Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

AOC Praises Corbyn On Twitter. Backlash, Then Hugs, From Jews Ensue.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Sunday that she would be reaching out to the Jewish community after being criticized for praising British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, with whom she had a phone call to discuss issues of shared concern.

Corbyn, a longtime staunch critic of Israel who has called members of Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends,” has been accused for years by British Jewish institutions of allowing anti-Semitism to fester in his party. A September 2018 poll found that 85% of British Jews think that Corbyn himself is anti-Semitic.

Corbyn, like Ocasio-Cortez a fellow socialist, tweeted on Sunday that it was “Great to speak to @AOC on the phone this evening and hear first hand how she’s challenging the status quo.”

“It was an honor to share such a lovely and wide-reaching conversation with you, @jeremycorbyn!” the freshman New York Democrat replied. “Also honored to share a great hope in the peace, prosperity, + justice that everyday people can create when we uplift one another across class, race, + identity both at home & abroad.”

Ocasio-Cortez was slammed on social media for taking the call, with some accusing her of anti-Semitism. One follower, Jewish activist and Forward columnist Elad Nehorai, urged her to educate herself on Corbyn’s history:

Ocasio-Cortez directly responded to Nehorai. “Thank you for bringing this to me,” she wrote. “We cannot + will not move forward without deep fellowship and leadership with the Jewish community. I’ll have my team reach out.” Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff later pledged to set up a call or meeting between Nehorai and the congresswoman.

The episode was praised by Jewish community leaders.

Ocasio-Cortez, who said in December that she had Sephardic Jewish ancestry, had previously raised hackles by calling Israel’s actions last summer, when dozens of Palestinians were shot on the Gaza border, a “massacre.” She said in a later interview with PBS that she was “not the expert on geo-politics on this issue” and was dedicated to learning more.

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.