The Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta is committed to pursing a just society and secure Jewish future here and in Israel through advocacy, education, Judwish communal consensus, and collaboration with other religious, civic, ethnic, and racial groups. We believe in the power of the network and our ability to engage in tikkun olam through our relationships inside and outside the Jewish community. We are a Jewish voice at the Georgia Gold Dome, and create a common table for the Jewish community. We advocate on issues that impact any and all parts of the Jewish community on local, state and national levels.
Rep. Greene must demonstrate true regret and engage in civil discourse, calling people in to make this nation better and safer for all, not calling people out for their differences.
Now is a time for teshuva
(Atlanta – Feb. 5, 2021) The Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta supports the U.S. House of Representatives’ sanctioning of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Feb. 4. As a Jewish organization, JCRC is distressed with the danger of her antisemitic, racist, Islamophobic and conspiratorial rhetoric. As a Georgia organization, we are concerned about the divisive impact her words have on civic discourse in our state.
Greene’s antisemitic tropes of the influence of Jewish wealth and Jewish disloyalty, along with her delusional statement of Rothschild-funded space lasers sparking deadly California wildfires, are ignorant and hate-filled. She has deployed coded language commonly used against Jews in criticizing “globalists,” “neocons” and the cabal-like “deep state.” She has promoted aspects of the antisemitic, Islamophobic QAnon conspiracy theory. She has shared a video that warned of “leftists, capitalists and Zionist supremacists” engaging in a plot to breed white European society out of existence and trumpeted her opposition to “illegal invaders.” She has said, if she were black, she would feel “proud” to see a Confederate monument because it symbolizes progress made since the Civil War. These are the same types of statements chanted by white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017 and cited by the shooter who slaughtered 11 Jews worshipping at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. More broadly, she has endorsed violence against political opponents.
Rep. Greene belatedly disavowed QAnon again on the House floor on Feb. 4 and acknowledged that the 9/11 attacks and certain school shootings actually occurred while trying to save her committee assignments. But she did not apologize for the hatred she has unleashed for years in building the public profile that carried her to Washington.
JCRC of Atlanta believes in the fundamental Jewish principle of teshuva, the opportunity to atone for sins and return to the fold. Rep. Greene must demonstrate true regret and engage in civil discourse, calling people in to make this nation better and safer for all, not calling people out for their differences. The congresswoman must repent for her lies, false accusations and misstatements, sincerely apologize to those she has hurt, heckled and harassed, and take concrete action to repair the damage she has caused and the fear she has spread.
Dated: February 5, 2021
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