Cleveland Jewish and Black Faith Leaders Come Together To Condemn Jon Husted For Hiring a Nazi Sympathizer

Cleveland Jewish and Black Faith Leaders Come Together To Condemn Jon Husted For Hiring a Nazi Sympathizer

September 18, 2026

WASHINGTON POST: Ohio Senate campaign staffer used Nazi soldiers as profile photo

CLEVELAND, OHIO - This week, Jewish and Black faith leaders across Cleveland came together to condemn Jon Husted for hiring a Nazi enthusiast as a member of his senior campaign team.

The Washington Post reported that Jon Husted hired a Nazi sympathizer "wearing an SS uniform" as his political director, who used a "photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia," an apartheid colony that has become a rallying symbol for white supremacists.

"What Senator Husted's staffer posted, wore, and celebrated is just egregious and reprehensible," said Pastor Napoleon Harris, Antioch Baptist Church. "But the fact is that even with his publicly documented history, he was still appointed as a political director of a United States senator's campaign. It's not just an error in judgment. It's just wrong. It's just evil. It's just sinful."

"At the core of this issue is a basic responsibility: doing the necessary research and due diligence before hiring someone to serve as a political director - one of the most important positions on a campaign - and secondly, is the lack of accountability and the lack of apology and ownership after the fact, after this all came to light," said State Representative Eric Synenberg (District 21 - Beachwood). "I believe Jon Husted owes Ohioans answers about what his campaign knew and when they knew it, and we call on him today to tell Ohioans how he will take accountability and change and try to prevent this from happening in the future."

"This press conference is not just about condemning Senator Husted," said Reverend Dale Edwards, Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church. "We also have to acknowledge the responsibility as to how someone with this history reached such a senior campaign position in the first place. It's about saying to the political campaigns and everybody who participates in our democracy that we must exercise careful judgment about who is placed in positions of public trust."

"We know in this moment that Jewish Americans and our allies need to take action to combat the rise of antisemitism and hatred and defend our values," said Adam Rosen, Jewish Federation of Cleveland community relations and government relations committee member. "Why should we trust Jon Husted's judgment to repair the trust in our institutions when he can't choose people for positions of power who aren't Nazis? Jon Husted has clearly shown poor judgment in surrounding himself with a white supremacists."

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