. Jewish people could no longer participate in public prayers. While we were there, we were given ration cards and also in the same time, we were given five yellow stars with the word ``Jidan'' on it, which means Jew, that we had to wear constantly on our left lapel. Every man between the ages of 18 and 50 would be going to work on a daily basis. My father's job was to sweep the streets in the summertime, and shovel the snow in the wintertime and clean the market area. My mother was an orderly in the hospital. At this point, we didn't know what we can do to survive primarily, because there was a certain mode of survival that we tried to constantly focus on. My father used to go to work on a daily basis. Then one day in 1943, in June 1943, a big sign was posted in the ghetto area that said any individual male in particular, between the ages of 18 and 50, must assemble at the yard--or the main ghetto square and bring extra clothing if they had any. The night before my father was supposed to be assembled, we all cried. We didn't sleep that day, that night. The next morning we all cried. We didn't know when or if we were ever going to see our father again. The last minute before he left, I asked my father, I asked him if it's okay for me to walk with him to the assembled area. He agreed. We walked hand in hand until we got to the area that he was supposed to be assembling, and at that point, we did not say anything to each other. We just held on tight. We arrived to the assembled area. My father said, Nat, it's time for you to go back. At that time he turned to me, put both his hands on my shoulders, and he said, five words to me. These five words will remain with me for the rest of my life. He said, ``Nat, take care of the girls.'' I'm--at this point I'm seven years old. You cannot imagine the pressure that puts on a seven-year-old boy. I could've told him, I'll try, I'll do my best, but I didn't. What I said, ``I'll take care of the girls, Papa. I will.'' From that point on, no matter how hard it was for me personally and how easily it was for me to give up, I couldn't because I promised my father that I will take care of the girls. The same day, that day, my father was shipped to a forced labor camp. We didn't hear from him for many, many months. While he was away, I tried to do my best to get our family to survive. So, one of the things that we received in the ghetto was ration cards. The ration cards were apparently for bread, which allowed us to receive a quarter of a loaf of bread per person every two days, and five liters of kerosene. To receive these rations, we had to walk out of the ghetto. Since I was--my sister was two years older than me, my father would send out my sister to get these ration cards, these rations, until one day he found out that some of the hooligans are picking on Jewish girls. From that point on, he started sending me out to get these rations. The same hooligans also picked on Jewish boys. Many times I would come home beat up, bloody face, but that never hurt so much as it did when they took away my bread, which meant for the next two days we had nothing to eat. When my mother realized what happened for the first time, she also realized this would happen again, and from that point on, she started rationing us from our own rations and tried to save a little bit on every time we received some of these rations. This went on for a while. All our family who was left back in Hungary, who remained in Hungary, and we know from historical that the Nazis invaded Hungary in the March 1944. Between April 1944 and July 1944, 440,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Among these 440,000 were 33 members of my family. Immediately, the old ones and the young ones were immediately put to death in the gas chambers. Those who were able to work were sent to different camps. Most of them died of starvation. We don't know when or where. We only know the fate of three, and that's one of my grandfathers and two of my uncles who were in Auschwitz at the end. My grandfather died of starvation a month before he was liberated. Two of my uncles survived liberation, one was 21 years old and one was 22 years old. Each one weighed 65 pounds. You can imagine what they looked like. When you say to somebody, this individual looked like a walking skeleton or a skin and bones, that's pretty much what they looked like. When the Red Cross came into this camp and saw the conditions these people were in, they immediately put them on ships and taken them to Sweden to a sanatorium to recuperate. One of the two brothers, one of these two uncles unfortunately did not make it to Sweden. He died on the way and he was buried at sea. One did survive. He was in a sanatorium, in a hospital for four years to gain his weight and his health back. Eventually he immigrated to the United States. We were liberated by the Russians in the early summer of 1945. We still never heard from my father what happened. We didn't know if he was alive or dead. Once we were liberated, we were able to go back to school; however, the anti-Semitism was still very strong under the Communist regime. In 1947 after--in 1945, after the war was over, finally my father was able to come back to us. And in 1947, he realized there's no longer a future for Jewish people in Romania, and we decided to leave. The only country that would accept refugees at that time was Palestine. We applied for an exit visa from the authorities, and every time we applied to leave the country, we received a return reply, ``Denied.'' So, constantly we tried for two years. Eventually, my mother was able to bribe one of the officials that was in charge of giving out the visas, and in 1950, we received a visa to leave for Israel. In the meantime, I lived in Israel for 10 years. I served in an elite unit of the army. I married. I had five children, 12 grandchildren. All of my children and grandchildren are named for one of these people who were murdered by the Nazis. And I thank you for listening. Appreciate it. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much for sharing your story. We'll now hear from Mr. Orsini. STATEMENT OF BRAD ORSINI, SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, SECURE COMMUNITY NETWORK Mr. Orsini. Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you on this very important issue. January 2017, I retired after 32 years of Federal Government service, four years in the United States Marine Corps, and 28 years as a special agent in the FBI. I joined the Jewish Federation in Pittsburgh, and I developed a security program as their first communal security director. In the first synagogue I ever visited, I asked if they received hate mail. The answer was instantly yes. I then asked them, what do you do with that hate mail? They said they throw it away. That would not be the first time I heard that. Our goal from that point on was to conduct an awareness campaign stressing the importance of reporting every sign of hate, and provide the tools necessary for our community to build a conscious cultural security. We followed the ``see something, say something'' model, and we requested our community to commit to action. Over the next 18 months, until October 27, 2018, the Pittsburgh community continued to experience anti-Semitism on a routine basis. However, this time, our community started to report incidents. We would no longer ignore any sign of hate and encouraged our community not only in Pittsburgh, but all over the country, to report every incident. In Pittsburgh, we developed a program that was based on three prongs to keep our people safe: The first prong was assessment of our organizations and buildings which lead to target hardening and the development of emergency operation plans; No. 2, constant training and drills for our people; and three, threat mitigation and a way to facilitate action from law enforcement. To fully understand what happened on October 27, you need to understand the measures our community took regarding our new communal security program, the 18 months leading up to the shooting. Several measures that are outlined more fully in my written statement did make a difference on October 27 to help numerous people survive, to get out and to help others protect themselves and get to safety. Unfortunately, we still lost 11 lives that day. Our communal security program prior to October 27 trained over 6,000 people in Pittsburgh and various security protocols, to include active shooter and stop the bleed training. We have now taken and use daily Tree of Life survivor testimonials to train all over the country to demonstrate why people lived that day, and the importance of training. Simply stated, training help minimize loss of life, and it sure did that day. It's unfortunate that we have to teach our Jewish community and prepare our community to live three to five minutes prior to law enforcement responding through various training protocols. Two other very important training initiatives that took place involved the Pittsburgh Police Department. First is our Holocaust police initiative, where every Pittsburgh police officer spends four hours at our Holocaust center in Pittsburgh prior to graduating the police academy. Second, the Pittsburgh Police Department started and initiated a rescue task force. On 10/27, it was the first time the task force was deployed, and we had a trauma surgeon rendering lifesaving first aid in the building while shooting was going on. When it comes to tracking anti-Semitism and threat mitigation, we have partnered with the FBI. This has been instrumental, and we forged an important relationship between the community and law enforcement. As soon as we receive any anti-Semitic threat through any platform from our community we report it through our virtual command center, which is linked directly to the FBI. They see everything we do in real time to track, assess, and mitigate the threat. On October 27, 2018, our community witnessed the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in our Nation's history. The shooting has had a profound impact on Jews across the country. In Pittsburgh, our communal security efforts prior to the shooting were focused on preparedness through awareness and education. Not everybody in the community thought it was necessary to prepare or take an active role in their own security. Some left that solely up to law enforcement, or ignored the issues and the rise in anti-Semitic activity. After the shooting, that all changed. It not only changed in Pittsburgh, but in Jewish communities across the country. I will never forget walking through that horrific crime scene on October 27, and witnessing destruction that one man caused because of hateful anti-Semitism. I am certain that those who were in that building that day, to include our community members as well as first responders, will never forget those images as well. People were murdered simply because they were Jews gathered to pray. For a countless number of people, that image will never be erased. It cannot, nor will it ever, be forgotten. We need to build a strong, resilient Jewish community. I have now spent over 35 years of my professional career in protecting the country and now the Jewish community. It is an absolute honor to serve the Jewish people, and I will continue to spend the rest of my professional career working to protect the Jewish and other faith-based communities. Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much. Mr. Jonathan Greenblatt. STATEMENT OF JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE Mr. Greenblatt. Good morning, Chairwoman Maloney. I want to thank you and all the distinguished members--am I on here?--all the distinguished members of the committee. Thank you. Good morning, Chairwoman Maloney and all the distinguished members of the committee. On behalf of ADL, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and to share our perspective. It's a privilege for me to be here alongside this distinguished panel, but I want to particularly recognize Mr. Shaffir, and just acknowledge your strength and your courage, which is an inspiration to all of us. Mr. Shaffir. Thank you. Mr. Greenblatt. I'm feeling particularly moved because I just returned from the World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem, where more than 45 world leaders recommitted themselves to addressing hate. It was a pleasure to see a bipartisan delegation from Congress there, including Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. I also want to give a special thank you to you, Chairwoman Maloney, for leading passage of the Never Again Education Act in the House this week. ADL already is working to buildupon the 11 states that mandate Holocaust education and genocide education in their public school curriculum. We will support you as the bill moves to the Senate. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Mr. Greenblatt. You know, when I was a boy, I could ask my grandfather, who was a refugee from Nazi Germany, what it was like. I could speak to people in my synagogue in Bridgeport, Connecticut, in my community who had survived, but that's no longer the case. As time passes, memory fades. A Pew study released last week indicates that millennials know less about the Holocaust than prior generations. ADL's Global 100 poll determined that only an estimated 54 percent of the entire world population has even heard about the Holocaust, and others think that it's just not important. A survey that ADL released this morning reported that 19 percent of American adults say that, quote, ``Jews still talk too much about the Holocaust,'' this at a time when hate crimes are up, when violence is up against Jews and other religious minorities and other marginalized communities. From a college football coach in Michigan defending Hitler to state trooper cadets in Wisconsin snapping Nazi salutes to queer activists in Chicago getting booted out of a pride march because they carried a flag bearing a Jewish symbol, to visibly identifiable Jews harassed on a subway in Manhattan or assaulted in broad daylight in Brooklyn, instants of anti- Semitism are up. ADL's most recent audit of anti-Semitic incidents recorded, as was noted earlier, more than 1,800 anti-Jewish acts in 2018. That's the third highest total we have ever tracked in 40 years. And the hate is getting more violent, not just against Jews, but against all minority groups. From Charlottesville to Pittsburgh, from Poway to El Paso, from Jersey City to Monsey, extremists feel emboldened in this environment to act out their hate. What might surprise you as it relates to anti-Semitism is this increase of incidents that is happening against a backdrop of steady, low levels of anti-Semitic attitudes among the general population. So, why is that? First, we have leading voices in our Nation who are normalizing anti-Semitism, who are making hate routine. They are using anti-Semitic tropes about globalists controlling government, about bankers trying to destroy our borders, accusing Jews of having dual loyalty or disloyalty, attacking the Jewish state with the same myths they use to demonize the Jewish people, and all of this destigmatizes anti-Semitism. All of this renders intolerance routine. Second, the Internet and social media and online game environments are spawning and spreading hate, particularly Holocaust denialism, the original fake news. With nearly 2.5 billion members, Facebook is the largest and most established of these offenders. Its policies still don't classify Holocaust denial as hate speech. YouTube has made some progress, but not nearly enough. But just as these market leaders have used ingenuity and innovation to reinvent media and build billion-dollar brands, they now need to apply those same capabilities to remove hate from their platforms and build stronger, better societies. Let me conclude with some key recommendations: No. 1, leaders must speak out against hate at every opportunity; No. 2, social media platforms must act more responsibly and ban Holocaust denial for what it is: unacceptable; No. 3, the Never Again Education Act must become law; No. 4, Congress should pass the No Hate Act of 2019 to spark improved local and state hate crime training and prevention; No. 5, Congress should fully fund the Nonprofit Security and Grant program to protect all at-risk nonprofits and specifically faith-based institutions; and finally, we would implore Congress to pass the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act to ensure that the Federal Government is appropriately allocating resources to the threat of white supremacy and radical extremism today. I applaud the leadership of this committee, Ms. Chairwoman, and thank you for the opportunity to be here, and I look forward to your questions. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much. Mr. Hilary O. Shelton, thank you for coming. STATEMENT OF HILARY O. SHELTON, WASHINGTON BUREAU & SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT FOR ADVOCACY AND POLICY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE Mr. Shelton. Good morning, Chairwoman Maloney, Ranking Member Jordan, esteemed members of this committee. I'd like to thank you for asking me here today to discuss the topic that is crucial to the NAACP, and all of the individuals, families, neighborhoods, and communities we serve and represent, as well as our Nation as a whole: The continued presence and, indeed, the growth of white nationalism and white supremacy in America. We are to be--you are to be commended as leaders in your communities for promoting tolerance as was reflected in the nearly unanimous passage of one of the first acts of the 116th Congress, that is, of H. Res. 41, the resolution rejecting white nationalism and white supremacy in America. In the preamble to our association's constitution, the NAACP is sworn to continue to fight for justice until all, without regard of race, gender, creed, or religion, enjoy equal status. In short, we were founded as an antithesis of the white nationalism and white supremacy, and members or followers of the NAACP have continued, to this day, to uphold this ideal of equal opportunity and equal protection under law. It is not an easy path, however, and we continue to face challenges. Throughout history, white supremacy has been espoused to the detriment of many others due to their race, ethnicity, religion, point of national origin, or family background. As we all know, white supremacy can lead to atrocities such as genocide of Native Americans, the Holocaust, slavery, lynching, segregation, and a whole host of other horrors. We have, however, successfully fought back against some of these terrorists through laws like the Hate Crime Statistics Act and the Matthew Shepard, James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Yet, we can and should do more. We must be ever vigilant. To begin, the NAACP strongly supports the bipartisan and bicameral Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act, or the No Hate Act. This important legislation addresses the problems of underreporting to the FBI under the Hate Crime Statistics Act and allows courts to require the defendant to participate in educational programs or community services as a condition of supervised release. We must also address the problems associated with the online hate. Yet, I am quick to note a word of caution: The line between impermissible hate speech and one's First Amendment right of free speech is extremely narrow. The NAACP strongly supports and endorses the Domestic Terrorism Act. This similar legislation would enhance the Federal Government's efforts to prevent domestic terrorism by requiring Federal law enforcement agencies to regularly assess the threat posed by white supremacists and other violent domestic extremists, and take concrete steps to address this threat. We also strongly support enactment of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act legislation, which would make lynching a Federal hate crime, therefore eligible for additional tools needed in local communities and resources used to investigate and prosecute these heinous crimes. The NAACP endorses and supports legislation which was just introduced yesterday in the other body, that is, the Senate, the Justice for Victims of Hate Crimes Act, which will make it easier to prosecute hate crimes. Finally, and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough, we need to boost the education of our youth on the horrors of the genocide of Native Americans, the Holocaust, slavery, lynching, and all other acts of terror that white nationalists and white supremacy have brought upon us as a Nation and as a world. To fail to do so would be a crime, in and of itself, and an insult to the millions of our ancestors who have struggled and died to address these concerns. We need to remember and learn from the past so it is never, ever repeated. I said at the beginning of my testimony that the leaders of these communities, we commend you for the great work you did in rejecting white nationalism and white supremacy. Yet, we do still have political leaders who talk racially thoughtless questions like, ``White nationalists, white supremacists, Western civilization, how did that language become offensive?'' Or they make odious statements such as, ``You also had people that were very fine people on both sides'' of the August 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia demonstration that resulted in a violent confrontation between a group of Neo-Nazis against social justice advocates supporting diversity throughout our Nation and equal opportunity and equal protection for all Americans. This was the confrontation which led to the death of Heather Heyer. There is an obvious need for more research, understanding, reflection, and education. So, we thank you, again, for inviting me here today and for your interest in the views of the NAACP. I look forward and ready to answer any questions as we move to that part of this presentation. