New group ‘Jews Against Soros’ aims to fight the Left’s antisemitism claims
Jack Elbaum
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Today, the senior editor at large of Newsweek, Josh Hammer, and current candidate for attorney general of Missouri Will Scharf announced the launch of a new group called Jews Against Soros. They tweeted that “there is nothing antisemitic about opposing George Soros” and his “radical left-wing agenda.”
On their website, they explain that the organization’s purpose is twofold. First, it wants to push back on Soros’s “malign, leftist influence on American politics.”
The website goes on to document Soros’s extensive political donations and influence in arenas such as crime, border security, guns, and Israel. On each of these issues, he holds a consistently left-wing position. They note that in the 2022 midterm elections alone, he spent $128.5 million, which makes him “the largest political donor in America.”
https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1663936923382022153
But second, they also want to challenge those “accusing anyone who criticizes Soros of being antisemitic.” In recent months, accusations of antisemitism against conservatives who attack the billionaire, who happens to be Jewish, have ramped up. A New York Times news piece said, “The right’s fixation with Mr. Soros has waxed and waned for years,” but recent events have “given new life to what critics have long contended is a fixation tinged with antisemitic bigotry.”
MSNBC anchor Joy Reid claimed Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) using the phrase “Soros-backed Manhattan prosecutor” means he believes “that black folks in positions of power are controlled by some Jewish overseer who is pulling the strings.” The New Republic ran an article titled “Why the Right Can’t Quit Its Antisemitic Attacks Against George Soros.” President Joe Biden’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism wrote that “it is entirely disingenuous to deny that many ad hominem attacks on [Soros] rely on classic antisemitic tropes and rhetoric.”
In this context, the formation of Jews Against Soros is a welcome development. With respect to its first aim, it is eminently reasonable to raise awareness of Soros’s political activities and advocate against them. And for those who suggest that the attacks are unwarranted because Soros is only one man, need I remind you again that he was the largest donor in America in 2022? Left-wing politicians and activists have long attacked individual conservative donors who have given in similar numbers to Republicans. We can therefore conclude that Soros is fair game as well.
More importantly, though, the group’s second aim of combating accusations of antisemitism against conservatives who attack Soros is extremely important. A clear double standard has emerged where leftist attacks on conservative Jewish donors, such as Sheldon Adelson, are understood to be legitimate criticism while conservative attacks on liberal Jewish donors are met with antisemitism claims. This is even the case when the liberal attacks are openly about money and power.
“Saying Adelson is too powerful because he’s a Jew is antisemitic. Saying he’s too powerful because he’s rich is not. STOP WEAPONIZING ANTISEMITISM,” wrote the same Biden official who later said saying Soros is too powerful uses antisemitic tropes. Of course, both can be criticized without being antisemitic.
This is not to say there aren’t antisemitic attacks on George Soros — of course there are — but rather to suggest that attacking Soros as one would attack any other prominent political figure or donor is perfectly legitimate.
One of the reasons these false accusations of antisemitism are so gross is that they cheapen the term, leading people to take real antisemitism less seriously. And there is still antisemitism to combat — the growing trend of orthodox Jews being beaten up on the streets of New York, for example, is a good place to start. So to have a group whose explicit purpose is to combat these false accusations adds to the political conversation.
At the same time, it is unfortunate that the group claimed that Soros’s funding of J-Street, a pro-two-state solution group, is itself antisemitic. It is not productive to engage in precisely the kind of argumentation that you are advocating against.
With that said, it doesn’t change the fact that Jews Against Soros is a necessary group right now — a time when prosecutors that Soros donated significant funds to are presiding over crime waves, and the Left is mobilizing to stigmatize conservatives as antisemitic. I look forward to what the group has in store.
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Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.