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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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Iranian Lawmakers Compare Trump to ‘Pharoah,’ Judiciary Chief Vows to ‘Punish’ US President
Cars burn in a street during an anti-regime protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Amid soaring tensions with the United States, Iranian lawmakers on Monday cast President Donald Trump as a modern-day Pharaoh and hailed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Moses, framing the nation’s worst domestic crisis in years as a battle of biblical proportions.
During a parliamentary session, Iranian lawmakers vowed that Khamenei would “make Trump and his allies taste humiliation.”
“Our leader would drown you in the sea of the anger of believers and the oppressed of the world, to serve as a lesson for the arrogant world,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was quoted as saying by local media.
Ghalibaf also described the widespread anti‑government protests that have swept the country for weeks as an American‑Israeli plot and a “terrorist war,” claiming the unrest was being orchestrated to destabilize the state.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have surged sharply in recent weeks, as Iranian security forces struggle to quell anti-regime protests and officials face mounting international pressure over the government’s brutal crackdown.
The nationwide protests, which began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, initially reflected public anger over the soaring cost of living, a deepening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plummeting to record lows amid renewed economic sanctions, with annual inflation near 40 percent.
With demonstrations now stretching over three weeks, the protests have grown into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and even a broader collapse of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
On Sunday, Pezeshkian warned that any attempt to target the country’s supreme leader would amount to a declaration of war, accusing the United States of stoking mass protests that have thrown the nation into turmoil amid reports that Washington is weighing moves against the regime’s leadership.
“If there are hardship and constraints in the lives of the dear people of Iran, one of the main causes is the longstanding hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the US government and its allies,” the Iranian leader said in a statement.
The regime has escalated its threats following repeated statements by Trump, who has called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly four decades in power, labeled him “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” and warned of possible strikes if the government’s brutal crackdown continues.
In response to Trump’s threats and mounting pressure, Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, has declared that authorities will seek to prosecute not only individuals accused of fueling the recent unrest but also foreign governments he blames for backing the protests.
“Those who called for it, those who provided financial support, propaganda or weapons — whether the United States, the Zionist regime or their agents — are all criminals and each of them must be held accountable,” Ejei told local media.
He even threatened to target Trump specifically.
“We will not abandon the pursuit and prosecution of the perpetrators of the recent crimes in domestic courts and through international channels,” the judiciary chief posted on the social media platform X. “The [resident of the United States, the ringleaders of the accursed Zionist regime, and other backers and supporters — both in terms of armaments and propaganda — of the criminals and terrorists behind the recent events are among the perpetrators who, in proportion to the extent and scale of their crimes, will be pursued, tried, and punished.”
Iranian officials have also dismissed Trump’s claims about halting execution sentences for protesters as “useless and baseless nonsense,” warning that the government’s response to the unrest will be “decisive, deterrent, and swift.”
Meanwhile, government officials have hailed victory over what they called one of “the most complex conspiracies ever launched by the enemies of” the country, while expressing deep gratitude to the “smart, noble, and perceptive” Iranian people.
However, the protests have not ceased, with violence continuing and tensions escalating.
The US-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 4,029 deaths during the protests, while the number of fatalities under review stands at 9,049. Additionally, at least 5,811 people have been injured the protests, and the total number of arrests stands at 26,015.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher. The Sunday Times, for example, obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which states that at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured.
The exact numbers are difficult to verify, as the regime has imposed an internet blackout across the country while imposing its crackdown.
On Monday, National Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan issued an ultimatum to protesters involved in what authorities called “riots,” warning they must surrender within three days or face the full force of the law, while urging young people “deceived” into the unrest to turn themselves in for lighter punishment.
Those “who became unwittingly involved in the riots are considered to be deceived individuals, not enemy soldiers, and will be treated with leniency,” Radan was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
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Former Biden Antisemitism Envoy Condemns Harris Campaign’s ‘Antisemitic Inquiry’ of Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers remarks at a bill signing event at Cheyney University, an HBCU in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, US, Aug. 2, 2024. Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers via Reuters Connect
The Biden administration’s deputy special envoy for combating antisemitism accused Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign of antisemitism following new revelations that the vetting process to determine her running mate for vice president involved grilling Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, on whether he was a “double agent” for Israel.
Jews should be “treated like any other American, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or race. That Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote that he was asked if he was a double agent of the world’s only Jewish state is an antisemitic inquiry,” Aaron Keyak, who also served as the “Jewish engagement director for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign in 2020, said in a statement.
Keyak suggested that Shapiro was “targeted by the staff of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee” because of his religion, lamenting that the accusation represents a long line of incidents in which federal officials filling roles have “applied a double standard to American Jews during the vetting process.” He added that he had “personal experience” with being asked similar questions and that he has “heard from too many being asked similar questions over many years.”
The statement came after it was revealed that Shapiro was asked during the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential vetting process whether he had ever acted as a “double agent” of the Israeli government, a question he described as deeply offensive and emblematic of a broader problem in how pro-Israel views are sometimes treated in US politics.
In his forthcoming memoir, Where We Keep the Light, Shapiro reflects on being questioned by members of then-US Vice President Kamala Harris’s vetting team about his ties to Israel, including questions of whether he had ever communicated with Israeli intelligence or acted as a “double agent.” Shapiro writes that he immediately pushed back, telling the vetting aide that the question was “offensive” and echoed long-standing antisemitic tropes questioning Jewish Americans’ loyalty.
