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A Florida sheriff is on the warpath against neo-Nazi ‘scumbags’ who want him dead
(JTA) – After hate groups in his county on Florida’s East coast projected antisemitic messages onto the Daytona International Speedway, the local sheriff delivered a press conference with one simple message: He’d had enough.
“We put up their photos, talked about their arrest records, and let everybody know what a bunch of reprehensible thugs were in our community, and what they were up to,” Sheriff Mike Chitwood told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the February press conference. Standing with local Jewish, interfaith and minority group representatives, the sheriff had announced he would be coming after the “scumbags” who did this.
“And after that,” he recalled, “all hell broke loose.”
The group that had made its presence known in Volusia County was the Goyim Defense League, one of the country’s most prominent antisemitic organizations, known for harassing worshippers at synagogues and papering neighborhoods with fliers hawking anti-Jewish conspiracies.
The movement’s leaders recently relocated to the area from California, and they had chosen the Daytona 500, a major NASCAR race that draws more than 100,000 people to the speedway, to make their antisemitic presence known. They didn’t like that the sheriff was now effectively declaring war on them.
Online after the press conference, several men started making death threats against Chitwood, even harassing his daughter and sending SWAT teams to his parents’ house. Antisemitic groups began planning to hold a public demonstration to oppose him specifically, which Chitwood’s intelligence determined was set for this past weekend in Ormond Beach.
So Chitwood fought back. Last week, thanks in part to his corralling, three men in three different states — California, Connecticut and New Jersey — were arrested and charged with making online death threats against him. Two of the three have already been extradited to Volusia County.
Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood (right) thanks residents who turned up to counter-protest a canceled demonstration by a neo-Nazi group in Ormond Beach, Florida, April 22, 2023. (Nadia Zomorodian, courtesy of Volusia County Sheriff)
On Saturday the sheriff went to the airport to personally “welcome” one of the men. He hopes to send a message to hate groups more generally that he intends to “keep up the heat” so that they know they will face resistance from law enforcement if they attempt any public demonstrations: “I think that makes it a little bit harder to peddle your wares.”
Amid a national climate of rising antisemitism, one vexing question has been how to tackle antisemitic activity that is trollish but not violent. While European authorities have prosecuted Holocaust denial and other antisemitic sentiments expressed in social media posts, U.S. law is less expansive about what kind of online posts represent criminal activity. Meanwhile, the Goyim Defense League’s most frequent activities — flier drops, banner displays and public demonstrations — make up the fastest-growing type of antisemitic incidents in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League, but they do not always violate the law. A citation for littering in Wisconsin last year was the first known charge in the United States related to the Goyim Defense League’s distribution of antisemitic materials.
The issue is especially acute in Florida, where the populations of Jews and avowed antisemites are both growing. Chitwood suspects the state’s rising Jewish population is one of the reasons why white supremacists have also flocked to the area, along with Florida’s relaxed gun laws.
In this environment, Chitwood’s outspokenness and forceful commitment to eradicating antisemitism — in a county with a relatively small number of Jews — has set a new tone. Raised in a law-enforcement family in Philadelphia — his father was a prominent police officer whose biography chronicles his own battle against “scumbags” — Chitwood speaks in a tough clip peppered with colorful insults directed at his white supremacist opponents (“these clowns,” “little sissies,” “ugly faces”). His passion on the issue is evident when he talks about his desire to be “standing in for John Q. Citizen,” or “some poor son-of-a-gun that’s going to synagogue.” He’s still green enough on the issue that he frequently confuses the Anti-Defamation League with the “JDL,” or Jewish Defense League — a radical violent splinter group of Jewish extremists.
Chitwood has garnered national attention for his actions, as well as the respect of the Jewish community.
“This sheriff is not like all the others, in a sense,” said Oren Segal, vice president of the ADL’s Center on Extremism. “He’s taking different methods and putting himself out there and showing what one type of response can be.”
Rob Lennick, director of the Jewish Federation of Volusia and Flagler Counties, is one of Chitwood’s local allies. The federation is known locally for running several charitable programs, including food pantries, meant to reach people in need across the entire community, and Chitwood has a good relationship with them.
Lennick praised Chitwood for taking “a very strong forward position against these neo-Nazis, against these white supremacist groups coming to our community.” (Lennick arrived in Volusia County last year after leaving the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, which collapsed after employees accused him of misconduct.)
