That simple event also included to officials from the obama and george w. Bush administrations debating the merits of President Trumps America First policy. This is just over an hour and a half. Together they made a powerful statement. They are antithetical to their values and the values of their respective states. Second, they reaffirmed their support of israel as an ally. It is important economic partner. I hope you all have had a chance to look at the wall street journal today which carries a fullpage ad naming all of the governors that participated as well as the mayor of district of columbia. Reminder that pbs has been rejected coast to coast. Ajc continues to work with local, state and federal legislators and tomorrow, one of our key advocacy items on the hill will be support for combating aids after 2017. States thatotect passed antibds legislation. This is a staunch supporter of u. S. Israel relationship, a committed jewish leader and a longtime personal friend of mine, im talking about u. S. State minority leader senator chuck schumer. [applause] chuck has been at the forefront of every effort to strengthen and deepen the relationship between washington and jerusalem. He has also been a strong voice in expressing concern about iran as a threat to israel, and like ajc, chose to uphold the in 2015. In doing so, chuck acted out of principle against the wishes of his president and many of his party. We admired his courage then and admire his courage now. Now most of you see chuck on the tv shows or the front page of newspapers and he likes being there. [laughter] but i want to point out there is another part to how he is committed to his constituencies. This is a man who has not forgotten his roots. He returns to new york every weekend and over the course of the year will visit all 62 counties because he remembers that these are the constituents that put him into office. I will give you a personal story. A number of years ago i am walking across Central Park West which is a wide street and a car comes zooming across and stops right next to me and the back window goes down, and its chuck, and he says, john, this is the best liverwurst sandwich i have ever had, and he hands me half the sandwich. Then the car drives off and i am in the middle of the intersection with his liverwurst sandwich. I continue that he is not only someone who goes to battle for his constituents, he will also give them the food from his mouth. [laughter] notwithstanding all these positive comments, i am supposed to remind you that ajc is fiercely nonpartisan. We do not support candidates, but rather policies and priorities. Now since i am told that the most dangerous place in washington, d. C. Is between chuck and a microphone, in an act of selfpreservation, it is now my pleasure to welcome to the stage the u. S. Senate minority leader, senator chuck schumer. [applause] sen. Schumer thank you everybody. Thank you very much. Let me thank john for that great introduction. We have been friends for decades. I have looked to him for advice in international affairs, issues related to israel, and i know he is doing a great job over the last year as president of ajc. You are lucky to have john at the helm. [laughter] sen. Schumer another good friend of mine was your previous, johns predecessor. Harriet is now the board chair, the chair of the board of governors. Amazing and has done this great job for decades. Thank them all and a relative, milton cooper, is active through marriage, would have been nice if i was a direct descendent, but no such luck. And i want to praise him as well. Now as you know i always like to start off by telling a story, and some of the new yorkers have heard it, but most of you have not, so i will tell the story. It is about, it goes under the category, i never met you in person. In 1992, i was a congressman and i was redistricted from brooklyn to a district partially in brooklyn, partially in queens. She has heard the story. So i was campaigning in queens to meet my constituents and a woman comes over to me and says, you are congressman schumer . I said, yes. She said, i read in the Queens Tribune that you are my congressman. She said, i would like to i watch cspan religiously, and you have more courage than any other member of congress. I said, that is a tall statement. There are 435 members of congress, some of them are nogoodnicks, what makes you say i have more courage than the others . She said i watch cspan religiously and every time you rise to your feet to speak, you have the courage to wear a yamaka i said, thank you very much maam. You have not met me in person. [laughter] sen. Schumer i love these stories. I have time for one more, john . Ok. There is a another story. You can not tell most of these. This was when i was first sworn in as a member of congress, and my whole family came down and were waiting in the anteroom to be sworn in by then speaker tip oneill, and my grandmother grabs tip oneill and as was her want oh, i forgot the beginning of it. My grandmother, my given name is charles, but we had an uncle charlie on my fathers side who my mom did not like so she said if you want to name him charles, he cant be charlie. He is chuck. My mother is, who tomorrow will turn 89. My dad will turn 94 on flag day. In any case, so she always called me chucky, even now. Chucky, why arent you doing more of this . But my grandmother would always call me which i think in yiddish means, little chucky. I dont know what it means. I hope that is what it means. She grabbed tip oneill and begin to tell him her life story and said, we were born in the little town, but the egg business went bad, so we moved to america. After each little vignette, she said take good care of she said they had no money and went walk three miles to save a nickel car fare. Take good care of she had three beautiful sons, she said. They all thought in the war, and none of them ran away, she said that this is what she said because they were breastfed. [laughter] sen. Schumer take good