According to Shapiro, he was told the questions were standard procedure. But the governor, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent Jewish elected officials, says the experience left him unsettled, particularly because of the historical baggage attached to such accusations.
Shapiro portrays the encounter as “unnecessarily contentious” and suggests in is memoir that no other candidate would be asked whether their faith or foreign policy views made them a secret agent of another country.
“Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was,” Shapiro writes.
“Remus was just doing her job. I get it. But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question, by someone else, said a lot about some of the people around the VP,” the governor continues, referring to Dana Remus, a former White House counsel and member of the vetting team.
Shapiro claims that he felt bothered that the Harris team pressed him on his overarching worldview rather than the substance of his positions.
“It nagged at me that their questions weren’t really about substance,” Shapiro writes. “Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach, my world view.”
Shapiro also alleges that the Harris team asked whether he would be willing to apologize and walk back condemnations of pro-Hamas protesters on Pennsylvania college campuses. In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, activists organized demonstrations celebrating the massacre and venerating the Palestinian terrorist group. Shapiro vigorously denounced the protesters, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan. His response drew strong criticism from progressive corners of the Democratic Party, which accused him of harboring “anti-Palestinian racism.”
The controversy comes amid heightened political tensions in the Democratic Party over Israel following the Oct. 7 atrocities and the ensuing war in Gaza, which has intensified scrutiny of pro-Israel politicians, especially within progressive Democratic circles.
“The more I read about [Shapiro’s] treatment in the vetting process, the more disturbed I become,” Deborah Lipstadt, the former antisemitism envoy in the Biden administration, said in a post on X/Twitter. “These questions were classic antisemitism.”
Former longtime leader of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman echoed these condemnations on social media, calling the episode “very disturbing.”
“Aides focused on Israel to the extent he found it offensive. Something very troubling about our current political culture,” he wrote.
Shapiro ultimately was not selected as Harris’s running mate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was chosen instead.
Harris, who served as vice president in the administration of former US President Joe Biden, lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump.
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‘Hands on Our Weapons’: Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq Threatens to Hit US Bases if Trump Strikes Iran
A vehicle carries the coffin of a commander from Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah armed group who was killed in what they called a “Zionist attack” in the Syrian capital Damascus, during a funeral in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Kataib Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group based in Iraq, has threatened to attack American military bases in the Middle East if President Donald Trump follows through on his threats to strike the Iranian regime in response to state violence against anti-government protesters.
“Kataib Hezbollah is part of the conflict between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we will not stand on the sidelines. Our hands are on our weapons,” Abu Talib al-Saidi, a senior commander in the Iran-backed militia, told Shafaq News on Friday. He made the comments during a protest outside Iran’s embassy in Baghdad opposing Trump’s threats of military intervention against Tehran.
“During the 12-day war that America waged against Iran, there was a directive and mandate from [Iranian] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that we should not interfere in this war, but the situation now is completely different,” al-Saidi continued, referring to the Iran-Israel war last June, when the US struck Iranian nuclear sites following a devastating Israeli air campaign.
“The resistance’s missiles and drones are ready,” he added. “We have a high level of readiness and definitely in case the United States directs strikes on Iran, US bases in Iraq and neighboring countries will not be immune from our missiles and our planes.”
Kataib Hezbollah is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a group of militias that are part of an official Iraqi security institution. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Shiite terrorist group is “the premier militia in Iraq, operating under Iran’s direct command and fielding a wide range of cells responsible for kinetic, media, and social operations, some bankrolled by the Iraqi state.” The US government listed the organization as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group on July 2, 2009, following a strike on troops in Iraq.
Al-Saidi’s warning followed repeated threats by Trump to target Iran in some manner in response to the regime’s deadly crackdown on protests, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but quickly swelled into nationwide demonstrations calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
“We’re watching [the protests in Iran] very closely,” Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One on Jan. 4. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
The president’s top military advisers reportedly warned him that additional time would be needed to prepare for a potential attack on the regime.
On Jan. 11, Trump said that the US was willing to meet with Iranian officials and in touch with opposition leaders. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said at the time that “the communication channel between our Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and the US special envoy [Steve Witkoff] is open and messages are exchanged whenever necessary.”
Two days later, Trump called on Iranian protesters to “take over your institutions” and suggested the US was prepared to take strong action against the regime.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he posted on social media. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA [Make Iran Great Again]!!!”
Last Wednesday, an anonymous US official told Reuters that the military had chosen to withdraw some personnel from military bases, a decision mirrored by the United Kingdom which pulled people from their posts in Qatar.
On Friday, Trump denied reports that pressure from Israel and Gulf Arab monarchies to reject a strike on Iran had influenced his decision not to strike yet. He told reporters on the White House lawn that “nobody convinced me. I convinced myself. You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone. They canceled the hangings. That had a big impact.”
Khamenei and other Iranian officials have blamed Trump for the demonstrations.
The US-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 4,029 deaths during the protests, while the number of fatalities under review stands at 9,049. Additionally, at least 5,811 people have been injured the protests, and the total number of arrests stands at 26,015.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher. The Sunday Times, for example, obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which states that at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured,
Some Iraqi militia fighters, including members of Kataib Hezbollah, have reportedly aided the Iranian regime with the crackdown against protesters.