Descendant of Jews from Slutsk, who is called a possible rival to Vance in future US presidential elections: who is Jon Ossoff
39-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff was re-elected to the US Senate from Georgia on November 3. He won about 59% of the votes against 41% for Republican Mike Collins. He is already being called a possible presidential candidate in 2028, although he himself denies such plans.
Democrats in the elections on November 3 regained control of both chambers of the US Congress. Among the winners is 39-year-old Senator Jon Ossoff from Georgia. He was re-elected for a second six-year term.
Ossoff gained widespread recognition back in 2021 when, at 33 years old, he became the youngest US senator and the first representative of the millennial generation in the upper house of Congress. He also became the first senator of Jewish descent from Georgia and the first Jew elected to the Senate from the states of the so-called Deep South since 1974. Ossoff remains the youngest member of the Senate to this day.
On January 20, 2021, when the politician first took the oath in the Capitol, he brought with him some unusual sheets of paper.
"Today, as I took the oath of office, in my jacket pocket were copies of ship manifests filed at Ellis Island when my great-grandfather Israel arrived in the U.S. in 1911, and my great-grandmother Annie in 1913. A century later, their great-grandson was elected to the U.S. Senate," the politician wrote on social media.
Today, as I was sworn in, I held in my jacket pocket copies of the ships’ manifests recorded at Ellis Island when my Great Grandfather Israel arrived in 1911 and my Great Grandmother Annie arrived in 1913.
A century later, their great grandson was elected to the U.S. Senate. https://t.co/cjTNMMfYwP
He attached photos of the documents to the post. On one of them, the name Israel Osshowsky can be deciphered. This is how his ancestors' surname was once spelled, later transforming into Ossoff in America.
From Slutsk via Vilnius to Massachusetts
According to the genealogical tree in the FamilySearch database, Girsh Ossovsky, the future senator's great-great-grandfather, was born in Slutsk around 1853. He died in 1908 in Vilnius. A record in the register of deaths refers to Girsh as a "burgher of Slutsk".
Three years after Girsh's death, his son Israel set off for the United States. In 1913, his wife Annie joined him. They were part of a large wave of Jewish emigration from the Russian Empire to America.
The family settled in Peabody, a town near Boston, where many tanneries provided work for migrants. In the birth certificate of their son Hyman, who was born on April 13, 1918, Israel's profession is listed as a carpenter. Later, he was involved in transporting leather goods, and the family opened their own auto repair shop and gas station.
Hyman, Jon Ossoff's future grandfather, served as a bombardier on a B-24 aircraft in the Pacific during World War II in the American Air Force. After the war, he and his brothers founded a leather trading company, and later they acquired a tannery.
Childhood in Atlanta and a letter to a famous politician
Thomas Jonathan Ossoff was born on February 16, 1987, in Atlanta — the capital of Georgia in the southeastern United States.
His father, Richard Ossoff, worked at the renowned consulting firm McKinsey, and later started his own publishing business. His mother, Heather Fenton, was born in Sydney, Australia, and moved to America at the age of 23. She also worked in consulting and was involved in public service, helping women pursue political careers.
Although Jon's mother was not Jewish, the boy was raised in Jewish traditions. He attended Hebrew school, and before his bar mitzvah — the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony — he formally accepted Judaism.
In January 2021, Ossoff was sworn into the Senate on a book of Jewish Holy Scriptures that belonged to Rabbi Jacob Rothschild. Rothschild was a renowned fighter against racial segregation and an ally of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1958, white supremacists bombed the synagogue in Atlanta where the rabbi served. It was in this synagogue, decades later, that Ossoff's bar mitzvah took place.
The future senator became interested in politics as a schoolboy. At the age of 17, he read the autobiography of John Lewis — one of the most famous American civil rights activists for the Black population. Lewis was an ally of Martin Luther King Jr., participated in protest marches in the 1960s, and later served many years in Congress.
The book impressed the young man so much that he wrote a letter to the author asking for a job. To his surprise, the politician replied and invited the schoolboy for an internship at his office in Washington.
It was on Lewis's recommendation that he later began working in Congress as an aide to another congressman from Georgia, dealing with security and foreign policy issues. Concurrently, he studied at Georgetown University and received his master's degree from the London School of Economics.
In 2013, 26-year-old Ossoff headed the London-based company Insight TWI, which conducted journalistic investigations for television, including the BBC. Its films focused on corruption, war crimes of the "Islamic State", and the activities of death squads in East Africa.
The most expensive defeat
In 2017, when Ossoff was 30 years old, he decided to run for the US House of Representatives for the first time. He ran as a Democrat in a district where Republicans had won for almost four decades. The election campaign took place shortly after Donald Trump's first presidential victory and attracted national attention.
The young Democrat managed to raise over $23 million in donations for his campaign. Along with the expenditures of his opponent and independent organizations, the total cost of the election battle exceeded $50 million — at that time, these were the most expensive elections to the House of Representatives in US history.
However, Ossoff still lost: his opponent received about 52% of the votes, while he got 48%. Nevertheless, it was then that the young politician gained national prominence.
In 2020, he ran for election again, this time for the Senate. His opponent was the incumbent Republican senator. The contest stretched over two months: in November, neither candidate secured the necessary majority of votes, so a runoff election was scheduled for January 5, 2021, in Georgia. Ossoff won it with a lead of approximately 55,000 votes.
The politician met his future wife, Alisha Kramer, an obstetrician-gynecologist, when they were teenagers. They dated for 12 years and married in 2018. The couple now has two daughters, aged 5 and 1.
From memes to millions of views
After Ossoff's first Senate victory, his old Twitter posts unexpectedly became popular online. From 2012-2014, the future senator discussed "Star Wars", was a fan of the band Imagine Dragons, and shared an anime version of the musical "Les Misérables".
Some of his posts turned into memes, and the American publication Politico dedicated a separate article to his old tweets.
But social media became not only a source of memes for Ossoff but also an important tool for political campaigns. As early as 2020, he actively used TikTok to appeal to younger voters.
In the Senate, Ossoff focused on fighting corruption, investigating human rights abuses, and abuses in government institutions. In particular, he initiated investigations into sexual violence in American federal prisons, improper treatment of children in the state welfare system, and conditions of detention for people in immigration detention centers.
Several of his legislative initiatives, supported by representatives of both parties, became law. Among them are reforms of control over federal prisons and requirements to improve surveillance systems in them.
During Donald Trump's second presidency, Ossoff became one of his most prominent critics in the Democratic Party.
In the 2026 campaign, the senator regularly criticized corruption in the president's inner circle, his economic decisions, and the war with Iran. Short videos of Ossoff's speeches garnered millions of views on social media.
For his re-election, he managed to raise over $100 million, becoming one of the most successful Democratic candidates in terms of fundraising.
His victory in Georgia proved particularly important for the party: in 2024, this state supported Donald Trump, but two years later, Democrat Ossoff won here by a large margin. After this, his name was mentioned even more frequently among possible Democratic candidates for the 2028 presidential election.
In an August poll by Emerson College, Ossoff received 49% support against 44% for the Republican in a hypothetical matchup against current US Vice President J.D. Vance. However, this is just one poll, and the election is still two years away.
Ossoff himself stated in the October debate that he has no interest in the presidency and intends to serve his entire second six-year term in the Senate.
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