Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

George Santos: ‘You sit in a room with a lot of Jews, you’re f—ed’

In new audio, George Santos imitates his district’s Jews

In new audio, Rep. George Santos (R-NY) can be heard imitating Jewish constituents and kvetching about how, when you are in a room with them, “you’re f—ed.”

Director Blake Zeff, who said he spent months speaking to Santos for a potential documentary, posted what he called the congressman’s “Jewish impression” to Twitter, via Ari Melber’s MSNBC show The Beat. The context, Zeff said, was Santos speaking about his district.

“You sit in a room with a lot of Jews, you’re f—ed,” said the congressman, who this week pleaded not guilty to a 13-count indictment.

“It’s funny when the -isms start coming out, right? ‘Oh he’s such a mensch, he’s such a mensch,’” Santos said, affecting a Yiddish accent. “Then they go onto the next thing, oh he’s such a [unintelligible, a possible corruption of Yiddish.]”

Santos insists he has Jewish heritage, despite a Forward genealogy report that found evidence the grandparents he claimed were Jewish refugees from Belgium and Ukraine, were born in Brazil. After multiple exposés about his many lies, Santos has had difficulty winning over Jewish constituents, even in his own party. 

Following the news of his indictments, Bruce Blakeman, Nassau County’s executive, and a Republican, told the Forward Santos “has been thoroughly untruthful about his biography and has fabricated stories that are blatantly untrue.” 

“He needs to go,” Blakeman added. 

Or, as a room with Jews might say, “aroiys mit im!

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.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join 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 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.