Roy Moore Doesn’t Hate Jews Because His Lawyer Is Jewish, Says Wife

Kayla Moore, wife of embattled Senate candidate Roy Moore, defended her husband from claims of bigotry at a rally Monday night. She told supporters, for instance, the GOP hopeful couldn’t hate Jews because the couple has Jewish friends.

“Fake news would tell you that we don’t care for Jews, and I tell you all this because I’ve seen it and I just want to set the record straight while they’re here,” Moore said, gesturing to members of the press gathered in the back of the crowd. “One of our attorneys is a Jew. We have very close friends that are Jewish, and rabbis, and we also fellowship with them.”

Although the Alabama politician’s history of anti-Semitism isn’t as extreme as his record on Islam or LGBTQ equality, Jewish people have as much reason to be concerned about his candidacy as the other minorities he’s attacked in his four-decade career.

When four women came forward to accuse Moore of sexual misconduct in a Nov. 7 report in the Washington Post, supporters of his campaign launched a fake robocall in Alabama on behalf of a fictional journalist named “Bernie Bernstein.” The reporter, who claimed he was with the Post, was seeking out women who would be willing to make defamatory claims about Moore in exchange for cash.

Late night host Stephen Colbert spoke to the underlying message embedded in the hoax.

“A Jewish journalist part of a media conspiracy?” Colbert said in a Nov. 15 broadcast of his program. “The only worse stereotype would be a family-values Southern evangelical who turns out to be a secret perv.”

Trevor Noah, host of The Daily Show, further pointed out the voice on the robocall was an absurd Jewish caricature.

“I don’t even know what that accent was,” Noah claimed on his show during a Nov. 16 airing. “It sounded like a guy trying to do a New York Jewish voice based on hearing a friend describe a Woody Allen movie.”

Moore may not have been behind the faked calls himself, as the source has yet to be determined. But he also failed to condemn them.

The twice-fired former judge, whose campaign received a donation of $1,000 from a prominent Nazi, most recently landed in hot water when he told a conservative radio program earlier this month that the Jewish business magnate George Soros is “not of our culture.”

He added that because Soros doesn’t worship the Christian God, the billionaire mogul is doomed to burn in hell for all eternity.

“No matter how much money he’s got, he’s still going to the same place that people who don’t recognize God and morality and accept his salvation are going,” Moore told radio host Bryan Fischer, who once claimed restaurants serve bacon because America is a Christian nation, not a Jewish one. “And that’s not a good place.”

But Kayla Moore would also like voters to know that in addition to having Jewish friends, her husband hired a black man one time.

“Fake news would also have you think that my husband doesn’t support the black community,” she told the crowd gathered in Dothan, Ala. “Yet my husband appointed the very first black marshal to the Alabama Supreme Court, Mr. Willie James. When he first took office as the chief justice many years ago, he brought with him three people from Etowah County. Two were black, and one of them is here tonight.”

It’s doubtful that Moore’s comments on civil rights would go down smoothly the with “black community” his wife claims that he supports.

When asked during a campaign stop in September when he thinks America was last “great,” Moore cited the antebellum South. He claimed that “even though we had slavery,” families “were united” and “cared for one another.” The Republican added, “Our families were strong, our country had a direction.”

The audience member who asked him that question was black.

Moore, who has now been accused of sexual misconduct by nine women, will face off today against Democrat Doug Jones in a runoff election for Jeff Sessions’ vacated Senate seat. He believes that homosexuality should be illegal, once compared same-sex marriage to slavery, and blamed gay people for the Sept. 11 attacks.

The conservative currently leads in early polling by 2.2 percentage points.