A high-ranking aide to Los Angeles City Councilman Hugo Soto-Martnez resigned Friday after receiving criticism for his Making Holocaust jokes about comedian Amy Schumer on social media.

Josh Androsky, senior advisor

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r to Soto-Martnez, took part in a trade on Xformerly known as Twitter, earlier in the day featured puns about concentration camps and what appeared to be disparaging comments about Schumer’s weight.

By the end of the day, the posts from Androsky, who has worked as a political adviser to at least three of the council’s 15 members, had been condemned by a slew of civic leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass.

“Today’s anti-Semitic and misogynistic comments were reprehensible, abhorrent and dangerous and in no way represent the city family,” Bass said in a statement just before midnight. “Especially now, city hall must be a beacon of hope, and not of hatred. . I am glad that the responsible employee has resigned.

Soto-Martnez, in a separate statement, called his employee’s messages are ‘disturbing and reprehensible’.

“With anti-Semitism on the rise in recent years and especially in recent weeks, making jokes about the Holocaust is not only disgusting, but dangerous,” said Soto-Martnez, chairman of the council’s civil rights committee. “These anti-Semitic and misogynistic messages sickened me, and I immediately accepted his resignation.”

The Androsky incident seemed to have begun

on

Friday morning, when social media will take accountability for it Really Anona podcast, took aim at Schumer, who had posted a political cartoon mocked as insulting to Palestinians living in Gaza and to protesters seeking an end to the bloodshed there.

The TrueAnon account wrote that Schumer, who regularly posts about the events of October. The attack on Israel is “particularly sensitive to Jewish deaths resulting from their experiences with the Holocaust.”

“The Nazis named a concentration camp after her. It was called Da Cow,” the TrueAnon report wrote, a pun on Dachau, where by some estimates more than 40,000 prisoners were killed.

Androsky, once a comedian who is Jewish himself, responded by saying, “I’m damned that you would say that about her knowing it was actually Cowschwitz.”

Later, in an apparent reference to a sprawling cattle ranch near the 5 Freeway, Androsky took another dig at Schumer, writing, “I called it cow schwitz!!! Anyway, they all (and Amy) smelled the same.”

Androsky did not respond to multiple questions from The Times. He initially deleted his messages and then his entire account.

Schumer has not done so publicly

weighed in comments

about the controversy. She described her Jewish heritage in a recent Instagram post, mentioning a relative who had “numbers from Auschwitz burned into his forearm.” In another, she apologized for making “hurtful” comments about Gazans, vowing to “be more careful.”

Reaction to Androsky’s posts was swift among leaders of LA’s Jewish community.

Jake Flynn, a spokesman for Councilman Bob Blumenfield, said his boss had seen Androsky’s messages and was “shocked.” Sam Yebri, an activist who sits on the board of the legal services nonprofit Bet Tzedek, called the messages distasteful and anti-political.

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emic.

“The fact that a city employee felt it was okay to utter these words in a public forum, with such total disregard for the consequences, is shameful,” he said in an interview.

Androsky, an outspoken progressive, has been heavily involved in city politics in recent years, working as an adviser to the 2020 campaign of Councilmember Nithya Raman and Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez last year.

Soto-Martnez paid Androsky’s political consulting firm, Bright Future LA, nearly $108,000 for services provided as part of last year’s council campaign, according to Ethics Commission records. He also worked on Westside attorney Erin Darling’s failed council bid.

Androsky left Bright Future LA when he took a job at Soto-Martnez, according to Anne Freiermuth, who is currently listed on state business forms as a manager or member of that company.

Androsky has long been known for his smooth approach to social media. In February 2022, as the Russian military launched its invasion of Ukraine, he posted on Twitter: “Putin is bad, NATO is bad, but the atmosphere here at buca di beppo? pretty good!”

In 2017, Androsky tweeted a joke about Bill Cosby, which some labeled as insensitive to victims of sexual assault. He apologized and announced he was “stepping back” from his work at the LA chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, according to an archived DSA message.

Naomi Goldman, a former spokesperson for former Councilman Mike Bonin, said this on her own on Friday social media account that Androsky’s career should be placed “on the no-fly list.”

“I would much rather have seen Josh Androsky fired quickly [Soto-Martnez] with a strong leadership position rather than letting him determine his own outcome,” she wrote. “But at least he’s gone from City Hall.”