A recent mailer sent by the reelection campaign of Rep. Ilhan Omar accused her opponent of being “in the pocket of Wall Street” and only mentioned Jewish donors by name, according to Vice News.
Omar, a Democrat who represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, is facing a primary challenge from Antone Melton-Meaux, a local attorney and activist in Minneapolis.
The campaign flier, which was sent last week and obtained by Vice News, displays the headline “Can We Trust Antone Melton-Meaux’s Money?”
The mailer accuses Melton-Meaux of being “in the pocket of the GOP” and “in the pocket of Wall Street.” The flier also includes images of several news clippings, quoting various people who have donated to Melton-Meaux’s campaign.
The only names mentioned in the mailer are Stanley Weinstein, a retired real estate executive from Miami Beach; billionaire Jonathan Gray, the head of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm; and Seth Klarman, a billionaire hedge fund owner, the Vice report stated. All three men are Jewish, according to the outlet.
“My immediate thought when I saw the mailer was ‘Here we go again.’ This had both implicit and explicit anti-Semitic tropes,” Rabbi Avi Olitzky of the Beth El Synagogue in Minneapolis told the outlet.
Omar, a Muslim, has been hit with accusations of anti-Semitism since coming to Congress after she said that Washington was “all about the Benjamins” and espoused other anti-Israeli rhetoric.
Omar’s office did not disclose to Vice if she was aware of the content of the mailer sent to potential voters last week.
“Our campaign is supported by a grassroots coalition of people of all faiths, background, and ethnicities,” a spokesman said in a statement. “Right-wing donors are going on the record explicitly declaring their hate for Ilhan and desire to unseat her, using overtly xenophobic language. But we will continue to build an inclusive movement fighting for an America where everyone has their basic rights protected.”
