My congressman doesn’t get it: The troubling failure to confront antisemitism

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My world, like that of many Jews around the world, has been upside down since the Hamas terror attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

We wept and rallied for the return of the Israeli hostages; we mourned those who were murdered; and we tried to help those who survived begin to heal.

Nothing we experienced here in California can compare to what our brothers and sisters in Israel had been living with. Yet the effects in Orange County have been real, and continue to reverberate in our daily lives.

Multiple friends have received death threats for supporting Israel. I’ve had property vandalized.

I’ve been accosted by men, faces wrapped in keffiyehs, eager to tell me that the youngest Israeli hostages, a toddler and an infant, “are dead.” Those children had been murdered by their captors, but, without apparent irony, those same keffiyeh-clad men then called me a “baby killer.”

I now remove Jewish symbols before taking a loved one to a new medical appointment, fearing that a health care provider could be affected by their political ideas in how they treat — or fail to treat — my family member.

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None of this was happening before Oct. 7. But it is the result of a propaganda tactic as effective as it is evil. Hamas built its military infrastructure within and underneath schools, mosques and hospitals, to ensure any Israeli response to the Oct. 7 attack would produce imagery that would spark outrage.

Many in the West ignore Hamas and direct their hatred only to Israel and to anyone who supports it.

The extreme left was already primed to accept Hamas’ narrative, thanks to words like “genocidal” and “racist,” which were hurled at Israel decades ago by the Soviets. Hamas’ imagery fit that framework. And, so, we American Jews landed in the crosshairs.

Against this backdrop, Congressman Dave Min recently addressed members of the Orange County Jewish community. During this forum, he expressed concern about the rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7, and pledged to “continue to call it out,” citing his condemnation of a swastika that students created out of solo cups at an Orange County party in 2019. Indeed, when it came to calling out symbols from the far right, his words were strong and unequivocal.

But when it came to the hate our community now faces from the far left, his remarks offered little reassurance that he understood the particular threat facing Jewish Americans. Indeed, I fear much of what the congressman said only added fuel to the fire.

At the town hall, for example, Min accused Israel of using “excuses” to destroy hospitals in Gaza. When shown that Hamas did in fact use hospitals for military operations, the congressman maintained that this was not something he had been “briefed on.”

For a member of Congress, with access to a treasure trove of intelligence at a moment’s notice, to stand on ignorance was alarming.

He also claimed Israel’s conduct did not comport with modern norms and the laws of war. Yet Min — a former law professor at UC Irvine — could not cite a single law or norm that Israel had violated.

Moreover, the congressman accused Israel of “expanding” the war into southern Lebanon, in order to “wreck a bunch of stuff.” He failed to acknowledge that the Lebanon-based terror proxy Hezbollah had planned its own Oct. 7-style attack; built its own network of terror tunnels in southern Lebanon; and was funded and supplied by Iran. Israel only took the fight to Southern Lebanon in earnest after a Hezbollah missile slaughtered twelve Druze children playing soccer in a field in the village of Majdal Shams.

Min’s campaign, when contacted about these concerns, said they would be passed along to the congressman.

The problem with the congressman’s ignorance is that it translates into votes in Congress. It also creates a permission structure to make Orange County unlivable for many Jews.

None of this is to suggest that the congressman himself harbors any animus toward the Jewish people. He recently supported funding for added security at Jewish institutions. But I am dismayed that Min cannot see that the kinds of libels he repeated at the town hall are the very reason we need increased security in our community.

To fight the hate we face today — to return to a world where extraordinary measures are not required to ensure the safety of American Jews — we need our public officials to be willing to engage with the facts, and to call out blood libels and anti-Jewish bigotry, even when they come from their own side of the aisle.

True leadership in a moment like this means an informed response to lies, and the courage to set the record straight when our community is under attack.

Julie Heiman is director of policy, legal and government affairs for the Jewish Community Action Network (JCAN) in Orange County.