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Ambassador Dore Gold. STATEMENT OF DORE GOLD, PRESIDENT, JERUSALEM CENTER FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS Mr. Gold. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member Jordan, thank you for your invitation. I have been--I'm an Israeli citizen and an Israeli diplomat, and I happen to have been in Washington yesterday because of the ceremonies that occurred in the White House, where the United States issued a new peace plan for the Middle East, but I was very glad to join you here, and express some of my conclusions on this issue. This hearing was conceived to deal with three interrelated issues: First, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz at the end of World War II; second, we are using this moment to consider the rise of anti-Semitism in recent years, especially in states that fought the evil of Nazism, which is why it is so particularly disturbing. These are states that are the center of our current civilization. So, when anti-Semitism is rising in France, in Germany, in Britain, and in the United States, we have to pay attention, and perhaps in ways that we wouldn't otherwise. Finally, we consider what the legacy of Auschwitz requires from us today. I have served in multiple diplomatic positions for the state of Israel, including as its Ambassador to the United Nations, as director general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Wherever I was posted, the Holocaust was a national disaster that we, the representatives of the reborn Jewish state, could never forget. During my tenure as director general, when coming for a dialog with the German Government, we took time off to visit Wannsee, on the outskirts of Berlin, and the villa where senior SS officers, like the infamous Reinhard Heydrich, convened a meeting in January 1942 to plan the final solution of the Jews of Europe. It was here that a plan was conceived for the Jews of German-occupied Europe that included the building of Auschwitz. As in many historical sites that were preserved, Wannsee had a guest book, which I was asked to sign. Well, what do you write in such a book at such a location? Have a nice day? With the burden of our history on my shoulders, I wrote a very terse comment. I wrote, quote, ``We will never allow anyone to do this to us again,'' unquote. I remember that in the course of World War II, 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Germans, and at Auschwitz alone 960,000 Jews were killed. Auschwitz was located in the eastern part of the Nazi empire. That meant it was vulnerable, first and foremost, to the Red Army along the eastern front. The German determination to complete their mission of extermination despite the advances of the Russians caused the Germans to transfer the inmates from Auschwitz to other concentration camps further west and within the borders of the German state. That is what led Jews from Auschwitz to Bergen- Belsen on forced marches during the frigid winters of northern Europe. Anne Frank and her sister Margo were moved in this way from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen where they both died. On a personal note, my mother-in-law, Dina Sherman, and her sister Esther, were relocated from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen with thousands of others. Five days after the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen, a BBC reporter named Richard Dimbleby entered the camp and recorded the Jewish prisoners rising up with their frail bodies on a Friday night and breaking into the Hebrew song ``Hatikvah,'' which means ``the hope.'' They were reminding the world that their hope was 2,000 years old and dated back to when the Jews lived as a free people in their own land. It was time for them to go home. That's what they were saying. Hatikvah became the national anthem of the state of Israel. Modern Israel is committed to fighting anti-Semitism, and defending Jews worldwide. Only today, anti-Semitism is not just active in Venezuela or in remote areas of Yemen. It is being revived in the heart of Western civilization, in France, the United Kingdom, and in Germany, as well as in the U.S. and Canada. This new wave of anti-Semitism can be fought with legal tools and with education. Anti-Semitic incitement can have lethal consequences. So, we ask our allies in the West to stand firm and help us vanquish hate speech, and vanquish this phenomenon before it gains further strength. And I want to close with an observation as a former diplomat. We have a very important tool to fight this. In 1948 the international community signed the Genocide Convention, and the Genocide Convention contains a specific clause outlawing incitement to genocide. When the Iranian leadership spoke about wiping Israel off the map, we convened a group of international legal scholars to look into whether they had crossed the line of incitement to genocide. When I was in Rwanda with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and met with their minister of foreign affairs, anyone who reads about the Rwandan genocide will find that incitement to genocide was a key component. It was a warning signal that something is about to happen. So, if we sharpen these tools and if we actually use them and not just leave them in textbooks at law schools, I believe we can take active measures to narrow, to constrain the use of hate speech, and we can also combat directly the phenomenon, the spreading of anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred that are occurring today. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you very much. Dr. Edna Friedberg. STATEMENT OF DR. EDNA FRIEDBERG, HISTORIAN, UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM Ms. Friedberg. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair, for your consistent leadership in service of Holocaust memory and education and for having me here today. When I became a Holocaust historian more than 20 years ago, I thought I was dealing only with the past. I was so naive. Over the course of my career, I have seen the voracity of the Holocaust questioned. I have seen the very language and symbols of the Nazis resurrected as weapons in new racist attacks. And as other witnesses have testified today, we are experiencing a resurgence in anti-Semitic violence and speech, and racists of all types feel emboldened. You don't need to be Jewish to be seriously alarmed by this dangerous trend. As a historian, I can testify unequivocally that whenever anti-Semitism is expressed publicly and without shame, an entire society is at risk. It's an indicator of poor health of a society. The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It started with words, with racist cartoons, with children's books that taught girls and boys to be afraid of their Jewish neighbors, with posters that portrayed Jewish men as leering rapists, threatening pure blonde women and girls. Hitler was obsessed with race long before becoming chancellor of Germany. His speeches and writing spread his belief that the world was engaged in an endless racial struggle. When the Nazis came to power, these beliefs became government ideology, and were spread in posters, radio, movies, classrooms, and newspapers. They also served as a basis for a campaign to reorder German society, first through the exclusion of Jews from public life, then as well for the systematic murder of Germans with mental and physical disabilities. And let's remember that the Nazis did not seize power through a military coup or revolution. They rose as part of a power-sharing agreement in a fledgling democracy. In order to make Jewish persecution palatable, Nazi propagandists branded Jews as a biological threat. Government-sponsored racist propaganda denounced Jews as aliens, as parasites, and said that they were responsible for Germany's cultural, political, and economic degeneration. These words had an enormous effect, creating an environment in which persecution and violence were not only acceptable, but an imperative. Nazi propagandists built on existing stereotypes to directly link Jews to the spread of disease like vermin. As part of their racial campaign to, quote, cleanse society, Nazi leaders implemented so-called racial hygiene policies to protect non-Jews. For example, in occupied Poland, Nazi Germany reinforced its policy of confining Jews to urban prison zones known as ghettos, by portraying Jews as a health threat requiring quarantine. This approach was a self-fulfilling prophesy. By depriving the hundreds of thousands of human beings imprisoned there in these ghettos of food, water, sanitation, and medical care, the Nazis actually created a diseased population. German propaganda films that were shown to schoolchildren characterized the sinister Jew as a carrier of lice and typhus, like rats. Ms. Friedberg. On a side note, even seemingly admiring or positive stereotypes about Jews, that they are smarter than other people, good with money, well connected or powerful, these too draw on much older anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about global Jewish domination. The Nazis invoked links between Jews and communism to allege that Jews were warmongers. Similar accusations are currently leveled regularly against prominent Jews around the world. In our own country during the Nazi era, celebrated Americans, like Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh, spread anti-Jewish propaganda and characterized American Jews as an enemy element that threatened the United States' interests. In August 2017, self-proclaimed white nationalists carried torches through Charlottesville, Virginia, to invoke the racist legacy of Nazi Germany. Fire is more than a dramatic flare. In a charged context, it signals violence and destruction. The Nazi regime began by carrying torches at parades and rallies and, by 1938, burning buildings and Torah scrolls. It eventually burnt the bodies of millions of human beings. The very word ``holocaust'' derives from the Greek, meaning sacrifice by fire. Marching with torches in the American South has an additional, more specific resonance: nights of firebombs and lynchings. Unlike in Nazi Germany, our country today has checks and balances to prevent racist violence from dominating our streets or laws. The torches carried during a nighttime march in an American university town two years ago deliberately echoed the smoke of an earlier racist and murderous era. In closing, hate speech and violence against Jews are canaries in the coal mine for the health of democracy and civil society. A government that does not confront them does so at its own peril. My teenage nephew, bored and exasperated, once asked me: Why can't Jews ever stop talking about the Holocaust? And speaking as the daughter of a survivor, I had to take a deep breath before I answered him. But his question was really: Why do we study the Holocaust? Why? Because it is the best documented crime in human history, one driven by genocidal racism. Let's heed its warning signs. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. I want to thank all of the witnesses today for their very moving and important testimony, and I want to thank all of you for appearing here today. I would like to begin my questions with Mr. Shaffir. We are very honored to have you here today, and I was deeply moved by your testimony. You and your family have suffered an incredible loss and showed incredible courage, and I know that testifying today must be very difficult for you. So, I want to ask you: Given how difficult it is for you to relive this pain, why did you agree to come here and to tell your story? Why is it so important to you that other people hear this story? Mr. Shaffir. We need to share this historical tragedy. It's impossible for people to remember, and some of them probably will forget, what happened, how many millions of people, innocent people were killed because they were Jews or any other faith. If I don't speak out, if I don't share my information, I will only have myself to be blamed at because I did not share my information. So, that's one of the reasons why I'm here and trying to share my information as best as I can. Chairwoman Maloney. Is there a single message that you would hope to convey to the American public, many of whom are watching on television, many of whom are members of the younger generation? What would that key message be you would like to convey to them? Mr. Shaffir. The message I would like to convey is, really, I can summarize that in two words, two powerful words: Speak out. It's very important that we do not remain silent. Chairwoman Maloney. Monday of this week, we passed overwhelmingly bipartisan legislation to provide additional funding to give students the opportunity to learn from people like you and to hear from survivors. This bill would also expand the educational program of The Holocaust Museum. I understand that you work at The Holocaust Museum. Is that correct? Mr. Shaffir. Yes, I do. I'm a docent. I've been a docent for 10 years. Chairwoman Maloney. OK. Great. Mr. Shaffir. I do take tours--or give tours to law enforcement agencies, trying to teach what happened and to make sure things like this never happen again. Chairwoman Maloney. And could you tell us why these education programs at the museum are so important to help educate future generations? Mr. Shaffir. In the 1930's and 1940's, we had one common enemy: It was Hitler. Today, we have a new enemy. It's time. Unfortunately, all of us are getting older. Many of us are dying out. I'm one of the younger ones, and I'm 83 years old. I don't know how long I can live. So, if we don't tell this story and we don't do something about that, obviously we need to educate young people right now while I still have my voice. Once I'm gone, I need the young generation to be our voices. Chairwoman Maloney. Why do you think it's so important that our Nation remember the lessons of the Holocaust? Why do you think it's so important that we don't forget about it---- Mr. Shaffir. Yes. Chairwoman Maloney.--that it's not manufactured or ignored or altered? Mr. Shaffir. If you don't remember the past, our future will look very blight. Unfortunately, I wear a pin. It's four letters on it, four Hebrew letters, which means--it's Zachor. Zachor has two meanings: One, remember; and, one, don't forget. The first Zachor, remember: Remember the atrocities that the Nazis have committed against innocent people. And Zachor, don't forget: Don't forget all these who perished. So, we need to remember all these things and pass on to our children, our grandchildren so they would not forget. Chairwoman Maloney. Well, I want to thank you for your very moving testimony. You know better than any of us what can happen when hate is allowed to flourish. As our committee continues to examine the threat of white supremacy in the weeks and months ahead with the other hearings that we have scheduled, we're fortunate to have your perspective, and we are very grateful for your time and for your testimony. Mr. Shaffir. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I will now recognize Mr. Hice, Jody Hice, for his questions. Mr. Hice. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to each of our witnesses for being here today. Ambassador Gold, let me begin with you. During this past October's democratic debate, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders stated that, in his opinion, the U.S. should, quote, leverage military aid to Israel in order to manufacture changes to Israeli domestic policy, specifically as it relates to the-- to Gaza. He was saying we need to withhold funds for that. Do you believe that kind of action would be helpful? Mr. Gold. It's not my interest to---- Chairwoman Maloney. Turn on your mic, please. Mr. Gold. It's not my interest to jump into American domestic politics, but at the same time, one has to understand what is in Gaza. What's in Gaza today are people who are miserable, who have been taken over by one of the most hateful organizations on Earth; it's called Hamas. It has allies like Islamic jihad and other Salafist groups. And putting leverage on Israel is mixing up the firemen with the fire and will not produce a more stable outcome. I want to say that I am very optimistic about the Middle East as a whole, and there are Arab states that see eye to eye with Israel about the need to extinguish hatred, the need to work together to build a better region. We are seeing evidence for the first time of senior Arab diplomats who will go to Poland and visit Auschwitz. That's something that didn't happen before. Mr. Hice. I totally agree. Mr. Gold. Let's encourage that and not sort of hair-brained schemes to put pressure on Israel by denying it military assistance because of a situation that it didn't create in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Hice. I agree with you, and I think the bottom line of your answer is no, that it would not be helpful to withhold military aid to Israel. Mr. Gold. Thank you for putting it succinctly, yes. Mr. Hice. Madam Chair, I would ask unanimous request that the article about those comments be submitted to the record, please. Chairwoman Maloney. So, granted. Mr. Hice. Thank you very much. By the way, really, I believe this is--it's a quid pro quo: We'll provide this money provided Israel makes some changes. And it's interesting to me who that came from is really what the Democrat--many of my colleagues have been claiming is an impeachable offense in itself. Mr. Greenblatt, let me go to you. This past week--this past weekend, a member of this very committee tweeted an unsubstantiated claim that Israelis actually kidnapped and killed a seven-year-old Palestinian boy. You confronted this claim on Twitter as, quote, a vicious lie. You also called it blood libel. And, of course, the incident was proven false. The words themselves, I suppose, are not necessarily anti-Semitic but, indirectly, they certainly are. They were unsubstantiated. They were reckless. They were troubling. They were proven false. Do you believe these comments are at all helpful? Mr. Greenblatt. Well, Mr. Congressman, thank you for the question. So, the blood libel, the accusation that Jews are responsible for the murder of children, gentile children, non- Jewish children, Christian or Muslim, has followed Jews for centuries across Europe and the Middle East. It's been used to demonize them. It's been used as the basis for persecution, for pogroms, for slaughter. Really going back almost a thousand years to England and the medieval times. So, as the head of the ADL, an organization that's been fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of hate for over a hundred years, I will call out accusations like the blood libel whenever and wherever they happen. I think it's important to note that the use of the blood libel in these anti-Semitic slurs, we shouldn't use them as political or partisan weapons. I will call it out, whoever says it, whenever it happens, on the basis of the fact that hate is unacceptable, period. At a time when anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise, when I spent a fair amount of energy paying respects to the victims of hate crimes in Pittsburgh, in San Diego, in New Jersey, in New York, we shouldn't tolerate when anyone from either side engages in that kind of behavior. Mr. Hice. Thank you. And, Madam Chair, again, I would ask to be added to the record, unanimous consent, Mr. Greenblatt's reply to this accusation and an article that explains it. I thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. So, granted. Mr. Hice. I yield. Chairwoman Maloney. Tom Malinowski, as a member of our delegation, without objection, the gentleman from New Jersey, will be added to the panel. Thank you. Now I recognize the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia, Ms. Eleanor Holmes Norton, for questions. Ms. Norton. