Facebook Exec Who Commissioned Soros Attacks Is On Holocaust Museum Board

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By Josh Nathan-Kazis November 26, 2018

The Facebook executive who ordered a PR firm to paint George Soros as the secret hand behind attacks on the company serves on the board that oversees the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Facebook is facing allegations that its efforts to link critics to the billionaire Jewish financier, revealed in a New York Times story this month, played on widespread anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Buzzfeed News reporter Joe Bernstein noted on Twitter on Monday afternoon that Facebook executive Elliot Schrage, who in a Thanksgiving eve post said he was behind the anti-Soros effort, sits on the Holocaust Memorial Council.

The council serves as the board of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. President Obama named Schrage to the council in 2016.

A spokesman for the Holocaust Memorial Museum did not immediately respond to a question from the Forward.

In his pre-Thanksgiving post, Schrage said that he had asked a PR firm to research Soros after Soros criticized the social media giant at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January. After an anti-Facebook group called “Freedom From Facebook” appeared months later, Schrage asked the PR firm to highlight funding links between Soros and the groups running the campaign “to show that this was not simply a spontaneous grassroots movement.”

Facebook has since ended its contract with the PR firm.

“Our culture has long been to move fast and take risks,” Schrage wrote. “Many times we have moved too quickly and we always learn and keep trying to do our best. This will be no exception.”

Schrage announced in June that he was preparing to leave Facebook. Business Insider reported that the company had not responded to questions about whether it would cut ties with him sooner.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis

Josh Nathan-Kazis is a staff writer for the Forward. He covers charities and politics, and writes investigations and longform.

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