Lauren Boebert Asked Jews Visiting US Capitol if They Were Doing ‘Reconnaissance’

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Rep. Lauren Boebert pays her respects at the casket of Bob Dole in the Capitol rotunda, Dec. 9, 2021. (Michael Reynolds/Pool/AFP via Getty Images via JTA.org)

By Gabe Friedman

Rep. Lauren Boebert asked a group of kippah-wearing Jewish visitors in a U.S. Capitol building elevator on Thursday if they were there to do “reconnaissance,” Buzzfeed News reported.

The outspoken Colorado Republican claimed the comment was a joke tied to criticism she has received over Capitol tours she reportedly gave in the days before the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection there. Some in the elevator “got it,” she told Buzzfeed.


But an unnamed rabbi who was part of the group, which was visiting with Democratic House Rep. Tom Suozzi to mark the 41st anniversary of the end of the Iran hostage crisis, said he was left “very confused.”

“When I heard that, I actually turned to the person standing next to me and asked, ‘Did you just hear that?’” the rabbi said.

The rabbi added that “people are very sensitive” in the wake of the hours-long hostage situation that unfolded last weekend at a synagogue in Texas.

Another unnamed witness said Boebert looked over the group from “head to toe,” suggesting that she understood she was speaking to Jews when she made the comment. She told Buzzfeed, “I’m too short to see anyone’s yarmulkes.”

The unidentified group supports Suozzi’s efforts to get the Iran hostage survivors Congressional Gold Medals, Buzzfeed reported.

“The bottom line is that everyone, especially members of Congress, have to be very, very thoughtful in the language they use,” Suozzi said in a statement. “You can’t be cavalier in the comments you make especially if they could be perceived as being antisemitic, or discriminatory.”

Boebert has taken heat several times in her short tenure in the House so far, including for suggesting that Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar was a terrorist. In July, the Auschwitz museum condemned her rhetoric after she called public health employees working to combat COVID-19 “needle Nazis.”

1 COMMENT

  1. I think Rep. Boebert’s comments were reprehensible. However, such anti-Semitic comments have been made by Trayon White, an African American running for Mayor in DC. His comments blaming the Jews for climate change and COVID were reprehensible as well. You have anti-Semitic individuals in the House of Representatives (Democrats) who are anti-Israel and anti-Jewish, since the both do indeed go hand-in-hand. I’m sure the same is true on both sides of the political spectrum. With the increase of hatred of Jewish people in this nation and world-wide, let’s not make this a political issue. That doesn’t help anything and and further divides this country.
    I have never witnessed anything quite like it in my 72 years. I’ve worked with and supported minorities most of my life. I am sick and tired of articles, newscasts, and continual “racists” accusations that do nothing to mend the brokenness of this country. So glad that my parents, Jewish immigrants brought here by my grandparents to escape the Jewish Pogroms are not alive to witness the country they came to for freedom from persecution. America once was considered the melting pot, but to say that now might get you in a lot of trouble by those being taught and indoctrinated in a “hate” America mentality.
    For some reason, Jewish people are always tied to and hated for causing these problems. I have sadly heard one of the richest men funding so many anti-Israel campaigns and fanning the flames of hatred once say on video, “The culmination of my life’s work will be the destruction of America.” It would be shocking to learn what faith he was born into.

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