The Jewish Senator the Democratic Party has marked | Profile
Jon Ossoff insists he has no interest in the 2028 US presidential race, but the Senator from Georgia is already taking third place in party polls. From his childhood in a Jewish home in Atlanta, through his political breakthrough and rivalry with Donald Trump, to his complex position on Israel — the young politician who is emerging as a promise.
Jon Ossoff, the Jewish Senator in the state of Georgia, insists that he has "zero interest" in the 2028 presidential race, but the numbers explain why he is marked within the Democratic Party.
In an Emerson College poll conducted in July, Ossoff received 13 percent among Democratic primary voters for president - tied with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for third place, behind former Biden administration Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and California Governor Gavin Newsom. The prediction market Kalshi also gave him an identical chance of winning in August.
His immediate test is the Senate elections in November: another victory in Georgia, a state where Donald Trump won in 2024, could turn the speculation into a real path.
Raised alongside Holocaust survivors
Thomas Jonathan Ossoff was born in Atlanta in February 1987 and grew up in the Northlake suburb. His father, Richard, is a Jew of Russian and Lithuanian descent and the owner of an advertising company; his mother, Heather Fenton, immigrated from Australia and was one of the founders of an organization to promote women in politics in Georgia. His father's family fled persecution in Eastern Europe. According to him, he grew up alongside relatives who were Holocaust survivors, while other relatives were murdered in the Holocaust.
His mother is not Jewish, but Ossoff grew up in a Jewish home: he studied at a Hebrew school and before his Bar Mitzvah he immersed in a mikvah to complete a formal conversion. He celebrated his Bar Mitzvah at "The Temple," the historic Reform synagogue in Atlanta, and shortly thereafter visited Israel for the first time. He said that the degree of his devotion changed during his life, but the connection to the Jewish heritage remained "strong and constant." Jewish education, he said, instilled in him a commitment to peace, justice, and kindness, and to the struggle for the persecuted and the weak.
Even his swearing-in to the Senate was a declaration of identity. Ossoff placed his hand on the Bible of Rabbi Jacob Rothschild, the rabbi of the synagogue where he grew up and an ally of Martin Luther King in the struggle for civil rights. The synagogue was bombed in 1958 by white racists because of his activity. In his pocket, Ossoff carried copies of the passenger lists that documented the arrival of his great-grandfather and great-grandmother to America. The connection between Jewish memory and the struggle of blacks in the South accompanied him from a young age: as a high school student, he interned in the office of civil rights leader and member of the House of Representatives John Lewis, whom he saw as a mentor.
Ossoff studied at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and completed a master's degree in international political economy at the London School of Economics. In 2007-2012, he served as an assistant for security and foreign policy affairs to member of the House of Representatives Hank Johnson. After that, he managed an investigative production company that produced films about corruption, ISIS crimes, and human rights violations in Africa. In the Senate, he continued on a similar line: investigations he led on corruption and abuse in federal prisons led to a bipartisan oversight law, and he is leading an initiative to ban members of Congress from trading stocks.
His first political breakthrough ended in a loss. In 2017, he ran in a special election for the House of Representatives, in the most expensive race of its kind until then, and lost to Republican Karen Handel. In 2020, he ran against Senator David Perdue, when his headquarters published an ad in which Ossoff's nose was digitally lengthened - an incident he defined as clear anti-Semitic propaganda.
In January 2021, he won in the second round and became the first Jewish Senator from Georgia and the first Senator from the millennial generation. He is married to Dr. Alisha Kramer, a gynecologist he met in high school, and they have two daughters, Eva and Layla.
Resolute opponent of Trump
Trump is the rival around whom Ossoff's national career was built. Already in 2017, he became one of the faces identified with the wave of political and public opposition to Trump that grew among Democrats after his election in 2016. In the president's second term, he sharpened the tone even more: he claimed that his actions had already crossed every previous threshold for impeachment, compared him to King Ahab and "wicked kings" from the Bible, and repeatedly calls him a "criminal president."
This week, he accused him of bringing the US into a war in Iran based on lies. Trump, for his part, mocked his appearance and called him "Pee-wee Herman" - after a childish comic character from American television. The confrontation allows Ossoff to present himself not only as a quiet legislator, but also as a political fighter against the Republican Party and its leader.
The complex relationship with Israel
His relationship with Israel is complex. In the campaign for the Senate, he declared that he is "committed to the security of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people." He opposes the boycott movement against Israel (BDS) and supports the two-state solution. After October 7, he strongly condemned the "indiscriminate and murderous attack by Hamas against our Israeli allies."
In a speech in the Senate about a month later, he emphasized that "Israel has a duty to protect its citizens and the right to do so by force." However, he warned that the humanitarian disaster developing in Gaza is "a huge tragedy and a threat to our national security," and added: "As a pro-Israel American Jew, I call for compassion for the innocent civilians in Gaza."
Although he supported aid packages to Israel totaling more than $20 billion throughout his tenure, in November 2024 he voted in favor of two initiatives by progressive Senator Bernie Sanders to limit military aid. In April 2025, he opposed two other initiatives, and in July he supported blocking the sale of rifles, but not aerial ammunition. He justified the first vote by the "extreme and widespread shortage from which civilians in Gaza suffer, including the unbearable starvation of children," which were caused, according to him, by the policies of the Netanyahu government.
On the other hand, he stated that despite his opposition to the conduct of the war, "the US must continue to support the citizens of Israel" in the face of the missile threat from Iran and its proxies. In April 2026, he took another step in his criticism of Israel and supported blocking deals for bombs and bulldozers. The votes caused anger among some of the leaders of Georgia's Jewry. When he explained his votes in December 2024, Ossoff linked them to his identity: "I grew up as a Jew, I grew up among Holocaust survivors," he said, adding that this history instilled in him "fundamental values of human rights." "This is who I am," he replied to his critics.
The tension between his Jewish identity, his relationship with Israel, and the changing direction of the Democratic Party is expected to accompany him if he decides to run in the Democratic primaries for president.
