Uncategorized
Congressman-elect with fabricated resume also lied about having Nazi refugee grandparents
(JTA) — When The New York Times reported earlier this week that virtually the entire resume of George Santos, recently elected as a Republican congressman from Long Island, appeared to be a fabrication, it left untouched one detail: his claim to Jewish heritage.
On his website, Santos said his maternal grandparents were refugees from the Nazis when they arrived in Brazil. He also said that he counted as his own his mother’s “Jewish background beliefs” as well as his father’s Catholicism.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Monday that Santos’ claim that his mother was Jewish had no evidence and was suspicious given her name, common among Brazilian Catholics, and her online obituary, which did not mention any Jewish identity.
“I asked him about this. He identifies as Jewish,” the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which had been feting Santos as one of two new Republican Jews in Congress, told JTA at the time.
Now, the Forward has identified records indicating that Santos’ grandparents had not in fact fled Ukraine or the Nazis in Belgium. Santos’ claim to be the descendant of refugees of anti-Jewish persecution, it appears, is also a lie.
Both of Santos’ maternal grandparents were born in Brazil, according to the records identified by the Forward, which also obtained a 1954 Brazilian newspaper article reporting that his great-grandfather immigrated from Belgium in 1884. The great-grandfather was listed in church records on the occasion of his daughter’s marriage in 1928, according to the Forward, which obtained a photograph of the family in Brazil that appears to be from the early 20th century.
Jewish Insider, meanwhile, obtained records from a Brazilian national civil identification database further undermining Santos’ story. And CNN scrutinized multiple databases about people persecuted by the Nazis and found no record of Santos’ family.
“There’s no sign of Jewish and/or Ukrainian heritage and no indication of name changes along the way,” Megan Smolenyak, a professional genealogist, told CNN after researching Santos’ family history.
Robert Zimmerman, the Democrat who conceded to Santos after losing by 8 points, told the Forward that Santos’ apparent fabrications about his Jewish heritage was especially galling, even amid a string of apparently false claims about his career, education and even address.
“That he would actually lie about the Holocaust to try to promote himself, it’s not offensive — it’s sick and obscene,” Zimmerman told the Forward. “It’s one of the most vile things you can do, to actually use one of the world’s greatest tragedies, the death of 6 million, as a political stunt.”
There are many reasons why someone might lie about being Jewish. Some people falsely claim Jewish identity out of a desire to identify with those who are oppressed. There can also be opportunistic reasons, to derive benefits available to Jews. And a small group of people simply lie a lot, about all kinds of matters, according to researchers who found that 5% of people report telling half of all lies. (That finding was recently reported in a New York Times article about the former chief of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, who resigned from a subsequent role after his own fabricated resume was exposed.)
Santos has not offered any insights about what drove his many apparent lies, which troubled some but were not reported in full until after his election. He did not respond to JTA’s efforts to reach him through multiple pathways on Monday and has not commented publicly since.
But it is clear that laying claim to a Jewish identity could easily have been seen as a selling point in New York’s Third Congressional District, home to a large and growing Orthodox Jewish population. Zimmerman is Jewish.
For now, the Republican Jewish Coalition, which hosted Santos at a Hanukkah party the night before the New York Times story broke, has adjusted its earlier nonchalance about Santos’ background.
The group “is aware of the claims being made against Congressman-elect George Santos, and we have reached out to his office directly to ascertain whether they are true,” CEO Matt Brooks said in a statement Wednesday. “These allegations, if true, are deeply troubling. Given their seriousness, the Congressman-elect owes the public an explanation, and we look forward to hearing it.”
Meanwhile, scrutiny of Santos’ claims is continuing, with new information calling into question his self-identification as having been openly gay for more than a decade. The Daily Beast broke the news Thursday that Santos had not disclosed a marriage to a woman that ended in divorce in 2019, and said it had been unable to find a marriage record for the man Santos says is his husband.
—
The post Congressman-elect with fabricated resume also lied about having Nazi refugee grandparents appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
NELLA MARGRITHE ESKIN NOVEMBER 14, 1946 – AUGUST 27, 2025
It is with great sorrow that the Eskin family reports the passing of Nella Margrithe Eskin, beloved wife and devoted partner of Michael Eskin, on August 27, 2025.
Nella, the only child of the late Kasiel and Rosa Kessler, Holocaust survivors, was born in a displaced persons camp in Fohrenwald, Germany, in 1946. The family first moved to Baltimore as refugees in 1949 before settling in Chicago, where Nella graduated from Roosevelt University with Bachelor of Science degree.
In 1969, she met Michael, and three months later they were married in Chicago in March 1970. They shared a wonderful marriage of over 55 years, during which they raised a family of four boys and created a home that was always full of song, food, guests and Yiddishkeit. Sadly, their eldest son, Katriel, passed away in 2015. Nella is survived by her other three sons, Josh, Ezra and Daniel, and their families as well as Katriel’s wife and family. She was a devoted wife, mother, and grandmother to her husband, sons, and ten grandchildren, and a loving daughter to her mother, Rosa, who passed away in 2020.
A lifelong scholar, she earned an MBA from the University of Manitoba in 1995. Nella was a very pious and learned woman who was also a wonderful artist, music lover, gardener and cook. She passed her love of music, art, storytelling and learning to her children, teaching each of them piano and instilling in them an enduring appreciation for the arts that continues to this day. She was an incredibly warm woman and made every gathering feel special, every guest feel valued, and every meal feel like a celebration of love and friendship.
