(JTA) – Not less than 4 Democrats in Congress, together with one vocal critic of Israel, have spoken out in opposition to a Boston pro-Palestinian activist group’s initiative mapping “native institutional help for the colonization of Palestine,” saying the map, which incorporates the names, addresses and employees members of many Jewish organizations, might incite violence in opposition to the Jewish group.
Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Jake Auchincloss, Seth Moulton and Ritchie Torres every individually condemned the Mapping Undertaking this week in statements. Pressley, Auchincloss and Moulton characterize districts in Massachusetts; Torres represents a New York congressional district.
Their statements adopted a denunciation of the map by Boston’s largest communal Jewish organizations.
“There isn’t any doubt that antisemitism and arranged, violent white supremacy are at a boiling level on this nation and threaten our communities,” Pressley mentioned in her statement. She added, “It isn’t acceptable to focus on or make weak Jewish establishments or organizations, full cease.”
Pressley’s assertion was notable as a result of she is a member of the progressive “Squad” of representatives who embrace Israel’s strongest critics in Congress, Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Pressley herself voted in 2019, shortly after being elected, to sentence the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions motion concentrating on Israel. However since then, she has expressed rising solidarity with the Palestinian trigger.
Final 12 months, throughout Israel’s lethal battle with Hamas in Gaza, she delivered a speech on the Home flooring condemning U.S. help to Israel and saying that the funds “create situations for oppression and apartheid.” She additionally was one in all 9 members of Congress, together with Tlaib and Omar, to vote in opposition to sending funds to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome missile protection system.
With out referring to the mapping undertaking instantly, Pressley in her assertion cited final 12 months’s stabbing assault on a Boston-area rabbi as proof for the have to be “vigilant on the subject of retaining one another secure.”
Auchincloss informed Jewish Insider this week that the Mapping Undertaking’s “actions have the potential to incite violence, particularly in a second of heightened antisemitism and gun violence.” Moulton tweeted that the undertaking is “an anti-Semitic enemies checklist with a map connected.”
Torres, a progressive who has usually defended Israel in public statements, mentioned the undertaking was an instance of “scapegoating,” which “is a typical symptom of antisemitism.”
A map of purported connections between Jewish teams and different organizations in Massachusetts created by progressive activist group The Mapping Undertaking, which says its objective is to map ‘institutional help for the colonization of Palestine.” (Screenshot)
The Mapping Undertaking attracts what it says are traces of affect between “Zionist leaders,” working the gamut from Jewish political organizations and foundations to Jewish day colleges and synagogue teams, and different “harms,” together with native police departments and pharmaceutical corporations. In an announcement on its web site, the nameless group — which has connections to Boston BDS — says its objective is to “dismantle” these establishments.
The undertaking additionally consists of some politicians, together with the state’s two non-Jewish Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, in its net of supposed Zionist affect.
Different Democratic political figures who’ve criticized the undertaking embrace Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, state Sen. Becca Rausch and Chip Goines, a former organizer for Pressley.
BDS Boston continued to defend the undertaking on social media, retweeting messages of help from figures together with Black Jewish creator and theoretical physicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein. “The overwhelming majority of organizations on the map should not Jewish,” Prescod-Weinstein mentioned, including that “JewishBoston dot com and Google Maps will actually inform you the place all of the Jewish orgs are, far more effectively than this map does.”