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Rep. Elaine Luria: Israel's New Democratic Champion in Congress
(Ha'aretz) Ben Samuels - Former New York Reps. Nita Lowey and Eliot Engel, who finished their terms in 2021, were arguably Israel's most stalwart Democratic supporters in Congress over the past several decades. Rep. Elaine Luria, a 45-year-old Navy veteran from Virginia who operated nuclear reactors on combat ships, has attempted to fill the void. She acknowledges there are "some very loud voices" in Congress that do not share her views and that the media tends to amplify those voices. "Sometimes detractors get more oxygen than I think they should," she says. The first time she spoke on the House floor was to respond to her Democratic colleague Rep. Ilhan Omar, who in the context of anti-Semitism accusations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict raised claims of dual loyalty by other members of the Democratic caucus. "I never envisioned that would be the course I took...so quickly after coming to Congress. I thought it was just incredibly important to speak up against anti-Semitism."