“She’s a hero to my daughters,” said Ahmed, who like the congresswoman is Somali-American. “She’s an idol. They look up to her. They aspire to be her.”
But as Omar’s comments about American Jews and Israel drew bipartisan rebukes in recent weeks, culminating Thursday with a House vote condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hate, Ahmed had a conversation with his 8-year-old daughter about Omar.
“I told her she had a poor choice of words, which hurt people,” said Ahmed, who voted for Omar but was unsure whether he would do so again. “And words matter if you’re a leader.”
Across Minnesota’s snow-covered 5th Congressional District — a bright-blue bastion of independent coffee shops, Somali malls and proudly progressive politics — the voters who overwhelmingly elected Omar in November were conflicted about her recent remarks, sometimes along surprising lines. Omar’s comments, and the weeks of backlash, raised questions about tolerance and free speech in a place that consistently elects a diverse slate of politicians, as well as concerns about the future of a carefully crafted rapport between leaders of the area’s sizable Jewish and Muslim communities.
“We don’t want these issues to derail the relationship,” said Steve Hunegs, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas, who said he was “appalled” by Omar’s most recent remarks.
Omar’s district, which spans Minneapolis and some of its inner-ring suburbs, is a place attuned to religious tension. Longtime members of the Somali community still speak about the profiling they experienced in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and about the fear they felt after a mosque was bombed by white supremacists in nearby Bloomington in 2017. In those difficult times, they said, Jewish leaders in Minnesota made a point of stating their support.
“When religion is under attack, they stand by us, because they’ve been there,” said Zahra Ali, a Somali-American resident of Minneapolis who once saw Omar’s election as a beacon of hope but who did not plan to vote for her again.
“For her to go out there and target, on a daily basis, Jews, is very sad,” Ali said.
Omar, one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, was seen by voters as a symbolic counterweight to President Donald Trump, who is deeply unpopular in Minneapolis and who has spoken critically about the region’s large Somali population. Omar, a Somali refugee who came to the United States as a girl, received more than three-quarters of the vote last year, taking over a seat that had been held by Keith Ellison, a fellow Democrat and the country’s first Muslim elected to Congress.
“Here in Minnesota, we don’t only welcome immigrants, we send them to Washington,” Omar told a jubilant crowd at her election night party.
But shortly after her victory, Omar began drawing controversy with her remarks about Jews and Israel. At various points, she suggested that Israel was not a democracy, insinuated that American support for Israel was motivated by money from a pro-Israel lobbying group and said pro-Israel activists were pushing “for allegiance to a foreign country.”
Rabbi Avi Olitzky, who helps lead a congregation in suburban St. Louis Park, in Omar’s district, said some of his members had gone from wanting to make sure their congresswoman was better educated about anti-Semitism to frightened about her views.
“I think we’ve seen the recognition of the weight of her words, but the continued comments don’t reflect that sensitivity,” said Olitzky, who said he had consulted with Omar and her aides in recent weeks. He suggested that the congresswoman should consider participating in bipartisan trips to Israel and making a visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Still, he cautioned: “I don’t know about bouncing back” from the damage already done.
Omar, who has apologized for some of her remarks, has insisted that she is not anti-Semitic. She has also drawn attention to bigoted attacks against herself. Omar tweeted an image of threatening graffiti that was reported at a Minnesota gas station, and suggested a double standard after West Virginia Republicans displayed a poster that linked fading memories of the 9/11 attacks to her election.
But even with bipartisan misgivings about Omar, the biggest threat to her political future is from fellow Democrats, not Republicans, who are vastly outnumbered in her diverse, mostly urban district. There have already been mutterings about a primary challenge in 2020, and though no such candidate has yet emerged, patience among some Democrats is clearly wearing thin.
“Rep. Omar has used up the reservoir of goodwill generally granted to those who begin new jobs by repeatedly insulting the Jewish people even after being told that her words are dangerous and hurtful,” said state Sen. Ron Latz, D-St. Louis Park, in a recent statement. Latz called on the congresswoman to “discuss policy without inflaming religious conflict.”
Still, the deeply liberal makeup of Omar’s district — a mix of urban and suburban neighborhoods where “Black Lives Matter” signs and LGBT rights flags are common sights — may shield her from political punishment. Omar trounced her primary opponents last year, and she built an enthusiastic coalition of supporters of different racial and religious identities.
And though many constituents, including some Muslims, saw Omar crossing a line and trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes, others, including members of the district’s Jewish community, said they were offended only by what they perceived as partisan, even racist, attacks on their congresswoman for legitimate criticisms of Israel.
“I feel like she’s being attacked because she’s a black Muslim,” said Ethan Wilensky-Lanford, 38, who is Jewish, and who distributed campaign literature for Omar last year.
Anne Winkler-Morey, also a Jewish resident of Omar’s district, said she had discussed the congresswoman’s comments with her Somali friends and did not find the remarks offensive.
“She’s speaking out about a foreign policy, whether you agree with her or not,” Winkler-Morey said. “It’s actually an anti-Semitic idea that the state of Israel represents Jews and you have to show your allegiance to this state. It doesn’t represent me, just as Saudi Arabia doesn’t represent Muslims.”
But the comments had created an uncomfortable rift in the district, even among loyal Democrats who usually agree on politics. Khalid Mohamed, a Somali-American resident of Minneapolis who said he interned for Omar when she was a state legislator, reached out to a Jewish friend who had posted critiques of the congresswoman on Twitter.
“I told him that I needed to talk to him,” Mohamed said. “If a person thinks what Omar says is anti-Semitic, well, I haven’t lived as a Jewish person. Personally, I don’t believe it. But let’s put the feelings aside.”
Mohamed said he and his friend planned to meet for a meal to talk it out Friday, sometime after morning prayers.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.