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank you especially for holding this hearing today on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. I particularly thank the witnesses who have agreed to appear today. I want to say to Mr. Shelton that I think it was perfectly appropriate to have a high representative of the NAACP at--on this panel, first, to indicate that hate appears to be of a piece. I would hypothesize that if you find someone who hates Jews, he will also find that he hates African Americans. If we keep that web together, we perhaps can understand the latest FBI statistics: The most frequently targeted group for hate offenses is African Americans. Forty-seven percent of hate offenses are motivated by race or ethnicity or ancestry. That may be because they're looking at people they can identify by those characteristics. Perhaps in recent times, the most notorious of the hate crimes was the Dylann Roof invasion of a church, no less, at a storied African American church in South Carolina, the oldest church in the South, during Bible study. I don't know if he chose the church and the time, but the symbolism cannot be lost on any of us. I am concerned with the increase in anti-Semitism and want to know: Where in the world does this come from? Why wasn't there an increase 10 years ago? Mr. Shelton, do you see a relationship between an increase in anti-Semitic and anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic attacks and the increase I just spoke of, the increase in hate offenses motivated by race or ethnicity? Mr. Shelton. Absolutely. The ideology shared, as we look at those who committed these horrific crimes, is so very similar. As a matter of fact, as we listened to those who made presentations about various experiences of the Jewish community, I sat there checking off boxes of the same strategies so often being utilized against African Americans. Whether they're vilifying African American men, somehow deciding that they're all going to be racists and violent rapists as well, we've heard the same stories told about what happened very well as we think about having the Jewish men too in the ghettos and certain of the language that's used very similarly. So, what we're seeing is an increase in the same organizations that very well hate African Americans and hate Jewish Americans and anyone that's not White Anglo Saxon, as a matter of fact, in our society, carrying forward the ideologies of the Third Reich. So, the similarities are very clearly there as we look at the--even the hate crimes data that's shared with us by the Justice Department, making sure we have categories to cover all these areas, and seeing very well that the increases are consistent, regardless of the group you're talking about. And certainly the experiences of the African American community are extremely similar to those of the Jewish community. Ms. Norton. Mr. Greenblatt, there has been a long, special relationship between American Jews and African Americans. In fact, the only Whites who have consistently been vocal and active are in the civil rights movement, and with respect to matters having nothing to do with themselves but on race alone, have been American Jews. That special relationship is long, even to the founding, I think, Mr. Shelton, of the NAACP itself, where among the founders were American Jews. Could I ask you, in light of your own work, what has the Anti-Defamation League found about threats and increases-- threats and violence against African Americans, the figure I just spoke of, and of the relationship, and what do you think can be done about the rise of anti-Semitism and racist attacks going on at the same time? Mr. Greenblatt. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. I think, first and foremost, I would reinforce what you said: The relationship between Jewish Americans and African Americans is long and deep. There is a shared history of suffering. There is a shared history of Diaspora, if you will. And as the Holocaust was a pivotal moment in the modern Jewish experience, so as enslavement was a pivotal moment for African Americans. And I think understanding our shared suffering has been critical to the success we've had together. I am proud of the fact that Ben Epstein, who is the head of the ADL in the fifties and sixties, stood and marched with Dr. King in Selma. And I'm proud of the fact that we filed an amicus brief in Brown v. Board of Education and joined the NAACP in doing that. And I'm proud of the fact that we work today on so many issues together, because make no mistake, from Charleston, to Charlottesville, to Pittsburgh, to Poway, there is a throughline: White supremacy is a violent threat against all marginalized groups. And the people, as my colleague Hilary said, who hate Jews also hate African Americans, simply because they and we are different from their majoritarian view. Now, there's a lot more work to be done. I would commend Congresswoman Lawrence and Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz for helping to start the bipartisan caucus on Black-Jewish relations. I had the privilege of addressing a group of Black and Jewish legislators two years ago with my friend, Derrick Johnson, of the NAACP. There is so much more work to do. I mean, at ADL, we were founded after a Jewish man was lynched in 1913. He was lynched after having been falsely accused of a crime, essentially a blood libel, of murdering a Christian girl. But what I would note is that when that man was lynched, Leo Frank, the founders of ADL, they wrote a--they wrote a charter for this new organization, and in it are the words we still use today as our mission statement. What they wrote was that this organization would, quote, stop the defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all. Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time has expired. Can you wrap up? Mr. Greenblatt. I'll just say what they realized was that you can't defend American Jews unless you defend all Americans, and we're deeply committed to that mission a hundred years later today. Chairwoman Maloney. I recognize the gentlewoman from North Carolina, Dr. Virginia Foxx, for her questions, and she has additional time as additional time was taken on our side. I yield to Virginia. Ms. Foxx. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. And I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. I don't think it's possible that we could overstate the tragedy of the Holocaust. I just don't think it's possible that we can do that. Any kind of hate is unacceptable. Any kind of discrimination is unacceptable. And I believe that that's how the people on my side of the aisle feel, and we feel it every day and express it every day. So, I want to say having hearings and reminding people of what has happened is appropriate for us to do. Mr. Greenblatt, on December 11, 2019, President Trump signed an executive order to combat anti-Semitism on college campus. Does the ADL support this order? Mr. Greenblatt. Congresswoman, thank you for the question. So, the executive order that the President signed into law was based on a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, that we indeed did support. That, I should note, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, was based on rulings that came out of the Education Department under Presidents Bush and President Obama. And, indeed, I think this executive order, it affirms the definition of the Holocaust--the definition of anti-Semitism, excuse me, specifically developed by academics from a number of different countries, so we do support it. Ms. Foxx. I just need a simple yes or no. Mr. Greenblatt. Yes, we support it. Ms. Foxx. Thank you. And thank you very much for that. Ambassador Gold, the Simon Wiesenthal Center produced a top ten list of worst instances of anti-Semitism and anti-Israel incidents. Unfortunately, it seems anti-Semitism is still alive and well. In December, we've all spoken about or mentioned the numerous attacks against Jews during the Hanukkah season. Do you believe and know that the number of anti-Semitic attacks is on the rise, and do you believe that social media platforms have provided greater access for people to spread anti- Semitism? Mr. Gold. I am completely aware that the number of anti- Semitic incidents around the world is on the rise. I am also aware that as much as social media platforms can be great vehicles for education and mutual awareness, they are also being used by some of the most vile organizations in the world to spread hatred. And the tension between free speech and incitement to killing is a real tension that lawyers and scholars have to work out. Israel is a democratic society. The United States is a democratic society, and we cherish our democracy and free speech, but we cannot provide a vehicle that allows the spread of hatred. At my center that I now run since I left government, we have been examining how the Internet is used by radical Islamic organizations, particularly in Canada, and they're spreading anti-Semitism. We have found a way in the--our representative in Canada has found a way of presenting this information to the Canadian authorities. So, you have to use--you have to use your legal system to combat this, and you have to, you know, shine your flashlight on where this is coming from. Ms. Foxx. I have another question for you. Are White neo- Nazis the only ones perpetrating anti-Semitic attacks? Where else do you see hotbeds of anti-Semitism? You've just mentioned Canada. And is it fair to say that anti-Semitism is prevalent across all races and genders? Mr. Gold. I believe it's evident among all races and all genders and has to be fought and combatted, regardless of its point of origin. Ms. Foxx. I'd asked about do you see hotbeds? You mentioned Canada. Are there other hotbeds of anti-Semitism that your group has recognized and that we should be aware of? Mr. Gold. We've done a lot of work on the United Kingdom, on Britain, and there are real serious problems of anti- Semitism, and we've seen it enter into parliamentary life in U.K., much to the horror of all of us who always look to Britain as a beacon of democracy. So, there's a lot of work to be done worldwide. Ms. Foxx. Well, let me assure you that I come from an area of North Carolina in this country where we have great reverence for the people of Israel and for all Jews. As you know, most Christians feel that the Jews are God's chosen people and that it is our place to support Israel. So, do you have ideas, to followup on what you just said, on why anti-Semitism knows no racial, ethnic, gender, geographic boundaries when we have historically--again, those of us who are very strong Christians--felt so positively toward Israel and toward the Jewish people? Mr. Gold. Well, that is not the kind of question I could answer on one leg, but it does indicate that we've got work to do. We've got work to research. We've got to find where it's coming from, and then we have to make recommendations of how it can be dealt with. But we can't just sit back and let it happen. It's getting much worse. It's not good for the Jewish people worldwide, and it's also terrible for the countries where it's occurring. You know, I'll just tell you this: I was heavily involved in Israel's efforts in 2016 to restore diplomatic ties and political activity across the continent of Africa. I remember sitting with the foreign minister of Rwanda, and she told me: Dore, you've got one hard-to crack. I thought she was going to talk about, I don't know, Libya. She was talking about South Africa, which is led by a political party which has been fathering the whole BDS movement, which has now spread worldwide. I nonetheless persisted in trying to reach out to South Africa, and will continue to do so. Ms. Foxx. Thank you, Madam Chairman. You've been very tolerant, and I appreciate it. I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize Raja Krishnamoorthi. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. I want to thank all of our witnesses for appearing here today, and especially Mr. Shaffir. Thank you for your very moving personal story. I would like to start with Mr. Orsini and ask a few questions about what happened on October 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life synagogue. That day, as you mentioned, a man armed with an assault rifle and three handguns stormed the Tree of Life congregation, shouting anti-Semitic slurs as he slaughtered 11 worshippers. As you know, that was the deadliest assault against the Jewish community in American history. Mr. Orsini, at the time of the attack, you were working as the director of community security for the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh. Isn't that right? Mr. Orsini. Yes, sir. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And could you just spend a minute talking about the impact of this tragedy on the community and the congregation since the attack? Mr. Orsini. That attack not only affected the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh or Jews in Pittsburgh, but the entire city. Imagine, we live in a day and age now where we have to think about protection in a house of worship, when you go there, as the most vulnerable as you can be and you get gunned down. Since that shooting, the Tree of Life, Dor Hadash, and New Life, the three congregations that prayed in that synagogue, are still affected. The entire Jewish community has been affected. The effects of that shooting are long lasting, and they're not going to go away anytime soon. It's important in our community in Pittsburgh to make our folks feel safe so they can get back in to worship, no matter what denomination it is. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Children witnessed that attack, right? Mr. Orsini. Pardon me? Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Children were present on that day and witnessed the attack? Mr. Orsini. To my knowledge, there were no children in there. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. OK. Mr. Orsini. But there were enough people in there to witness that horrific attack, yes. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. What has been the impact on children generally since that attack? Mr. Orsini. What was very important to us in Pittsburgh at the time after that attack was to work a very quick resolution. What I mean by that is it was important for us to get our kids back in school, get our Jewish facilities, our day schools, our preschools, and work with our community to get them back in there. It is a long-lasting effect. I went from school to school, preschool to preschool, to talk to parents about how terrified their children were, how terrified children, students, and, quite honestly, adults were just to walk to synagogue. We had to work hard, as we do every day, to make them resilient and strong. We continue to do that, but the Jewish community unfortunately is a targeted community, and---- Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me---- Mr. Orsini. Go ahead. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me jump in. I think one of the things that probably folks everywhere understand is that, regardless of whether you are in Pittsburgh or not, I think folks who worship at synagogues feared, you know, going to their synagogues for a long time after this particular incident. I want to switch gears a little bit, and I'd like to hear your views on, what do you think the role of Holocaust education plays in hate crime prevention generally? Mr. Orsini. I think it's paramount. The city of Pittsburgh is one of the few cities, and it may be the only city in the country right now that requires its police department an all cadets training to go to The Holocaust Center and spend time there prior to going out on the street. It's a model based after the national Holocaust Museum. The only other group that I know is FBI agents that go through there. It's so important for Holocaust education to continue, and it needs to start in middle school up. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. How can the Federal Government best support either this type of educational awareness or hate crime prevention generally at the local level? Mr. Orsini. I think at the local level, there is several things. Quite honestly, it takes money, it takes human capital, and it takes time. Holocaust education, in my view, is important to be mandated in public schools, in education platforms. We have to never forget. Teach our community what happened there and what rises out of hate. I think for our community and the Jewish community, it's ever so important. I have worked civil rights in the FBI for many years. I was a civil rights coordinator. I've worked hate crimes for numerous years. Hate is generational. We need to be on the ground floor of children, educating them on hate, what happened in the Holocaust, what hate does. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I think I just want to finish. I'm out of time, but I want to underscore that last point, which is that I think that to end hate, because it is generational, you have to start with the kids, and you have to teach them that anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, hatred of all kinds is not right, and I think that we at the Federal level have to support that. Thank you so much. Mr. Orsini. Thank you, sir. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much. I now recognize the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. James Comer, for questions. Mr. Comer. Thank you, Madam Chairman. And I thank all the witnesses for being here today. Mr. Shaffir, I really appreciate your testimony. And every time we have a tour group from Kentucky come, we always recommend Holocaust Museum. I think of all the great museums in Washington, that's the most special museum, most moving, most educational museum that makes such a difference, and we've not had anyone say anything but how much they were touched by that museum. Ambassador Gold, I'd like to focus my questions on Israeli policy. Can you explain how dangerous Iran is to Israel and why the Golan Heights are so necessary to Israel's defense? Mr. Gold. Iran is a country---- Mr. Comer. Hit the microphone. Mr. Gold. Iran is a country which is under a theocratic regime which has stated its determination to destroy the state of Israel. In my institute--but I'm--the government has done this as well--we have collected statements made by the Iranian leadership, right across the board--military leadership, civilian leadership--which calls for wiping Israel off the map. Now, the question is: Is this just rhetoric to show off or is there something behind it? So, I'll give you a very specific example. In the Iranian Armed Forces, there is a missile called the Shahab-3, which can strike Israel from Iranian territory. Up until recently--it's an 800-mile-range missile. Up until recently, the Iranians have only put conventional warheads in this missile, but now they are aiming to replace the conventional warheads, according to documents that Israel has, with a future nuclear warhead. Now, those missiles are paraded once a year in Tehran. And on the missile, as well as sometimes on the missile carrier, they write: Israel must be wiped off the map. So, what they do is they juxtapose their intentions with the military capability that they are building. And, by the way, it's not going to just stop with Israel. They'll go much further. So, our concern about Iran is, first and foremost, its nuclear weapons program, which we don't see having been altered by the JCPOA, but as a program that has probably gotten much worse. Mr. Comer. Well, that leads me to my next question. Let's focus on the President's American-Israeli policy. Have President Trump's actions such as withdrawing from the nuclear deal and eliminating international terrorist Soleimani made Israel safer, in your opinion? Mr. Gold. You're talking about the elimination of Qasem Soleimani? Mr. Comer. Uh-huh. Mr. Gold. The commander of the Quds Force? Mr. Comer. Right. Mr. Gold. One of the most gratifying international acts that I undertook before I returned to working for the Government of Israel, I had set up a dialog--I'm going to answer your question. Mr. Comer. OK. Mr. Gold. I set up a dialog with a Saudi general, and we have this dialog going on between his think tank in Jeddah and my think tank in Jerusalem. We used to meet in Rome. At one point, he said to me: Dore, how would you like to go to the U.S. Congress with me and lobby against the JCPOA? I said: You know, I agree with your intentions. I think it's a bad idea to lobby here on Capitol Hill out of the interests of Saudi Arabia and the interests of Israel. But we are think tanks, and there's nothing that prohibits us from going to a think tank in the United States and voicing our views. That's exactly what we did. We were invited by the Council on Foreign Relations here in Washington. He appeared and spoke in Arabic, I spoke in English, and the whole place was filled with American press. I'm telling you that because the threat to Israel is a threat to many of our neighbors in the region who are slowly but surely becoming our friends, and a new security architecture for the Middle East is now growing as a result of that perception of a shared security threat. And I think we have to build on that, but that has also given me optimism about many of my neighbors. We can become, not just friends, but allies, and hopefully that is something which we can work on with the Trump administration and with the American national security bureaucracy. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. The gentleman's time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Jamie Raskin, for questions. Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Greenblatt, you have spoken out against tweets or retweets by Democratic Members of Congress that circulate, intentionally or not, anti-Semitic tropes. And you have spoken out strongly against the TV commercial run by Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential election that attacked Janet Yellen, George Soros, and Lloyd Blankfein as globalists and essentially enemies of the American people. And I think you've spoken out also against the outrageous moral equivalents manifested by President Trump stating that there were very fine people on both sides in the events that took place in Charlottesville. What is the importance of speaking out against anti- Semitism wherever you're seeing it--wherever you see it and not permitting it to be a partisan weapon? Mr. Greenblatt. Thank you for the question, Congressman. Indeed, you're correct. So, ADL has spoken out consistently, and I would say clearly and cogently, in response to anti- Semitism from both sides of the political aisle. We're living in a moment in time when extremists feel emboldened because, literally, the talking points of white supremacists or the talking points of other radicals are jumping off of their pages of their propaganda and into the talking points of elected officials. There's absolutely no excuse for it. So, we call it out whenever it happens and wherever it happens, in large part, because we want to make sure that elected officials and political candidates understand that they shouldn't use anti-Semitism or any form of hate for partisan gain. I wrote a letter to Congress last year specifically asking this body to prevent the tendency from using these kinds of tropes, again, to gain or to make political--score political points. I mean, I'll say, in closing and referencing a comment that Dr. Friedberg from the Holocaust Museum made, anti- Semitism is not just a Jewish problem; it's everyone's problem, because it is typically historically a sign of the decay of democracy. It is a tool that populists use to press their own authoritarian agendas. And so we have got to have the moral courage and the intellectual honesty to call it out whenever it happens, no matter who says it. Mr. Raskin. And I thank you for that. I think that, in our country, anti-Semitism and racism both are the gateway to destruction of liberal democracy and equal rights for all of our people. So, I want to thank all of the members of the panel for underscoring the importance of historical memory as to all of the events that have taken place assaulting the rights of minorities. Going back to the dispossession and violence against Native Americans in our country and our experience with slavery, as well as all of the horrific events that took place in the last century with respect to anti-Semitism, I wanted to say this: I've been reading a book by Christopher Wylie called ``Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America,'' about Vladimir Putin's plan to inject racial, ethnic, religious, and partisan poison into our body politic in the 2016 election and beyond. I think it's a very scary book in some ways, but, ultimately, I find it to be an uplifting book, because we are not a racist country, the country that elected Barack Obama President. We are not an anti-Semitic country. But there was a very deliberate effort to propagandize and to activate the most unstable and extremist elements of the country, and even if that's one percent of the American people, that's still a few million people. It bore fruit for Vladimir Putin in a lot of different ways, but certainly in what took place in Charlottesville, where you had Americans marching right out in the open as Nazis, Klansmen, fascists in our country. So, I want to ask a question about online hatred and these efforts to go out and find people using what ``Cambridge Analytica'' called the dark triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, people who are psychologically predisposed to go out and to demonstrate hate in a violent way. What are we going to do about that? Even if the vast majority of the country doesn't stand for that, what's the proper response to it? I don't know whether Mr. Orsini and Mr. Shaffir have any thoughts about that, and maybe Mr. Shelton also, if you've worked on it. Mr. Shelton. Let me just begin by saying that as we look at these challenges and these problems, it is important that we point out how similar they are, how the strategies, the ideologies that are used to lace these together are so clear and clean. If you separate them out, you see that as we think about the attacks on African Americans, as we look at the whole slavery experience, we note it was done as a tool to be able to marginalize African Americans or be able to continue to take advantage and, again, seek whatever the spoils is they wanted along those lines and what will be perceived as an acceptable way. When we think about the attacks on our Jewish friends, going after them because of their beliefs and their commitments, the same thing applies. When I think about Native Americans, of course, we don't talk enough about it, in my opinion, about the genocide that took place and the land that was being taken and, of course, the natural resources that were being sought in those cases as well, and to make it acceptable to be able to show them as less than human beings as well. One of the things that go throughout all of this, of course, is the marginalization that goes with the characterization of each of these groups as being less than human beings, making it acceptable for the kind of horrific things done to them to be done to them and nothing should be done about it. So, indeed, this is important that we look at all these issues and think about them in that context, and think about even those that promote the ideologies of the Third Reich, the white supremacist, and others along those lines, and what they seek to gain and what those who actually fund them seek to gain as they continue along these lines. So, it needs to be worked together. Mr. Orsini. If I may. Thank you. I think it's a very important question. I'm an individual that's on the ground looking at anti-Semitism, trying to keep a community safe, and I think it's very important for our community to report everything. However, I've spent a lifetime raising my right hand to protect the Constitution of the United States, firmly believing the First Amendment right, speech, is important. However, what we see on the ground is hate speech; not a crime, but it leads into a hate crime. And we have to have a mechanism or a tool for our law enforcement officials when they see a swastika out there and it gets reported, not to say, it's protected First Amendment right speech. There's nothing we could do about it. We need to work together with our law enforcement partners to come up with a way to assess what the true threat is out there from these groups, because it's out there. A large amount of the community does not even know who Patriot Front, Identity Evropa are. We see those signs of hate everywhere across the country. They're reported. However, most of the things that are out there are protected First Amendment speech. Unfortunately, in our community, the African American community, the Muslim communities, affected communities, those signs of hate are important to understand, recognize, and report. I think it's very important for us to work with the government to come up with a method where we just don't dismiss it as protected First Amendment speech, because we truly do need to assess and mitigate those threats out there. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you for that important point. Your time has expired, but thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Bob Gibbs, for questions. Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all for coming in today, and thank you for your work to ensure that the horrific events that happened in the Holocaust never happen again. And thank you to Mr.--say your name right--Shaffir for coming in and giving us your testimony. Hopefully nothing like that--human beings ever do that to another human being ever again. So, my heart goes off for your heart. God bless you. I was also stunned in Dr. Friedberg's testimony when she mentioned Henry Ford being anti-Semitic. I had no idea, and I googled it, and in the early 20th century, things occurred that just--I just--it was stunning to me. I just had no idea. So, I guess I learn something every day, and it was--it was just amazing to me that that was going on. I don't have a question for you. I just wanted to make that comment. But, Ambassador Gold, recently, Prime Minister Netanyahu said that--called President Trump the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House. In his first term, he has done numerous things to ensure Israeli is safe and secure, and I just want to list those quickly. If you disagree, just interrupt me, but he relocated the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem; he recognized Golan Heights as part of Israel; he recently issued an executive order condemning anti-Semitism at U.S. college campuses; he withdrew from the failed Iran nuclear deal; he's a strong opponent--a strong opponent of Boycott, Divester, Sanction movement, BDS; and, also, he just--as you saw this week--I know you were there yesterday--the historic peace plan, and these are impressive accomplishments. Would you agree, Mr. Gold? Mr. Gold. Again, I do not want to get drawn into your American domestic ping pong. Mr. Gibbs. OK. Mr. Gold. However, when somebody does something for you which is exceptional, which stands out, it's rude not to say thank you. And I'm particularly grateful for what President Trump has done. Now, I think that these are ideas that have been out there in the American discussion for a long time. In 1995, you had the Jerusalem Embassy Act supported by Tom Daschle and Bob Dole. Now, why is that important? Because there was a bipartisan spirit supporting these kind of moves, but it just got stuck and no one did anything, and the first one who did it was President Trump, to actually move the embassy. So, many of the actions that the President has taken are actions that have been suggested, thought about, legislated about, but no one did anything. He did it, and I think that's appreciated by the people of Israel. Mr. Gibbs. I appreciate that. Last year, in the House, we voted to condemn the BDS movement with 398 votes, including 209 Democrats, very bipartisan. But there's some of my colleagues here in Congress that support the BDS movement. Do you think--what signal does that send to Israel? We had a strong bipartisan vote, but then we have some that have come out strongly against--supporting the BDS movement. Mr. Gold. I'm just going to put it this way: BDS, from my standpoint, is evil. And you know why it's so painful? Because for us to build a new future in the Middle East with our Arab neighbors, we can't have boycotts. We can't have divestment. We can't have sanctions on each other. What is happening now in parts of the West Bank, for example, is that we're building new malls, new factories that-- in which Jews and Palestinians are shopping together, working together, living together. You want to be inspired? Want to make peace? Go to Hadassah Hospital. Do you know what you'll see in the Hadassah Hospital when you go in the emergency room? Jewish doctors, Palestinian doctors, Jewish patients, Palestinian patients, all together trying to build an effective health system for the city of Jerusalem. That's what we need, and we don't need people to come with ideologies from South Africa or from other places telling us that we should be boycotting each other. That isn't going to make peace. That's going to make the hatred worse. Mr. Gibbs. I totally agree, because I think the more we interact and have commerce and trade, we build those relationships, and the region and the world is a safer place, and we have more respect for each other. So---- Mr. Gold. 100 percent. Mr. Gibbs [continuing]. I totally agree with you, and I, you know, hope that peace plan moving forward that the President put out this week moves forward in a judicial way and we get it done. So, I yield back. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. Harley Rouda, for questions. Mr. Rouda. Thank you, Chairwoman, and thank you for convening this very important hearing. I'm anxious to bring it back to the bipartisan purposes that we're all here for. And thank you for all the witnesses, for your testimony as well. I know some of the previous testimony talked about how we have seen, with recent surveys and polling, that many of our teenagers don't fully understand what occurred in World War II, what occurred in the Holocaust, what occurred with the rise of Hitler. And, in my district, we have seen firsthand the consequences of this ignorance. In my district, a young college student was murdered by a high school acquaintance who had joined a far right neo-Nazi group. In my district, teens played a drinking game around cups arranged in a swastika and bragged about German engineering on social media. In my district, members of a water polo team held their hands up in a Nazi salute while singing a German Nazi propaganda song. In my district, synagogues have been desecrated while neo-Nazi recruitment flyers appear again and again on the campuses of high schools and colleges. In my district, watermelons have been thrown on the front steps of African American students. In my district, it is not uncommon to see white supremacy flags flying behind cars and trucks as they travel across the roads and highways in our district. In the aftermath of many of these incidents, what we have seen is encouraging. The southern California Jewish community did something incredible. They embraced the teens that have been involved in some of these incidents and educated them. They sat down with kids with Eva Schloss, the stepsister of Anne Frank, invited them into their synagogues, and helped them understand what had transpired, showing very clearly how important education and elimination of ignorance is. I want to turn to Dr. Friedberg, who serves as a historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Can you tell us why this education is so important, not just for teenagers here in the United States, but for all of us in the United States and across the globe? Ms. Friedberg. Thank you. Thank you, Congressman, and I wish you didn't have such a long list to give. It's about more than just Holocaust education. As a historian, I can say that I'm very disturbed by the general decline in the teaching of history around this Nation. I know that when our partners from Europe and other places abroad come, they are surprised because the United States does not have a national curriculum or national education standards. There are benefits and negatives to that, but in most other countries, there are standards. We leave things to state and local levels. So, it's not a uniform thing. One of our goals at the museum is to lift the level of quality Holocaust education across the country by training teachers, by facilitating regional cores so that local teachers who are experienced--and they don't have to just be in history; they can be in a literature class, they can be in what we used to call civics, they can be a religious, faith-based class, to enable them to work with the direct evidence of the Holocaust and teach and facilitate in a responsible and meticulous way. One of the points I'd most like to make is that even people who think that they know about the Holocaust often talk about it in such a simplistic way as though it's some kind of morality tale, where there is just, you know, pure evil and pure good. Obviously, there is pure evil and good in the story of the Holocaust, but the vast majority of people who lived in Europe during the time were a mixture, either were onlookers or complicit in some ways and helpful in others. We had a special exhibit a few years ago exactly on this topic called ``Some Were Neighbors,'' and I encourage you to look at our online version of it, which describes the way that everyday people had--everyday, ordinary people had choices about whether to get involved, whether to stand by, and whether to facilitate. So, it's about more than just numbers and statistics; it's dates. It's really about social cohesion and psychology. Mr. Rouda. Thank you. And thank you for your leadership in this area. Currently, only 12 states across the country require Holocaust education. And on Monday, I'm very proud that Chairwoman Maloney introduced legislation to ensure that teachers across the country have access to the resources they need to teach about the Holocaust. But I do want to point out: You know, we can legislate all we want to fight hate, fight anti-Semitism, but the reality is it has to start in our hearts and our head. It requires leaders across our country, leaders in the White House, the administration, in this body, in academia, and elsewhere, to make sure that we are all fighting hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder to fight this. And, Mr. Greenblatt, I'd like to turn to you for closing comments on my time here. Can you talk about