Jewish Insider: GOP congressman Scott Perry shares antisemitic meme on social media

Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) approvingly shared an antisemitic meme on his campaign's Facebook page earlier this week, underscoring a broader pattern in which the Pennsylvania Republican has espoused conspiracy theories and used inflammatory rhetoric while in office.

"Says it all…," Perry wrote on Tuesday in a comment he posted above the meme, which invokes several antisemitic tropes. The image depicts a scheming cabal of stereotypically Jewish bankers with hooked noses and thick beards gathered around a Monopoly board that sits atop the hunching backs of a group of naked figures.

The meme is also framed by two ominous lines of text. "If the people stand…," it states, "…the game is over."

The Perry campaign removed the post on Friday afternoon after Jewish Insider reached out for comment.

The image, which has long been widely denounced as antisemitic, originates from a 2012 wall mural painted in London by the Los Angeles street artist Mear One, whose real name is Kalen Ockerman. The mural, called "Freedom for Humanity," set off an uproar when it debuted and was soon removed.

While Ockerman has denied that his painting relied on antisemitic imagery, he has acknowledged that "the banker group" portrayed in the mural "is made up of Jewish and white Anglos."

The painting - a meme of which has circulated online for years - has continued to stir controversy in England as well as the United States.

Perry's decision to post the meme is just the latest example of his penchant for attracting controversy over extreme remarks and social media activity.

As recently as last month, for instance, Perry, a member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, faced backlash for comments in which he claimed that "replacement theory is real," endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory often alleging that Jewish elites are engaged in an effort to supplant the white race with non-white immigrants.

"They added white to it to stop everybody from talking about it," Perry said in his comments during a lawmaker briefing on campus antisemitism in early May.

Perry, who has previously espoused replacement theory rhetoric, also claimed in the closed-door briefing that the Ku Klux Klan is the "the military wing of the Democratic Party," which he called "decidedly, unabashedly racist and antisemitic."

The 62-year-old congressman had earlier drawn criticism for comments likening the modern-day Democratic Party to Nazi Germany in a 2021 speech that was condemned by several Jewish groups in Pennsylvania.

Perry, a six-term incumbent who represents a district in central Pennsylvania that election forecasters rate as "lean Republican," is facing a Democratic challenger, Janelle Stetson, in the November election.

Stelson, a former local news anchor who has embraced pro-Israel positions during the campaign, has in recent weeks sharply criticized Perry for his vote against the Israel aid bill while accusing him of having "a pretty disturbing history of antisemitism."