care of and now her grandson is being sworn in, said her son abe did not go to college and her grandson is being sworn in as the senator of the United States. Take good care of im out on the floor, sworn in. We go out to dinner, celebrate, the family goes home, and im sitting at my desk and i dont know what to do and the phone rings, and someone calls up and says my name is leo deal, speaker oneill wants to see you immediately. I said, oh, boy. It was sort of like the first day of school and you are already called into the principals office. What did i do wrong . So i rushed over. Im in the anteroom and my knees are knocking and tip comes over to me and says, charles, i very much enjoyed meeting your entire family, especially your grandmother, but answer for me one question, what is a and how do we take care of it . [laughter] sen. Schumer he thought she was lobbying on some issue or other. [laughter] sen. Schumer ok. First on a far more serious note, the horrible, horrible attacks in london over the weekend, another reminder that the Global Community faces Global Threats to the values and the principles we have long cherished. We will only be able to confront and ultimately defeat these threats by working together, Standing Shoulder to shoulder. The one other point i would make, the whole world has explains the horror of terrorism, but 3040 years ago, it was only israel and the world did not pay too much attention, and it grew and grew and grew. We can never make that mistake again, wherever terrorism rears its ugly head. [applause] sen. Schumer so first let me talk about something we are all troubled and worried about, and that is the rising tide of antisemitism around the world. It seems that every time we think for a moment that we have entered a more enlightened era of tolerance, that ageold demon antisemitism raises its head again, comes back with a new virulence. Over the past five years, we have watched the specter of antisemitism rise again in europe, where it seems to live in the soil as their original sin. I once expressed i was talking about our disagreement on the iran deal, and one of my objections was that the europeans had too much say, and i sort of explained to him that deep in the bones into much of europe to be antisemitic, and it leads to a lack of sympathy for israel. Now we have seen neonazi gangs in the streets of european capitals, far right politicians running on platforms that openly, openly promote hostility towards a jews and other religious minorities and jews dont feel safe sending the children to schools, buying groceries, going to synagogue. The rise of antisemitism in europe is an outrage. It ought to be condemned by the leaders of the world of every faith in every nationality. Antisemitism always simmers just a bit beneath the surface in europe. It has been far more troubling to see that scorch that scourge emerge in america. Earlier this year, it felt like almost every day we saw a new report of synagogues with graffiti, swastikas, Jewish Cemetery vandalized, desecrated, and waves of bomb threats to our jewish communities and a schools. It seems the darkest fringes of our society from the far right to the far left have become newly emboldened. We simply cannot stand for this. We have to continue to bring the perpetrators of these heinous acts to swift justice, and i want to complement ajc. They have been tireless on this front. Your initiatives like mayors united against antisemitism, the muslimjewish Advisory Council launched by ajc in the Islamic Society of north america, i had a meeting with the council of leaders early this year. It shows what we must do. Together, joined together, and fight back against all forms of hate. I have worked hard to close the federal government to do everything in its power to combat these threats wherever they may arise. In march, at my urging, the fcc announced the Jewish Community centers and other at risk organizations have been granted special emergency waivers that make it much easier for Law Enforcement to access caller id information to track down these individuals are gone enforcement has the tools to get behind it. The sec had to give them permission. Just recently congress allocated 25 million for the nonprofit security grant program, which provides nonprofits and religious organizations with the resources for emergency preparedness. The money saves lives i am proud to say. It is bipartisan. We increase the funding this year to new highs. [applause] sen. Schumer and International Efforts like ajc and groups like you, continued leadership from the United States is the only thing we have, but it works. Through things this hate, we just have to keep working diligently could we cant give up we can shrug our shoulders. We have to keep working. John mentioned the great ad i read this morning on the shuttle coming down that was a culmination of a great deal of hard work of what you have done. Now the vile attacks i mentioned before are so despicable and motivated by hate that the antisemitic aspects cant be ignored, but sometimes antisemitism is cloaked, hidden by certain movements that profess no bias, but suspiciously hold israel and by extension the jewish people to a different standard than others. There is no greater example than this insidious effort to harm the jewish state than through the boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. The Global Movement is deeply biased campaign aimed at delegitimizing the jewish state and its supporters, sometimes wittingly, sometimes unwittingly, but all of them practice a modern form of antisemitism. We have to call them out for that. I want to tell you [applause] sen. Schumer a little story. When i was a College Student the sds, the leftwing radical movement but it switched. It has moved from free love and smoke pot and hair down to your shoulders and all that stuff, wear bellbottoms anybody remember what bellbottoms were . Anyway, they switched and were taken over by a hardcore group, and one of their campaigns was