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How Jewish leaders tried — and failed — to keep a Farrakhan follower off a Florida city council
(JTA) – When Brother John Muhammad emerged this fall as the leading candidate for a vacant city council seat in St. Petersburg, Florida, local Jews were distressed.
Muhammad is well known in the city as the president of a local neighborhood association and as a frequent advocate for minority groups. But Jewish leaders learned that he was also a follower of Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader who has a long history of antisemitism, and that he had made comments dismissing concerns about Farrakhan’s record.
Jewish leaders tried to stave off Muhammad’s appointment, pushing for more extensive vetting of the seven candidates and, in the case of the local Holocaust museum, actively lobbying against him. But the council confirmed him in a 4-3 vote, leaving local Jews frustrated — before they considered ways to make the situation a learning experience for their city.
“When I see a situation like this, it screams ‘opportunity’ to me,” Michael Igel, chair of the Florida Holocaust Museum, located in St. Petersburg, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
The saga playing out in St. Petersburg, Florida’s fifth-largest city, unfolded during the same period that a handful of Black celebrities, including Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, first became enmeshed in controversy over their own antisemitic comments and social media posts. The coincidence meant a dicey environment for broaching a conversation about the antisemitism of the Nation of Islam, whose rhetoric disparaging Jews overlaps with that of Hebrew Israelites, the ideology that Irving promoted by sharing a link to an antisemitic film.
It also turned St. Petersburg into a window for understanding how ties forged between Jewish groups and others can be tested.
Local Jewish leaders initially sought to stop Muhammad from gaining the city council seat, which was vacated after its previous holder resigned following redistricting and accusations she no longer lived in her district. They learned about Muhammad’s city council application only a week before the council’s vote, leaving them with little time to mobilize. The information came from a political rival of Muhammad, former mayoral candidate Vince Nowicki, who shared information about Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation with local Jewish groups.
Nowicki also shared a comment Muhammad had made about Jews in a 2016 video in which Muhammad interviewed local Black LGBTQ activists. In the video titled “A Conversation About Growing Up Black And LGBT,” which JTA viewed, Muhammad said, “Minister Farrakhan got accused of being antisemitic for a long time because he pointed out and made some corrections about the activity of Jews. And anybody who says anything critical of the Jewish community is labeled as being antisemitic. Good, bad, right or wrong, it doesn’t matter what you say. If you criticize them that’s what you are.”
He continued, saying, “And I’m finding that it happens when you are critical of the gay community, when you say anything critical or anything that doesn’t align with that ideology, now all of a sudden you’re homophobic.” Muhammad’s comments about gay people received some light but friendly pushback from his interview guests.
Muhammad did not reply to multiple requests for comment by JTA, including to questions emailed to him at his request. He said during a public meeting ahead of the council vote that he thought scrutiny of him by Jewish groups had been unfair.
To Jewish leaders, the comments in the video coupled with Muhammad’s Nation of Islam affiliation were clear signs that he should not be appointed to the city council.
“I would sure hope that being antisemitic would be a red line, that you could not be a candidate,” said Rabbi Philip Weintraub of Congregation B’nai Israel, a Conservative synagogue in the city.
Jewish leaders began to take action, issuing statements and launching a letter-writing campaign to the council. They felt so much urgency that some even conducted business on Simchat Torah, a Jewish holiday when Jewish organizations typically pause their activities in accordance with Jewish law.
As a nonprofit, the local federation was constrained in how it could weigh in. Since it could not endorse or oppose specific candidates, it instead pushed for every candidate to be “properly vetted” and informed council members about Muhammad’s affiliations and past comments, according to Maxine Kaufman, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Florida’s Gulf Coast. She said the efforts did not have their intended effect.
“I don’t think anybody said, ‘Well, who is this Farrakhan, what does he stand for?’” Kaufman said. “I don’t think enough was done, personally.”
The entrance to the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg, Nov. 27, 2016. (Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The Florida Holocaust Museum took another approach, circulating information about Muhammad to the wider community, along with a statement opposing the candidacy of anyone who would support Farrakhan’s antisemitism. Their goal, Igel said, was to educate the community about the severity of these views.
“There’s nothing else to talk about when somebody is supporting Louis Farrakhan,” Igel told JTA. “Particularly when you are seeking a position representative of a city, particularly one like St. Petersburg that is so known for its inclusivity and its openness.”
