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Congressman-elect George Santos campaigned as a Jewish Republican. Was he lying?
(JTA) — On Sunday night, George Santos joined the Republican Jewish Coalition on Long Island, where he was just elected to Congress, for a menorah-lighting to mark the first night of Hanukkah. He’d been invited as one of just two freshmen Republican Jews elected to Congress in November.
On Monday morning, The New York Times published a blockbuster expose alleging that much of what Santos, 34, had said about his education, his wealth, his business experience, and even where he lives is false or at least questionable.
Not addressed in the article: Was he lying about his Jewish background? As with so much else in his personal narrative, there’s little to suggest truth beyond his own past comments.
The Times noted that Santos, 34, has identified to Jewish Insider as Jewish through his mother and Catholic through his father. Both parents were born in Brazil. Santos has said on Twitter that he is a practicing Catholic — and it is not unusual for some Americans to identify as ethnically Jewish and religiously Christian.
“Whether my mother’s Jewish background beliefs, which are mine or my father’s Roman Catholic beliefs, which are also mine, are represented or not,” he told Jewish Insider after his election, “I want to represent everyone else that practices every other religion to make sure everybody feels like they have a partner in me.”
His campaign biography begins, “George’s grandparents fled Jewish persecution in Ukraine, settled in Belgium, and again fled persecution during WWII. They were able to settle in Brazil, where his mother was born.”
That story could well be true. Many European Jews fled to South America during the leadup to the Holocaust. But Santos’ mother, Fatima Devolder (Santos sometimes goes by the name George Devolder), died in 2016 in New York. Nothing in her online obituary, which often is posted by family, indicates any Jewish background. Fatima is one of a number of Roman Catholic appellations for the Virgin Mary, derived from what the church claims are apparitions of Jesus’s mother in 1917 in the Portuguese city of the same name. Devolder is a Flemish/Dutch name, which at least validates Santos’s claim that his mother has Belgian ancestry, but the Flemish people are overwhelmingly Catholic.
Matt Brooks, the RJC CEO, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a text, “I asked him about this. He identifies as Jewish.”
Santos was a featured speaker last month at the RJC’s annual Las Vegas event, billed as one of two freshmen Jewish Republicans in Congress. (The other is Ohio’s Max Miller.) He campaigned heavily among Orthodox Jews living in New York’s 3rd District, encompassing parts of northern Long Island and a part of Queens. “It was an honor to address fellow members of the Jewish community in #NY03,” he tweeted Nov. 3 after attending a Chabad event also attended by Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau.
At Sunday’s Hanukkah event, Santos joined Lee Zeldin, the outgoing New York Jewish congressman who gained traction among New York’s politically conservative Orthodox Jewish voters.
Santos did not return emails sent by JTA to multiple addresses or messages sent through a number of social media platforms. His sister, Tiffany, also did not reply to an email, nor did his lawyer, Joe Murray.
Santos’ claims about his religious and ethnic origins are minor compared to the revelations in the Times expose, which offered new details as well as ones published previously elsewhere and uncovered by Democratic Party opposition research. There are no records of Santos attending the institutes of higher learning he claims to have attended, or of working at some of the financial brokerages he claims have employed him. A charitable institution he started has no evidence of being charitable. He has repeatedly identified with the far right, and then attempted to scrub such expressions from his social media.
Santos faces outstanding charges in Brazil for allegedly stealing a checkbook from a man in the care of his mother, a nurse, and then cashing checks, according to the New York Times’ report. He has twice been evicted. His financial reporting as a candidate is missing required information, omissions that could bring legal jeopardy. The Times sought Santos out at the address where he is registered to vote; the person there said she did not know him.
It’s not the first time a politician has campaigned as identifying as having a Jewish background that evaporates under scrutiny. In 2018, Julia Salazar, a progressive Democrat who won a seat in the New York state legislature, said she identified as Jewish in part because of her father’s Jewish roots; her brother said their father was not Jewish.
Salazar and her defenders said that she identified as Jewish and it was untoward to demand proof. The RJC’s Brooks sounded a similar note regarding Santos. “He considers himself a Jew. That’s good enough for me,” he texted.
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The post Congressman-elect George Santos campaigned as a Jewish Republican. Was he lying? appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Ben Shapiro denounces Tucker Carlson at Heritage, urges policing of conservative movement
(JTA) — Ben Shapiro walked onto a Heritage Foundation stage Wednesday and used it to draw a line against Tucker Carlson and a strain of conservatism Shapiro warned is drifting toward conspiracy theories and antisemitism.
For a talk that lasted about an hour, Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish voices on the American right, denounced Carlson by name, arguing that the former Fox News host no longer belongs inside the conservative movement and urging the institution hosting him to enforce what he called “ideological border control.”
“A conservatism that treats Tucker Carlson as a thought leader is no conservatism,” Shapiro said. “If conservatives do not stand up and draw lines, conservatism and the dream of America itself will cease to exist.”
The speech was as notable for its venue as for its content. It was hosted by Kevin Roberts, Heritage’s president, who has come under fire in recent months for publicly defending Carlson after Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust revisionist. Roberts’ comments triggered resignations and criticism from Jewish leaders and former Heritage affiliates. Two more trustees of the foundation resigned this week over Roberts’ support for Carlson.
Despite the directness of Shapiro’s message, and his explicit call for Heritage to police the boundaries of the conservative movement, Roberts did not respond to the criticism or address antisemitism on the right during the event.
In his opening remarks, Roberts praised Shapiro as a “patriot,” a “man of faith” and a “trusted counselor,” and described Shapiro’s book as “a truly good book,” without mentioning Carlson, Fuentes or the controversy that has engulfed the organization. When Roberts moderated the discussion that followed, he pivoted to policy topics including immigration, housing affordability and elections, again avoiding any reference to Carlson or antisemitism.
Roberts also did not acknowledge the resignations or public criticism that followed his defense of Carlson, At the conclusion of the event, he broadly aligned Heritage with Shapiro’s message, telling the audience, “Count on Heritage to fight with you.”
In his speech, Shapiro accused Carlson of abandoning free-market principles, rejecting constitutional governance and advancing conspiracy theories that echo antisemitic tropes, particularly around Israel and Jewish influence. He cited Carlson’s repeated criticism of Israel, his suggestion of “nefarious Israeli influence in American government,” and his hostility toward Christian Zionists.
Shapiro also criticized Carlson for repeatedly platforming figures with extremist or antisemitic records, including Fuentes, whom he described as “America’s foremost Hitler apologist,” as well as Russian ideologue Alexander Dugin and revisionist historian Darryl Cooper. “None of this comports with traditional American values,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro framed the moment as a test of the conservative movement’s credibility. “Conservatism means something,” he said. “And if we refuse to stand for it and defend it, it will disappear.”
The post Ben Shapiro denounces Tucker Carlson at Heritage, urges policing of conservative movement appeared first on The Forward.
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Citing Sydney attack, police in London say they will now arrest those who chant ‘globalize the intifada’
(JTA) — Police in London and Manchester, England, say they will now arrest pro-Palestinian protesters who chant the phrase “globalize the intifada,” in a policy change responding to the deadly terror attack on Jews celebrating Hanukkah in Sydney.
Police in London also indicated that they will take more aggressive action to limit protests near synagogues where services are taking place.
The commissioner of the Metropolitan Police in London and the chief constable of Greater Manchester Police announced the new policies on Wednesday, saying in a statement that they had decided to act even though prosecutors had long advised that “the phrases causing fear in Jewish communities” were not criminal offenses.
“Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive,” they said, noting that the changes were “practical and immediate.”
The chant “globalize the intifada” is used widely used at pro-Palestinian protests and according to many of its proponents is meant to galvanize worldwide solidarity against Israel. Its critics, including many Jews, charge that it is a call for violence against Jews. “Intifada,” which means “uprising” or “shaking off” in Arabic, was the name of two violent Palestinian uprisings including one from 2000 to 2005 that killed an estimated 1,000 Israelis in terror attacks, including on buses, at cafes and at recreational centers.
The phrase has drawn renewed scrutiny in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack in Sydney, which killed 15 people. Authorities said the alleged attackers, who are not accused of using the phrase, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group. A man who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State staged an attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur in October in which two people were killed.
Among those drawing a connection between the Sydney attack and the protest phrase was British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.
“Why is it still allowed? What is the meaning of ‘globalize the intifada’? I’ll tell you the meaning — it’s what happened on Bondi Beach,” Mirvis told the BBC this week. He added, “We have to be far stricter with regard to what people are allowed to say.”
The British police crackdown on the phrase contrasts with the stance taken in New York City by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a longtime advocate for the Palestinian cause. During the campaign, he declined to condemn the phrase and then, after hearing from Jewish New Yorkers, said he would “discourage” it. But Mamdani, who hires the police chief and sets department priorities, has said he is not comfortable “with the idea of banning the use of certain words.”
In London, police are already acting on their new policies. The Metropolitan Police relocated a planned demonstration on Wedneday away from areas of London where public Hanukkah celebrations were scheduled, igniting allegations from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign that its protest was being illegally banned.
The police department said that was not true. And the statement announcing the new policies emphasized that they are not intended to prevent legal protest.
“All members of society have a responsibility to consider their impact on others – it is possible to protest in support of Palestinian people without intimidating Jewish communities or breaking the law,” the statement said.