against the state of israel. There shouldnt be a jewish state, it is zionist imperialism. So i was active in a Harvard Young democrats and on the hill and we invited someone to come speak, and 2000 people gathered in the big auditorium called sanders theater, and the sds, plp was in the balcony and had their banners, stop zionist imperialism, free palestine, whatever. In his tones, which i will not try to imitate at the request of my staff [laughter] sen. Schumer i would love to do it. John was right when he said. But he pointed to them and he said, i want to tell you something, you up there in the balcony. I said for centuries, for centuries there has been a double standard that affects the jews. The jew was not a left to be a farmer, everyone else was. The jew could not live in moscow, everybody else could. The jew could not do this, that come or the other thing. And he said, you in the balcony, when every other people gains their nationhood, you applaud, and he named a few countries. When sri lanka, or zambia or paraguay becomes an independent country, there is only one group of people that you criticize, that you attack when they become a nation, and that is the state of israel. You, he said, are antisemites. They slinked away. They picked up their banners and never in the last few years that i was in college did they attack israel again. That kind of calling out for what it is is very, very important. Because the double standard [applause] sen. Schumer the double standard exists today with them. Bds condemns israel, imposes boycotts, seeks to impose boycotts on the jewish state, but willfully turns a blind eye to nations that actually violate human rights. When iran sponsors terror and executes dissenters, they are quiet. When arab nations jailed journalists, punish homosexuality with prison sentences and physical abuse, bds is nowhere to be found, and that is because the state of israel is all too frequently measured by a different double standard that the rest of the world. It is up to us to fight these efforts to the nail. They are not only unjust and immoral, they are counterproductive and achieving a truly lasting peace between israel and the palestinians, so again, you deserve a huge round of applause for which you did with the governors. Governors. [applause] sen. Schumer our state of new york has passed a law that says if your business or university boycotts israel, new york will boycott you. [applause] sen. Schumer just last week nevada did the same. We should call on every governor of every state to pass the same exact law. [applause] sen. Schumer on the 50th anniversary of the reunification, lets be clear that many bds supporters have the same goal as the armies that a mast on israels border to annihilate the jewish state, but make no mistake, as we defeated them, the bds supporters will be defeated as well. [applause] sen. Schumer another place where cloaked antisemitism lurks is in the halls of the United Nations. The u. N. Singles out israel more than any other nation, especially on the humans rights council, which remains bent on admonishing the only deck raman xe and Representative Government in equal rights in the middle east. I was heartened to hear the new secretary general recently say he would he on the frontlines against the fight against antisemitism and proclaimed that israel must be treated as any other state, and just last week, they elected a Vice President for the 72nd session of the United NationsGeneral Assembly. [applause] sen. Schumer that is progress. Ajc played a role in that as well. And your continued efforts are very important. At the United Nations, we can never let our guard down. Since the days of zionism and racism, the United Nations has been an incubator for israel bashing, a forum where israel is almost always villain and not the victim. You should be wary of it. I hope one day it will happen, israel will become to be treated fairly in the United Nations, but until that day comes, the u. S. Was always come to the aid of our friend israel in the United Nations. It must continue to serve as a bulwark against mere campaigns and efforts to isolate israel. We cant be silent when the United Nations singles israel out for condemnation. The united stationers should have vetoed resolution 2334 in december, and it should never use the United Nations as a form to put pressure on israel of any kind. [applause] sen. Schumer iran, finally an engaged america is particular important when it comes to iran, which continues to sow instability throughout the region. The regime continues to provide support to its proxies in the region, conduct Ballistic Missile tests, flagrantly abuse the human rights of its own people, and unjustly imprisoned foreigners. We must work with our partners in the region to counter irans maligned activities, just as especially and hold their feet to the fire on compliance with jcpoa. I did not support it but it passed. I dont think violate this agreement. It is incumbent upon us to remain vigilant and watch like a hawk outside of the jcp away. Their sponsorship of terrorism, the human rights abuses are outrageous, it is imperative in the congress, we act in a bipartisan way to counter this behavior and keep that regime in check. My friends, the challenges before us, the great antisemitism at home and abroad, various campaigns level against israel. It calls for a new brand of isolationism that believe the United States less able to confront and combat each of those threats and many more besides. The only way we can protect the protect the progress we made, defend our friends and allies including israel and work toward a more peaceful and prosperous america leads. Trusthe world cannot america to the book to its commitments that unsettles our allies and emboldens our adversaries. That weakens our the to those values within our borders, the world has been a better place my friends. For america is a beacon freedom and tolerance, when people around the world continue to look up to the lady who hold