New York Jewish politicians protest George Santos and demand an apology for his 'nonexistent' faith and 'false' Holocaust connection as more of his lies and fabrications surface

A group of Jewish New York politicians, including his former political rival, held a protest Thursday against Rep.-elect George Santos, for seemingly fabricating that his mother was Jewish and grandparents fled the Nazis during World War II. 

'Our community has been victimized and we demand accountability,' New York state Sen. Anna M. Kaplan told a crowd gathered outside the Nassau County Courthouse, according to The Forward. 'We are owed an apology for his reprehensible lies about his nonexistent Jewish faith and his complete false connection to the Holocaust,' she said. 

Santos played up his mother's Jewish roots during the campaign, but then later walked back those claims when he gave a mea culpa to The New York Post on Monday. 

Several news outlets did ancestral deep dives into Santos' family and found only Brazilian, not Belgian - as he claimed - heritage. 

'I never claimed to be Jewish,' the New York Republican told The Post. 'I am Catholic. Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was "Jew-ish."'  

Santos was called out for this distincation at the rally. 

'You don't just get to be Jewish and there is no such thing as being "Jew-ish,"' Rabbi Deborah Bravo told the crowd. 

Attendees held a number of signs including those calling Santos a 'liar' and tellling him he should resign. 

Santos' defeated Democratic rival Rob Zimmerman, who is Jewish, attended the demonstration. 

It comes as more of Santos' lies, fabrications and embellishments have been exposed. 

CNN reported late Wednesday that the New York Republican never attended the $59,800-a-year Horace Mann School, an elite private school in the Bronx. 

Additionally, newly resurfaced tweets show that Santos, who is Brazilian-American and seemingly lied about having Jewish heritage, claimed in July of 2020 that he was biracial, meaning 'Caucasian and black.' 

He also said in a July 2021 tweet that, '9/11 claimed my mothers life… so I'm blocking so I don’t ever have to read this again,' after someone with the Twitter handle '9/11 was a victimless crime' responded to a tweet Santos had written about immigration.  

However an obituary for Santos' mother said she died in December 2016 - more than 15 years after the terror attack. 

Santos confirmed that date in a December 2021 tweet. 

'December 23rd this year marks 5 years I lost my best friend and mentor. Mom you will live forever in my heart,' he wrote. 

On his campaign website, Santos said his mother 'survived the tragic events of September 11th' having been in her office in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, but died 'a few years later when she lost her battle to cancer.' 

A New York Times report had described Santos' mother as a 'domestic worker' or 'housekeeper.' 

However, his campaign website described his mother as a top executive.

'George's work ethic comes from his mother, who came from nothing, but worked her way up to be the first female executive at a major financial institution,' the website said.  

The Times originally broke the story of Santos' resume embellishments on December 19, reporting that there was no evidence that Santos had ever worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, as he claimed on his campaign website, nor did he attend Baruch College. 

The Times' reporters couldn't even track down the Long Island Republican where he said he lives. 

Journalists went to where Santos is registered to vote and the address associated with a campaign donation he made in October, but the woman living at that address said she was not familiar with Santos. 

Since then a number of other biographical details have come into questions. 

Santos, who made history as the first openly gay Republican to be elected to the House, never disclosed that he had previously been married to a woman. 

There is, however, a record showing that Santos was married to a woman named Uadla Vieira, a native of Brazil, until 2019. 

The couple was married in 2012. 

He says he's since married a man, but no news organization has tracked down a marriage license. 

Late Wednesday, CNN reported that a spokesman for Horace Mann said Santos was never a student there. 

'We've searched the records and there is no evidence that George Santos (or any alias) attended Horace Mann,' spokesman Ed Adler told the network. 

In a 2019 campaign biography and in interviews, Santos claimed he attended Horace Mann, but then his parents had financial problems forcing him to drop out and get a GED. 

'They sent me to a good prep school, which was Horace Mann Prep in the Bronx. And, in my senior year of prep school, unfortunately my parents fell on hard times, which was something that would later become known as the depression of 2008. But we were hit a little earlier on with the overleveraging of real estate. And the market started to implode,' Santos said on a YouTube show in 2020.     

'And the first thing to go was the prep school,' he said. 'You know, you, you can’t afford a $2,500 tuition at that point, right? So anyway, um, I left school, uh, four months to graduation.'

His campaign website said he went to elementary school at PS 122 in Astoria, then attended IS 125 in Sunnyside. 

Earlier Wednesday, Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly, who's a Republican, announced that her office had opened a probe into the politician's fabrications made before his victory in the November midterm elections. 

Newsday first reported the local investigation. 

'The residents of Nassau County and other parts of the third district must have an honest and accountable representative in Congress,' said Donnelly in a statement.  'No one is above the law and if a crime was committed in this county, we will prosecute it.'

Santos is scheduled to be sworn in on January 3, when the U.S. House reconvenes. 

Despite bipartisan condemnation about his worthiness to hold federal office, Santos has shown no signs of stepping aside — even as he publicly admitted to a long list of lies. 

The Republican has other issues to worry about besides his resume - including the source of his newly acquired financial fortune despite recent cash flow problems, including evictions and owing thousands in back rent.

