'Jews get blamed for everything': Dem senator warns about rise in violent threats

Speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper spoke with a Democratic senator on Tuesday who admitted that she gets so many death threats, one of her harassers was recently sentenced to time in federal prison.

“Let's turn to the bipartisan bill that you have worked on with Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma,” Tapper asked Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV). “You introduced it this month to combat the alarming rise of anti-Semitism across the U.S. The Anti-Defamation League published a report on anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. last year and found that 2025 was the third highest year on record for anti-Semitic incidents since the ADL began tracking them in 1979.”

After discussing the details of the bill and how it would attempt to combat anti-Semitism, Lankford asked Rosen if she has received death threats like those that have been directed against another Jewish lawmaker, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).

“I am getting similar messages,” Rosen told Tapper. “I do have someone in federal prison now for threatening me and threatening my team. We get threats all the time.”

Tapper asked Rosen if the threats have gotten worse since the Oct. 7th terrorist attacks in Israel, and she said yes.

“This is exactly why my bill is so important — because what happens is, Jews get blamed for everything,” Rosen told Tapper. “We're blamed for this war, blamed for this and that and the other. You can go through centuries of history and see the same pattern. Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Hatred might start with anti-Semitism, but it never ends there.”

She added, “Sadly, we have a lot of security. Our Capitol Police and FBI are on top of things, monitoring our social media. And of course, our young staff members who have to listen to some of those truly horrific voicemails — it's very difficult for them on some days.”

Speaking with AlterNet in March, historian Jonathan Sarna argued that scapegoating Jewish people has a long history, one that was revived after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanayahu helped convince Trump to wage war against Iran.

“If you go back to ‘The Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ — the great antisemitic forgery of the turn of the last century — that really began this sense that Jews are all-powerful, that they operate behind the scenes, and that whatever happens is ultimately their fault,” Sarna told AlterNet. “Before then, for centuries, the prevailing view was that Jews were persecuted and lowly because they had killed Christ, and that was what they deserved — they were powerless. That was their punishment. But ‘The Protocols’ flipped that.”

The historian urged people to compare blaming all Jews or all Israelis for Netanyahu’s actions as analogous to blaming all Americans for Trump’s actions.

“I can be critical of President Trump without being un-American,” Sarna told AlterNet. “Most people who criticize President Trump or the Republicans would assure you how much they love America and hold a fundamentally positive view of it. It seems to me that it's deeply important for us to do the same with Israel — that is, to make clear that there is a huge difference between disliking the policies of the Prime Minister of Israel and hating Israel itself.”

He added, “If you wouldn't equate criticism of the President with hating America, there is no reason — and indeed it is wrong and wicked — to do so with regard to Israel.”

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