Senate hearing on antisemitism thrown into chaos as anti-Israel agitators shout obscenities

The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes devolved into chaos on Tuesday, with members engaging in partisan shouting matches over the hearing’s broad focus amid repeated disruptions by anti-Israel agitators in the crowd.

The crowd at Tuesday’s hearing, which was the first hearing in the Senate addressing antisemitism since Oct. 7, was largely made up of people in keffiyehs, several of whom had to be escorted out by Capitol Police officers for shouting profanities. One man shouted “F*** Israelis” and that he did not care about “f***ing Jews” during Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) questioning of witnesses, saying that lawmakers should talk about the “dead Palestinians.”

“I would make a note for the record. This hearing is about hate. It includes antisemitism as well as hatred toward other people,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the chairman of the committee and the No. 2 Senate Democrat, said after the incident disrupted the hearing.

“Who gets up and yells ‘F***ing Jews’ at an antisemitism hearing? I think it proves our point,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the top Republican on the committee, remarked to Jewish Insider just after proceedings concluded.

“I don’t know why they did it. They would have been better off not to have done the hearing,” Graham added of Democrats, who control the upper chamber and organized the hearing.

Republicans and Democrats repeatedly sparred over the latter’s refusal to allow for a focused hearing solely on antisemitism, despite hate crimes against Jews surging to rates that one of the Democratic witnesses, Maya Berry, the executive director of the Arab American Institute, acknowledged had exceeded other religious and ethnic groups in the last year.

“You and I agree on more than we disagree, and we certainly agree that hate crimes should be treated seriously, whatever their origin or purpose. They are unacceptable in this nation of ours,” Durbin said in response to criticism from Graham.

“Prioritizing which group is being discriminated against the worst, I don’t believe is a valid exercise of our authority here. What we are trying to do is … identify a problem in America that extends beyond the Jewish population to the Arab population, the Palestinian population,” Durbin added.

Durbin also mistakenly claimed while on the dais that Tuesday’s hearing was not the first Senate hearing on antisemitism since Oct. 7 after Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) noted as much.

Berry and Kenneth Stern, a former American Jewish Committee official at odds with leading Jewish groups on combating campus antisemitism, were the Democrats’ two witnesses. Republicans called Rabbi Mark Goldfeder, the director of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a group that supports International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and engages in lawfare around antisemitism among other Jewish and pro-Israel efforts. He was also an attorney for former President Donald Trump during the Russia investigation.

During Berry’s early questioning by Graham, she refused to say that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran seek to destroy the Jewish state, instead responding, “I think these are complicated questions.”

“There’s nothing complicated about this. That’s the most ridiculous testimony ever given in this committee. If you think it’s complicated to figure out that Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran want to kill all the Jews, I should not listen to anything else you’ve got to say, and I won’t,” Graham replied before pivoting to Goldfeder.

Berry said during an exchange with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) that she believes the focus should be on addressing hate crimes against individuals of all religious groups rather than policing hurtful speech.

“In terms of the post-Oct. 7 situation, as our data has sort of demonstrated, is that we are seeing without a doubt an increase for both [Jewish and Arab American] communities and continues to be one where, frankly, the challenge has been that we’re not having the conversation about hate crimes. We’re having conversations about speech and how you define this when the reality is we’re already seeing a dramatic increase in students who are being targeted,” Berry said.

Stern made a similar suggestion while answering a question from Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), saying, “I don’t think on campus we’re going to totally dispel this with discipline. There are certainly places where you need to have things, police come in and so forth, but that should be the last resort. The education should be the response to it.”

One controversial moment of the hearing came when Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) repeatedly pressed Berry if she supported Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran.

Berry responded, “I’m going to say thank you for that question because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today,” describing Kennedy’s questioning as an example of Islamophobia. She said she did not support Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.

Her comment was met with cheers, as were a number of her other statements.

A source familiar with the matter told JI that there was some crosstalk and it was unclear whether Kennedy heard Berry’s full responses. Kennedy began his questioning by citing Berry’s vocal support for UNRWA, which has come under fire for employing individuals who aided Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack.

When Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) showed photos of anti-Israel protesters holding a banner reading “Long Live the Intifada” and asked if the witnesses would condemn the message as antisemitic, Berry declined.

“I don’t know that person, and I don’t know that sign,” Berry replied. “’Long live the Intifada’ can mean different [things].”

“Intifada also means ‘uprising’ for Palestinians,” she added.

Goldfeder, meanwhile, was booed for responding affirmatively. “It’s a call for the destruction of the state of Israel and the killing of Jews everywhere,” he said.

The antisemitic invective deployed by demonstrators inside the hearing room carried over into the hallway outside, with a group of demonstrators from CodePink pouncing on lawmakers as they entered and exited the hearing room.

Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, criticized the hearing.

“After nearly a year of crisis and peril for American Jews, the U.S. Senate finally attempted to act — but it failed to do so in a serious and meaningful way,” Diament said. “They constructed a hearing without a witness testifying to the consensus view and experience of the mainstream Jewish community. And the Senate also has yet to actually move any of the legislation that has passed the House and offers some potential solutions to the situation.”

An Anti-Defamation League spokesperson said in a statement that it “was pleased to see the Senate Judiciary Committee take up the very troubling issue of rising hate crimes in America.”

The ADL also condemned Kennedy’s line of questioning toward Berry.

“However, no matter how much we may disagree with some of those invited to testify, we are concerned with the hearing’s political theatrics. Just as it’s antisemitic to hold the Jewish community accountable for actions of the state of Israel, it’s wrong to single out an Arab American as a terrorist sympathizer,” the spokesperson said.

“With antisemitic incidents already at historic levels, there are unique and complex challenges facing the Jewish community that must be addressed. We urge our Democratic and Republican leaders to work together to pursue concerted strategies to understand and address antisemitism and hate in all forms through a comprehensive whole-of-government approach.”

Sheila Katz, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, also called Kennedy’s exchange with Berry “heartbreaking” and said that “this hearing should combat hate, not perpetuate it. The Senate must do better.”

Numerous Judiciary Committee Republicans, including Graham, told JI that they would convene an antisemitism-focused hearing addressing the civil rights violations of Jewish students on college campuses if they retake the Senate in November.

Cruz said, “If there is a Republican majority in the Senate, you can be confident we will see a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee focused directly on antisemitism on campus. And if President Trump is reelected, I also have complete confidence that the Department of Justice and the FBI will follow the money. What is amazing is there’s been no effort that is discernible to follow the money, whether it is from Iran, whether it is from Qatar, whether it is from major Democratic donors.”

“It was striking that almost no Senate Democrat asked about antisemitism on college campuses. They don’t care about it,” Cruz added.