Two of New Jersey’s Democratic congressmen are calling for urgent action to combat antisemitism and hate crimes. They spoke Monday at a hearing in Teaneck, Bergen County of the House Committee on Homeland Security that focused on the dramatic rise in antisemitism and hate crimes, and how to address the growing threat they present.

“It’s critical that we take steps to invest in and not defund law enforcement. We must keep our families and our communities safe, as well as our police. That’s why I introduced a new bipartisan, bicameral bill called the Invest to Protect Act, which just passed the House with overwhelming bipartisan support, to ensure that local police departments across the country have what they need to recruit and retain good officers and provide mental health training for officers,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th).

Several of the panelists and politicians cited the use of social media to perpetuate antisemitic and other forms of dangerous, racist messaging.

“If I’m on the left or the right, and I post something antisemitic on Facebook, or YouTube or Twitter, the algorithm automatically calculates, knowing almost everything about everyone in the world, who in the world is most susceptible to that message, and connects me to that person, connects my message to that person. Never before in human history have we had such a machine,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-7th).

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said, “The United State is confronting an unprecedented crisis of antisemitism, antisemitic violence and vandalism [that] have risen to levels not seen in decades.”