Sen. Scott Wagner gets some religious heat for dissing George Soros

Rabbis, clergy demand that GOP gubernatorial candidate apologize to Jewish community and everyone else

(York) — Scott Wagner, state senator, gubernatorial candidate and millionaire businessman, knows his every public move is subject to scrutiny. Especially when he is filmed.

Earlier this year, he confronted a “tracker,” a cameraman who recorded the senator at a private event in York.

On his own campaign Facebook page, he has posted a couple of videos where he introduces and jokes with “Sam,” a young man who regularly shows up wherever Wagner is and takes video of him.

Sam, who Wagner says works as a tracker for billionaire Democratic supporter George Soros, even took video of the interaction with Wagner that is posted on Wagner’s Facebook page.

So, the cameras were running at last week’s Pittstown Tomato Festival when Wagner, there to meet potential voters, denigrated Soros as “a Hungarian Jew” who has “a hatred for America.”

Wagner later told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he had been joking and trying to “bring a a little humor” into the daily political grind.

“Mr. Soros, I have a message for you,” Wagner, also a waste management company executive, said. “I’m not going to back down from you or your bullies.”

Following the encounter in York with a tracker, who identified himself as working for American Bridge 21st Century, a self-described watchdog group “committed to holding  Republicans accountable … ,” Wagner posted a video directly addressing Soros, stating, “I’m not going to back down from you or your bullies.”

Now, Wagner has drawn the ire of both rabbis and pastors.

“… there is absolutely no need to declare that  people are un-American, especially because of another person’s religion or race.”

In an open letter to Wagner, three rabbis, two Baptist preachers and St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Dallastown Rev. Christopher Rodkey are calling on Wagner to apologize “to not only members of the Jewish community that you were elected to serve, but to all Pennsylvanians that you hope to represent as governor one day.”

“This type of hateful behavior has no place in our political environment,” the religious leaders wrote.

The rabbis and preachers added that, “… there is absolutely no need to declare that  people are un-American, especially because of another person’s religion or race.”

The letter closes by telling Wagner, “We are disturbed that you referred to these comments as your idea of ‘a little humor,’ and hope that you will clarify this characterization and illustrate that this incident does not reveal your true belief system.”

Wagner could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

 

This story is part of a partnership between WITF and the York Daily Record.