AOC giving cold shoulder to Jewish community in her district, refuses to meet with leaders.
By Yakir Benzion, United With Israel
After canceling her participation in a left-wing sponsored memorial to slain Nobel Peace Prize winner Yitzhak Rabin, a report has revealed that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has for months refused to meet with leaders of New York’s Jewish communities.
The Jewish Community Relations Council and the New York Board of Rabbis both told the New York Post that Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez has not responded to numerous attempts for a meeting.
The two groups regularly meet with elected leaders in all levels of government and say they’ve had no problem meeting other members of Congress, except for AOC.
Ocasio-Cortez represents portions of the Bronx and Queens boroughs of the city, and the Jewish communities there make up a significant portion of the residents in her district.
“I requested a meeting with her and it has not come to fruition,” JCRC executive director Michael Miller told the Post. “A meeting has been requested on more than one occasion. It hasn’t happened. I’m still interested in meeting with her.”
AOC gave the same treatment to Rabbi Joseph Potasnik of the New York Board of Rabbis, who has personally asked Ocasio-Cortez for a meeting when the two crossed paths at events held by the congresswoman. Potasnick said that despite being told “yes, we will,” the board has not heard from AOC, who is known as an outspoken critic of Israel.
After first accepting an invitation to speak at an Americans for Peace Now online memorial marking the 25th anniversary of Rabin’s death, Ocasio-Cortez changed her mind after BDS and pro-Palestinian supporters demanded she not go.
“It’s easy to sit down with those you agree with. It’s also imperative to sit down with people with whom you disagree,” Potasnik told the Post. “My door is open.”
In the past two years Jewish Insider reported they could find only three publicly known Jewish events in New York in which AOC participated.
“It’s really painful that when we want to celebrate her on something like that and say thank you for standing up for us as women, we have to hesitate and think that she doesn’t stand up for us as Jewish women,” Amanda Berman of the liberal feminist organization Zioness told Jewish Insider. “It’s such a bummer.”
“She’s been out on the national campaign trail and trying to build her brand rather than doing the less glamorous work of addressing the concerns of the people she supposedly represents,” wrote columnist Jazz Shaw on the conservative news website hotair.com.