As the United States Senate considers “hate crimes” legislation as part of the Defense Authorization Act, the provisions will have the support of Agudath Israel of America – the first time the national Orthodox Jewish organization has supported such legislation.

The hate crimes provision would, among other things, impose new criminal penalties for causing willful, hate-related bodily injury to members of specified groups. The measure has already cleared the House, and enjoys the Obama Administration’s support.

Now it enjoys Agudath Israel’s too. In a letter to the defense bill’s sponsors, the group’s Washington Director and Counsel, Rabbi Abba Cohen, writes that the problem of hate crimes is “personal and all-too-familiar” to the Jewish community. He continues, “It is no secret that Jews have often been, and continue to be, the victims of violence and intimidation.”

“Orthodox Jews, in particular,” the letter notes, “because their mode of dress makes them so identifiable and because their living in clustered communities makes them so visible, are often an easy and preferred target of anti-Semites.”

The bill, which relates specifically to bodily injury, also includes several changes to existing law that will make it easier for the federal government to prosecute hate crimes. Limited federal jurisdiction and overly restrictive conditions have tied prosecutors’ hands – so much so, Rabbi Cohen observes, “that, since the original law’s enactment in 1968, there have never been more than 10 indictments in any one year.”

Rabbi Cohen points out that during the 1991 Crown Heights riots, limitations in the law at the time stymied the federal prosecution of Lemrick Nelson, who stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum, a rabbinical student who died of his wounds. Sections of the current bill are directed specifically at those limitations, and will make it easier for federal authorities to intervene and effectively prosecute violent hate crimes like Mr. Rosenbaum’s murder.

Agudath Israel has objected to similar proposals in the past in part because of the group’s concern that those, like members of the organization’s constituency, with deep-seated beliefs about what constitutes moral behavior, might be cast – or even prosecuted – as criminals for their religious beliefs or expressions of the same.

The legislation, Rabbi Cohen explains, goes far in alleviating these concerns, directly addressing the issues of religious belief, expression and association in four specifically-targeted provisions. Each preserves a religious adherent’s constitutional right to the free exercise of religion and makes clear that the legislation cannot be construed to infringe, prohibit, diminish or burden that right. Of particular importance is the bill’s inclusion of a provision that no one can be prosecuted solely because he or she maintains a certain religious belief or identifies with a certain religious denomination.

The Agudath Israel letter, taking note of those provisions, states: “These provisions provide vital reassurance that mere religious belief, expression or association….would not give rise to an independent “hate crime” prosecution….[and] that clergy and other religious functionaries will have the ability to exercise their precious constitutional right to preach and teach denominational doctrine as they see fit – freely and openly….”

(YWN Desk – NYC)