The country’s most prominent group of Jewish Republican political donors said Tuesday that it was “disappointed” that Representative-elect George Santos had misrepresented himself as Jewish, and that it would bar him from its events. But the group, the Republican Jewish Coalition, stopped short of calling for him unfit to serve in Congress or demanding his ouster.
Mr. Santos, a Republican who was elected last month to represent a New York district that includes much of Long Island’s North Shore, has been embroiled in a widening scandal over misstatements and lies he told about his education, employment and finances.
He also claimed repeatedly to be a descendant of European Jews who fled to Brazil to escape the Holocaust and said that while he was religiously Catholic, he also identified as a nonobservant Jew. He described himself as a Jew on the campaign trail in a heavily Jewish district and regularly attended events with rabbis and other leaders of the religious community.
But in an interview with The New York Post published Monday, he said that he “never claimed to be Jewish” and was instead “Jew-ish.” He also denounced reporting that said he misled voters about his Jewish ancestry.
Republican Jewish Coalition Says Santos ‘Deceived Us’ About His Heritage
