We're now a week away from the New York primaries for the U.S. House, where Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman, a member of the Squad, is expected to lose his primary to Westchester County Executive George Latimer. In her support for Bowman, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a fellow member of the Squad, has turned to some rather outrageous arguments, such as how money involved in the race amounts to "a core threat to democracy." Bowman, as it turns out, has made headlines for some rather looney reasons himself.
The Jewish Insider reported earlier on Tuesday that the congressman back in 2022 texted a local Jewish leader for pictures of them, also texting it was "So I can show the world I’m friends with Jewish People."
As that report, "No more bridges left to burn in Jewish Westchester," mentioned about the exchange:
In late spring of 2022, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) reached out to a local Jewish leader in Westchester County to ask for an unusual favor as he prepared to defend his seat in an August primary against two Democratic challengers who were each gaining support from the district’s sizable Jewish community.
“Do you have pics of us?” Bowman texted the Jewish leader, with whom he had previously maintained a cordial if uneasy relationship, according to a screenshot of the message shared with Jewish Insider. “So I can show the world I’m friends with Jewish People.”
The Jewish leader, who described the exchange on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy, did have at least one photo on hand from a Jewish community gathering in Bowman’s district months earlier at which the then-freshman Democrat had vowed to sign on to a House bill aimed at strengthening the Abraham Accords — a promise he fulfilled just a few days later.
But by the time Bowman sent his request to the Jewish leader in an apparent effort to counter mounting dissatisfaction with his record on Israel amid the campaign, the New York legislator had since reversed course and pulled his support for the bill aimed at further normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors — angering Jewish activists in the district who said they felt blindsided by his abrupt decision.
“I was uncomfortable,” the Jewish leader said of Bowman’s awkwardly worded text message two years ago. “I kind of joked around with him about it. I said, ‘Oh, I’m sure you guys have it. Don’t worry about it.’”
He didn’t share a photo — and Bowman, who defeated his challengers later that summer, never asked for one again, the Jewish leader told JI in a recent interview. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be his court Jew,’” he explained of his thinking at the time of the exchange. “That wasn’t what I signed up for.”
The report not only highlights that "unusual favor" that Bowman asked that anonymous Jewish leader ahead of his 2022 primary, but also his anti-Israel votes even before Hamas attacked our ally in the Middle East last October 7. Since the attack, Democrats have been in disarray over support for Israel, with the anti-Israel Squad continuing to carry on as expected with its anti-Israel votes, sentiments, and statements.
The bill in question, the Israel Relations Normalization Act was introduced by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) with 332 cosponsors. Sure enough, Bowman changed his mind about the bill and is listed as a withdrawn cosponsor.
Matthew Kassel, who wrote the article, shared his piece to his X account with plenty of reactions, including some of which have been highlighted by our sister site of Twitchy.
Once again, users called to mind how Bowman pulled the fire alarm last year on September 30 when Congress was voting to avert a government shutdown, despite how there had been no fire.
Some claim that the inventor of the fire alarm was Jewish. pic.twitter.com/VHjykIv8v4
— Strxwmxn (@strxwmxn) June 18, 2024
“I can’t be anti-Semitic, some of my best friends are Jewish”. “I have a lot of Jewish supporters” starter pack. https://t.co/JMVrNC2No8 pic.twitter.com/np8JJ3DSXP
— Yaakov (Jack) Kaplan (@JackKaplanNY) June 18, 2024
He gets grosser every single day.
— Yehuda Teitelbaum (@chalavyishmael) June 18, 2024
Can't way until he's gone.https://t.co/jKNZolPBWT
Bowman has claimed and tried to lean on support from Jews more recently as well, which is also mentioned in the report:
Bowman, who in January lost a key endorsement from the progressive advocacy group J Street over his approach to Israel, insists that he continues to draw significant backing from Jewish constituents, even as he has recently pledged to oppose funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and endorsed the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state, which he had long claimed to reject.
“Thank God I still have a lot of support within the Jewish community,” the progressive lawmaker, who is endorsed by such far-left Jewish groups as Jewish Voice for Peace, which supports BDS, said in an interview on Monday with the WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer.
Groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace are not merely "far-left," as Kessler referred to them as in his report, they also were among those arrested at the Cannon House building in the days following the October 7 attack for demanding a ceasefire. These radical groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow are funded by George Soros, as Mia uncovered. Some of the pro-Hamas agitators even became violent with law enforcement.
That request from the local Jewish leader isn't the only strike against Bowman, though this one looks to be particularly bad and cringeworthy, especially in a district with Jewish voters. Bowman has also engaged in conspiracy theories over subjects such as 9/11 in his blog posts and YouTube channels, used antisemitic tropes about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and claimed that it was "a lie" and "propaganda" that women had been raped by Hamas.
Latimer leads Bowman by double digits in both internal and independent polls, with Latimer enjoying high profile endorsements from Hillary Clinton and former Rep. Mondaire Jones who is once more running for Congress, as well as from pro-Israel groups such as the Democratic Majority for Israel and AIPAC.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member