Jewish Journal
Aaron Bandler
July 8, 2019
Myriad Jewish groups slammed Women’s March, Inc. co-leader Linda Sarsour on Twitter for saying that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian.
The controversy began with Sarsour tweeting on July 5, “Jesus was Palestinian of Nazareth and is described in the Quran as being brown copper skinned with wooly hair.”
Sarsour doubled down on Twitter in response to backlash:
The American Jewish Committee (AJC) tweeted in response to Sarsour that Judea is mentioned 48 times in the New Testament, while Palestine isn’t mentioned anywhere because “because the name “Palestine” was only applied to the region by the Romans in 135 CE.”
They added, “Try cracking a history book, Linda. It’ll blow your mind.”
AJC CEO David Harris similarly tweeted, “Jesus was a Jew born in Bethlehem (in Hebrew, Bet Lehem) in Judea, then a Roman province. Next up for her cultural appropriation? Maybe King David, born in Bethlehem 1000 [years] earlier & another ‘Palestinian’?”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center tweeted, “#Sarsour‘s hatred for the #Jewish State blinds her to inconvenient historic truths. Yes, @lsarsour invents her own ‘facts’ to bolster her bigotry."
StandWithUs similarly tweeted in response to Sarsour, “1. Jesus was born in Judea. The name “Palestine” did not even exist at that time. 2. Jesus was born Jewish. Why does Linda keep trying to revise the history of Jews living in their indigenous homeland, Judea (=Israel) for her own politicized aims?”
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) came under a similar controversy in April when she re-tweeted a tweet stating that Jesus was a Palestinian. Associate Dean and Director of Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Rabbi Abraham Cooper told the Journal at the time that it is a “grotesque insult” to say that Jesus was a Palestinian, saying that “Palestine was a name made up by Romans after they crucified thousands, destroyed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and exiled the People of Israel from their homeland.”
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