FBI Director Christopher Wray said at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing that “antisemitism and violence that comes out of it is a persistent and present fact.”
“The numbers that we’ve seen – about 63% of religious hate crimes overall – are motivated by antisemitism: And that’s targeting a group that just makes up about 2.4% of the American population,” he said.
Wray addressed a question on Thursday from Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-New Jersey, District 5), who asked about the bureau’s actions to fight rising antisemitism, in light of a recent threat to synagogues in his state.
“I’m obviously pleased that we were able to make an arrest in the case in New Jersey,” Wray said, adding that there is still work to be done.
“It’s a community that deserves and desperately needs our support because they’re getting hit from all sides,” Wray said, adding that the agency is trying to address the threat through various units, including hate crimes and domestic terrorism, and taking a more proactive approach. Such an approach, he said, was able to “prevent an intended attack on a synagogue in Colorado.”
“It’s a community that deserves and desperately needs our support because they’re getting hit from all sides,”
FBI Director Christopher Wray
“We need to tap into the eyes and ears in the community”
Another aspect, the FBI director said, is a “very aggressive outreach campaign that’s designed to raise awareness,” and help people know how to report hate crimes and what to be on the lookout for. “We need to tap into the eyes and ears in the community,” he said.
“And that has included, in New York, translating some of the material into Yiddish and Hebrew to make it more accessible to certain parts of the Jewish community.”
Gottheimer, speaking with The Jerusalem Post amid the threat to his state’s synagogues two weeks ago, said that the situation was “deeply concerning and outrageous.” He noted that according to the ADL, the second highest number of reported incidents in the country’s history was recorded last year.
Asked what his message was to local congregants who want to go to synagogue, Gottheimer replied: “Feel safe – go. They should go to shul... We must not back down against antisemitism.”