“Antisemitism thrives in loopholes. Congress has the power and the obligation to close them,” Adela Cojab, of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, told the committee.
As the Trump administration threatens to take a hard line on antisemitic protesters, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday that addressed where to draw the line between free speech and Jew-hatred.
“You’ll find few people who are more in favor of the First Amendment than I am, and I oppose censorship over political debate,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the panel’s chair, said at the start of the hearing. “Threats to the safety of Jewish people are obviously not protected forms of speech, yet that’s what we’re continuing to see and hear.”
Adela Cojab, a legal fellow at the National Jewish Advocacy Center, testified about encountering Jew-hatred as a New York University student even before the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.