Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Make a Passover gift and support Jewish journalism. DONATE NOW
Fast Forward

GOP Congressman suggests Charlottesville rally was organized By George Soros

ep. Paul Gosar, a Republican from Arizona, uggested the events in Charlottesville may have been ‘created by the left’

A Republican congressman from Arizona has claimed that the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August may have been organized by billionaire Jewish financier George Soros.

Rep. Paul Gosar, a dentist who has represented rural western Arizona since 2011, suggested in an interview with Vice News that the events in Charlottesville may have been “created by the left.”

When asked to explain himself, Gosar responded:

Because let’s look at the person that actually started the rally. It’s come to our attention that this is a person from Occupy Wall Street that was an Obama sympathizer. So, wait a minute, be careful where you start taking these people to. And look at the background. You know, you know George Soros is one of those people that actually helps back these individuals. Who is he? I think he’s from Hungary. I think he was Jewish. And I think he turned in his own people to the Nazis. Better be careful where we go with those.

When reporter Elspeth Reeve asked him if he thought Soros funded the neo-Nazi marchers, Gosar responded, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?”

Soros, who lived in Nazi-occupied Hungary as a child, has long been the subject of debunked conspiracy theories that he collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, which ended when he was 14.

The Open Society Foundation, Soros’s main charitable foundation, responded by stating, “such baseless allegations are insulting to the victims of the Holocaust, to all Jewish people, and to anyone who honors the truth. It is an affront to Mr. Soros and his family, who against the odds managed to survive one of the darkest moments in our history. He abhors violence in any form and has never funded it. Never has. Never will.”

Jason Kessler, the organizer of the Charlottesville rally, admitted to voting for President Obama and participating in an Occupy rally, but has also frequently written about his fears of “white genocide.”

Contact Aiden Pink at [email protected] or on Twitter, @aidenpink

This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.

We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.

This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.

With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.