Igel praised some members of the city council who asked Muhammad pointed questions about his views at the vote, giving him the opportunity to refute Farrakhan’s comments about Jews. One council member who voted against Muhammad, Lisset Hanewicz, said her stepfather is Jewish and read Farrakhan’s past antisemitic statements into the record, saying, “I think people need to understand why a certain part of this community is upset.”
Igel acknowledged that getting involved in a city council appointment was an unusual move for a Holocaust museum. He said museum leaders had held a meeting beforehand to determine how to proceed but made a decision fairly quickly to weigh in.
“In this case, we don’t consider this to be a matter of politics,” Igel said. “This is a matter of morality. And this is what we teach.” If the candidate had been a white supremacist, Igel said, “that person would have been disqualified out of the gate.”
The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, two hate watchdogs, define the Nation of Islam as a group that propagates antisemitism and other forms of bigotry, not a religion. Founded in 1930 by Wallace Fard Muhammad, the Black nationalist group is not the same as traditional Islam and is rejected by most Muslim clerics; it entered mainstream prominence in the 1960s after civil rights leader Malcolm X and boxer Muhammad Ali publicly joined the movement. (Both later left the group, with Malcolm X publicly denouncing its leadership; he was assassinated shortly after, and two Nation of Islam members who were wrongfully convicted of his murder recently received a large settlement from New York City.)
The Nation of Islam entered its current era after Farrakhan took over the group in 1977. Now 89, he has used his platform to issue a steady stream of antisemitism, including calling Jews “wicked” and the “synagogue of Satan,” saying they have “wrapped your tentacles around the U.S. government,” and calling Hitler “a very great man.” Only a few years ago, the Women’s March progressive activist collective was nearly derailed over some of its founders’ associations with Farrakhan.
It is rare, but not unheard of, for public officials to have current or former associations with the Nation of Islam. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a practicing Muslim, was dogged by accusations that he had formerly been a member of the group when he first ran for Congress in 2006; he apologized for his past associations with the group. Trayon White, a Washington, D.C. council member and onetime mayoral candidate who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, has donated to the group in the past. Former President George W. Bush once praised the group, and a photograph showing Barack Obama in the same room as Farrakhan was fodder for Obama’s critics during his presidential run.
Muhammad, who is referred to on the city council website as John Muhammad and whose legal name is John C. Malone, declined to condemn Farrakhan at the city council meeting.
“I am not willing to denounce the leader of my faith no more than a Catholic would be willing to denounce their pope,” he said.
Muhammad’s reaction to questions about Farrakhan particularly concerned the federation and other local Jewish groups. Kaufman told JTA she didn’t know whether Muhammad himself is antisemitic, but she said his refusal to disavow Farrakhan was alarming.
“I do have issue with his reverence of someone who is blatantly antisemitic, and he won’t disavow him, he won’t reject him,” she said, echoing the the federation’s official statement on the vote.
At the meeting, Muhammad did say that he had reached out to the Florida Holocaust Museum but had not heard back — and that he thought the museum’s criticism of him was unfair.
“What I found when we reached out to have dialogue with the Holocaust Museum director, they did not want to talk to me,” he said. “They wanted to evaluate and disqualify me based on the association that I have as an individual. I don’t think that that’s just.”
Muhammad also defended his record with Jews by claiming that they were among the “diversity of those who support me.” He added, “And if you look at those who oppose me, they’re coming from one particular group.”
Since the vote, a local Black newspaper condemned the scrutiny on Muhammad, calling it a “perusal into his faith practice.”
Igel said the museum had no record that Muhammad had reached out but encouraged him to come and learn more about the Holocaust and the nature of antisemitism. Stuart Berger, head of the local Jewish Community Relations Council, acknowledged at the city council meeting that Muhammad “has made himself available to us” at the federation, but that none of the federation staff “had been in direct contact with him.”
The federation’s involvement in Muhammad’s case became its own issue at the council vote, when the candidate referenced an email Berger had written to the county commissioner. In the email, Berger wrote that Muhammad’s vetting process had been “good enough for me!”
While Muhammad took the email as proof that the federation believed him to be fit for office, Berger and Kaufman maintain that it meant nothing of the sort. Berger had not been speaking on behalf of the federation, they say, and had not intended for his email to be shared publicly.
Now that Muhammad is on the council, attention has turned to building relationships with him. Kaufman has been meeting with individual city council members, and hopes to eventually meet with Muhammad himself. She also aims to have the federation make a presentation to the council about the dangers of antisemitism and push them to make a statement about it.
She doesn’t think it’s complicated. “I think hate’s hate,” she said. “Many different colors.”
