It is the dirty secret that everyone knows but few are ready to discuss publicly. The secret is the exponential increase of antisemitism in America today. While overt antisemitism was once reduced to fringes of discourse, today it has become almost acceptable in quarters of the far right and sadly even more so on the progressive left. 

It has become acceptable in universities to marginalize Jews and discriminate against them, using Israel is a convenient scapegoat by claiming to be anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish.  

Even worse, prominent entertainers and sports figures feel comfortable spewing the most vile, antisemitic tropes without being ostracized from civilized company.  

There are three courageous congressmen, one Democrat and two Republicans, who in honor of Chanukah, have courageously stood up and in a bipartisan voice released a statement of support and defense for the Jewish Community. 

Those three, Congressman Don Bacon, Congressman Henry Cuellar and Congressman Randy Feenstra, have come together in a bipartisan way to jointly declare that Congress stands united with the Jewish community against this “cancerous hatred being harbored towards the Jewish Community.”  

The representatives addressed their letter to well-known Torah figure, Rav Dovid Hofstedter, Nasi of Dirshu. The three congressmen have worked together with Rav Hofstedter in the past on several burning issues facing the Jewish community and understood that as a son and son-in-law of Holocaust survivors who is at the forefront of trying to restore scholarship to its pre-Holocaust levels, Rav Hofstedter’s concern over this matter was acute and he would spread the word among fellow Jewish community members.  

The following is the text of the historic letter in its entirety: