Minnesota Democratic Congressional-elect Ilhan Omar speaks at an election night results party on November 6, 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Image by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

(JTA) — Many people have gaps in their understanding of what anti-Semitism is and how it works, according to Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been accused of fomenting anti-Semitism.

Omar, D-Minn.,  offered her perspective on the anti-Semitism experience in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times Magazine.

“In the process of writing a few of the op-eds I’ve written on the rise of anti-Semitism in comparison to the rise of Islamophobia, it has been interesting to see the ways in which so many people create a lens through which they see it,” she said. “It is important, when you are not of that community, to understand the different ways that bigotry shows up.”

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Omar apologized last year for a tweet in which she said “It’s all about the Benjamins baby,” referring to the Israel lobby’s influence on lawmakers. Critics from both parties condemned the tweets as echoing anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews, money and power.

In July, the first-term congresswoman came under fire for a campaign mailer that named three donors, all Jewish, to her Democratic primary opponent.

She told The Times Magazine that “there are a lot of preconceived notions about what thoughts and ideologies I have that have no basis in reality” based on her religion, skin color or gender.

“There’s no one else that exists in a space where they have to deal with the hate of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Blackness, but also with sexism,” said Omar, an immigrant from Somalia.

The post Ilhan Omar says it’s important to understand how people experience anti-Semitism appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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