Weintraub’s congregation is celebrating its 100th anniversary in March, and one of its congregants, Eric Lynn, is also involved in politics: he was the Democratic nominee for Florida’s 13th Congressional district in the midterms but lost his race to Republican Anna Paulina Luna, who said she was raised as a Messianic Jew and campaigned with far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Weintraub himself is a member of an interfaith ministerial dialogue group with Black churches and says he’s “a professional optimist” when it comes to managing conflict between different communities. He sent JTA an episode of the public radio podcast “Hidden Brain” about how to keep conflict from spiraling, saying it “describes what I’ve tried to do.”
Since Muhammad was appointed, Weintraub has met with him; the pair had what Weintraub described as “a pleasant conversation.” The two talked about parenting and “shared traumas,” he said. They did not discuss Muhammad’s comments supporting Farrakhan, but the rabbi couldn’t help but think about him.
“I thought I was a termite, according to Farrakhan,” Weintraub said. In contrast, Muhammad “said I was a person, so that was nice.”
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Americans helped free Soviet Jewry and the hostages too. It’s time to step up and stop West Bank terror.
For decades, American Jewry has placed the value of tikkun olam at its core. That commitment motivated mass momentum for social justice in many forms, from B’nei Mitzvah projects to Mitzvah Day and long-term campaigns for justice. American Jews have come together again and again to fight for causes beyond politics or religion — and often, you have won.
From calls to congresspeople, to weekly protests and demonstrations, you are a community that knows how to make things happen, how to propel an issue to the top of the agenda. This skillset — and this passion for combating injustice — is needed again now.
The issue of Jewish terrorism in the West Bank must become a top concern for American Jews, and it must fuel collective action. This weekend, we saw it again: four Palestinians and two Israelis killed in deadly clashes. Palestinian homes burned. Mosques torched and vandalized. More raids of Palestinian villages by the IDF, triggered by extremist Jewish settlers’ push to dispossess, claim land, and annex territory.
We see it almost daily — arson, shootings, theft, even murder perpetrated by Jews in the West Bank. In 2025, NGOs active on the ground recorded some 900 incidents of violence, a dramatic increase from previous years. Settlements once evacuated under the disengagement plan are being resettled. Recent legislation supports these efforts with new roads paved for settlers and new army bases to secure settlements. Too often, Israeli soldiers passively or even actively aid settlers in their attacks on Palestinians.
Once, pressure from the U.S. and from Europe was enough to rein in such aggression. No longer.
We can no longer look away while violence, dispossession and even murder happen in the name of the Jewish people. We can no longer stay silent while Palestinian civilians are caught in the crossfire, unable to reach urgent medical care and emergency services. American Jews have the connections, the commitment and the capacity to implement a campaign to end the violence once and for all. The time to act is now.
I know how powerful these campaigns are first hand. In many ways, I am among their beneficiaries. My parents immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union after decades of tireless campaigning by American Jews to allow my family to experience freedom. What started as a small project in the 1950s became a full-fledged movement to end the oppression of Soviet Jews. The result was liberation: the freedom to emigrate to a place where we could live freely as Jews. Next year we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the historic rally that brought almost a quarter of a million people to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to demand that then-President Ronald Reagan push Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to free Soviet Jews.
Over the last three years, we Israelis once again witnessed the power of American Jews when you unite behind an issue. That same pressure, that same power, was instrumental in the push for the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that brought the final hostages home. Weekly vigils, protests, and solidarity events across the U.S. insisted that President Donald Trump, and President Joe Biden beforehand, put the release of the hostages at the top of the political agenda.
This next campaign of the American Jewish community must demand an end to Jewish terror in the West Bank. What was once seen as aberrant behavior, the actions of a few bad apples, is hardening into Israeli government policy. Myriad reports, articles and data points show how out of control settler violence has become. Too often, the IDF fails to stop and even assists in the brutality. Legislation passed by the far-right government further cements these land grabs and paves the way for full on annexation of the West Bank.
The American Jewish community has not only the ability but the responsibility to make it stop.
While some American Jews are turning away from Israel, we must call on them, on us all, to do the opposite. We must turn toward Israel, to face down violent settlers in the West Bank and support the Israeli activists and leaders who are fighting for safety and dignity for all.
Many of us are pained to see young adult Jews, in particular, distancing themselves or actively opposing Israel. In the face of settler terror, the devastation in Gaza and the ongoing occupation, they don’t see the values they were taught as core to Jewish identity. We have a choice to make and invite our young people to make it with us: embrace values of human decency, freedom, and justice and advance them in Israel.
Campaigning for a better world, for action, for change, runs through our DNA. It is part of our soul. At this time, as an Israeli, as a two-time beneficiary of these efforts, I am asking you once again for your partnership. Just as American Jews fought for my family’s freedom, and just as you fought to bring our hostages home, I ask you to fight for this, too. We need you to help make this violence and bloodshed stop. You have never stood on the sidelines before. This is your time.
The post Americans helped free Soviet Jewry and the hostages too. It’s time to step up and stop West Bank terror. appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu compares New York with ‘the 1930s’ after Mamdani calls for his arrest
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s leadership with “the 1930s,” escalating a showdown between the two leaders as Netanyahu plans to visit the city in the coming weeks.
The Israeli leader made an evocative reference to the period when the Nazis took over Germany in a Fox News interview on Tuesday, adding that he is “definitely going” to New York for the U.N. General Assembly in September. The planned trip prompted Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian advocate, to explore executing an international arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
Mamdani said last week that his Law Department did not find the city could legally make the arrest, but he challenged the U.S. government to do so, calling Netanyahu “the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.” President Donald Trump has rejected the idea of an arrest. The United States is not a party to the International Criminal Court, which has accused Netanyahu of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, and its warrants have no legal power in the U.S.
Netanyahu responded to Mamdani in an interview with Fox News commentator Sean Hannity, a close Trump ally, while visiting Washington, D.C. this week. He called the mayor a “hate-spewing elected official who’s pitting one group of New Yorkers against the other.”
“He’s turning them against New York Jews. I mean, what are we, in the 1930s?,” said Netanyahu.
Since calling for Netanyahu’s arrest, Mamdani has said repeatedly that he does not single out Jews or Israel for punishment.
“My interest in executing that warrant is not specific to Benjamin Netanyahu, but to anyone who they put a warrant towards for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Mamdani said to reporters last week, adding that he also described Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel as a “horrific war crime.”
In a separate press conference on Monday, Mamdani said his characterizations of Netanyahu as a war criminal “were not even frankly personal assessments, they were objective facts.”
Mamdani’s views are increasingly popular in the United States, with a new survey from The Economist/YouGov showing that nearly half of Americans believe the country should arrest Netanyahu. 49% of respondents said the U.S. should enforce the ICC warrant, while 27% said “no” and 23% were unsure.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio also backed Mamdani’s statements. “I think he drew attention to the fact that Netanyahu is literally a war criminal,” de Blasio said in a Fox News interview on Monday. “This guy’s policies led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian children, and that defines a war crime to me and to so many people around the world.”
Major Jewish groups have fiercely criticized Mamdani’s arrest ambitions. The UJA-Federation of New York accused him of “distortions and disinformation.”
“At a time of rising antisemitism, repeatedly singling out and vilifying the world’s only Jewish state for perceived political benefit is repugnant, puts Jews at greater risk — and leaves many Jewish New Yorkers feeling targeted and unwelcome in the city we call home,” the federation said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu slipped into the White House through a side door for a meeting with Trump that did not include public face time. Pundits theorized that the low-profile affair reflected how unpopular Netanyahu has grown in the United States amid the Iran and Gaza wars, making it politically risky for Trump to be seen with him, as the president’s approval also sinks to a new low.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Netanyahu compares New York with ‘the 1930s’ after Mamdani calls for his arrest appeared first on The Forward.
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London’s Hackney council gives initial nod to ending 58-year twinning with Haifa after emotional debate
(JTA) — LONDON – It was one kippah vs. a sea of keffiyehs, as Hackney Council gave initial approval on Tuesday night to begin the process of ending its nearly six-decade twinning relationship with the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
The motion, brought by the Green Party-led administration, was voted on and approved after councilors argued passionately for almost 30 minutes over whether ending the relationship was a moral imperative in light of the war in Gaza or that it would undermine one of the borough’s longest-standing examples of coexistence and dialogue.
The final tally, which has yet to be made public,follows the Green Party’s sweeping victory in Hackney’s May 7 local elections, when it won control of the council for the first time, capturing 42 of the borough’s 57 seats. Labour, which had controlled Hackney for more than two decades, was reduced to nine seats, while the Conservatives held six.
Hackney is an inner London borough, home to one of Britain’s largest Jewish communities alongside a substantial Muslim population. According to the council’s own report, which cites estimates from the Interlink Foundation, Hackney’s Orthodox Jewish community numbers between 27,405 and 29,460, or between 11.7% and 12.5% of the borough’s population. According to the 2021 census, Hackney’s Jewish population is 6.7% while its Muslim population is 13.3%.
The passage of the vote does not mean that the council will immediately sever ties with Haifa, which it has been twinned with since 1968. Instead, the council voted to begin the formal process, including writing to the mayor of Haifa, conducting an equalities impact assessment, and establishing a cross-party working group before a final decision is brought before the full council.
Introducing the proposal, Green councilor Sam Mathys said the move fulfilled a central manifesto pledge made during the election campaign.
“For decades, we have witnessed human rights abuses committed by the State of Israel against the Palestinian people, which has escalated to a horrifying and unprecedented scale over the past years,” she said, adding, “We want civic partnerships that are about fostering peace, justice, and equality.”
The council report notes that Haifa was originally selected because of its “harmonious multicultural, multi-faith populations and good records in community relations.” Over the past three decades, the relationship has centered on links between Hackney’s Homerton University Hospital and Haifa’s Rambam Medical Center, rather than broader civic exchanges.
Conservative councilor and Orthodox Jew Simche Steinberger argued the proposal ignored both the history and practical benefits of the partnership.
“You’ve not spoken to any of the six Jewish councilors about it,” he said. Citing medical exchanges between the two hospitals, he added, “It’s probably the only twinning which actually does something because I remember a few years ago where the doctors from Haifa Hospital were here in Homerton teaching them what to do.”
He argued that councilors had been elected “for local issues, not for national issues,” and called the proposal “a disgrace,” before urging them to withdraw the motion.
Labour councilor Ben Lucas likewise opposed the proposal despite saying his party was “unequivocal in our abhorrence of the devastation and violence in Gaza caused by the Israeli government” and “we utterly condemn the Hamas terrorist attacks.”
“The Labour group in all good conscience cannot support this paper,” he said.
Lucas described the twinning agreement as having been forged in 1968 in a spirit of working-class solidarity, a partnership that was “multi-faith, multi-ethnic, and built most notably on the noble idea of medical cooperation.”
He added, “Haifa is not perfect, but for those who want peace, it represents a model of coexistence, a fighting chance for peace.” He also noted that the Israeli city was home to “socialists and greens, aghast at the conflict and fighting for lasting solutions.”
“You’re punishing a people for the actions of a government,” he said, calling the proposal “a performative gesture.” He added, “Let’s be bridge builders, not burners.”
Former deputy mayor Anntoinette Bramble, speaking for Labour, also argued that twinning existed to preserve relationships precisely when disagreements arose.
She said the medical exchange partnerships strengthened communities by bringing together professionals and residents of different faiths and backgrounds. “I’m perplexed by this proposal because it doesn’t seem to strengthen those communities,” she said. “What it seems to do is cause division.”
She also asked, “How can a transparent review that is non-partisan, already come with a decision before the review has begun? You need to be honest about what you’re doing here.”
Supporters argued that maintaining the relationship would conflict with Hackney’s stated commitment to human rights.
Green councilor Manal Massalha, who described herself as the granddaughter of Nakba survivors, spoke at length about conditions in Gaza and the West Bank before declaring, “Never again is never again for everyone.”
“Respect for international law and human rights born from the ashes of the Holocaust, together with the ICJ’s findings on Israel’s unlawful occupation requires us to reject dehumanization, military occupation, oppression, impunity, and racism,” she said.
Massalha rejected accusations that the proposal targeted Israelis or Jews. “De-twinning is not about opposing a people, a religion, or a culture. It’s about ensuring that our institutional relationships reflect those values.”
One of the proposal’s most vehement supporters was Green councilor Florence Schechter, who was raised in, but no longer practices Orthodox Judaism.
“It is my Jewish values that inform me. Hackney should no longer be twinned with Haifa,” she said, adding that fellow Green councilor Cathy Troupp, who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, shared her position.
Drawing on Jewish teachings, she argued, “When Gentiles open their newspapers or log into social media and they see the horrors that are being committed in Palestine, children maimed and murdered, prisoners mocked by soldiers, what will people think of all Jews?”
“It isn’t fair and it isn’t right that the actions of Israel should reflect on all Jewish people,” she added. “If the Jewish people of Britain want to fight rising antisemitism, the first thing they must do is condemn the genocide in Palestine.”
Closing the debate, Mathys stressed that the vote marked “a first step,” saying the cross-party working group would hear from interested parties before bringing recommendations back to the council in January 2027.
Following the decision, Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg posted on X, “Tonight, the Hackney Green Party showed its ignorance and bigotry.” He added, “This vote represents the prioritization of spite over sense.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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