In addition to the freshly announced local investigation, federal prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's office for the Eastern district of New York are also probing Santos' finances and financial disclosures, according to CBS News.

'Santos will be gone by the end of his term or well before then. He should RESIGN,' Democratic New York Rep. Ritchie Torres said of the news.

Last week, New York state Attorney General Letitia James said she was investigating Santos but did not specify the focus. 

In an interview with Semafor, Santos tried to explain where his money had come from, after the Times discovered he had not worked as a 'seasoned Wall Street financier and investor' for Citibank and Goldman Sachs like he claimed.

The New York Republican seems to have gotten money from somewhere - filings from his 2022 campaign show he made between $3.5 million and $11.5 million from a company he founded - Devolder - and loaned his campaign $700,000. 

Those earnings were a sharp turn-around from filings from a failed 2020 run for office, when disclosures showed he earned $55,000 as a vice president at business development firm LinkBridge investors.  

Rather than working on Wall Street, Santos, who seemed to have financial troubles for much of his life, worked at a DISH Satellite call center from October 2011 to July 2012 in a breadline job based in the College Point section of Queens, living with roommates as he struggled to pay his bills.

Explaining the discrepancy, Santos simply said he 'never worked directly' for Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, and that he used a 'poor choice of words.' But in an attempt to justify his lie, he said the company he worked for, LinkBridge, did business with both Goldman and Citi.

Santos said he made 'capital introductions' between clients and investors at both firms.

After LinkBridge, Santos claimed he took a job with Harbor City Capital - a Florida firm the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused of running a $17 million Ponzi scheme in April 2021. Santos was not charged for his involvement with the company and left in March of that year. 

He incorporated Devolder in May 2021 and said that the company's capital introduction business included 'deal building' and 'specialty consulting' for 'high net worth individuals.'

For example, Santos said, a client might come to him if they want to sell a boat or a private jet. 

'I'm not going to go list it and broker it,' he said. 'What I will do is I will go look out there within my Rolodex and be like: 'Hey, are you looking for a plane?' 'Are you looking for a boat?' I just put that feeler out there.' 

He said he had a network of around 15,000 that included wealthy investors, family offices, 'institutions' and endowments. 

Santos claimed that within six months of starting Devolder he landed 'a couple multi-million-dollar contracts.' 

'If you're looking at a $20 million yacht, my referral fee there can be anywhere between $200,000 and $400,000,' he said. 

He declined to specify what the multi-million-dollar contracts entailed or provide names of clients. DailyMail.com has inquired for more information. 

Devolder was dissolved in September 2022 after failing to file an annual report but brought back last week as a Florida-based company after the bombshell New York Times report. 

Given the timing of Devolder's disappearance just before the November election, Rep.-elect and former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) questioned whether the company was created as a front to funnel illegal campaign donations. 

Santos told Semafor the company had only shut down at that time because his accountant had filed paperwork late. 

Goldman, former lead counsel in the first impeachment of President Donald Trump, called on Santos to volunteer documents about his business dealings and finances to avoid formal investigations. 

'If he wants to avoid an investigation and he wants to truly come clean, as he claimed he was trying to do yesterday and that other Republican members elected called for him to do, then he should be an open book and reveal all of this related to the Devolder Organization,' Goldman told Semafor. 

Santos said he would produce the necessary documentation only for 'proper authorities.' 

'I don't dance to the tune of Congressman-elect Dan Goldman,' Santos said in response to his fellow colleague. 'I don't dance to the tune of these guys. If it was requested of me to produce any documentation from this organization, I have no problem doing so to people with the proper authority, not to authoritarian members of congress that think they have authority over their peers.' 

Santos said on Fox News Tuesday he was ready to move beyond the scandal and focus on delivering on his campaign promises. 

'I'm not a fraud. I'm not a fake. I didn't materialize from thin air. I worked damn hard to get where I got my entire life. Life wasn't easy. It didn't start off easy as I've said it many, many times I come from abject poverty. I made some mistakes. And I own up to that. And now I want to put this behind me so I can deliver for the American people,' he said. 

On Wednesday New York Republican Rep.-elect Mike Lawler, who will represent a nearby Hudson Valley district, demanded 'full transparency' and an 'apology' from Santos. 

'George Santos owes the people of his district the complete and total truth about his personal and professional background, and a sincere apology for his behavior,' he said in a statement on Twitter. 

'Attempts to blame others or minimize his actions are only making things worse and a complete distraction from the task at hand.'  

On Tuesday Rep.-elect Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), demanded a House Ethics investigation into Santos' background and potential law enforcement involvement. 

'I believe a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee and, if necessary, law enforcement, is required. New Yorkers deserve the truth and House Republicans deserve an opportunity to govern without this distraction.' 

LaLota is one of the first New York Republicans to publicly ask for an investigation into Santos. Members of House leadership have, so far, kept quiet on the allegations. 

As many are left wondering whether Santos will be given committee assignments in the next Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who was booted from her committees by Democrats for incendiary remarks against Jews and the left, jumped to his defense. 

'I think we Republicans should give George Santos a chance and see how he legislates and votes, not treat him the same as the left is,' she tweeted Tuesday, after praising him earlier in the day for 'being honest with his district now.'