Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

George Soros’s role in the rise of American antisemitism

The billionaire philanthropist funds district attorneys who let Jew-haters off the hook and attacks bipartisan support for Israel.

George Soros, the Hungarian-born American billionaire, investor and philanthropist, speaks during a political and financial meeting in Italy in 2014. Credit: Giacomo Morinini/Shutterstock.
George Soros, the Hungarian-born American billionaire, investor and philanthropist, speaks during a political and financial meeting in Italy in 2014. Credit: Giacomo Morinini/Shutterstock.
Farley Weiss is the co-author, with Leonard Grunstein, of Because It’s Just and Right: The Untold Backstory of the U.S. Recognition of Jerusalem as the Capital of Israel and Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, and a past president of the National Council of Young Israel.

The rise of antisemitism and antisemitic violence in the U.S. is partly the result of the political donations of George Soros.

For example, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg received a previously unheard-of sum of $1,000,000 from Soros that was crucial to his election victory.

Now, Bragg is offering a plea deal of just six months in jail to Waseem Awawdeh, who together with a mob of thugs, savagely beat Nassau County resident Joey Borgen on a Manhattan street in 2021. The mob targeted Borgen because he is Jewish and Awawdeh has shown no remorse for his crime.

Americans Against Antisemitism studied 194 antisemitic assaults and 135 attacks on Jewish property in New York that have taken place since 2018. According to their July 2022 report, only two of the perpetrators went to prison. Clearly, under Bragg, fighting antisemitism is not a priority.

Soros has not just spent his money on district attorneys. He was also the main source of funding for the prominent anti-Israel organization J Street. Soros provided a substantial part of the original seed money for J Street and the group’s chairman, Jeremy Ben Ami, repeatedly lied about it before finally admitting the truth.

As AIPAC tweeted on Aug. 24, “George Soros has a long history of backing anti-Israel groups. Now he’s giving $1 million to help [J Street] support anti-Israel candidates and attack pro-Israel Democrats. AIPAC works to strengthen pro-Israel mainstream Democrats. J Street [and] Soros work to undermine them.”

J Street recently signed on to a statement saying they “oppose Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge to strip Representative Ilhan Omar of her House Foreign Affairs Committee seat based on false accusations that she is antisemitic or anti-Israel.”

“We may not agree with some of Congresswoman Omar’s opinions, but we categorically reject the suggestion that any of her policy positions or statements merit disqualification from her role on the committee,” the statement proclaimed.

This is the same Ilhan Omar who said that supporters of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship “push allegiance to a foreign country.” She is a supporter of the BDS movement, the goal of which, as stated by one of its leaders Omar Barghouti, is the destruction of Israel. JStreet’s support for Omar makes a mockery of its claim that it is a pro-Israel organization.

J Street is not the only anti-Israel recipient of Soros’s largesse. Kenneth Roth, who as head of Human Rights Watch transformed the organization into a machine for bashing Israel, persuaded Soros to give his group a total of $100,000,000.

Soros’s defenders try to shut down criticism of the billionaire by claiming it is antisemitic because Soros himself is Jewish. But no one has financed more destructive attacks on Israel and the American Jewish community than Soros. He is, at best, a self-hating Jew, and shouldn’t be let off the hook because of his ancestry.

George Soros is now the Democratic party’s main donor, giving $125,000,000 to a Democratic Super PAC that helped the Democrats keep the Senate by far outspending their Republican opponents in the 2022 midterm elections.

It is outrageous that the Democratic Party accepts any funds from an enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. It seems, moreover, that Soros’s efforts have borne fruit, as support for Israel has dropped dramatically among Democrats. Strong bipartisan support for Israel has been eroding in part because of Soros’s efforts, especially the millions he has given to J Street.

One way to stem the dramatic rise in antisemitic violence and erosion of support for Israel among Democrats is for the Democrats to refuse to accept any more money from Soros.

Farley Weiss is chairman of the Israel Heritage Foundation (IHF) and former president of the National Council of Young Israel, as well as an intellectual property attorney for the law firm Weiss & Moy. The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily representative of NCYI.

The Democratic political consultant Jared Sclar told JNS that “the results will cut in more than one direction, and that split is the story.”
“Would you wait until the drones were buzzing over Paris?” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the global body, asked his French counterpart.
The purpose of the legislation is to reduce the power of Israel’s attorney general, who both advises the government and manages criminal proceedings against elected officials.
Exports rose nearly 30% from a year earlier, with government-to-government deals accounting for over half of total sales.
The attacks resumed some three hours after Trump said the terrorist group had agreed to stop firing.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that he was forming a new council to “combat racism and hate in all their forms and to guide the government of Canada as part of our efforts to build a fairer, more just, more inclusive society.”