Josh Androsky, a Senior Advisor to Los Angeles City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez, resigned after getting caught making a series of Holocaust jokes on Friday on X, formerly-known as Twitter.
Soto-Martínez released a statement on his official account saying “the social media posts made by my staffer earlier today were disturbing and reprehensible. With antisemitism on the rise in recent years and especially in recent weeks, cracking jokes about the holocaust isn’t just disgusting, it’s dangerous. These antisemitic and misogynistic posts sickened me and I have accepted his resignation effective immediately.”
Androsky, in a dialogue with the X account of socialist-focused podcast True Anon Pod, made comments ridiculing Jewish comedian Amy Schumer with puns about Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz, Dachau, and Buchenwald. In the transgressions, they also ridiculed Schumer’s outspoken advocacy for body-image issue awareness.
Androsky’s last remark included a reference to the antisemitic Nazi propaganda newspaper Der Stürmer (“The Stormer”), which ran from the 1920s through the end of the Holocaust.
Although Androsky’s X account (@shutupandrosky) has the Tweets set to private, the Journal reviewed and confirmed Androsky’s comments from screenshots taken by multiple sources on Friday.
A transcript of the dialogue between True Anon and Androsky:
True Anon: “Amy Schumer is particularly sensitive to Jewish deaths due to her experience in the holocaust. The nazis named a concentration camp after her. It was called Da Cow.”
Josh Androsky: “this is cute or whatever but it’s fucked up that you would say this about her when you know it was actually Cowschwitz.”
True Anon: “I also used to call that spot on the 5 Da Cow !!!!”
Josh Androsky: “i called it Cowschwitz!!! either way they all (and amy) smelled the same.
True Anon: “I also called it Moochenwald.”
Josh Androsky: “oh where’d you read that one, der steermer????”
Androsky is listed on Soto-Martinez’s official Government website as Senior Advisor. Soto-Martinez has represented Los Angeles’ 13th District since 2022, which includes Atwater Village, parts of East Hollywood, Echo Park, Elysian Valley, and Silverlake.
Soto-Martinez is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Los Angeles chapter endorsed his candidacy in 2022.
DSA has a history of endorsing the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement against Israel. In the hours following the brutal October 7th terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians, DSA’s Los Angeles chapter retweeted the national DSA account’s statement: “DSA is steadfast in expressing our solidarity with Palestine. Today’s events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime—a regime that receives billions in funding from the United States. End the violence. End the Occupation. Free Palestine.”
The LA Times reported on October 12 that “the attack on Israel and how to respond to it is roiling L.A.’s election campaigns.”
Councilmember Nithya Raman, a DSA-LA member, said that the DSA “failed to reckon with the horrors committed by Hamas and was unacceptably devoid of empathy for communities in Israel and at home who are living in fear and mourning.” As of this writing, Raman is still endorsed by DSA-LA for re-election in 2024. During her first election in 2020, Androsky worked on her campaign.
