On June 24, Chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, Kenneth L. Marcus, testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight at its hearing, “Rising Threat: America’s Battle Against Antisemitic Terror.” Other witnesses included Dan Schneider, the Vice President for Free Speech at the Media Research Center, Debra Cooper, the Chief of Digital Activism at EndJewHatred and Jewish Advocacy Research and Writer Group, and Mathew Nosanchuk, a Jewish community practitioner. The hearing focused on the domestic conditions giving rise to anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, as well as the steps the Trump administration is taking to combat anti-Semitic terror. “We are reeling from a drumbeat of lethal anti-Semitism, violence that has surged from campus encampments into the streets, fueled by extremist rhetoric and fostered by institutional complacency,” began Chairman Marcus in his opening statement. These remarks come amidst a recent increase in major anti-Semitic attacks across the United States. In April, the home of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro was set on fire on the first night of Passover due to his Jewish faith and support for the state of Israel. A month later, two Israeli Embassy staffers were murdered outside of the Capital Jewish Museum by a gunman who shouted, “Free Palestine.” And earlier this month in Boulder, Colorado, a peaceful group calling for the release of the fifty hostages who remain in Gaza were met with firebombs and Molotov cocktails in the name of “ending Zionists.” Chairman Marcus referred to the roots of the current crisis as both global and domestic. “Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas — and now also with Iran — have emboldened anti-Jewish sentiment worldwide,” Chairman Marcus said. “At home, that sentiment has taken on a violent and organized character. On college campuses in particular, anti-Israel rhetoric has escalated into overt acts of aggression and intimidation.” According to the ADL, one year after the October 7th Hamas-led terrorist attacks and subsequent war in Gaza, over 10,000 acts of anti-Semitism were reported, including at least 1,200 on college campuses. One day after the hearing, the Brandeis Center sued the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on June 25th for its inaction as its campus turned into a breeding ground for hatred of Jewish students. Marcus further highlighted increased anti-Semitism in the areas of K-12 education, the workplace, and labor unions. In February, the Santa Ana Unified Public School District settled a lawsuit brought on by the Brandeis Center and other Jewish organizations over anti-Semitic ethnic-studies courses. The district agreed to teach about Israel and the Palestinians more factually and disband its ethnic studies steering committee permanently. The Brandeis Center has also recently warned Microsoft against denying Jewish Employee Resource Groups and filed complaints against UAW’s legal aid union for discrimination against its Jewish members. The hearing went on to discuss executive responses to this uptick. “We have never seen such active, energetic, aggressive enforcement of laws against anti-Semitism as we have seen from this administration,” Chairman Marcus said, in response to congressional questioning about the Trump administration’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism. “We have seen a much more muscular approach … to deal with the extraordinary crisis that we are now seeing.” Read Marcus’s testimony or watch his remarks and the full hearing below: Authors: Asher Boiskin and Ben GoldenJune 26, 2025