As GOP U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins comes under “growing scrutiny” for the increased controversy surrounding his office’s ties to prominent white supremacists, including efforts to free a Holocaust denier from jail, a group of 120 Jewish Georgians have signed onto a letter publicly condemning Collins’ “racist, xenophobic, and antisemitic” actions.
The list of signers includes Jewish Georgians who have supported candidates of both parties, underscoring the bipartisan backlash to Collins’ bigoted rhetoric and actions as multiple headlines on the scandals involving Collins are putting his operation in repeated turmoil:
“U.S. Representative Mike Collins shows his true colors on social media, posting and sharing racist, xenophobic, and antisemitic comments. Now he is looking to be our US Senator. As members of Georgia’s Jewish community, we want to make it clear that Georgians deserve better.
“Like most groups, Jews have a wide array of perspectives on issues. Yet our Jewish tradition binds us in a belief that we should all be practicing tikkun olam – working to make the world a better place. Our Jewish values also prohibit hate speech and racism – noting that all humanity is created in the image of the divine. Mike Collins’ posts run counter to our uniting principles, and we should not tolerate it, especially in a candidate for US Senate.”
Collins Enables and Engages In Troubling Antisemitic and Bigoted Behavior:
- Collins recently replaced his chief of staff, Kip Talley – the second top aide he’s lost in less than two months – after it was revealed that Talley worked with white nationalists to try to get a Holocaust denier out of jail, while Collins himself campaigned with an extremist German politician widely described as a neo-Nazi.
- Collins engaged in blatantly antisemitic harassment of a Jewish reporter and refused to apologize.
- A former Collins’ staffer went on an antisemitic “10 minute diatribe” toward Rep. Mike Lawler and spewed “antisemitic tropes.”
- A Republican operative who interned for Collins’ congressional office and later went on to receive $7,700 from Collins’ federal political action committee had a history of making “many antisemitic remarks of his own.”
- Collins praised the viciously racist harassment of a Black woman with monkey sounds on a college campus.