Tea Party Launches Jewish Outreach
Politico reports:
Tea partiers have downplayed the lack of diversity in their ranks, but on Monday one of the movement’s leading organizers announced a new initiative to reach out to racial, ethnic and religious minorities – and their first target this High Holiday season are Jews.
“We do need to reach out, ” said Matt Kibbe, president of the small-government group FreedomWorks, which this week is launching a minority-outreach effort called DiverseTea with a series of print ads in Jewish community newspapers.
The ads, which will be accompanied by a yet-to-launch website, will showcase diversity in the tea party ranks by calling attention to movement leaders who are African American, Hispanic and Jewish.
“The goal is to build a platform for a diverse group of tea party leaders from across the country –African Americans, Jews, Hispanics, others that have come to this movement – because there is this nagging perception that we are not diverse and I disagree with that,” said Kibbe during a Monday breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Asked afterwards why FreedomWorks was launching the effort by targeting Jews rather than African Americans, whose absence from tea party events has been repeatedly cited by liberals as proof that the movement is racist, Kibbe explained “I think that there is a more open debate to be had (in the Jewish community), but there is no genius behind that. I had to start somewhere.”
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