The Democratic party has had the American Jewish voters locked up for decades as those voters refused to believe the Democrats weren’t on their side.
Today, things are much different and Jewish voters are furious at the Democrats and how they have written off the antisemitic remarks coming from Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The resolution that started as a referendum against Omar and antisemitic speech, quickly morphed and left out all mention of Omar and her antisemitic comments and has indeed been used to claim as a referendum for Muslims who are victims of Islamophobia.
Jewish voters furious at Democrats’ defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar say they’re done with the party that has held their support for generations.
“We felt we had a home there,” said Mark Schwartz, the Democratic deputy mayor of solidly blue Teaneck, NJ. “And now we feel like we have to check our passports.”
Jordan Manor of Manhattan, who calls himself a “gay Jewish Israeli-American,” laments, “The party I thought cared about me seems to disregard me when it comes to my Jewish identity.”
Mark Dunec, a consultant in Livingston, NJ who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2014, says, “I’m physically afraid for myself and for my family,” adding, “I see my own party contributing to the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.”
Omar, a freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, sparked the firestorm in February for using anti-Jewish tropes: saying that support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins” and accusing Jewish-American legislators of “dual loyalty.”
Many, including some fellow Democrats, deemed her comments anti-Semitic — but the party’s lefty activists pushed back.