some of your education initiatives and how important they are as well? Mr. Greenblatt. The ADL is--thank you for the question. The ADL is one of the leading providers to the United States of anti-bias, anti-hate content in schools. We reach over 1.5 million students, including many in Orange County and across southern California. We think, indeed, education is the best antidote to intolerance. Teaching about the Holocaust, we've seen the studies. When students understand what happened in the Shoah, it leads to a greater awareness by anti-Semitism and a greater tolerance for people from minority groups. So, we know it works, we need more of it, and let's hope the Senate passes the Never Again Education Act. Mr. Rouda. Thank you very much. I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I recognize the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Chip Roy, for questions. Mr. Roy. I thank the chair. And I thank each of you for taking time to visit with us here today. Good to see you, Mr. Shelton. Mr. Shaffir, I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for your testimony, and by that, I don't mean your testimony here, but your testimony of faith triumphant and what you represent. And rest assured, there are many of us committed to ensuring that the history of the horrors of the Holocaust are known, and that what I believe is the hope for humanity that now emerges from that, and the hope that we see in the Jewish people is something that we will be able to carry forward together, so thank you for being here. It means a great deal. I've had the fortune to visit Israel twice. I hope to go again soon. I've always had great joy going there. My most recent visit, my wife and I were struck by two things in particular, one, we went there on an APEC trip. We were there on a bipartisan basis for a few days, Democrats for a week, Republicans, we overlapped. We were there and we had, as many of my colleagues remember, we joined together for Shabbat dinner and broke bread, drank wine, were visiting and talking about most things, you know, nonpolitical, a few things political but for the most part, just life. And we were just struck by the happiness of the Jewish people. We were struck by the fact that they often poll, you know, happiness worldwide. I don't know who does these polls, but the Israelis tend to poll in the top ten of happiness worldwide, this despite having 150,000 missiles pointing at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on a given day, despite being under constant siege in a, you know, nation that is a fraction of the size of New Jersey. So, it struck us about how happy the Jewish people are. As a result, my wife and I, we came back and joined with some friends of ours in Austin, Texas, where I live outside of, and now we have shut down on Sundays and we put our telephones and our iPads down and have started joining in Sunday suppers and trying to restore a sense of community and have been doing that religiously, so to speak, ever since last August on our return from Israel. And it was a response to our great affection for our experience in our time in Israel. So, again, thank you. I'll tell you, the second thing that struck us was Yad Vashem, and I had not had a chance to go there in my previous trip to Israel. I was struck there also by the feeling of hope that you get as you walk through obviously the horrors of the history of the Holocaust, but you see sort of light at the end of the journey, and it is, of course, by design. The design of the museum is extraordinary. But you look through the old letters and you look through the hope of the Jewish people, and it struck us in an extraordinary way. So, a couple of questions, Mr. Gold, for you. Can there be--just yes or no, because I'm using a little bit of time, but can there be any room for error in Israel in defending herself from her enemies? Is there much room for error given the assault, constant siege on Israel? Mr. Gold. Well, some of that comes down---- Mr. Roy. Microphone. Mr. Gold. Some of that comes down to a space in time. Mr. Roy. Right. Mr. Gold. I mean, how long does it take to fly across the United States---- Mr. Roy. Right. Mr. Gold [continuing]. In a jet plane? Mr. Roy. Yes, five, six hours. Depends on where you're going, yes. Mr. Gold. So, to fly from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean, three minutes. Mr. Roy. Right. Mr. Gold. So, the margin for error is pretty much reduced. Mr. Roy. And a couple other questions. Are there currently attacks coming in from Gaza despite unilateral withdrawal by Israel in 2005, like on a regular basis? Mr. Gold. Absolutely. In other words--in fact, I can tell you that we withdrew from Gaza in 2005. And in the period right after the withdrawal, the amount of rocket fire on Israel---- Mr. Roy. Has gone up, yes. Mr. Gold [continuing]. Went up by 500 percent. Mr. Roy. Are there currently about 120,000, 150,000 rockets sitting in Lebanon pointing roughly at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to the best of the intelligence of Israel? Mr. Gold. And other places. Mr. Roy. And other places. Would Israel be safe without Iron Dome, David's Sling, and these technologies to knock down missiles? Mr. Gold. No. It would require Israel to live on a hair trigger. Mr. Roy. Right. And you've already said that Iran is an ongoing threat to Israel. Here's my question: How important is a strong and sovereign Israel to the hope in the future of the Jewish people? And what role do efforts to deny the historical connection to the land of Israel, including Jerusalem, play in the rise of anti- Semitism? Mr. Gold. That's an excellent question. Mr. Roy. A blind squirrel finds a-every once in a while. Mr. Gold. But I would say this, that the historical connection of the Jewish people with, let's say, Jerusalem, is something which can be documented, which can be shown, which can be demonstrated in terms of archeological finds that we have. And when countries get behind resolutions at UNESCO that try and deny that connection---- Mr. Roy. Right. Mr. Gold [continuing]. First of all, it delays peace. It makes our adversaries think, you know what, maybe we're right. And it is a vile lie. And you know how you know that? Open the Quran, see the mention of the Baitul Maqdis, which is the-- Arabic for the temple. The Arabs knew it, the Muslims knew it, we're connected with Jerusalem and with the land. Mr. Roy. Madam Chair, if I might do a unanimous consent request? Chairwoman Maloney. What is it? Mr. Roy. I would like--I have two articles here I want to get in the record, I ran out of time, that--there's just two articles. While Democratic Mayor Bill deBlasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo are letting anti-Semitic attackers go free without bail, just yesterday, Attorney General Barr announced a zero- tolerance policy toward perpetrators of anti-Semitic crimes. I ask that an article titled, quote, ``Bail Reform Is Setting Suspects Free After String of Anti-Semitic Attacks'' and one titled, ``Barr Says Justice Department Will Get More Involved in Fighting Anti-Semitic Attacks'' be submitted for the record. Chairwoman Maloney. OK. So, ordered. Give us a copy of it. Mr. Roy. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. OK. I now recognize Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida for questions. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to stipulate at the outset of my questions that it would be hard to feel more strongly about the absolute necessity that Israel remain a Jewish and democratic state, and also, that this hearing has nothing to do with the--our support for and belief that Israel should remain so. To return to the focus of this hearing, which is the ongoing battle against hate with the backdrop of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I just, as it was mentioned earlier, returned from Poland and Israel to mark that anniversary. When you walk down the platform, the train platform at Birkenau, and I have been to Auschwitz-Birkenau before, but the enormity of the evil, and the human capacity for evil that exists today, very clearly, really overwhelms you. So, the importance of this hearing and shining a spotlight continuously, never forgetting that that human capacity for hatred and evil has not diminished, is absolutely critical. The statistics of--have been documented by ADL. In 2018, they tracked a staggering 1,800 anti-Semitic incidents in the United States, finding a 105 percent increase in anti-Semitic assaults, and a five percent increase in harassment over the previous year. I'm glad Mr. Rouda read through the litany of anti-Semitic attacks in his own district. When I landed at the airport in my district, at the end of this trip last week, I landed to a text from one of my mayors with a flyer that was being distributed throughout the city that says, as follows, a red flyer with a Nazi SS--a picture of a Nazi SS henchman on it that says, ``Our patience has its limits. One day we will shut their dirty, lying, Jewish mouths.'' Learn more at--I won't promote the website that that was on the flyer. Hatred knows no boundaries, and it has existed through thousands of years. Mr. Greenblatt, I appreciate the efforts of ADL. I'd like to ask you, given that we appear to be living in an age where we've had a resurgence of conspiracy theories that are festering and growing and being promoted by the highest levels of power in our country, and condoned and pedaled, in some cases, by the highest level of power in our country, do you see a connection between the growth of conspiratorial thinking and the rise of anti-Semitism and bigotry? Mr. Greenblatt. Thank you for the question. We should talk offline about that flyer and that mayor---- Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes. Mr. Greenblatt [continuing]. So, I can make sure my staff in Florida is following up. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Mr. Greenblatt. There is no doubt that the pension for conspiracy theories are contributing to the rise in prejudice generally, and specifically to the spike in anti-Semitism. Essentially, anti-Semitism is, at its very root, a conspiracy theory that the Jews are somehow--both have too much power and yet are weak, that we are uber human and subhuman, that we are responsible for all the world's ills, and it goes on and on. Indeed, when people in power promote prejudice, it endangers all of us. The Jews are typically the first to be harmed, but anti-Semitism never ends with the Jews. It ends up consuming everyone. So, whether you're the President of the United States or the president of a university or the president of a school board, we need everyone to speak out firmly and forcefully against anti-Semitism and the conspiracy theories that often are associated with it. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. In the words of Pastor Niemoller, ``I did not speak out, and there was no one left to speak for me.'' Mr. Greenblatt. Right. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Shelton, thank you so much for the work of the NAACP in combating bigotry in all its forms, in being relentless, and always being in the forefront of our Nation's leadership on combating hatred. The Jewish and African American communities have walked in lockstep for generations, and that is the purpose of our forming a bipartisan coalition, Black Jewish Caucus in the Congress. Can you--given that we are now dealing with the 21st century version of age-old bigotry and anti-Semitism and hatred in all its forms, can you talk about what we can do through both of our communities to work together to fight to renew our fight against hatred directed at both of our communities? Mr. Shelton. First, thank you so much for the comments. It's extremely important that we focus on the challenges of all communities and recognize what we call a convergence in interests. That is, as we think about what our communities want, it is so amazing, if you speak to different groups separately, that they'll say the same thing. We want our families safe and secure and have a real opportunity for a future. We want top notch education and good healthcare. So, in other words, understanding each of our pathways that bring us to this conversation is extremely important as well. As they say, we may be--as the saying goes, we may be--we may come from different places and different ways, but we are in the same boat now, and as such, understanding those experiences really makes a difference. When I talk to my Jewish friends about the experiences coming to this country, it's amazing how the challenges and negative impacts are described in such similar ways. It was a different experience. It was a different time, a different group of people, but the outcomes were just so similar. The attacks were too eerily similar as well, and the challenges are similar too. So, coming together to celebrate who we are and what we are, each other's--the passions for life and experiences is a very important part of it, but also, understanding what our vision for the future is is important as well. Again, I sit down with my friends from ADL or other organizations to talk about these issues, my friends at the Religious Action Center, a reform Judaism, to discuss these concerns and otherwise and others from the Jewish community. I would say that applies to so many other communities as well. It doesn't talk about the African American Jewish community. It is still a wonderful thing that we see that we've gone through a lot of pain for different reasons and in different ways. But what we seek together in understanding that working together, we can achieve these goals, I think is where we find ourselves locking arms a little bit more tightly. Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Absolutely. Madam Chair, our communities are clearly inextricably linked and. And what Mr. Shelton said about the minority communities across the globe, the moral imperative for us to come together, unite against hate and continue to shine a light on the evil, that is still, unfortunately, permeating societies all across the globe. Thank you. I yield back. And thank you, Madam Chair, for your indulgence. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Your time is expired. We now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Glenn Grothman, for questions. Mr. Grothman. Thank you very much. First of all, some good news. I spent as much time as anyone in my district, and I know the Congressman from California may see rising amounts of evil in his district, but I have never heard anybody utter anything the least bit anti- Semitic--or maybe one guy, you could say, told a racist joke. But in my district, I don't think it's like California, and I think much more accepting in my district. So, I don't want to make it appear like all America is that way. In any event, there is, seems to be, though more mainstream politicians, trafficking in hate in an effort to apparently feel it's going to raise their profile and get more easily elected. I remember even before I was involved in politics, reading about the Crown Heights affair in New York. Embarrassingly, a person posing as a Christian minister inciting hatred, winding up encouraging somebody to die. I couldn't believe we had somebody like that in New York. I was glad he wasn't in Milwaukee. A few years later at Freddy's Fashion Mart, again, fanning the flames of anti-Semitism and resulting in people dying. I suppose you're always going to have in a country of over 300 million a few horrible, evil people like that. However, what concerns me is rather than being swept into history's background, we recently have had this person become somebody who a lot of politicians like to stand with, look for him for getting more votes, and mainstream politicians, successful politicians. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, Reverend Sharpton, thank you for saving America and crediting him with getting the majority back in this House. So, this is not somebody people run from. It's something that mainstream politicians are embracing this individual. One after another, people are looking to become President. I met with this guy in New York, you know, Amy Klobuchar, the mayor there of South Bend, it concerns me. I'd like if any of you would comment as the--how this embarrassingly, purportedly Christian minister, why this guy is so beloved, or apparently respected by so many--what should be mainstream politicians. Mr. Greenblatt. Mr. Congressman, if I might just generally respond. First of all, I would say that what we've talked about, some instances like what has happened in New York, for example, what happened in Pittsburgh, no state is immune from hate. There are approximately 84--the ADL tracked 84 hate incidents in the state of Wisconsin in 2019. And, in fact, it was in Baraboo, which is a suburb of Milwaukee, where we had high school students doing the Heil Hitler salute last year in the photo of their student prom. Mr. Grothman. Baraboo is more outside of Madison, but go ahead. Mr. Greenblatt. Fair enough. So, I just want to point out the fact that prejudice can happen in any geography. It can be a problem in the majority, it can be a problem in minority communities. It can be a problem in Christian communities, as well as non-Christian communities. So, no one is immune from it. The question becomes what do we do about it? One thing I will just say is---- Mr. Grothman. Well, the question I'm trying to get though is---- Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. Mr. Grothman [continuing]. You know, what is this about this embrace---- Mr. Greenblatt. Right. Mr. Grothman [continuing]. Of Reverend Sharpton? I mean, there are---- Mr. Greenblatt. Look, I was going to say to that like, again, I think Reverend Sharpton has a long track record. I haven't agreed with all of his statements. On the other hand, I will tell you, after the situation and the murder in Jersey City, I remember getting a text from him on my phone, ``Hey, what can we do about this?'' He's consistently addressed these issues on his television program. So, I think he has a mixed track record for many, but I appreciate some of the outspokenness he's had of late. Mr. Grothman. OK. There's a group that sometimes sends me stuff called AMCHA Initiative, and they sometimes talk about anti-Semitism on college campuses. I wondered if any of you could comment on what's going on on college campuses and why-- you know, this is where, kind of, the minds of the future are molded, so to speak--and why it seems to be you have more--I don't know what to call it intellectual, I don't know what you call it--but why anti-Semitism, why it seems to--why American campuses seem to be a place where it seems to foment a little bit more? What's the deal with American campuses? Mr. Greenblatt. Well, I'll respond to that, but would invite others to jump in. I mean, I think, Mr. Congressman, one of the challenges that the way that Jewish state has often demonized on college campuses, saying that it's--using the same tropes that is often used to demonize the Jewish people. Once they said the Jewish people were foreign, that they were illegitimate, that they were alien, should go back to their countries, now they say that about the Jewish state on many of these college campuses. We need university presidents to recognize--I certainly believe in free speech deeply, even speech we don't like, but there is a price for free speech. It's not free. And university presidents need to not dismiss when anti- Semitism is used to demonize the state of Israel. They need to call it out and make sure all students understand that prejudice shouldn't be tolerated, even when it is supposedly being used, you know, in a debate about politics. Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time is expired. I now recognize the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. John Sarbanes, for questions. Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank everybody on the panel for being here, for staying with us so long, and for your incredibly compelling and important testimony on the topic of today's hearing. Mr. Shelton, you talked about convergence of interest, and I think that's a really important point to emphasize. As you were saying that, I was recalling that the AHEPA, which is American Hellenic Education and Progressive Association, so that's the largest and most active organization in the country that represents interests of the Greek American community. It was formed in the south in response to Klan activity that was directed at Greek Americans back in the 1920's and 1930's. So, that convergence of interest is very directly bearing on that. But all of these communities that we're speaking about today have that conversions of interest. And, clearly, there's two very important responses that we need to have when these incidents of hate speech, antireligious, racial incidents occur, acts of violence. One is to show an immediate sense of solidarity in responding to it; the other is to take very practical steps to try to protect against these attacks, and I think we're bringing important focus in the Congress to both of those things. But if I could go back to the solidarity element for a moment. Often, our concept of solidarity is reactive; in other words, something occurs and then we assemble a kind of unified coalition response to that to condemn it, and obviously, that's an important thing to do. What that seeks to overcome is human nature, because when an incident occurs the immediate reflexive human response is to think, am I part of the group that was attacked, or am I not part of the group? And if you weren't part of the group, the specific group that experienced the pain or the attack, your reflex is, in a sense, relief. You momentarily set yourself apart. That's a difficult thing to overcome. But we need to get to a place where this convergence of interest concept is so deep and abiding that if any particular subgroup within our community, in our society feels pain or is attacked, that we feel it regardless of whether we are part of that group. What I wanted to ask anyone to comment on is, what opportunities do you see or activities underway that are knitting together this sense of solidarity sort of at the ground level, on the front end, if you will, so that when the attack occurs the broad community feels it in that instant rather than there being that kind of delayed response, which is important, but is a delayed response? So, maybe you could speak to in Pittsburgh and other places where different communities are aligned with each other, creating coalitions, so that they feel equally these attacks regardless of which group it's directed at. Mr. Orsini. I think that's a very important point. When the attack happened in Pittsburgh, what happened prior to the attack--we have a community relations counsel. Our community relations counsel director in Pittsburgh spends time with all faith-based groups. That's his job. And he convenes an interfaith committee. We talk to different groups. When the attack happened in Pittsburgh, it was instantaneous. We had every faith-based group, African American, Muslim, Christian groups surrounding us in Pittsburgh. That didn't happen by chance. That happened by that interfaith community working together, and we felt that through the community in Pittsburgh right away. We had a Muslim group working with us, and, quite frankly, they were one of the first groups that donate money to the Victims of Terror Fund, and it was heartening to see that. But that work was done prior to that shooting. Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time is expired. Thank you so much. I'd now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Robin Kelly. Pardon me? Oh, we didn't see you. I did not see him come in. The gentleman, Mr. Keller, is recognized. Mr. Keller. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would like to thank all of the witnesses on today's panel for being here for this incredibly important hearing. When discussing the issue of education, President George W. Bush said, ``Continuing failed policies meant leaving children stuck with the soft bigotry of low expectations.'' Now, we're discussing--and when we're discussing anti-Semitism today we can say that we are facing hard bigotry of soft words. These words come in phrases like boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel. Even worse, they come in deafening silence from people in this country when terrorists or bigots physically attack or kill people of the Jewish faith merely because of their religion. Americans must not be silent in the face of this open and ugly bigotry. Anti-Semitism is, unfortunately, still alive now 75 years after the liberation of Auschwitz. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has produced a list of the worst instances of anti-Semitism, including some as recent as last month during the Hanukkah season. Ambassador Gold, can you speak to the trend we've seen with these anti-Semitic attacks, and what can be done, or what we can be doing to move toward the goal of eliminating the boycott, divestment, and sanction and other forms of anti- Semitism? Mr. Gold. I'm a big believer in knowing who your adversary is. You know, if you're in the military, there's an intelligence branch, and it tries to give a picture of how your adversary is laying out his forces, and that's what you have to do in this business too. You have to find out who they are and what they're doing. Many times people don't know or it's left up to op-ed writers to conjecture where this is coming from. But you can get to it. You can find out. It's important if you're going to try to figure out where the anti-Semitism is coming from to have multilingual capacity. When I wrote a book back in 2003 called ``Hatred's Kingdom'' about how did the hatred that was--that entered into, that was part of the attack on America on 9/11, where did it come from? I hired a team which could actually read off the web some of the most sensitive Arabic information. It was not classified. People weren't even aware of it. So, that's what you have to do. You have to--whether it's in Arabic or it's in Farsi or it's in Urdu, you've got to see where it's coming from. And once you know that, you have a criminal justice system that should operate. And I want to stress something which is obvious probably to everybody here, and that is when I bring up subjects that sound like the problems of radical Islam, it's not against all Muslims. It's not something that should be misinterpreted. But radical Islam is as much a threat to Muslims as it is to Jews or Christians. Mr. Keller. I think people that are silent--you know, that silence, sometimes you might want to consider that some of those may be adversarial, too. Mr. Greenblatt. Mr. Keller, may I just say something? Mr. Keller. Well, actually I wanted to get to another point for the Ambassador if I can. You know, President Trump has been at the forefront of this issue taking actions such as relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel sovereignty of the Golan Heights, signing an executive order to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses, and just yesterday, releasing his blueprint for peace with the Palestinians. Again, for the Ambassador, how do you think these actions have impacted the U.S. relationship with Israel today, and what will its relationship look like moving forward? Mr. Gold. I think the actions taken by President Trump are very dear to the Israeli body politic. And, you know, we've already built up, over the years, a strong bond between the American people and the people of Israel, but certainly, these actions strengthen that bond and allow us to move forward to build a safer region. Mr. Keller. Thank you, and I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlelady from Illinois, Ms. Robin Kelly, for questions. Ms. Kelly. Not that I want to bring any of you--well, thank you, first of all--into anything political, but I just have to say, since Al Sharpton's name was raised, and I don't believe in everything he has said either, but also I just have to say, I feel like we have one of the most divisive people in this 21st century that we've seen in a long time, and people--he has a base and he has elected officials that follow him. So, just to, you know, pick on Al Sharpton, you know, is very interesting to me. But anyway, thank you all for your testimony on this important day as we remember the horrors of the Holocaust. And thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your courage and, you know, wanting to educate the next generation. You are very much a treasure. Chairwoman Maloney. Will the gentlelady yield for a second on Al Sharpton? Ms. Kelly. A second. I don't have a lot of time. Chairwoman Maloney. OK. We've had a terrible increase of incidents of anti-Semitism in the city that I represent, New York. And the community has come together. He has been one of the leaders in bringing the community together. His national organization has had numerous meetings reaching out to the community, preaching really that we have to unify and fight this. So, I thank the gentlelady for the point you made. Thank you. I yield back. Ms. Kelly. Sadly, in recent years, we've seen a rise in anti-Semitic Neo-Nazi rhetoric, fueled, in large part, by disinformation campaigns on social media; therefore, it is my opinion that it is really important not only to study the Holocaust as a historical event, but also use its lessons as daily reminders of the fragility of democracy and the importance of remaining ever vigilant in promoting human rights, because we have seen an increase in hate, period. Dr. Friedberg and Mr. Greenblatt, people frequently dismiss comparisons to Hitler and Nazi Germany because the Nazi regime and the Holocaust are so uniquely horrific, but can you please explain what Germany was like prior to the rise of the Nazi party? Meaning, was it considered an advanced country economically and culturally? Was there a constitution, a representative government? Ms. Friedberg. Thank you, Congresswoman, for the question. Yes, Germany was considered an advanced country. It was a democracy, although a very young democracy. It had been in existence for just over 10 years at the time that the Nazis rose to power. And as I mentioned earlier, they rose to power as part of a democratic process. Nonetheless, that did not inoculate that society from the dangers of Nazism. However, I do want to also emphasize that the Holocaust was not a tsunami. It was not something that once it started there was no way for it to stop. And I actually would like to say something that may be surprising to people. I find a great deal of inspiration in the history of the Holocaust, not in the horrors of it, but in the places where things went in a different direction. The Holocaust was not implemented uniformly, and by studying it, as I said, not in, sort of, broad generalities of good and evil, but in the specifics of each context and with precision, we are able to identify the variables, the contexts, and the choices and the roles of different people in society that made it better for Jews in some places, and worse in others. So, for example, we are very pleased to have a longstanding partnership with the ADL. Our law enforcement and society program trains members of the police. It trains every new FBI recruit, agent, and analyst every year, because we look back to this history, not just to make people feel sad or not just to warn us about hate, but to say, who are those people? Who are those who sit in roles that actually can protect our society so that those on the margins, the extremist haters, do not come forward? We have trained close to, I don't know, 50,000 or 60,000 members of state judiciaries, members of the military. We work with every military academy. So, just to say that it's not just about whether society is in advance, but how do we make people aware of their roles and responsibilities? Ms. Kelly. I have another question for you. How did a modern, advanced, industrialized, diverse, and culturally rich nation devolve to genocide in a matter of years? Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. I think it's a great question, Congresswoman. You know, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, my grandfather was from Germany, and lived through and endured Nazi Germany and watched that industrialized democratic country descend into madness. And although he survived, most of his family was slaughtered. What he endured was unspeakable, and didn't even begin to touch on what Mr. Shaffir experienced. So, I think one of the things we need to look at, and we haven't even talked about it this morning, Ms. Chairwoman, is how Nazi Germany used the instruments of democracy to dehumanize, demonize, and, ultimately, lead to a path of genocide, and, in particular, media and social media. We haven't talked about the role of Silicon Valley. I know I only have a few seconds left, but it has got to be talked about this morning if we want to try to stop anti-Semitism and other forms of hate from spreading even further. Ms. Kelly. And I just wanted to share with you that I am a diversity trainer, and I started under---- Mr. Greenblatt. Oh, is that right? Ms. Kelly [continuing]. Started under you guys. Mr. Greenblatt. Bravo. That's great. Ms. Kelly. Thank you. I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Mrs. Brenda Lawrence, for her questions. Mrs. Lawrence. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to be on the record, this is a very, very serious issue. I am a descendent of slaves. We just marked the 400th year where this country that I love, these United States of America, enslaved, killed, and oppressed people, a democracy. This, the 75th year of recognizing the Holocaust that happened in a country where others saw a group of people being identified and persecuted. This is not a platform to promote, and to use a--this discussion to have political endorsements. We are talking about the United States of America. What are we doing here? How do we, as a country, not repeat what we know happened in this world, and in the United States of America? Shame on anyone that wants to use this to promote a candidate. So, I will continue with my statement now. We know--and I was raised by this woman whose tears were falling from her eyes during the civil rights movement. I was a little girl watching her cry as the hoses and the dogs are being sic'd on people in the south. She told me, Brenda, in your lifetime, you're going to have to educate people because we know racism is ignorance. It's the stereotypes. It's those generational, as we spoke of, just hatred that's passed along. She said, and then you're going to have to forgive them because if you don't, you consume their hatred and their anger. Why did I want to start a conversation and bring together two groups in this body that's supposed to pass laws and policies to stand together, to fight against hatred in America? The statement that I used, that Martin Luther King used, if we see it done to one, it's going to happen to others. We see through history that so many people sat on the sideline. And to sit anywhere in America today and say, Oh, I don't see it happening, they need to be slapped in the face with history and with reality. We have so much work to do. And spare me the ignorance and the lack of compassion. As a black woman in America, having a double whammy, being a woman who was oppressed, being an African American, I've had the opportunity to serve as a mayor of a city that I had to go to to protect the Jewish community, because I have one of the largest Jewish communities. Now to be their representative in Congress, I will not sit here and be silent as so many people did, as we know, when these incidents happened. My question, Mr. Greenblatt, has the Anti-Defamation League witnessed a similar uptick in violent hate crimes, and to what do you attribute this increase? We have not talked about what is happening where we're seeing more and more--and it's more violent. We talked about the words, the hatred of words, but now we're seeing violence. Mr. Greenblatt. Right. Mrs. Lawrence. And any of you, please, what is it that's happening that we as policymakers---- Mr. Greenblatt. Right. Mrs. Lawrence [continuing]. Need to step up? So, please---- Mr. Greenblatt. Well, Congresswoman, a few thoughts. So quickly, No. 1, again, I applaud your leadership in starting the bipartisan Black Jewish Caucus with Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz. It's so important, and hope we can find ways to work together. Just like the ADL and the NAACP, we have literally worked together for generations. No. 2, we talk about at the ADL the pyramid of hate. When you don't call out bigotry when it's spoken, it can lead to acts of hate, acts of hate like harassment, which can then lead to violence. Violence, when you don't interrupt it, can then lead to even worse, and, ultimately, to genocide. So, we believe prevention is better than response. And so that starts, in part, by something where you were kind of going earlier, using the bully pulpit. Leaders need to lead. And they don't just need to interrupt intolerance when it happens; they need to not allow intolerance to happen on their watch in the first place. That means using inclusive language, welcoming people of all their differences, and creating environments that are comfortable for everyone whether or not--no matter how you pray or where you're from or who you love. We need more of that in this country, and we need it now. Mrs. Lawrence. Mr. Shelton. Mr. Shelton. Just adding, the new technology is extremely important if you think of propagandizing of these hate manifests and ideologies. If you think about the utilization of social media tools to do everything from television shows to radio shows, music and everything else, they're trying to further indoctrinate these ideologies of hate into our everyday society. So, the bottom line is, you have to keep doing what you're doing. You've got to keep up with hearing from groups like ours about what---- Mrs. Lawrence. Yes. Mr. Shelton [continuing]. We've experienced and what's going on across the country and develop new strategies, tools, and resources to stop it at every place along the way. They're digging into every little community, but they're also going very broad and extensive in many of the ideological things we're seeing being promoted by these hate mongers. Mrs. Lawrence. I know my time is up, but I must say, we must, Madam Chair, address social media that has become the new weapon of hatred and racism. I just want you all to know, as we have said, we have so much work to do. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Shaffir, for sharing your story. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you, Brenda. I now recognize the gentlelady from West Virginia, Mrs. Carol Miller for her questions. Mrs. Miller. Thank you, Chairwoman Maloney. And thank you all for being here today. This is such an important and somber topic, and we must continue to draw attention to make sure that things like the Holocaust never, ever happen again. I don't need to remind you that Monday was the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The unspeakable horrors that occurred there at the hands of the Nazis, you know, 1.1 million people. The world watched in horror, because I don't know if it was naivete or if it was lack of the fact of the instant news like we have today that they didn't really comprehend that such things would happen. I grew up in the city of Beckley within the city of Columbus in a Jewish community. I grew up going to bat mitzvahs, bar mitzvahs. I went to my nephews' bar mitzvahs. Bless their heart, now they're all adults. And I think back to being in high school and one of the girls I knew, her mother had numbers tattooed on her arm. And, of course, you know, I was born in 1950--I shouldn't probably say that out loud--but growing up just when everyone came home from World War II, even I didn't really understand until I was an adult the horror, you know, but that's because I read and I--you know, I was able to educate myself. So, it's so very important that we pass this along, because history will repeat itself if we don't let people know what has happened in our past. You know, I'm thankful for the efforts that our President has taken to strengthen our relationship with Israel, and it, to me, is so important. I think we've moved the mark by doing what we've done and, you know, having the embassy in Jerusalem. I just can't comprehend the anti-Semitism that we are witnessing today. Ambassador Gold, the fight against hate and education about what has occurred during the Holocaust is so important to keep in mind as we create our policy in the future. How has the Holocaust's dark legacy impacted the people of Israel? Mr. Gold. My son served in the armored core of the Israeli Army, and I remember, at one point, his commanding officer takes him to Yad Vashem to show him the disaster that the Jewish people confronted during the Holocaust, and his officers try and imbue him as well as other soldiers with that message. So, it's very much--the Holocaust is very much in the conscience of Israel's citizenry. It doesn't make us less prone to compromise or to understand our neighbors by no means, but I think it adds to the inner conviction of the importance of our self-defense, especially when we have, not all neighbors, but certain neighbors that still use language that looks like it came out of Germany in the 1930's. Mrs. Miller. I have seen some of that language. I was fortunate to be able to go to the museum in Israel. When the guide took us in, he said, you have 45 minutes to view something that would take eight or nine hours. Mr. Gold. Sure. Mrs. Miller. And it's just so overwhelming. I just--I can't say enough about how we need to educate our children to understand. How do you think it's impacted the policy that's coming out of Israel? The policymakers, the policy? Mr. Gold. I think people have to separate as much as possible what happened in the Holocaust from everyday policymaking in the state of Israel. Again, you may have a vicious threat emerging in the east and you have to cope with it. For example, you have to understand, if somebody is going to say your country has to be wiped off the face of the Earth and then hangs a poster saying that on his latest generation weaponry, you'd better take it seriously. You can't ignore it. You can't just turn the other way. And I think therefore the Israeli leadership from the highest levels down to a corporal or private in the army understand what's at stake. It's very serious. But I think we approach it with a sense of tremendous responsibility. And I think we have to also use our diplomatic arm. I had hoped, frankly, around--not long after 9/11, that we would take up the Genocide Convention, which has been signed by the United States, by Israel, by many countries in the world, and start using it against countries that are using genocidal language. I will also say something that represents my personal view. It does not represent formally the positions of the state of Israel. I feel, having been an Israeli diplomat, that one of the responsibilities we have is to use our talents and our skills and our technical abilities to identify genocide when it is occurring anywhere in the world, and acting diplomatically to nip it in the bud. I have studied what happened in Africa during the 1990's. Mrs. Miller. Yes. Mr. Gold. I've studied the Battle of Srebrenica in Bosnia. And I would want the Jewish state to be a part of the international effort to prevent those things from ever reoccurring. Now, the Holocaust is a unique event, and I don't like to mix the Holocaust with other developments around the world, but the Holocaust teaches us how barbaric man can become. And, maybe, having been victims, we have a special responsibility to get the information and update people. And I'll just tell you one thing. Can I do it? Chairwoman Maloney. The gentleman's time is expired, but you can say one more thing because I want to hear it too. Tell me. Mr. Gold. You know, the state of Israel has many countries that turn to us--and you'd be surprised to know who they are-- and indicate a desire to, under the table, have relations with us. And I remember sitting with senior European diplomats and asking them, and saying, Look, we're in a dilemma. We want to expand our diplomatic relations around the world, but sometimes these are rather horrible countries. What would you do? And from the most important countries in western Europe, I heard statements like, look, Dore, we believe in realpolitik. And we would try and expand our diplomatic relations and basically turn away from the crimes that these countries are engaging in. That's horrible. And as the state of Israel, we should stand against that and we should advance policies that fight genocide, which is the most evil development, the most evil policy which we, part of the core of civilized countries, have to face. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. The gentlelady's time is expired. I now recognize the gentlewoman from Michigan, Ms. Tlaib, for questions. Ms. Tlaib. Thank you so much, Ms. Madam Chair. Thank you so much to Mr. Shaffir for coming here, for your incredible courage. I will make sure that my sons hear your testimony. I think it's really important for my children to consistently hear exactly what the Holocaust means and, again, so that we don't repeat it. And, Mr. Gold, you are absolutely right, humankind, what it can lead to if we do nothing. So, thank you, again, for--Chairwoman and my colleagues, for holding this important hearing today. It is imperative that we honor the victims of the Holocaust, to learn from the lessons of history, and continue to fight against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate. I always--I ran a campaign to take on hate in Michigan. I would always tell the young people you have to take on hate with action. So, this week, I'm really honored to be a cosponsor of the Never Again Education Act as we make sure that our children and every other generation understands what it means when we talk about the Holocaust. When I visited the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills, Michigan, with my young son, Adam, I remember he spent the day reading everything he could. When I had called beforehand, they said, Well, he might be too young for the visuals. I said, nope, if he can see that stuff in video games, if he can see a lot of that stuff on TV, he can see the reality of what is actually real. I wanted him to see it. So, he was reading this whole wall--you can look it up online--a whole wall of these news clippings, and even the news clippings documenting unspeakable atrocities of the Holocaust. And something I'll never forget, when he looked up at me and he asked, Mom--he calls me mama. He said, Mama, why did it take so long for people to do something about this? Because even at that young age, you know what he noticed? He noticed the years before we finally set Jews free. And at such a young age, he recognized how slow the international community was actually taking action. He could not comprehend how the world stood back as this brutality unfolded before him. So, you know, Dr. Friedberg, as a historian, and when you spoke about it, it was so important because it resonates with me about what's happening even across the world, and Mr. Gold talked about it, but even what's happening to Muslims in China. I'm really fearful we're going to find out much too late about what's happening there. But what can you tell me about the environment that enabled Adolph Hitler and the Nazis to rise to power? What can we--you know, history teach us about how the democratic process can devolve into a regime capable of such atrocities? Ms. Friedberg. Thank you, Congresswoman, very much, and also for sharing your personal perspective. I've brought my squirmy, young son with me here today. What I can tell you is that when you study the Holocaust and beyond Nazi Germany, what you see is that hate is only part of the story. And it would be a mistake and too comforting for us to think that if we can just inoculate ourselves against racism, that people will not do bad things to other people. But what we find when we study the Holocaust in its specificity is much of what enabled the Nazi rise to power had to do with motivations that are much more relatable, motivations like career aspirations, greed, fear, opportunism. We can see, for example, that the Nazi regime--and some of our fellows at the museum have researched this--offered great opportunities for women to be in roles that they had not been able to be in before, and many women were complicit in the killing process as a result. The Eastern Front, for example, offered a kind of, I guess, the opposite of a wild west, but an environment in which a lot of social norms were broken down. So, I want us to be careful not to think that there was some kind of brainwashing of the German people, but that also, for example, the Nuremberg laws of 1935, most of what happened to Jews in Nazi Germany was done legally. It was done in a framework of laws. This was not criminal. It was actually the government's actions. Ms. Tlaib. Adam noticed that. He saw the slow but sure enough taking away people's properties and things. Yes, he noticed that. Ms. Friedberg. Yes. Smart kid. So, as an example, in the Nuremberg laws, I'll just give one example, Jewish doctors were no longer allowed to treat so-called Arian patients. Think about that. If you're a medical resident and your chief resident is Jewish and suddenly he's gone, maybe you don't object so much because this opens a door to you and you're just going to be quiet. You're maybe afraid to make noise and it's an opportunity. So, I want us to think about that we study the history in its precision in that way because we see how any one of us could have been part of that process, whether or not we were a racist or anti-Semite in our hearts. Ms. Tlaib. And I want you to know, Mr. Shaffir, one of the things that spoke to me, why I took my son to the Holocaust Museum, is when he was nine years old--he's 14 now. When he was nine years old, he heard me talk to his father about this awful cartoon that was in USA Today that depicted Muslims in a way that it would invoke people-- to violence toward Muslims. I was just talking to his father, almost whispering to him, but he heard. And he comes into the bedroom, and he's like, Mama, don't worry, don't worry, if anybody asks if I'm Muslim, I will lie and tell them I'm not. At that moment it struck me, I was like, Oh, honey, no. We can't allow, you know, this to continue, this kind of form of oppression. I think, you know, all of you are doing incredibly important work, and I think--I loved seeing the NAACP here because an African-American Baptist pastor said it beautifully in Detroit. He said, We're not a country that's divided; we're a country that's disconnected, and we need to connect in understanding all of us as fellow human beings that never, ever deserve to be targeted based on who we are or our faith or anything like that. So, thank you all so much for your incredible testimony. And thank you, Chairwoman, for your leadership. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Shaffir. May I add something to---- Chairwoman Maloney. Yes. Yes. Mr. Shaffir. First of all, I would like to thank you very much for taking your son to actually witness something like that. It's very important. And I hope that and I wish that more mothers and more parents will take their children to places like that. Thank you very much. Ms. Tlaib. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. I now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Katie Porter, for questions. Ms. Porter. Thank you, Madam Chair. My colleague and I have the same age of sons, and my son Luke, when he came to Washington, I tried to interest him in so many things, and the only place that he wanted to go visit was The Holocaust Museum. Today's hearing topic, the ongoing battle against hate, is really personal for my community in Orange County. According to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department, the Poway synagogue shooter posted an anti-Semitic message on 8chan before he went on his rampage. And Samuel Woodward, the man accused of killing 19-year-old Blaze Bernstein at a park in my district, in Lake Forest, was reportedly a member of a militant Neo-Nazi group. Investigations found that Woodward openly described himself as a Nazi. I want to take a few minutes to focus on the role of social media and online chat rooms and messaging applications and their potential use as a platform for white supremacists to spread hate. Mr. Orsini, did social media play a role in the planning or the execution of the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue? Mr. Orsini. Unfortunately, I can't answer that question. That case is still under prosecution, and I've made an agreement not to talk about anything about the shooter himself. Ms. Porter. I appreciate your professionalism. Mr. Greenblatt, at a more general level, could you comment on what the research might tell us about how white supremacists are using the Internet and social media today? Mr. Greenblatt. Sure. Thank you very much for the question. I think social media has really, today, become almost a breeding ground of bigotry, and I say this as someone who worked in Silicone Valley for many years. I managed products, led teams of engineers. But Facebook is the frontline in fighting hate. Anti-Semitism thrives--and it used to be, if you were a white supremacist, you had to go to a compound in Idaho to find a rally. Now, you can find rallies taking place 24/7 with a swipe or a click, and your young kids, Congresswoman Tlaib, or your young kids, Congresswoman Porter, can literally, with a couple clicks on their phone, engage in the kind of horrific content you would never--that could never be published in print, would never be shown on television, could never find its way into film; it's now available to our children. So, I think there are things that companies can do to start the process. And, again, we believe in the First Amendment at the ADL, but we literally started a center in Silicone Valley in 2017. Our Center on Technology and Society is doing cutting- edge research. I have Ph.D.s in artificial intelligence machine learning who are working at ADL now doing research. And I'll just share, if I might, Congresswoman, some of the things that Silicone Valley could do today to tackle this problem. No. 1, they all have terms of service that prevent hateful speech, whether it's anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-Black, and all they need to do is recognize they are not public places; they're private companies. And the same way you couldn't go into Starbucks and slander Jews or sit in the Panera and yell at Mexicans, haters that get on these platforms should get pushed out like that. No. 2, they should adjust their algorithms. You can find salacious content on cable television late at night, but it's not available in the middle of the day for young children to see it. Adjusting the algorithms is the equivalent of having some editorial guidelines. No. 3, slow it down. The shooter in Christ Church who murdered 15 Muslims in cold blood in two mosques; the shooter in Halle who tried to burst into a synagogue, the shooter in El Paso, they used GoPro cameras and live-streamed their snuff films. But, frankly, there is no natural law that says, when I click ``publish,'' it should be available for billions of people to see. There should be a delay on this content, and they should use AI to prevent this kind of thing from getting out there. No. 4, the companies should stop hate for profit. YouTube shouldn't flight ads and allow neo-Nazis to make money on this content. Twitter shouldn't allow extremists to literally profiteer off of prejudice. This should stop right now. And, last, the companies should submit to regular independent third-party audits. This is crucial. I should say, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, we work with all these businesses, and they have taken some steps, but they haven't done enough. And if they would apply a bit of transparency and submit to the same kind of practices that all other businesses submit to so we had some context, then you would be able to independently verify whether they're doing enough to take the venom out of their systems. Ms. Porter. That is very helpful. Thank you so much for your concrete suggestions. I really appreciate it. I'm really excited about bringing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's traveling exhibition to the University of California-Irvine, and, so, Dr. Friedberg, I hope that, at some point, you'll be able to share with this committee sort of why that exhibit is so important and what you hope it will be able to accomplish. Ms. Friedberg. And I'll encourage those of you here in D.C., come see the exhibit here on Americans in the Holocaust, and I'll be happy to come speak in Irvine. Ms. Porter. And I've come and seen it twice---- Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you. Ms. Porter [continuing]. And I've taken numerous people there. I think it's wonderful. Chairwoman Maloney. The Congresswoman's time has expired. I now recognize the gentlewoman from New Mexico, Ms. Deb Haaland, for questions. Ms. Haaland. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you all so much for being here today. And thank you, Mr. Shaffir, for your strength, courage, and sacrifice. I'd like to first make mention and honor the man who worked tirelessly until his death to fight hate and who advocated feverishly to move the U.N. Genocide Convention forward, and he also coined the word ``genocide,'' and that's Mr. Raphael Lemkin. I think he would be proud of every single one of you for carrying on his legacy, so thank you for that. In its 2018 report, the FBI found that the number of victims of anti-Latino or Hispanic hate crimes increased by 21 percent over the previous year. In my home state of New Mexico, hate crimes have increased over 400 percent, and that includes, recently, the shooting death and beating deaths of homeless Native Americans in the city of Albuquerque. On August 3, 2019, a gunman entered a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, and shot and killed 22 people while also wounding 27. Minutes before the rampage, the shooter posted an anti- immigrant manifesto warning about the, quote, Hispanic invasion of Texas, and vowed to shoot, quote, as many Mexicans as possible. Among those was Angie Englisbee. She was murdered that day. She was 84 years old and a New Mexican, the oldest of 10 siblings. She had seven children, 21 grandchildren and great grandchildren. Children have lost their parents, parents have lost their children, and yet we can't figure out how to stop reliving this nightmare. No one should have to live it, especially not our immigrant communities, the communities that enrich our country by bringing their cultures here and sharing them with all of us. Hate has been weaponized against so many communities: my own community, Hispanic, Muslim, and immigrant communities. So, my first question is for you, Mr. Greenblatt. In your view, what might be driving the increase of anti-immigrant or anti-Latino sentiment? Mr. Greenblatt. Congresswoman, I'm really grateful you asked this question, because it allows me to say something I didn't have the opportunity to say before. Hate crimes are vastly underreported. Sometimes this comes from the fact that the people in the communities don't know to report their experience as hate crimes. Sometimes it comes from the fact that law enforcement isn't trained. But I am deeply concerned about the Latino and the immigrant communities who we know are afraid to report these incidents. I know this because I have heard this from immigrants and Latinos. And the ADL developed a partnership with the Government of Mexico. We've provided hate crimes training to over 2,000 Mexican consular officials across the United States, over 2,000, because Mexican nationals living here in the U.S., they are literally going to their consulates to say, my child's been bullied at school, my business was vandalized, because they're afraid to go to the police because of the rumors of ICE enforcement. It is unthinkable that people living here legally are afraid of the authorities. So, why is this happening? The anti-immigrant movement in the United States has been empowered in ways we have never seen before. You have the kind of hateful rhetoric coming from people in positions of authority, starting with the White House, demonizing immigrants, dehumanizing Latinos and people seeking refuge in this country, in ways that I think are unconscionable. ADL has done reporting on this. I would point you to our report on the anti-immigrant move in the United States. We need people in positions of authority to use that authority wisely and recognize that this country needs to be welcoming of everyone, particularly those vulnerable people seeking refuge in our shores. Frankly, that's why this country was founded, and that's what we need to live up to those values today. Ms. Haaland. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. I will go to Dr. Friedberg. During the Holocaust, many countries, including the United States, erected barriers to make it nearly impossible for Jewish people to immigrate. Is that correct? Ms. Friedberg. Not exactly. Thank you for the question. In fact, they didn't need to erect barriers during the Holocaust because the barriers were already in place. Immigration laws that were passed in this body in 1924 severely restricted immigration based on country of origin. And one fact that is very important to know is the United States did not have any refugee policy. I'm going to repeat that. There was no refugee policy in the United States during the period of the Holocaust. So, it's not that it wasn't enforced. We simply did not treat people who were fleeing from violence or persecution in any way different than we would treat an economic immigrant or someone coming for family reunification. So, it just was not a priority of the U.S. Government at that time. Ms. Haaland. Thank you so much. I'll just--I have one more. I have a--I think I'm out of time. I yield, Madam Chair. Thank you. Chairwoman Maloney. The gentlelady's time has expired. I would now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Lacy Clay, for questions. Mr. Clay. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks for convening this hearing today on this important subject. I want to thank the panel for your testimony. In my district in St. Louis, which my friend and witness, Mr. Shelton, grew up in, I have a large and very historic Jewish community, which I have enjoyed a great friendship with over many decades. Three years ago, just a few blocks from my home, a historic Jewish cemetery in University City, Missouri, was vandalized, causing shock and pain to families. I had the opportunity to work with them to make that cemetery whole again, and I considered that not only my duty, but an obligation of faith. Earlier this week, the St. Louis Jewish Federation announced an $18 million expansion of this remarkable Holocaust Museum. Holocaust education is essential, not just to honor the memory of the victims, but because future generations must know that evil deeds can begin with hateful words, and hate can proceed and grow and good people remain silent. Many of us remember the quote, Unite the Right rally that took place in Charlottesville in August 2017. We watched with horror as white supremacists and neo-Nazis boldly and proudly marched with their burning torches chanting, ``Jews will not replace us,'' and, ``Into the ovens.'' Ultimately, one self- described neo-Nazi rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 30 other people. Dr. Friedberg, ``into the ovens,'' I believe, is a Holocaust reference. Would you agree? Ms. Friedberg. Yes. Mr. Clay. Do you believe the public at large understood the significance of those words? Ms. Friedberg. Some do and some don't. And, in fact, in the aftermath of Charlottesville, we created a whole educators guide and website to make sure that the public could deconstruct and understand the dog whistles and symbols that were being invoked. Mr. Clay. Thank you. Mr. Shaffir, after everything you have experienced, how does it make you feel to see scenes like Charlottesville and other scenes like that? What does that do for you? Mr. Shaffir. Well---- Mr. Clay. Turn on your mic. Mr. Shaffir. Memories like that keep coming back. I remember when I was six and seven and eight and seeing all the violence against Jewish people, against Jewish children. It kind of wakes me up more, and I'm trying to do as much as I possibly can while I'm alive, because after we're gone, very hard for somebody to know what really happened there. Mr. Clay. No, and you're right. I appreciate you coming forward today and telling--sharing your story---- Mr. Shaffir. Thank you. Mr. Clay [continuing]. With us here in Congress. Mr. Shaffir. Thank you. Mr. Clay. Thank you. Mr. Greenblatt, how does the Anti-Defamation League define neo-Nazi? Mr. Greenblatt. So, at the ADL, we track extremists across the board, including right-wing extremists, some of whom identify as, quote, neo-Nazi. These are people who openly embrace the Third Reich, its ideology, its iconography, and continue to promote it today. Mr. Clay. So, how would you characterize the threat of neo- Nazism in the U.S. today, and do you believe the Charlottesville march reflects or contributes to increasing anti-Semitism? Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. I think the issue today is less Nazism itself and more extremism, of which Nazism represents one sort of hue or variance of that. So, I worry about the violent right-wing extremism, which has been responsible for 73 percent of the extremist-related murders in this country over the past decade. I worry about the right-wing extremism which was responsible for 49 of the 50 extremist-related murders in 2018. I worry about the right-wing extremism that promotes a toxic ideology in which African Americans, Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ people, Latinos, immigrants, anyone who is different from their vision of this country, is demonized, dehumanized, and they think ultimately should be murdered. And we've seen that play out in El Paso, in Pittsburgh, in Poway, in too many places in the past few years. Mr. Clay. How would you characterize the actions of a top White House official named Stephen Miller and how he has fed into this frenzy? Can you comment on that? Mr. Greenblatt. Well, we're on the record as calling for the resignation of Stephen Miller because of his utilization of white supremacist ideas and ideology. We've seen some of the documents that have been released suggesting he was trying to promote this in the media. And, you know, again, ultimately we judge people based on what they do, and not just what they say, but what they do, and the set of policies, we think, don't reflect, as I said earlier, our values in this country. As the grandson of a refugee, as the husband of a refugee, I just can't countenance a country in which we don't embrace refugees and other people seeking refuge here. Mr. Clay. My time is up, but I thank you all for your response. And I yield. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you so much. And I now recognize the very patient gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Malinowski. Mr. Malinowski. Well, it takes patience to fight anti- Semitism, so thank you. Mr. Greenblatt, I wanted to start with you. You said this morning that ADL's research has found that the increase in anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic attacks in the United States is not caused by a change in attitudes among Americans; rather, more of the millions of Americans holding these views are feeling emboldened to act on their hate. So, I wanted to explore that with you. Obviously, there's a lot of explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric in the public sphere today. Charges of dual loyalty, for example. But I think a number of the questions have focused on less explicit examples. So, for example, Ms. Debbie Wasserman Schultz asked you about conspiracy theories, and I wanted to be even more explicit about that. When people in the public sphere rail against globalists-- -- Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. The deep state---- Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. When prominent people or prominent people who happen to be Jews are attacked for controlling the State Department or the mass media, does that make for a safer climate for Jewish Americans? Mr. Greenblatt. Well, clearly the invocation--Congressman, thank you for the question. Clearly, the invocation of those anti-Semitic tropes create an environment which is literally dangerous for Jews and for all people. And when you talk about it being the public sphere, let me give you an example. Right now, Chairwoman Maloney, or any of your staff, I'd invite you to open up YouTube and look at the comments on this hearing, which I am--I have just learned are rife with the kind of Holocaust denialism and anti-Semitic conspiracy that Mr. Malinowski is asking me about. I mean, this is a clear and present danger, and it's happening right now, unfolding as we speak. Mr. Malinowski. And you were also asked about anti- immigrant rhetoric, so rhetorical attacks on immigrants threatening our culture, statements about immigrant invasions or infestations, same category in terms of impact on safety for Jewish Americans. Mr. Greenblatt. Yes. I mean, short answer is yes. These are the invocation of classic anti-Semitic tropes and long-standing stereotypes. As is mentioned by Dr. Friedberg, they were used to justify restrictive immigration laws in the first half of the 20th century---- Mr. Malinowski. Right. Mr. Greenblatt [continuing]. And they're used to dehumanize people today. Mr. Malinowski. In fact, Mr. Orsini, the shooter in Pittsburgh explicitly cited his paranoid fears about immigrants invading America and blaming Jews for funding refugees in the United States. Is that not correct? Mr. Orsini. It's accurate, correct. Mr. Malinowski. And then let me just raise the question of Israel, because obviously demonization of Israel, including by movements such as BDS, contributes to a less safe climate for Jewish Americans. But is it enough, Mr. Greenblatt, to be pro- Israel, to say that you stand against anti-Semitism in the United States? Mr. Greenblatt. Look, I am unapologetically, unabashedly, unashamedly Zionist, and my organization is proud to be pro- Israel. But at the same time--and I will tell you that BDS, the architects of the BDS campaign and the impact it creates absolutely contributes to anti-Semitism. And there is no doubt that delegitimizing the Jewish state contributes to delegitimizing the Jewish people. But here today, when we talk about anti-Semitism, there are no BDS placards in Brooklyn when Jews are being assaulted in the streets. And so I think we need to be able to say, yes, we can be pro-Israel, but we can also be antibigotry, and the things aren't necessarily the same. Mr. Malinowski. Mr. Gold, have you heard of a man named Robert Jeffress? Mr. Gold. I have not. Mr. Malinowski. You mentioned the embassy opening in Jerusalem, and I was in favor of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Robert Jeffress is an evangelical pastor who was invited by the administration to say the opening prayer at that ceremony. He claims to be pro-Israel. He's also said, and I'm just quoting him, you cannot be saved being a Jew. He said that Judaism, like other non-Christian religions, not only lead people away from the true God; they lead people to an eternity of separation from God and hell. And this is somebody who claims to be pro-Israel and who gave the invocation at that ceremony. So, can you see that it may be possible to be superficially pro-Israel while, in fact, also contributing to the climate that is making life less safe for Jews in America? Mr. Gold. There's an expression in English, it's called due diligence, and hopefully, when you organize ceremonies of such importance for the U.S. Government or for any western or any power in the world, you have to check who's coming. And, obviously, these are detestable positions. But I wanted to ask something else, because I'm getting a sense here--and I really don't want to jump into the American domestic scene, but it seems like everything is coming from the right. And my understanding of the rebirth of anti-Semitism, it's both right wing and left wing. It's both. And you can't just lean over and say it's one and ignore the other. So, hopefully, when we decide what are the sources of anti- Semitism that are confronting us, worldwide, we look at both sources and we fight against them. Mr. Malinowski. Well, let me just say I fully agree, and I think most of us would agree that the extremes of left and right tend to come together, and anti-Semitism is the place where they come together. Thank you, and I yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. I thank the gentleman. And, without objection, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Doyle, shall be permitted to participate in today's hearing. And the gentleman from Pennsylvania is recognized for questions or statement. Mr. Doyle. I thank the chair. And, first of all, I want to say thank you to you, Mr. Shaffir, for being here today. It's a very powerful testimony, and we must continue to hear these stories so that we never, ever forget. And I think it's most important for young people, the young generations coming up, to make sure that they know this too. And I also want to welcome Brad Orsini---- Mr. Orsini. Sure. Mr. Doyle [continuing]. And say thank you for being here today and what you did before and after for the Tree of Life attack in our home city of Pittsburgh. For the panelists and people here in the audience, Squirrel Hill, which is a neighborhood in Pittsburgh where this horrific attack took place, is a kind of neighborhood that you would never expect anything like this to be possible. This is a multiracial, multicultural, vibrant community where people of all faiths and ethnicities get along with one another and work on community projects together. And when I saw the television that morning--I was in my kitchen--that there was an active shooter down in Squirrel Hill near the Tree of Life, it almost didn't register at first. So, I guess we're learning that there's really no place that's a hundred percent safe, no matter--even though we have this sense of security in our neighborhoods that nothing bad ever happens, we see something bad can happen. And so, Brad, I wonder if you could explain the ways that, you know, in places that you'd never expect--these aren't areas where you expect to have these kinds of incidents, how you look--what signs you look for for signs of hate and violence, and how do you engage with social media for security purposes too? Do you think that the attack on the Tree of Life changed the way that the Pittsburgh Jewish community views their security? Mr. Orsini. Sure. I think it was a watershed moment for the entire Jewish community across the country. Nobody that knows Pittsburgh and knows Squirrel Hill would have ever imagined that. But I would say, I think anybody that's been involved in a mass casualty attack would say the same thing: It never happens to us. And that's why our work is so important, the work at the Secure Community Network, that we do now across the country to make awareness, teach and educate our community to be resilient, teach our community to be first responders. We're, in effect, a community. It can happen to anyone, anywhere. And a lot of things we've learned over the last five or six years during mass casualty events, active shooter events, is that we need to do a better job in educating our community on what to do in case they are attacked. In the case of social media, we are working very hard in the Jewish community and national platforms through the Secure Community Network, the organization I work with now, to talk about an established social media review and to find these signs of hate. I think in Pittsburgh, most people didn't know who Patriot Front, Identity Evropa was. We see those signs all over Pittsburgh. It's important for us to educate the community why not to dismiss any signs of hate, even though it's a piece of paper on a telephone pole. We need to let our community, our country know who these people are so we can identify them, assess that threat, and mitigate the next attack. And social media plays a big role in this. We work hand in hand with the FBI, but the FBI needs help. They can't openly search social media sites. They've got to rely on the community. The community needs to be great partners with law enforcement so we cannot dismiss any signs of hate. Mr. Doyle. Thank you. Mr. Shaffir, I see in your testimony that you said something, I think, that was really powerful, that the enemy of the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors like yourself was time. And what do you think are the best ways to amplify and spread your story and the stories of other survivors to make sure we get them to young people so that they understand this too? Mr. Shaffir. As I mentioned earlier, I'm involved with the Holocaust Museum. We travel for the museum to various colleges, various high schools. We speak to various groups. And only important thing that we do right now is to educate. Very important to educate. And I keep constantly saying that education is so important, and I will continue to do so. Mr. Doyle. Thank you. Madam Chair, thank you so much for your gracious time, and I will yield back. Chairwoman Maloney. Thank you for your contribution to this important hearing. Without objection, the following documents from organizations and individuals fighting hate shall be made a part of the hearing record: Written testimony from organizations and individuals, including Liz Igra, Holocaust survivor and president of the Central Valley Holocaust Educators' Network; Julie Raymond, director of political outreach for AJC, Global Jewish Advocacy; Deborah Lauter, executive director of New York City Office for Prevention of Hate Crimes; Eric Fusfield, director of legislative affairs and deputy director of the International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy of B'nai B'rith; a report from the Jewish Federations of North America; an op-ed from our witness, ADL president, Jonathan Greenblatt. I want to thank all of my colleagues, and especially an incredible, a remarkable, distinguished panel, for your wisdom, your insights, your ideas, and your time for being with us and sharing this incredible hearing with us. So, I think we know that we have a lot more work to do and that we can't sit back and let these acts of hate go unconfronted and responding to them. And I think we've learned that we must work together to combat hate, bigotry, and violence of all kinds. And I want to thank all of you for your advocacy and your guidance. The committee will be continuing this series of hearings on hate, and I welcome all of you and all of the members of the panel here and of Congress to give me your ideas for any additional thoughts for proposals you believe the committee should review. I just want to thank you again. And I'd like to thank our witnesses for testifying today. And, without objection, all members will have five legislative days within which to submit additional written questions for the witnesses to the chair which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response. And I ask our witnesses to please respond as promptly as you are able. I do want to say a very, very special thank you to the Holocaust Museum and for working with Congress, Dr. Edna Friedberg. We are hopeful that it will pass our bill in the Senate, and we'll have a centralized data base that teachers can access for lesson plans to teach tolerance, acceptance, understanding that is appropriate. We hope it will pass with the allocation and funding so that we can take some of your exhibits to every congressional district in the country to learn more about how we can combat hate. I want to thank you again. It's been a remarkable hearing. I'm very inspired. Thank you for being here and for all of your wisdom inspiring all of us. This meeting is adjourned. [Whereupon, at 1:31 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] [all]