Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Image by Getty Images

(JTA) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., declined the invitation of a Poland-born Holocaust survivor from New Jersey to tour Auschwitz together following her remarks about concentration camps.

Edward Mosberg, 93, on Friday extended the invitation to the Democratic lawmaker. A week ago, Ocasio-Cortez touched off a heated debate in the media about her use of the term, which is widely associated with Nazi Germany, to describe migrant detention centers in the United States.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted the rejection of the invitation in response to a tweet from Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who called on her to visit the Nazi camp with Mosberg and the Holocaust commemoration group he leads, From the Depths. King was removed in January from two House committees after he said he wondered why the term “white supremacist” had become offensive.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“The last time you went on this trip it was reported that you also met w/ fringe Austrian neo-Nazi groups to talk shop. So I’m going to have to decline your invite. But thank you for revealing to all how transparently the far-right manipulates these moments for political gain,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

Meanwhile, the New York Times over the weekend published a full-page ad which was headlined, “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stop desecrating the Holocaust.” The ad, sponsored by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and his The Values Network, features a picture of Jewish concentration camp prisoners and one of the congresswoman, and reads: “Six million Jews were murdered in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. By comparing the United States to the Third Reich, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez disgraces their memory, our country and herself.”

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount