WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. drew strong criticism from several members of his own family on Monday for remarks he made suggesting COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted.”

The pushback began over the weekend, when video surfaced of him claiming that the COVID virus is “ethnically targeted” to attack “certain races disproportionately” — namely, white and Black people — while “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” Ashkenazi Jews are Jewish people of specifically northern and eastern European descent.

The remarks, captured by the New York Post at a private event, contained multiple false claims and reference common antisemitic tropes about global conspiracies that benefit Jewish people. They sparked quick condemnation from prominent Jewish groups and others.

That outpouring of criticism included two of Kennedy’s siblings. Kennedy’s sister Kerry Kennedy, distanced her brother from the nonprofit named for their father, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation.

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“I strongly condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” Kerry Kennedy said in a statement as president of the organization. “His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights stand for, with our 50 [plus]-year track record of protecting rights and standing against...

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