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On Monday, a group of over 2.000 Jewish rabbis sent a letter to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Leader Hakeen Jefferies (D-NY) requesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) be removed from her assignment on the House Foreign Affairs Committee for previous antisemitic comments.
The letter comes after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told CNN reporter Manu Raju that he had the votes necessary to remove Omar after Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) changed her mind.
“We write to urgently request that the House of Representatives follow through on Mr. McCarthy’s pledge that, as Speaker, he would remove Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,” the letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values read. “This is not a political matter, but one of moral conscience, and a necessary step to quell the rising tide of antisemitic speech and violence now impacting Jewish communities across America.”
The coalition of over 2,000 rabbis then went on to explain that they had repeatedly condemned her behavior and called for her colleagues to condemn her comments, as reported by The Daily Wire.
“Upon learning of the appointment of Rep. Omar to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we wrote to express our ‘alarm, dismay and outrage,’ given that even before her election to Congress, Ms. Omar had repeatedly used antisemitic tropes,” the coalition said. “We warned that ‘to allow this appointment to stand is tantamount to saying that anti-Semitism is acceptable to the United States House of Representatives.'”
“Less than a month later, we renewed our request after Rep. Omar showed that her bigotry was unabated. She employed, among others, the classic trope of Jewish disloyalty, and implied that House colleagues who supported Israel had been bought off,” the 2,000 rabbis explained. “As she wrote, ‘it’s all about the Benjamins.’ We said that Speaker Pelosi must act ‘clearly and forcefully to declare such statements beyond the realm of civil discourse,’ and asked, ‘are you tolerating this hatred in the Democratic party?'”
ILHAN OMAR RESORTS TO BASELESS ATTACKS AS MCCARTHY CONSIDERS COMMITTEE REMOVAL: IT’S ‘RACIST, XENOPHOBIC’ SHE CLAIMS
“Two years later, we secured the signatures of over 200 rabbis across the country for yet a third letter, after Rep. Omar asserted that Israel committed ‘unthinkable atrocities’ while defending its citizens against the openly genocidal aggression of the Hamas terror organization,” they continued in the letter. “We wrote that removing her was a necessary step ‘to protect Jewish Americans and, moreover, safeguard the integrity of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.'”
Following these various instances, 12 of Omar’s Democrat colleagues, who were all Jewish, came out against her by calling her comments “offensive.”
“[Omar] responded [to the 12 Jewish lawmakers] by claiming that she, a daughter of a Somali noble clan, ‘knows what it feels like to experience injustice’ in ways that those twelve, several of whom descend from Holocaust survivors, did not,” the letter explained. “She even said they had not been ‘partners in justice’ with her, apparently as she obfuscated the genocidal efforts of Hamas and demonized defense of Jewish lives. And, disgracefully, the Congressional Progressive Caucus responded by accusing her critics of targeting her for her race, rather than her rhetoric.”
“After repeated antisemitic outbursts, Rep. Omar was rewarded with a ‘reprimand’ so devoid of actual substance that she was able to portray it as a victory, and rises in rank in the one committee in which an antisemite can best target the world’s only Jewish-majority country, magnify anti-Jewish bias, and endanger Jewish lives,” they added.
“We believe that to remove Rep. Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee is the only morally responsible choice for a Member of Congress who opposes racism, bigotry, and antisemitism,” the group said in conclusion, adding, “We implore each and every member to demonstrate their concern for all of America’s minorities, by acting against hatred directed against those most frequently targeted.”
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On Monday, a group of over 2.000 Jewish rabbis sent a letter to Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Minority Leader Hakeen Jefferies (D-NY) requesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) be removed from her assignment on the House Foreign Affairs Committee for previous antisemitic comments.
The letter comes after Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told CNN reporter Manu Raju that he had the votes necessary to remove Omar after Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) changed her mind.
“We write to urgently request that the House of Representatives follow through on Mr. McCarthy’s pledge that, as Speaker, he would remove Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,” the letter from the Coalition for Jewish Values read. “This is not a political matter, but one of moral conscience, and a necessary step to quell the rising tide of antisemitic speech and violence now impacting Jewish communities across America.”
The coalition of over 2,000 rabbis then went on to explain that they had repeatedly condemned her behavior and called for her colleagues to condemn her comments, as reported by The Daily Wire.
“Upon learning of the appointment of Rep. Omar to the Foreign Affairs Committee, we wrote to express our ‘alarm, dismay and outrage,’ given that even before her election to Congress, Ms. Omar had repeatedly used antisemitic tropes,” the coalition said. “We warned that ‘to allow this appointment to stand is tantamount to saying that anti-Semitism is acceptable to the United States House of Representatives.'”
“Less than a month later, we renewed our request after Rep. Omar showed that her bigotry was unabated. She employed, among others, the classic trope of Jewish disloyalty, and implied that House colleagues who supported Israel had been bought off,” the 2,000 rabbis explained. “As she wrote, ‘it’s all about the Benjamins.’ We said that Speaker Pelosi must act ‘clearly and forcefully to declare such statements beyond the realm of civil discourse,’ and asked, ‘are you tolerating this hatred in the Democratic party?'”
ILHAN OMAR RESORTS TO BASELESS ATTACKS AS MCCARTHY CONSIDERS COMMITTEE REMOVAL: IT’S ‘RACIST, XENOPHOBIC’ SHE CLAIMS
“Two years later, we secured the signatures of over 200 rabbis across the country for yet a third letter, after Rep. Omar asserted that Israel committed ‘unthinkable atrocities’ while defending its citizens against the openly genocidal aggression of the Hamas terror organization,” they continued in the letter. “We wrote that removing her was a necessary step ‘to protect Jewish Americans and, moreover, safeguard the integrity of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.'”
Following these various instances, 12 of Omar’s Democrat colleagues, who were all Jewish, came out against her by calling her comments “offensive.”
“[Omar] responded [to the 12 Jewish lawmakers] by claiming that she, a daughter of a Somali noble clan, ‘knows what it feels like to experience injustice’ in ways that those twelve, several of whom descend from Holocaust survivors, did not,” the letter explained. “She even said they had not been ‘partners in justice’ with her, apparently as she obfuscated the genocidal efforts of Hamas and demonized defense of Jewish lives. And, disgracefully, the Congressional Progressive Caucus responded by accusing her critics of targeting her for her race, rather than her rhetoric.”
“After repeated antisemitic outbursts, Rep. Omar was rewarded with a ‘reprimand’ so devoid of actual substance that she was able to portray it as a victory, and rises in rank in the one committee in which an antisemite can best target the world’s only Jewish-majority country, magnify anti-Jewish bias, and endanger Jewish lives,” they added.
“We believe that to remove Rep. Omar from the Foreign Affairs committee is the only morally responsible choice for a Member of Congress who opposes racism, bigotry, and antisemitism,” the group said in conclusion, adding, “We implore each and every member to demonstrate their concern for all of America’s minorities, by acting against hatred directed against those most frequently targeted.”
You Can Follow Sterling on Twitter Here