The founders of Jews Against Soros told Breitbart News on Sunday that they have been criticized by left-wing commentators for supposedly “kosherizing” criticism of George Soros, the prominent Democratic Party donor.
As Breitbart News reported last week, Newsweek commentator Josh Hammer and Missouri attorney general candidate Will Scharf, both of whom are outspoken Jewish conservatives, founded JewsAgainstSoros.com to push back against claims that criticizing Soros is antisemitic.
Soros happens to be Jewish, and survived the Holocaust, but has little to do with the Jewish community other than funding anti-Israel organizations.
Hammer and Scharf’s website declares: “There is nothing antisemitic about identifying the many ways that George Soros and his network of organizations fund the radical left. Leftism isn’t Judaism, and being anti-leftist is not the same as being Antisemitic. Period.”
Appearing on Breitbart News Sunday, Hammer and Scharf noted they had been the target of “hit pieces” in the left-wing press, and attacks by left-wing journalists in the Jewish world:
One journalist, Jakob Kornbluh, claimed falsely that Hammer had “close ties to white nationalists”:
Kornbluh cited criticism by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which many on the right consider a discredited hate group in its own right, especially after a would-be mass shooter allegedly followed an SPLC “hate map” in a thwarted attack on the Family Research Council, a group that supports traditional marriage.
Hammer and Scharf noted that they had received messages of support from across the country since starting their organization — including from Jews, who were frustrated that Soros’s defenders had claimed to speak in their name in shielding him from criticism.
Breitbart News has previously noted that Soros is, indeed, a target of antisemitic conspiracy theories, but that he is also a subject of legitimate criticism for his support for radical groups, including some antisemitic ones.