On April 5, JCRC-NY’s “Congressional Conversations” featured Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14). Executive VP and CEO Rabbi Michael Miller hosted these discussions about the Jewish community’s priorities with New York’s congress members.
Miller opened the virtual fireside-style chat with questions about her background, decision to enter politics, and motivation as leader of the Progressive movement.
Ocasio-Cortez responded, “I don’t feel there was a moment I decided I was going into politics. I felt we could do better in Congress. I decided to run in the first primary in our community in 14 years, knocking on thousands of doors. I’m honored and thrilled to have played a role in advancing the causes of justice in the U.S. and around the world.”
Miller queried her views on hatred, particularly anti-Semitism. She participated in the 2020 JCRC/UJA Brooklyn Bridge solidarity march with the Jewish community. With recent events involving Asian-American and Pacific-Islander communities, Miller asked, “What can a legislator do, so communities come together to combat hate and work together for comprehensive Holocaust and anti-hate education?”
Ocasio-Cortez responded, “It requires an understanding of how hatred works, how bigotry works and how white supremacy works. There are aspects that, I think, are specifically an American problem. It’s historical amnesia around some of the most horrific injustices in modern human history, undereducation with the Holocaust, glossing over Japanese internment, our absolutely horrible education around slavery and Jim Crow, and the truth about the civil rights movement. Educating about all these things cuts directly against the myth of us always being the good guy in society, and the fact that we could never have done any wrong, in a white-supremacist and bigoted framework.”
Ocasio-Cortez continued, “We have people sometimes that make policy decisions that say, ‘Well, what’s the worst that could happen?’ I think that we saw a lot of that in the last four years.”
Growing up in what she considered a robust Jewish community, Yorktown Heights, “Our Holocaust education was centered on what happened, but we need to have education about the why and the how.” She added, “One of the things that was so scary about the last four years is if you’ve studied this history, you should know it begins with casual bigotry; that it’s just a joke. Then it hits a certain critical volume, where it starts to just turn into actual large-scale dehumanization; in a dehumanized attitude towards Jewish communities. Now, as we see in Asian and Black communities, once you hit cultural dehumanization, you start getting actual laws that reinforce bigotry, violent incidents and like what we saw at the border. These things are all connected. Why is this amnesia coinciding with this repeating cycle? I’m proud to have co-sponsored legislation on Holocaust education and Asian-Pacific American education.”
Miller then asked, “There is a feeling to date that you haven’t had much engagement with the organized Jewish community. Can you speak to your engagement up to this point?
Ocasio-Cortez, expressing pride in deep engagement in her local community, including her local Jewish community, claimed, “We’ve been engaged at Bronx House since the beginning of our term. The Jewish Center of Jackson Heights has been just such a deep-valued and treasured partner. We’ve been working, especially during COVID, to make sure that we collaborate with them on food distribution. We’ve met with rabbis, temples and communities across the district, with other advocacy organizations, J Street, etc.”
Ocasio-Cortez added, “When I first came in the House, I was focused on our backyard. but communities are organized differently. Our Jewish community has a lot of citywide organizations. I’m proud of our Jewish community for how they have organized in partnership with everyone else.”
Given the concern of a vast majority of Jewish New Yorkers, Miller asked for her views on Israel’s achieving peace with all its neighbors.
In establishing a peace process. Ocasio-Cortez expressed her main concerns are about how we are coming together. “We’re valuing a process where all parties are respected, having equal opportunity negotiating good faith.” She continued, “I think that there’s just one central issue of settlements. We value the safety and human rights of Palestinians on equal footing. If we apply principles broadly, we can build paths to peace together.”
Days later, Rep. McCollum (D-MN) introduced H.R. 2590, “Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Living Under Israeli Military Occupation Act” to promote and protect the human rights of Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation and to ensure that United States taxpayer funds are not used by the government of Israel to support the military detention of Palestinian children, the unlawful seizure, appropriation and destruction of Palestinian property and forcible transfer of civilians in the West Bank, or further annexation of Palestinian land in violation of international law. Ocasio-Cortez joined 14 first day co-sponsors.
By Judy Berger
