So George Santos lied about being Jewish. I don’t care.

George Santos, who will take the congressional oath of office after the U.S. House of Representatives elects a speaker, appears to be a serial liar. The newly elected GOP representative from Queens and Long Island lied about his education, his job history, and even his charity activity. He’s now under local and federal investigation.

Of course, Santos should face the full force of the law for any crimes he committed. And he should also apologize for falsely claiming to have attended Baruch College and New York University, which insults people who actually put in the effort to obtain degrees there.

But lying about his alleged Jewish ancestry? Meh.

Yes, Santos falsely asserted that his maternal grandparents were Jews who fled Europe during World War II. But Santos’ fibs about his religious background aren’t nearly as serious as his other lies. As a Jew, I think they’re more like a joke.

And the joke comes to us courtesy of comedian Lenny Bruce, who famously quipped that “if you live in New York, you’re Jewish.” Not literally, of course, but culturally. To Bruce, “Jewish” referred to a state of mind and a set of habits — not to a lineage or ancestry. Anyone could claim it.

But, no surprise, people don’t flood to make false claims about Jewish heritage. For most of history, any association with Judaism was more likely to hold you back than to push you forward. Many Jews changed their names when they came to the United States, to avoid the sting of discrimination. Other Americans were falsely charged with having Jewish ancestry, which was an effective way to malign them.

“For most of history, any association with Judaism was more likely to hold you back than to push you forward.”

Did you know that Franklin D. Roosevelt was Jewish? Of course, he wasn’t. But that’s what his antisemitic enemies said in the 1930s. Roosevelt’s real name, they said, was Rosenfeld. (For good measure, they also called FDR’s New Deal the “Jew Deal.”)

Abraham Lincoln? Jewish. Harry Truman? Also Jewish. Ditto Bill Clinton. All lies, of course, but you can find them on any number of antisemitic websites today. You’ll also discover that Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, and their efforts to promote COVID-19 vaccines, are part of a Jewish plot to spread disease and control the globe.

In Russia, meanwhile, state propagandists have charged that Ukraine is under the control of Nazis, who are secret Jews. Never mind that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is openly Jewish. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters last May that Adolf Hitler “had Jewish blood, too,” and that “the most ardent antisemites are usually Jews.”

Against this background, Santos’ lies about his Jewish ancestry seem relatively innocuous. He didn’t slur anyone for being Jewish; to the contrary, he eagerly claimed the identity for himself. “I’m supposed to care, if in an age of rabid antisemitism, a politician wants to join my tribe?” a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition asked the New York Times last month. “Not at the forefront of my concerns.”

It’s not at the forefront of mine, either. And I also wonder why most Jews who are blasting Santos didn’t make as big a deal when questions arose over progressive New York State Sen. Julia Salazar’s claims that her father was Jewish. Part of the reason is that Santos is in the U.S. Congress, which is a much higher-profile position. But another reason is good old-fashioned politics: Most Jews are Democrats, so we’re more likely to indict a conservative fibber than a liberal one.

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Let’s also remember that Santos and Salazar aren’t the only politicians to misrepresent their ethnic or racial heritage. During her career as a law professor, which included eight years at Penn, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) claimed — with little evidence — that she was Native American. She later took a DNA test to “prove” the same — although the results, which showed her Native American ancestry may come from 10 generations in the past, led to backlash from the right and left.

None of that made it OK for Donald Trump to give her the racist nickname “Pocahontas,” of course. And to her credit, Warren apologized for the DNA test.

But why does it matter who we “really” are? Isn’t it more important what we do? I’m much more interested in finding out how Santos was able to lend his own campaign $700,000 — after reporting no assets and a $55,000 salary in 2020 — than I am in figuring out if he’s Jewish.

The whole line of inquiry reminds me of another classic Jewish joke, about the Jew who is shipwrecked on a desert island and builds two synagogues: the one he attends, and the one he would never step foot in.

Jews don’t agree about anything, including what makes us Jewish in the first place. So let’s stop worrying about whether George Santos is.

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of “Whose America?: Culture Wars in the Public Schools,” which was published in a revised 20th-anniversary edition in 2022 by the University of Chicago Press.