Several ads this election cycle from Republicans have featured Jewish candidates clutching money. Image by Twitter/Christopher Ingraham

By Ari Feldman November 6, 2018

Matt Brooks, director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, denounced ads by Republicans featuring Jewish candidates holding fistfuls of cash. There have been at least five such ads, both as TV spots as mailers, that have been deployed this election cycle.

“This crap must end!” Brooks wrote on Twitter.

In response, Brooks received dozens of comments from other Twitter users noting that the ads were coming from candidates’ in Brooks’ own party.

The ads have been all the more shocking since some have come out since the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh last month, when a gunman yelling “All Jews must die!” killed 11 Jews and injured six others.

“What’s stunning is that these are old images that are very similar to those from other eras and other places,” Pamela Nadell, director of Jewish studies at American University, told the Washington Post. “But I will say I have not seen images like this in 21st-century America before.”

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at feldman@forward.com or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman

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