She will be sorely missed by her husband, children, grandchildren, relatives in the UK, USA, Australia, and Israel, and many dear friends. Her kindness, curiosity, and love will live on in the many lives she touched. May her memory be
a blessing.
Uncategorized
VIDEO: Moishele Alfonso on the new book of I. L. Peretz stories for students
לכּבֿוד דער פּובליקאַציע פֿונעם ביכל „אויפֿן װעג: זיבן דערציילונגען פֿון י.־ל. פּרץ“ — אַ זאַמלונג ספּעציעל געמאַכט פֿאַר סטודענטן — קען מען איצט זען אַן אינטערוויו מיטן ייִדיש־לערער משהלע אַלפֿאָנסאָ, וואָס האָט פֿאַרקירצט און באַאַרבעט די דערציילונגען.
אין דעם אינטערוויו דערציילט אַלפֿאָנסאָ וועגן דעם פּראָצעס פֿון שאַפֿן דאָס ביכל, און לייענט געקליבענע אויסצוגן דערפֿון. דער אינטערוויו, געפֿירט פֿון אלי בענעדיקט, איז געשטיצט געוואָרן פֿון דער ייִדיש־ליגע, וואָס האָט אויך אַרויסגעגעבן דאָס לייענביכל.
דאָס נאָוואַטאָרישע ביכל גיט דעם לייענער אַ צוטריט צו קלאַסישע ייִדיש־דערציילונגען דורך אַ זײַט־בײַ־זײַטיקן גלאָסאַר, שמועס־פֿראַגעס און קלאַנג־רעקאָרדירונגען פֿון די מעשׂיות.
משהלע אַלפֿאָנסאָ איז אַ ייִדיש־לערער בײַם ייִדישן ביכער־צענטער זינט 2019. אין 2022 האָט ער, דורכן פֿאַרלאַג „אָלניאַנסקי־טעקסט“, טראַנסקריבירט און אַרויסגעגעבן יצחק באַשעוויסעס בוך „שׂונאים: די געשיכטע פֿון אַ ליבע“. דער ראָמאַן איז אַרויס אין המשכים אינעם פֿאָרווערטס אין 1966, און ס’איז דאָס ערשטע מאָל וואָס שׂונאים איז אַרויס אין בוכפֿאָרעם אויף ייִדיש.
דאָס ביכל קען מען באַשטעלן דאָ.
The post VIDEO: Moishele Alfonso on the new book of I. L. Peretz stories for students appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
VIDEO: Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Light One Candle” — in Yiddish
If, like me, you enjoy listening to old recordings of the iconic folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, you may want to check this out: a new Yiddish version of their Hanukkah song “Light One Candle,” sung by another talented trio — Rabbi Avram, Elisha and Sarah Mlotek. (A transliteration of the lyrics appears beneath the video below.)
The three siblings are the grown children of Zalmen Mlotek, musician and director of the Yiddish National Theater Folksbiene, and his wife, Debbie Mlotek. Rabbi Avram is a writer, Elisha is a filmmaker and Sarah is studying music at a conservatory in Israel — and just became a mom.
Their singing is backed up by C. Joseph Lanzbom on guitar and Elisha on percussion.
The original song, which was written by Peter Yarrow, became an anthem for the Soviet Jewry movement in the 1980s, symbolizing their struggle for freedom. It was translated into Yiddish by the theater producer Moishe Rosenfeld and Avram Mlotek.
“‘Light One Candle’ was one of our Bubbe’s favorite songs every time we got together for a Hanukkah sing-along,” Avram said. Their Bubbe was the renowned scholar of Yiddish song, Chana Mlotek. For many years, she and her husband, the Yiddish cultural activist Yosl Mlotek, ran a column about Yiddish songs and poetry in the Forward.
Although Hanukkah is still a month away, Bubby Chana’s grandchildren had a meaningful reason for publishing it now: This week marks her yortzeit.
TRANSLITERATION
Eyn likht shaynt far di heldishe kinder
A dank vos dos likht geyt nit oys
Eyn likht shaynt far di payn un di laydn
Di sakone’z geven azoy groys
Eyn likht flakert far korbones un laydn
Az yoysher un frayhayt zol zayn
Eyn likhtl flakert far khokhme un visn
Far frayhayt un sholem zol zayn.
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Zey flakern shoyn doyres-lang
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Balaykhtn durkh undzer gezang!
Eyn likht flakert tsu gebn undz koyekh
Az eybik mir’n blaybn getray
Eyn likht flakert far mentshn vos laydn
Oykh mir zenen nisht geven fray
Eyn likhtl flakert far zise khaloymes
Tseteyln zol undz nisht der kas
Un eyn likhtl flakert tsu haltn tsuzamen
Mit sholem un mer nisht kayn has
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Zey flakern shoyn doyres-lang
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Balaykhtn durkh undzer gezang!
Vos iz di mayse vos iz azoy tayer
Vos lebt eybik in undzer flam?
Vos iz di shvue tsu fargangene doyres
Az es lebt undzer folk, undzer am?
Mir kumen, mir geyen, mir hofn, mir gloybn
Az yoysher vet vern der klal
Dos iz der viln, dos iz di shvue
A shenere velt iberal!
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Zey flakern shoyn doyres-lang
Lesht nit di likhtlekh oys!
Balaykhtn durkh undzer gezang!
The post VIDEO: Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Light One Candle” — in Yiddish appeared first on The Forward.