Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

D.C. Councilman Apologizes For Claiming Jews Control Weather

D.C. Councilman Trayon White has issued an apology for his earlier claim that a Jewish family controls the weather.

White made the accusation in a now-deleted video he posted following a snowstorm on Friday. “It’s climate manipulation,” he said. “D.C. keep talking about ‘We are a resilient city,’ and that’s a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man. Be careful.”

The Rothschilds, a European Jewish banking family who gained prominence during the 18th century, have long been the subject anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

White posted his apology on Sunday night, soon after controversy spread after people noticed the video. “I want to apologize to the Jewish community and anyone I have offended,” he wrote. “I did not intend to be anti-Semitic, and I see I should not have said that after learning from my colleagues. I have spoke to leaders and my friends at Jews United for Justice and they are helping me to understand the history of comments made against Jews and I am committed to figuring out ways continue to be allies with them and others.”

Contact Haley Cohen at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.