Laura Gillen outlines an antisemitism action plan

Laura Gillen, the Democratic candidate in New York’s 4th Congressional District, announced an action plan to combat antisemitism outside a house in East Meadow last week. The district includes multiple communities with substantial Jewish populations. 

Gillen was joined by residents, elected officials and Jewish leaders, including Rabbi Michael Stanger of the Old Westbury Hebrew Congregation.

Gillen’s action plan targets three areas of concern: Schools, synagogues and social media.

If elected, Gillen said she would work to leverage federal aid to colleges to force changes in codes of conduct, and increase funding to the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights. For synagogues, she would fight to fully fund the FBI and the Department of Justice to help local police coordinate responses to threats to houses of worship. She added that she wants to enact content moderation requirements for social media platforms like X to remove hateful content.

East Meadow neighbors who joined Gillen at an Aug. 28 news conference said antisemitism is a problem in schools. Alisa Baroukh’s daughter attends Cornell University. Over the last school year — especially following Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack against Israel — her daughter was subjected to antisemitic incidents, she said.

“My daughter’s freshman year was marred by widespread antisemitic intimidation, which was hard considering we chose Cornell for the warm and inclusive environment that we saw during our tours,” Baroukh said. “This macro-level intimidation included online death threats toward Jewish students that resulted in the FBI swarming campus.”

According to Gillen, Republicans in the House of Representatives have “moved to undermine key resources” that are needed to fight antisemitism. 

“Congress has failed to address the surge in antisemitism in our schools, our synagogues and on social media,” she said. “Not one additional dollar has been spent or one law has been passed to combat this surge.”

Gillen said there had been “an unprecedented rise” in antisemitism nationwide, and that Congress has failed to pass policies that actually protect those of the Jewish faith.

The Anti-Defamation League, which fights antisemitism, said that the number of antisemitic incidents in New York jumped 110 percent in 2023, according to an April 2024 report.

“I find it unacceptable how little we are doing to actually protect our Jewish residents from this hatred, and that is why I’m here alongside Jewish parents, leaders and other community members to say enough is enough,” she said. “It’s time for action.”

Gillen is challenging incumbent Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, a Republican who defeated her in the 2022 election. D’Esposito has denounced antisemitism, and according to his congressional website, introduced a resolution last November condemning the slogan “from the river to the sea.” The slogan refers to the liberation of land claimed by Palestinians between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which is located in the modern state of Israel.

A spokesperson for D’Esposito told the Herald that the congressman has been to Israel several times, where he’s met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; is a board member of the U.S Holocaust Museum; and has been instrumental in passing several Israeli aid bills.

D’Esposito also introduced a Define to Defeat Act in April, which clarifies legislation, providing federal officers with an objective, contemporary definition of antisemitism, better helping them to assess and prosecute criminal and discriminatory incidents, motivated by antisemitism.

The act was introduced after D’Esposito said the U.S. and New York were continuing to endure “record-breaking” levels of antisemitic attacks and hate. The legislation would “provide federal officials the tools they need to fully assess, investigate and prosecute this criminal behavior,” he said.