Dozens of rabbis in the Pittsburgh metro area are calling on Rep. Summer Lee (D., Pa.) to return campaign contributions from the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other anti-Israel activists.
“You have accepted campaign contributions from people who have voiced virulently antisemitic sentiments,” 41 rabbis and cantors wrote in a letter to Lee, according to Jewish Insider.
Lee, a member of the progressive “Squad,” has faced scrutiny over her campaign donors in the wake of a Washington Free Beacon report that CAIR executive director Nihad Awad gave $1,000 to her campaign on Dec. 29. Weeks earlier, the White House slammed Awad for stating he was “happy” that Hamas attacked Israel. A White House spokesman condemned Awad’s “shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.” Lee planned to speak last weekend at an annual fundraiser for CAIR’s Philadelphia chapter but backed out of the event.
Lee also received donations from Osama Abuirshaid, the head of American Muslims for Palestine, and Zainab Billoo, the executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco branch. Abuirshaid has a history of pro-Hamas statements and falsely claimed that most Israelis slaughtered during Hamas’s October 7 attack “were killed by their own army.” Billoo has referred to mainstream Jewish groups as “enemies” and has said she is more concerned about “racist Zionists who support apartheid Israel” than about ISIS.
Lee’s Democratic primary opponent, Bhavini Patel, has already called on the congresswoman to return the donations. But the letter from nonpartisan Jewish leaders is likely to hold more political significance in the upcoming Democratic primary.
One signatory to the letter is Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, the head of the Tree of Life synagogue, the target of the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history. Lee’s district includes Tree of Life and Squirrel Hill, a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
The rabbis criticized Lee over her “rhetoric” regarding Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 attack. Lee cosponsored a resolution with other liberal Democrats to call for an “immediate” ceasefire in Gaza. Most Republicans and some Democrats oppose a ceasefire at least until Hamas releases all hostages taken during the October invasion.
The Jewish leaders said that they met Lee three months ago and that she “promised us that [she] would call out antisemitism and temper [her] own language.”
“Sadly, three months later, you have not followed through on those commitments,” they told the congresswoman. “Since that meeting, you have continued to use divisive rhetoric, which, at times, we have perceived as openly antisemitic.”
Lee has not commented on the donations from Awad and other anti-Israel leaders, but she canceled her appearance at the CAIR Philadelphia fundraiser following reports that other speakers have a history of homophobic and anti-Semitic remarks. Lee in a statement condemned those remarks but praised CAIR as the “country’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization.” She accused her opponents of trying to “demonize” the group for political gain.
Federal prosecutors labeled CAIR an “unindicted coconspirator” of a Hamas front group in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation investigation.