Counter-protesters at a planned neo-Nazi demonstration in Ormond Beach, Florida, thank Volusia County Sheriff Michael Chitwood “for standing against antisemitism,” April 22, 2023. Chitwood has had white supremacists who have threatened him online arrested and extradited to his county. (Nadia Zomorodian, courtesy of Volusia County Sheriff)
In the end, the planned neo-Nazi demonstration against Chitwood on Saturday never took place — though a large group of what the sheriff described as “professional counter-protesters” did show up, flying joint American and Israeli flags and thanking him for standing up to antisemitism. Walking among that interfaith crowd, many of whom had traveled from outside the county to be there, was profound for Chitwood. The experience “was very, very humbling,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve wrapped my brain around it yet.”
Segal declined to comment on the degree to which Chitwood’s office has liaised with the ADL. But he praised Chitwood’s outspokenness, and said he considered it a form of “allyship.”
“It’s easy to speak out against something that breaks the law. It’s not always easy to speak out against something that breaks the value of our communities because it’s hateful, because it scares people, because it makes people feel unsafe,” Segal said. He mused that the fact that so many neo-Nazis now have Chitwood in their crosshairs “creates an inadvertent bond between law enforcement and the Jewish community, that they’re both being harassed by antisemites.”
Lennick had advised local Jews not to attend the site of the protests, not even to participate in the counter-protests. “You’re walking a fine line,” he said. “You don’t want to fuel the bad guys.”
Chitwood, though, has made a point out of naming and shaming the antisemites in his midst, believing that the increased media attention will expose further misdeeds and make it harder for them to hold down employment.
“There is now a national spotlight on these GDL punks,” Chitwood said. “Sooner or later, they’re going to stub their toe. And you have all these entities looking at you.”
The sheriff wants to go further in his crusade. He has pushed for a bill in the Florida legislature that would allow him and other law enforcement in the state to charge people with felonies for distributing fliers and broadcasting messages of “ethnic intimidation” on private property.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shows off after signing a bill making “ethnic intimidation” displays a felony in his state, during a ceremony at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023. Randy Fine, a Jewish Republican lawmaker from Florida who authored the bill, stands at left. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
On Thursday, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed the bill into law during a ceremony in Jerusalem after Randy Fine, the Jewish Republican state representative who authored it, delivered it to him there. (DeSantis last year called Nazis rallying in his state “jackasses” but drew criticism for not condemning them more forcefully.) The law was written specifically to address the kinds of activities the Goyim Defense League regularly engages in, including the Daytona message that spurred Chitwood to address the problem head-on, and enjoyed unanimous support from legislators of both parties.
“I guess we need to thank our scumbag Neo-Nazi invaders for uniting our community and the entire state of Florida against hate,” Chitwood tweeted after the signing.
“I see it as another tool in the toolbox,” Chitwood told JTA about his support of the bill. “You go onto private property and drop these leaflets on somebody’s doorstep or in their driveway, that’s now a felony trespass.”
Chitwood acknowledges that law enforcement can often be slow to respond to crimes of ethnic intimidation, and particularly online harassment, which hinders their ability to organize against a common threat. “We are very reactive,” he said. “No matter what it is, even a car break trend, sometimes you have to break into 20 or 30 cars before we detect a trend to go and do what needs to be done.”
He’s frank about the police’s shortcomings when it comes to dealing with such behavior. The fact that he is a sheriff, he said, meant that it was easier to bring the perpetrators of out-of-state online death threats to justice. And, he said, broad coordination across different law enforcement entities for the specific addressing of antisemitism in the state does not yet exist: Apart from communication with some neighboring county sheriffs and the FBI, efforts to collaborate with the broader law enforcement community have been slow.
But, he said, he remains committed to trying to fight antisemitism in his own backyard at the very least. “It is personal,” Chitwood said. “This is my community.”
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The post A Florida sheriff is on the warpath against neo-Nazi ‘scumbags’ who want him dead appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Cameron Kasky, Jewish Parkland shooting survivor, is running for Congress on platform to ‘stop funding genocide’
(JTA) — Cameron Kasky, the 25-year-old Jewish activist and school shooting survivor, has entered the race to represent one of the United States’ most Jewish congressional districts — on a platform that includes stopping Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
“We need leaders who aren’t going to coddle their billionaire donors, who won’t support a genocide and who aren’t going to settle for flaccid incrementalism,” Kasky said in the launch video posted on Tuesday for his campaign to represent New York City’s 12th Congressional District.
The video’s caption includes the three main points of his campaign: “Medicare for all. Stop funding genocide. Abolish ICE.”
While Kasky’s anti-Trump positions are likely to go over well with the district’s largely liberal populace, his stance that Israel is committing a genocide — and the apparent centrality of that stance to his campaign — could be an issue for constituents. The district includes the Upper West and East Sides of Manhattan, where many voters sided with the pro-Israel Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani in the city’s recent mayoral election, as well as Midtown Manhattan.
Kasky’s messaging may, however, speak more to young voters in the district. A New York Times/Siena poll from September found that 66% of New York City voters ages 18 to 29 found that Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, “best addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” among the mayoral candidates.
