Rarely does a single piece of legislation in the United States Congress carry historic importance for our country and for the Jewish community, but the supplemental appropriations bill working its way towards a final vote this week in the United States Senate, also known as the "National Security Act," is one such bill. We urge every Senator to support it.
The process of developing this bill has taken months and gone through many different iterations in the Senate and the House of Representatives. Members of Congress from both parties have raised important and legitimate issues that have been considered in public and private, but solutions to these problems have failed to generate a sustainable majority in either chamber. These challenging areas, therefore, remain for another day, but what has emerged as a bipartisan consensus is important and is indeed historic.
At a time when two of America’s democratic allies – Ukraine and Israel - have been subject to unprovoked and murderous attacks on their citizens, and when the forces that perpetrated and supported these attacks are allied against our country as well, this bill sends the strongest possible message of American support and resolve.
We are living through difficult times, times when foreign dollars and domestic hate groups harass and threaten public officials who are just going about their daily work. These are times when college students who are just trying to get an education are harassed.
Threatened for taking a moral stand
These are times that any religious or cultural institution that dares to stand up against the violence being perpetrated against women and children, against the taking of hostages, and against the sewer of antisemitism that has been opened up on social media are sadly threatened. In these frightening times, the Senate bill takes active steps to secure the fundamental safety and security of people of all faiths as we gather for worship and fellowship in our communities here at home.
The National Security Act supplemental is a rare piece of legislation in our politics – it is a bipartisan bill that has the support of both the Democratic Majority Leader and the Republican Minority Leader of the Senate. Both sides are no doubt disappointed that other issues they care about failed to make it into this bill, but both sides know – as the 67-27 procedural vote to advance to a final vote showed – that this is a critical moment in America’s ongoing fight for the freedom of all its citizens to be safe in our homes and for the right of other free peoples to live in peace.
We thank the Senators who have worked so hard to get us to this point. We understand why some have voted against one version of the bill or another throughout this process. But the moment of decision is now at hand. Every vote in the United States Senate matters this week. The stronger the majority for the bill, the stronger the message we send to the world.
As leaders of the largest Jewish communal organization in the world, the Jewish Federations of North America, we respectfully and prayerfully urge a yes vote.
The author is the Chair of the Board of Trustees, Jewish Federations of North America