WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) delivered a statement from Auburn Basketball Coach Bruce Pearl during a Special Committee on Aging hearing on Israel’s Independence Day. The hearing was focused on combatting antisemitism.
The hearing featured several witnesses, including former Congressman Ted Deutch and Rabbi Mark Rosenberg.
See excerpts from Sen. Tuberville’s remarks below or watch on YouTube or Rumble.
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all of you for being here and your heartfelt statements. Very, very much needed. Before I start my questions, I wanna read a statement here from a good friend of mine. His name is Coach Bruce Pearl, who is currently in Jerusalem, and he’ll be there for a couple of weeks. He would have loved to have been here.
‘Shalom from Jerusalem. I’m an American Jewish college basketball coach visiting my ancestral homeland. Yesterday was Israel’s Remembrance Day. Today is Israel’s Independence Day. This is a very emotional time for everyone here because this country has been at war since birth.
Hours ago, I left Knesset where I was in attendance, along with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Herzog, and about a thousand citizens honoring the fallen. I’m angry. I’m very angry. What I would ask of this committee is the courage to speak to our educators. We must teach our children. I’m very proud that in the state of Alabama, we have mandatory Holocaust education for middle school students. If we choose not to teach them, somebody else will. None of us can explain […] it or understand why the Jewish people have been targeted.
We have to do two things. We have to protect ourselves from those who want to kill us, and we have to try to live exemplary lives so that maybe the uncertain won’t hate us. Our educational institutions want to stay neutral, leaving our young people to find out the truth on their own. I am proud to be an American. This country saved my family’s life, rescuing my grandfather from Ternopil in 1929. I will be forever grateful.’
God bless Coach Bruce Pearl, Auburn University. The issue we’re seeing today on college campuses, and this is from me, is being reinforced by the culture and values being taught on all the campuses. Good people in this country are being taught that Palestinians are the freedom fighters and the people who are being oppressed. They are being taught that the facts on the ground of the Middle East are not true. Why is this happening on university campuses?
It’s the same reason why our players would kneel for our flag and the national anthem. Because they’re not being taught to love this country. They’ve been taught that they’re oppressed. They have not been taught to love and appreciate the opportunities this country gives them. They have not been taught what’s really going on in the Middle East.
Young people wanna have a cause, and they have now chosen to stand against freedom because of lies and propaganda. So, congressman, we have unfortunately seen antisemitic attacks spike since the October 7th Hamas terrorist attack. Many of the victims of these attacks have been elderly Jewish Americans. How can the United States government better protect its citizens, particularly the elderly from such attacks?”
DEUTCH: “Senator Tuberville, thank you. First of all, I appreciate your reading that statement from Coach Pearl who stopped at the AJC Global Forum in New York on his way to Israel. We are, as I’m sure you are, quite proud of his leadership on these issues. There is an enormous amount that Congress can do. I want—it’s important though to emphasize that facts really matter here, and what you said is so important. Some of the protests that we saw, the ones that happened on October 8th and 9th, were not protests about anything that Israel was doing, the IDF, Israeli Defense Forces, hadn’t even gone into Gaza to defend the people of Israel and the Jewish people. The people who took to the streets immediately [took] to the streets with signs that had a terrorist and a hang glider as their call to action were there to do one thing, which is to support the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered 1,200 Jews and whose goal is the destruction of Israel and the massacre of Jews.
Congress can play a vital role both in helping to keep seniors, Jewish seniors, and all Jews safe by focusing on security and nonprofit security grants. Congress can play an important role in helping everyone understand and identify what antisemitism actually is for those who don’t spend time thinking about this the way that we believe the country should in passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act. And we think that Congress can play a really vital role in making sure that on those campuses when the civil rights of Jewish students are violated, when anyone’s Title VI rights are violated that the Office of Civil Rights, the Department of Education, has the funding necessary to actually conduct the investigations and hold those who committed these acts accountable. Accountability matters on campuses across America. Jewish students have the right to speak out and feel safe like every other group on campus.”
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. Rabbi, I am proud that we now have the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish President of my life back in the White House. President Trump has made it clear: if universities continue allowing antisemitic propaganda on their campuses, they will lose their federal funding. Outside of this, what steps do universities and school administrators need to take to put an end to all this?”
ROSENBERG: “Well, firstly, they need to follow the law, and I hope that if the law is on their side, why don’t we see college campuses go rob 14 stores every day? Why don’t we see iPhones, Android phones go missing every day? Why? Why don’t the 7/11s around the colleges don’t have a problem with people coming into the store? Because there is law and order. And I strongly believe that if what my friend over here said that if we do that, we’re not gonna have an issue. If people are taught to love like young children, they need to know what’s right and what’s wrong. And right now, it’s right, it’s a movement, it’s a cause, and I’ve been to college campuses myself. And, you know, for 40 plus years, I grew up in upstate New York. I never experienced anything whatsoever, we all got along.
Now at this time of my life, I have to walk on a college campus and feel weird that I’m wearing a yamaka. I don’t feel that I’m gonna be robbed. I feel that I’m gonna be identified because I’m a Jew.”
TUBERVILLE: “Thank you. My time is up, but I appreciate y’all coming and speaking the truth. And as my buddy and fellow coach Bruce Pearl would say, I think one of the biggest answers to this question is education. We need to educate people the right way. Thank you and God bless you.”
Senator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans’ Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.
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