Florida Republican congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna was outed by The Washington Post on Friday for lying about her Jewish heritage in a previous interview with the Jewish Insider in November 2022.
Not only is Luna almost certainly not Jewish, but also according to several family members, reports the Washington Post, Luna's paternal grandfather Heinrich Mayerhofer, who died in 2003, served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany when he was a teenager in the 1940s.
"I was raised as a Messianic Jew by my father,” Luna had told the Jewish Insider, clarifying that she identifies as a Christian. “I am also a small fraction Ashkenazi."
The Insider had interviewed Luna in reaction to the fact that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, known for her "Jewish space laser" conspiracy, had endorsed Luna's candidacy for Congress. "If she were antisemitic," asked Luna after claiming Ashkenazi roots, "why did she endorse me?"
“I in no way, shape or form would ever put myself in a position where I’m hanging out with someone like that, and so I just don’t see that Marjorie Taylor Greene is that person,” said Luna told the Insider. “If I see it happening on the right, I’m the first person to condemn it and say, like, ‘Hey, that’s not cool. I don’t align with that.’”
