In his speech to the Jewish Democratic Council of America last week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland didn’t mince words, telling Jewish activists that the Democratic Party has certainly not shifted to the left and away from Israel.

“We have 62 new members of Congress, 35 of whom are women. But we have 62, not just three,” he said, in a clear reference to congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the heart of the Progressive Caucus. “Three get all the publicity. One of them [Omar] said something that was not appropriate and gave a wrong message about anti-Semitism, but she apologized.”

Dozens of lobbyists, speakers, and activists convened in a ballroom at the Liaison Hotel on Capitol Hill to introduce themselves to freshmen members of Congress. Among those present were Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, as well as former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro.

Though the Democratic presidential candidates were absent from the event, those present carried a party message in support of the Jewish state.

I asked Bradley Schneider, a Jewish congressman from Illinois, whether the party was tilting to the left. “Not at all,” he said, “that’s a totally wrong narrative. The Democratic Party has a couple of groups. The Progressive Caucus, which is more left-leaning, had 85 members two years ago. The more centrist group is the New Democratic Coalition. In this Congress, the Progressive Caucus grew from 85 to 95, but the New Dems, the centrist group, grew from 52 to 101. Do the math.”

According to Schneider, not much has changed in Congress. “As far as support for Israel goes, throughout history there have been people on both sides who are antagonistic to the idea of the Jewish state, but the vast majority of Congress supports an independent, democratic Jewish state.”

Yet recently, when an anti-BDS bill reached the US Senate, all the Democratic candidates for president voted against it. In response, Rep. Schneider said he supports anti-BDS laws, but also believes there should be a “lively debate” around the issue.

“I think ACLU and the people who were saying that the anti-BDS laws violate freedom of speech are wrong, but I accept there’s a debate,” he said. “And that’s what [the Democratic votes against the measure] were about. It was not about support for Israel. I can tell you that the people I work with in the Senate, the overwhelming majority of Democrats and Republicans, are fully committed to Israel’s security and will always vote to ensure the strength of that relationship.”

The following day, on the other end of the city, a neighborhood bookstore-caf? called Busboys and Poets hosted a “Progressive Issues Town Hall” featuring Rep. Omar of Minnesota and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, two Muslim women recently elected to Congress. More than 300 people, mostly millennials, waited outside in three-degree weather for at least an hour and a half to hear them speak. At one point, an usher told the stragglers there was no more room inside, but no one budged.

The woman standing behind me said she’d driven all the way from Asheville, North Carolina, a six-hour drive in good conditions, to hear the duo. Their wild popularity proves that even if they don’t have the majority of the party on their side, they have captured the hearts of the grassroots.

To wit, when Rep. Tlaib shouted “Free Palestine” during her remarks, the crowd enthusiastically shouted back. Seeing that she had backers in the room, she said, “I’ll say it one more time, ‘Free Palestine!’” and the crowd erupted in cheers.

“My mere existence as Palestinian in Congress is better than any bill you could ever introduce about what is happening there,” she told the audience. “I said to somebody — I am more Palestinian in Congress than I am a Palestinian in Palestine when I visit. There, I’m an American. Being equal to the folks [in Congress] that are trying to silence us is what give us courage.”

At one point, the event moderator raised the issue of Rep. Omar’s previous anti-Semitic remarks. On numerous occasions, Omar has charged dual loyalty among Jews and connected Jewish power to money and influence. She apologized, but recently repeated the claim in new language. In response to the charge, Omar insisted that she wasn’t anti-Semitic and that in fact she had endured a hate campaign herself.

“What I’m fearful of, because Rashida and I are Muslim, is that a lot of our Jewish colleagues, a lot of our constituents, a lot of our allies, [think] that everything we say about Israel is anti-Semitic.

“To me, it’s something that becomes designed to end the debate. It’s almost as if, every single time we say something, regardless of what it is we say, we [are] labeled something. And that ends the discussion, because we end up defending that, and nobody ever gets to have the broader debate of what is happening with Palestine.”

Ironically, while she was still complaining about the lack of tolerance, she again issued another classic anti-Semitic trope. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is okay to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she said.

Omar went on to claim she’s received death threats and that malicious graffiti has appeared in her home state of Minnesota. She said she understood well what it means to be hated.

“What people are afraid of is not that there are two Muslims in Congress,” she said. “What people are afraid of is that there are two Muslims in Congress who have their eyes wide open, who have their feet on the ground, who know what they are talking about, who are fearless, and who understand that they have the same election certificate as everyone else.”

It’s hard to estimate which wing of the Democratic Party is larger, but after spending time with both, there’s no question about where the energy is. And that fact will frustrate moderate Democrats who continue to insist that the alliance between the United States and Israel remains a bipartisan issue.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 751)