VIDEO: During the High Holidays, Rosen Highlights Rising Levels of Antisemitism, Calls for Increased Nonprofit Security Grant Funding

Watch the Senator's Full Remarks HERE.

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, U.S. Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV), co-founder and co-chair of the Senate Bipartisan Task Force for Combating Antisemitism, delivered remarks on the Senate floor about the rising levels of antisemitism and increased fears in Jewish communities across the country during the High Holidays. She called on her Senate colleagues to support increased funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and cosponsor her bipartisan Jewish American Security Act (JASA). Every year, synagogues and other Jewish institutions spend, on average, $1 billion in security costs - a number which has continued to increase as antisemitic incidents in the U.S. have become more common.

Senator Rosen has been a leader in fighting antisemitism and keeping Jewish communities safe. The Jewish American Security Act (JASA), a comprehensive antisemitism bill focused on protecting Jewish Americans on campuses, in their communities, and online, would authorize $1 billion for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which many houses of worship and other at-risk institutions rely on to pay for security upgrades. Senator Rosen is also the author of the bipartisan Holocaust Education and Antisemitism Lessons (HEAL) Act, which would direct the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to study and report on state efforts to educate students on the Holocaust. She recently returned from an official trip to Poland, where she visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum and JCC Krakow and met with AJC's Central Europe Office, the Chief Rabbi of Poland, and members of the local Jewish community to discuss the impacts of unchecked antisemitism.

Below is the full transcript of Senator Rosen's remarks:

This past weekend, Jews across the country and around the globe celebrated Rosh Hashanah - ringing in the New Year with hope and excitement for what is to come.

And now, we're just days away from the holiest day in the Jewish calendar: Yom Kippur, when we take time to reflect on the year ahead and atone for actions we've taken in the past year.

The ten days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the most sacred and widely observed time in the Jewish calendar.

This is a time when we all come together with family, friends, and loved ones. A time for reflection, for gratitude, and for celebrating the traditions that connect us to one another and to generations before us.

Unfortunately, for too many American Jews, the High Holidays are also bringing something else: fear.

While Jewish families are preparing to hear the shofar and gather around their holiday tables, synagogue leaders and their congregations are asking themselves questions that no one should have to ask before they go to worship, before they go to pray, before they go to a sanctuary.

They're asking, "Is our place of worship safe?"

Do we have enough security? Are our doors secure? Do we have enough cameras?

What happens if someone targets our congregation? What if there is an active shooter? Do we know all the exits? Do we know what to do, where to go?

These are questions no one should have to ask in this country.

And yet that is the reality for too many Jewish communities today.

Of course, if you look at the data, these fears are not unfounded.

According to a recent ADL report, 2025 was the third-highest year for antisemitic incidents in the United States since the ADL began collecting data, and physical assaults against Jews were higher in 2025 than ever before.

And FBI data has shown that Jewish Americans were the target of nearly 70% of religiously motivated hate crimes in this country in 2025, despite making up just 2% of the population.

This data corresponds to horrific incidents we've seen on news reports this past year, including:

A historic synagogue in Jackson, Mississippi, being firebombed. Jewish congregations defaced in Austin, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and Oak Park, Michigan. And, in West Bloomfield, Michigan, a man drove his car into a building housing a synagogue and preschool, and then opened fire.

I wish I could say these were isolated incidents, but I can't.

These incidents are part of an alarming trend.

Jews in America are facing the kind of hatred that reminds us that antisemitism is not something of the past.

It's not something we only read about in history books, though they have shown us what happens when antisemitism is allowed to take hold of a society.

I recently returned from Poland, where I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.

The preserved grounds of the concentration camp serve as a sad testament to what can happen when hatred is allowed to reach its most evil forms.

It happened after years and years of increasing discrimination, violence, and marginalization that went unchecked.

There are countless lessons of the Holocaust, but one of the strongest ones is what can happen when ordinary people look at hatred with indifference.

The Holocaust did not only happen because of the Nazis, but because of the millions of people who kept silent in the face of dehumanization and prejudice. They kept silent

This indifference allowed for the murder of six million Jews, as well as millions of others.

This is why we must recommit ourselves to relearning these lessons and not allowing hatred to go ignored in our country today.

So during the August state work period, I also met with rabbis from four congregations in Southern Nevada to discuss how they are preparing for the High Holidays, and they all shared the same concern: the physical safety of their congregations, of people who come to worship. From the newborn all the way to the oldest senior citizen.

We talked about the security preparations they have to make during this time of the year, and the costs that go along with them.

We also talked about the fear that comes with knowing that a place of worship can become a target in an instant, and the burden that falls on synagogue leaders and volunteers to protect their place of worship, their family, their friends.

It's a burden I know all too well.

Before I came to the Senate, I served as president of the largest Reform synagogue in Nevada.

I know what it takes to prepare a congregation for the High Holidays, and I know that security plans have become an unfortunate and expensive part of that preparation.

In fact, security costs are usually the largest portion of a synagogue's budget because you have to pay for hiring guards, installing barricades, adding bulletproof glass to windows, reinforcing doors, metal detectors - you have to walk through a metal detector to get into a synagogue.

According to a recent study from the Jewish Federations of North America, the community spends an average of $1 billion a year on security, a record high. Billions of dollars just to worship safely.

Think about that. In the United States, in 2026, we have Americans who have to worship behind locked doors, bulletproof glass, and be protected by armed guards, just to be with their families and friends. Imagine if you needed security to worship, gather together

We can't ask these communities to shoulder that burden alone.

This is exactly why I've always supported fully funding and reforming the Nonprofit Security Grant Program.

This program helps synagogues, like the one I led in Nevada, and other houses of worship and at-risk institutions make critical security improvements for the safety of their congregations.

It's a life-saving program that helps the Jewish community - and other religious communities at risk of violence - offset the costs of keeping themselves safe, which is why I introduced bipartisan legislation to nearly triple the funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and to improve it to make sure the money actually gets to the communities that need it.

My Jewish American Security Act, which I introduced with Senator James Lankford, would also create a new Department of Justice grant program to help state and local law enforcement increase security around at-risk houses of worship.

These additional protections mean the difference between walking into a synagogue thinking about prayer and walking into a synagogue and wondering where are that exits at what your escape routes might be.

They are about making sure that a child can walk into a pre-school or Hebrew school and think about learning and not about an active shooter drill.

And they are about making sure that our houses of worship remain what they are supposed to be: places of faith, community, and peace.

I often say that antisemitism is the canary in the coal mine. It is a warning sign.

When hatred against one community is allowed to grow, it threatens all of us.

So we cannot wait for the next attack.

We cannot wait for another synagogue to be targeted.

We cannot wait for another family to be afraid to walk through the doors of their own house of worship anywhere.

We have to act now, before it's too late.

As Jewish families gather in the incoming days for Yom Kippur, they will reflect on the year behind them and the year ahead.

So please, let us all commit ourselves to doing everything we can to make sure that those families can worship safely and in peace.

Thank you.

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