House Passes Bill To Protect Religious Institutions, Sparked By JCC Threats
(JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill that increases the federal penalties for bomb threats and other credible threats of violence against religious institutions.
The bill, sponsored by Reps. David Kustoff, R-Tenn., and Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., passed Monday by a vote of 402 to 2. It was co-sponsored by more than 40 other lawmakers.
The Protecting Religiously Affiliated Institutions Act was sparked by a wave of threats against JCCs and other Jewish institutions earlier this year.
It would prosecute threats of violence against religious institutions as hate crimes and increase the penalty for destruction of the institutions’ property caused by fire or explosives from one year to three years. It amends the Church Arson Prevention Act to include community religious centers such as Jewish community centers.
In 2017, more than 160 bomb threats and other threats of violence have been made against Jewish community centers across the United States. Most of them came from a young Israeli man.
“The dramatic rise in threats against religious institutions is deeply disturbing and makes it clear that existing federal laws do not suitably deter these acts of hate,” Kustoff said in a statement. “We must stand united against acts of hate and protect the rights of all Americans to worship freely and without fear.”
The Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council praised the House’s passage of the bill.
“Crimes against religious institutions are intended to create an atmosphere of fear that deters community members from attending worship services and social involvement,” Stanley Bergman, the council’s co-chair, said in a statement. “These hate crimes pose a danger to the religious freedom and security of all Americans.”
Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have sponsored an identical bill being considered in the Senate.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO