A new Jewish-Muslim political power couple announced their intentions to tie the knot.
Jewish philanthropist Alex Soros, 38, the son of billionaire and prolific political donor George Soros, is now engaged to Huma Abedin, 47, who was one of Hillary Clinton’s top advisers and is known for her former marriage to disgraced Jewish politician Anthony Weiner.
“This happened,” the couple wrote in a shared post on Instagram on Wednesday. “We couldn’t be happier, more grateful, or more in love.”
Soros proposed privately at the couple’s shared home in New York in May and the two had a formal celebration in Italy, Vogue reported. Abedin, 47, and Soros, 38, met last fall at a mutual friend’s birthday party and made their public debut together as a couple at the Met Gala in May.
Alex Soros is the second-youngest son of George Soros, a longtime donor to liberal causes through his Open Society Foundations organization and a favorite target of the right. Criticism of the elder Soros — including the online imagery used to criticize him — has at times crossed into what onlookers deem antisemitism.
George Soros, now 93, named Alex his successor to run the Open Society Foundations last year. The younger Soros, already a longtime donor in his own right to progressive causes, is more public about his embrace of his Jewish identity, regularly posting pictures to social media from holiday celebrations.
The first donation made by Alex’s own foundation, established in 2012, was $250,000 to Bend The Arc, a progressive Jewish group on whose board he remains today. He is also on the board of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.
George Soros, born in Hungary in 1930, was hidden as a child during the Holocaust and, as an adult, has always openly identified as Jewish. But he is not active in any Jewish institutions, has given relatively little to Jewish nonprofits and, in 2007, wrote, “I am not a Zionist, nor am I a practicing Jew.” His net worth is reported around $6.7 billion, while his network of businesses and charities totals around $25 billion.
Abedin was raised in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, by Muslim parents who ran the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. Abedin also worked there as assistant editor. After starting as an intern for Hillary Clinton, she rose to become Clinton’s campaign manager during a presidential run and deputy chief of staff while Clinton was secretary of state.
She is also well known for her former marriage to former New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was sentenced to prison in 2017 for sexting a minor. The two separated in 2016.
