WASHINGTON – The chairman of the Republican Senate conference is planning to begin a two-day campaign in the Senate to raise awareness of global anti-Semitism.

Senator Santorum, a Republican from Pennsylvania, announced his new campaign yesterday, just three days after 100 notable writers, former officials, and theologians wrote a letter to Secretary of State Powell urging him to lift his objection to a bill that would require the State Department to document global anti-Semitism annually in the same manner that Foggy Bottom collects and publishes data on terrorism, human rights, and sex trafficking.

“My hope is that we could call attention to this issue,” Mr. Santorum said yesterday. “This is important to me from the standpoint of the war on terrorism.”

Today and tomorrow, Mr. Santorum will be urging his Republican colleagues to make 10 speeches during the Senate’s morning business session to highlight the rise in global anti-Semitism and what he called “anti-Israelism.”

Mr. Santorum’s staff yesterday distributed a three-inch-thick binder outlining recent incidents against Jews throughout the world. The documentation was prepared in part by the Anti-Defamation League and a task force the senator formed on the issue.

Mr. Santorum did not explicitly endorse the “Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act,” sponsored by Rep. Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California. But he did say he thought the State Department should be publishing annual reports on actions against Jewish people.

The letter, sent September 10, urged Secretary Powell to endorse the legislation. “The State Department opposes the legislation on the grounds that it would show ‘favoritism’ to Jews by ‘extending exclusive status to one religious or ethnic group.’ The State Department is wrong,” the letter states.

“It is the anti-Semites who are singling out Jews, and that is why the fight against anti-Semitism deserves specific, focused attention. The Lantos bill is a timely and appropriate response to the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere,” the letter said. “The State Department’s position on the Lantos legislation carries troubling echoes of the past. “

The signatories on the letter include a former Pentagon adviser, Richard Perle; a former Clinton national security adviser, Anthony Lake; a former presidential candidate, Jack Kemp, and comedian David Brenner.

Mr. Santorum said yesterday that he was not surprised the State Department was opposed to the legislation.

“This an all too common response from that agency,” he said. “This is not an unusual development from Foggy Bottom – the fog is usually quite pervasive there.”