Jewish Republican congressional candidate calls George Soros a ‘Nazi sympathizer’

(JTA) — The latest political candidate to condemn George Soros, the Jewish billionaire Democratic megadonor, is Jewish himself.

Eric Early, a Republican who is running for Congress in California, tweeted Sunday, “Nazi sympathizer Soros is a danger to our nation.” Soros, who is a frequent target of Republican officials, in fact survived the Holocaust as a teenager.

The false accusation that Soros aided Nazis is not uncommon among criticism of him, which has become unrelenting in this election cycle and frequently veers into anti-Semitism. In reality, Soros was hidden as a child by a Hungarian bureaucrat and once accompanied him to survey the property of a Jewish household.

The Republican Jewish Coalition confirmed in an email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Sunday that Early is Jewish. He is running against California Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who is also Jewish, in a heavily Democratic district.

On Saturday, Schiff had criticized Early for sharing a meme that falsely claimed Schiff was related to Soros. He is not. Schiff called the meme anti-Semitic.

“This week, my opponent shared a “meme” about me. A well-circulated anti-Semitic lie,” he tweeted, adding that “the Republican Party’s willingness to traffic in bigotry and hate has caused lasting damage.”

The meme is gone from Early’s Twitter feed, and Early responded to Schiff’s criticism by writing that “there’s nothing antisemitic at all about the retweet (whoever did it).” Early told the Washington Times that Soros is “flat-out scum” and called Schiff “one of Soros’ many tools.”

A spokesperson for Schiff’s campaign, Patrick Boland, said in a statement in response, “We are glad that Mr. Early deleted his retweet of an anti-Semitic meme, the likes of which should never have shared by a candidate for elected office in the first place.”