New York – Alexandra Ocasio-cortez Defends Jewish Heritage Claim: ‘culture Isn’t Dna’

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    New York – US congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her claim she descends from Sephardic Jews who fled from the Spanish Inquisition to Puerto Rico, claiming her “culture isn’t DNA.”

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    In a series of Twitter posts on Monday, the far-left Democrat, who was elected last month to represent a district in New York that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens, shed light on her comments made at a Sunday party, where she mentioned that some of her family members were Sephardi Jews “a very long time ago, generations and generations ago.”

    “Before everyone jumps on me – yes, culture isn’t DNA,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “But to be Puerto Rican is to be the descendant of: African Moors & slaves, Taino Indians, Spanish colonizers, Jewish refugees, and likely others. We are all of these things and something else all at once – we are Boricua.”

    We are all of these things and something else all at once – we are Boricua.

    “Just because one concrete identity may not be how we think of ourselves today, nor how we were raised, it doesn’t mean we cannot or should not honor the ancestors & stories that got us here. I was raised Catholic, & that identity is an amalgam too – especially in Latin America.

    “If anything, the stories of our ancestry give us windows of opportunity to lean into others, to seek them out, and see ourselves, our histories, and our futures, tightly knit with other communities in a way we perhaps never before thought possible.”

    Ocasio-Cortez made the comments at a party that took place on Sunday, the final night of Hanukkah, and was held with the group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

    “So many of our destinies are tied beyond our understanding,” Ocasio-Cortez said to the audience. “A very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardi… Jews.

    “During the Spanish Inquisition… so many people were forced to convert on the exterior to Catholicism, but on the interior continued to practice their faith,” she told the crowd.

    “The culture in Puerto Rico [was] that people [would] open their closets, there would be this small menorah inside. And as they had children, and their children had children, these cultures started to kind of mix in a way that many people in those subsequent generations didn’t understand: to practice Catholicism on the exterior, but when you’re at home, to practice Judaism.”


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    8 Comments
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    puppydogs
    puppydogs
    5 years ago

    You honestly can’t make this stuff up. She’s the gift that keeps on giving. Not sure if it’s laughable or sad that she is the face of the democratic.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    5 years ago

    Well, her ancestors were or were not Jews. These is no arguing that. The issues if this information is important.

    adar29
    adar29
    5 years ago

    The real issue here is identity politics. She has just implied that because she is now of jewish descent she can not be antisemitic next time she sides with the palestinian terrorists. Wait until she finds out Hannukah is a Zionist Festival that celebrates the rededication of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

    takeittothem
    takeittothem
    5 years ago

    trump is a putz.
    what do you call a female putz? putzarina?

    elyeh
    Noble Member
    elyeh
    5 years ago

    Sadly we recall the terrible Spanish Catholic Inquisition – and the choices made, whether to be converso, a secret Yid, so as not to be killed, and the many who then came to the Americas to attempt to re-establish some form of their Yiddishkeit. Who knows what we would have and could have done in those times, in those circumstances.

    5 years ago

    she may have some DNA from them but her “heart and mind” is ANTI-SEMITIC

    commonsense99
    commonsense99
    5 years ago

    I don’t know if she has Yiddish DNA but she sure has Chelemer DNA

    5 years ago

    she jst wants Jewish wampum