- Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff accused Republican Senator David Perdue of using an anti-Semitic trope to attack him in a recently removed Facebook ad showing Ossoff, who is Jewish, with an enlarged nose.
- Perdue’s digital ad featured the altered image of Ossoff in which his nose is enlarged and lengthened alongside an image of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who is also Jewish, and claimed that “Democrats are trying to buy Georgia”.
- Perdue’s campaign withdrew the ad Monday, claiming that the nose enlargement was an “unintended” bi-product of the photo-editing process by a consultant.
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Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff accused Republican Senator David Perdue of Georgia of using an anti-Semitic trope to attack him in a recently removed Facebook ad showing Ossoff, who is Jewish, with an enlarged nose.
Perdue’s announcement, which began publishing on July 22, featured Ossoff’s altered image of his nose enlarging and lengthening alongside an image of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, who is also Jewish, according to the Jewish medium The Forward.
“Democrats are trying to buy Georgia,” it said.
Accusing Jews of using money to corrupt politics and representing them with big noses are long-standing anti-Semitic tropes.
Perdue’s campaign withdrew the ad on Monday, claiming that the enlarged nose was an “unintended” bi-product of the photo-editing process, carried out by a consultant.
“In the graphic design process handled by a third-party vendor, the photo was resized and a filter applied, which appears to have caused an unintended error that distorted the image,” a campaign spokesperson told Forward in a statement Monday. “Obviously, this was accidental, but to make sure there is absolutely no confusion, we have immediately removed the Facebook image. Anyone who implies that this was more than an inadvertent error is intentionally misrepresenting Senator Perdue’s strong and consistent record to stand firmly against anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred. “
Three graphic designers told The Forward that Ossoff’s nose was the only part of his face enlarged in the altered image.
Ossoff closed the ad on Twitter and said “literally no one believes” the Perdue campaign’s claim that the photo editing was “accidental.”
“This is the oldest, most obvious and least original anti-Semitic trope in history,” he tweeted. “Senator, literally no one believes your excuses.”
The Georgia Democratic Party also characterized the announcement as an “anti-Semitic attack.”
Ossoff, who is running a competitive race against Perdue in Georgia, then demanded that Perdue apologize to Georgia’s Jewish community.
—Jon Ossoff (@ossoff) July 28, 2020
