In contentious Senate hearing, divisions over how to fight antisemitism come to the fore

(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Should the U.S. government address antisemitism on its own, or as part of the broader fight against prejudice?

That’s the question that occupied — and divided — Republican and Democratic senators on Tuesday at an emotional hearing that, at one point, was brought to a stop by someone shouting antisemitic invective.

Tensions were evident almost immediately when the Judiciary Committee’s Democratic chairman, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, and its top Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, clashed over the hearing’s aims and even its name, “Threat to Justice Ever...