The rally on Wednesday night attracted about 1,000 people, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said on social media, including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The post Citing Sydney attack, police in London say they will now arrest those who chant ‘globalize the intifada’ appeared first on The Forward.
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After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
There is no evidence that Nuno F.G. Loureiro, an M.I.T.-affiliated scientist who was shot Monday at his home in Brookline, Mass., was killed in an antisemitic attack. It’s not even clear that he was Jewish.
But in the hours after his death Tuesday morning, a rumor spread that Loureiro was Jewish — and targeted for his pro-Israel politics. In the wake of a mass killing at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, prominent Jewish social media influencers pointed to Loureiro’s death as proof that Jews all over the world were under attack.
The claim appeared to originate from Ira Stoll, the author of a conservative-leaning Substack newsletter called The Editors. In the newsletter and on X, Stoll reported Tuesday that Loureiro was Jewish. On Substack, Stoll attached a screenshot of a Threads post in which a user with that name defended Israel and criticized Hamas.
There was just one problem: The Threads account did not belong to the slain M.I.T. professor. But in an online information ecosystem that rewards virality, paranoia and hot takes — and whose most influential voices are rarely beholden to journalistic ethics — the unverified assertion took hold.
“Loureiro has been reported to be Jewish with strong pro-Israel views,” the pro-Israel account StopAntisemites shared with more than 350,000 followers. Quoting that post, pro-Israel activist Eyal Yakoby wrote to his 250,000 followers on X, “Every Jew must arm themselves.”
Influencers who repeated Stoll’s claim stated it as fact, usually without stating their source of information. If they had, other uses might have seen that Stoll deleted the X post, and edited his Substack article to include a clarification that MIT had clarified the Threads account belonged to a different person.
Instead, the unverified claim spread to other platforms.
“It’s Jew-hunting season,” the pro-Israel food influencer Gabriel Boxer, who goes by Kosher Guru, and the Jewish account Community News told nearly 400,000 Instagram followers in a joint post. Marnie Perlstein, an Australian Jewish influencer, asked in a Reel why the media wasn’t talking about Loureiro’s Jewish heritage.
There was a good reason legacy media that covered Loureiro’s death, among them the Associated Press and The New York Times, did not report that Loureiro was Jewish: It’s not yet clear whether he was. Indeed, some evidence suggests he wasn’t.
At around the same time as Yakoby’s post, a man named Joah Santos tried to shoot down the rumor, saying Loureiro, a friend of his, was not Jewish and would have never spoken about Israel or Gaza. (The Forward has reached out to Santos.)
StopAntisemites’ post had been reposted nearly 2,500 times and received nearly 600,000 views as of this Wednesday evening, and remains visible on X. Santos’ opposing claim, meanwhile, has been seen only 150,000 times.
The idea that Loureiro was Jewish eventually found its way into Yeshiva World News and the Jerusalem Post, which called Loureiro “a Jewish and vocal pro-Israel nuclear scientist.”
Authorities have opened a homicide investigation into Loureiro’s death; no suspects or possible motives have been disclosed. Funeral details have not been announced.
It’s possible that Loureiro was Jewish — neither the university that employed him nor his family has stated otherwise. But no one has been able to say definitively that he was.
The MIT media relations team told the Forward it could not comment on a staff member’s ethnicity or religion. MIT Hillel did not respond to a voicemail left Wednesday evening.
Bruno Cappi, who described himself as a close friend of Loureiro’s in the MIT physics department, said in an interview that he had worked with the professor since 2016 and that his friend had never mentioned being Jewish during that time. Many of their colleagues in the department were Jewish, Cappi said, with last names typical for Jewish ancestry like Friedman and Rosen; if someone were attacking Jews, why would they go after someone whose Jewish identity was not widely known? “It’s all absurd,” he said.
More than 24 hours after Santos and others tried to correct the record, the articles from the Jerusalem Post and Yeshiva World News remained online. The posts by Yakoby, KosherGuru and Perlstein — none of whom responded to requests for comment prior to publication — also remain up as of this publication. (Some X posts have pending crowd-sourced Community Notes underneath stating he is not Jewish and linking to Santos’ post, but those notes are not currently being shown to all users.)
Additional evidence that Loureiro was pro-Israel was also thin: An X user claimed that a Google Street view image of the professor’s home showed a “Stand With Israel” sign. If the image did depict his building, it had been taken three years earlier; it also showed a multifamily building, and Loureiro — if he did live in the building at the time — did not necessarily live in the unit with that window.
Nevertheless, the claim continued to spread. Around 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday — several hours after the posts from Stoll and StopAntisemites — a Wikipedia article was created about Loureiro, which claimed he was born “to a Sephardic Jewish family.” That claim remained on the article for four hours before a different editor removed it.
The post After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim appeared first on The Forward.