A democratic socialist, Kasky was a vocal supporter of Mamdani throughout the mayoral election — and an aggressive critic of fellow Democrats who objected to the mayoral candidate’s anti-Israel stances.
“‘Vote blue no matter who unless it’s a Muslim who criticizes Israel’s extremist far right nationalist government’ is not ‘vote blue no matter who,’” he wrote in one tweet.
In another, he wrote that Democrats who refused to endorse him after the primary should “go get a consulting gig and stop disrespecting your own voter base.”
Kasky had teased entering the crowded race for months, ever since Rep. Jerry Nadler, Congress’ most senior Jewish member, announced he would not be running for reelection.
In that time, Kasky has also weighed in on the viability of Micah Lasher, the Jewish state Assembly member and former Nadler aide who launched his own campaign for the seat earlier in the fall.
Lasher is unable to “fight fascism” because of his “genocide denial and free speech attacks on students,” Kasky wrote, with a screenshot of a Lasher tweet from Oct. 28, 2023, that criticized what Lasher called the “awful use of the word ‘genocide’ by some westerners to describe Israel’s actions.” (As the war in Gaza neared its two-year mark this summer, a poll found that half of Americans believed Israel had committed genocide, a claim that Israel and the United States both reject.)
Kasky also reposted a poll according to which Brad Lander, Mamdani’s most prominent Jewish ally, would beat the moderate congressman Dan Goldman, who is Jewish and withheld an endorsement due to “some of the rhetoric coming from Mamdani.”
“Needless to say, I am looking forward to working with Brad Lander,” Kasky wrote.
Kasky is the co-host of the “For You Podcast” with Tim Miller, which attempts to “break down the politics of the TikTok generation,” for The Bulwark, a center-right, anti-Trump media company.
One of Kasky’s podcast guests over the summer is now his opponent: Jack Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, who is the grandson of President John F. Kennedy and has said he is “at least 100% half Jewish,” announced his own candidacy for the 12th Congressional District last week.
Kasky remarked on their podcast that many women in his life have crushes on Schlossberg — and Schlossberg replied that the two men have a similar appeal.
“I always say, when you go unhinged politics Jew, it’s hard to go back,” Kasky said.
Kasky was thrust into the national spotlight as a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018. Together with other survivors, he led a march in Washington and spurred a national movement that is seen as crucial to the 2022 passage of the most significant federal gun control legislation in decades.
Kasky, a junior at the time of the shooting, is credited with having selecting the name and hashtag #NeverAgain — which has long been linked to Holocaust commemoration — for the student-led gun control campaign. (Another co-founder of Never Again MSD is David Hogg, who recently stepped down as the youngest-ever vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.)
Before the shooting, Kasky said he played Motel in a school production of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The quality of his performance was proof, he joked, that he was not a paid actor in the protests, as some conspiracy theorists accused.
Kasky attended Hebrew school growing up, which he referenced when speaking on MSNBC about the “No Kings” protests against Trump.
“This kind of reminded me of my education growing up — when you go to Hebrew school, you learn about fascism a little bit younger than the other kids,” he said. “And you find yourself asking, in the face of authoritarianism, in the face of seeing a genocide happen before the entire world, what would I do? How would I react?”
He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he later dropped out, and lives in the 12th Congressional District that’s been described as a “crown jewel” of New York politics.
Now, Kasky is running on a progressive agenda that emphasizes fighting Trump and stopping U.S. military aid for Israel, referring to the country’s actions in Gaza in no uncertain terms as a “genocide” — a response which he says has been informed in part by his Jewish identity.
“I am always surprised when people ask me why I focus so much on Palestine,” he wrote. “Beyond my Jewish identity making me strongly opposed to genocide, I’m a school shooting survivor-turned-activist. I started my adult life demanding an end to American-made weapons slaughtering children.”
The post Cameron Kasky, Jewish Parkland shooting survivor, is running for Congress on platform to ‘stop funding genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Democrats urge Senate to oppose Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy ahead of confirmation hearing
(JTA) — On the eve of a long-delayed Senate confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy, a group of House Democrats is urging senators to reject the nomination of Yehuda Kaploun, arguing that he lacks the judgment and moral authority the post requires.
In a letter obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and sent Tuesday to Sen. Jim Risch, the Idaho Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, its top Democrat, the lawmakers call Kaploun’s nomination “partisan and controversial” and say his “comments and actions demonstrate a clear unfitness for this post.”
A total of 18 House Democrats signed the letter, including several Jewish lawmakers such as Jerrold Nadler, Jamie Raskin, Jan Schakowsky, Becca Balint and Steve Cohen.
The intervention is atypical: House members almost never publicly oppose sub-cabinet nominees, a category generally considered routine Senate business.
The committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on Kaploun’s nomination on Wednesday morning.
Trump tapped Kaploun in April to serve as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, an ambassador-level role focused on antisemitism abroad. The Senate did not move for months to schedule a hearing, leaving the position vacant even as administration officials warned about a spike in antisemitism.
Kaploun, a Hasidic rabbi, Miami-based businessman and longtime political operative close to Trump, would be the first Hasidic Jew to serve in the role if confirmed. In a May profile, JTA detailed how he rose from a Brooklyn yeshiva student and community activist affiliated with the Chabad movement to a prominent figure in Republican politics and a visible surrogate in Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The Democratic letter focuses first on Kaploun’s rhetoric about Trump’s political opponents. It cites a comment in which Kaploun said that after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, “Democrats refuse to even recognize the butchers of women and kidnappers of children as terrorists,” calling the statement “absurd, insulting, and malicious.” The lawmakers argue that the remark maligns Democratic members of the Foreign Relations Committee who condemned the attacks and raises questions about his ability to work across party lines.
In addition, the Democrats point to an event Kaploun organized during the 2024 campaign at which Trump said that if he were to lose the election, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” and spoke of a “Democrat curse” on Jews who vote for the party. The letter describes those remarks as antisemitic scapegoating and says Kaploun’s failure to publicly condemn them — or what the letter calls the administration’s hiring of “antisemites and Christian Nationalists” — should be a central topic of Wednesday’s hearing.
The lawmakers also cite JTA’s earlier reporting on dueling lawsuits in Miami-Dade County involving Kaploun and another member of his synagogue, which alleged threats and an extramarital affair. Court records show that judges issued restraining orders on both sides and that the case was settled in April, days before Trump announced the nomination. Kaploun has denied having an affair and has said, through an attorney, that he was drawn into a marital dispute that has now been resolved.
The letter closes by turning Kaploun’s own past standard for nominees back on him, quoting a 1993 submission he made to the Senate, in which he argued that nominees must be judged on “honor,” “fidelity to principle” and respect for civil rights. “By his own standards, Mr. Kaploun fails,” the lawmakers write, urging senators to vote no.
Their intervention comes as a broad coalition of Jewish organizations has pressed the Senate to move quickly to confirm an antisemitism envoy and a parallel ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. In an August letter led by the Jewish Federations of North America, groups from across the Jewish communal spectrum urged Senate leaders to “swiftly” fill both roles, warning that “we dare not delay in filling these critical positions.”
Kaploun has previously said he is refraining from interviews until after his confirmation process, but he has publicly argued for the importance of rising above partisanship. In a May op-ed published by JTA and co-authored with the previous two antisemitism envoys, Elan Carr and Deborah Lipstadt, Kaploun wrote that “the fight against this terrible scourge… must be bipartisan and non-political.”
The post Democrats urge Senate to oppose Trump’s pick for antisemitism envoy ahead of confirmation hearing appeared first on The Forward.
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Maduro Accuses Zionists of Trying to Deliver Venezuela to ‘Devils’ as US Threatens Terror Designation
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a march amid the disputed presidential election, in Caracas, Venezuela, Aug. 3, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Maxwell Briceno
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused Zionists of trying to hand his country over to “devils,” as the United States ramped up military pressure and opposition leaders continued to voice support for action against his regime.
“There are those who want to hand this country over to the devils – you know who, right? The far-right Zionists want to hand this country over to the devils,” Maduro said on Saturday during a speech to local pro-government grassroots organizations.
“Who will prevail? The people of [King] David, the people of God, the people of [Simón] Bolívar, or the imperialist demons?” he continued. “We are the people of David against the Goliaths that we have already defeated in history. If God wills it, we will face them.”
| Nicolás Maduro: “Algunos quieren entregar este país a los demonios; ya saben quiénes son: la facción sionista de ultraderecha”.
pic.twitter.com/i7IJ5W0kOs— Alerta News 24 (@AlertaNews24) November 16, 2025
The Venezuelan leader has a long history of blaming the Jewish state and Jewish communities for the country’s problems, even as opposition leaders continue to publicly voice support for Israel and denounce his regime.
Last year, Maduro blamed “international Zionism” for the large-scale anti-government protests that erupted across the country following the presidential elections, in which he claimed victory amid widespread claims of fraud.
He also called the Argentinian government “Nazi and Zionist” earlier this year, amid an ongoing dispute over the arrest of an Argentine military officer in Venezuela.
Maduro broke diplomatic relations with Argentina after President Javier Milei refused to recognize his reelection in July.
During his Saturday speech, the Venezuelan leader insisted that the country is a Christian nation and questioned why Americans would want to kill Christians, as he urged Washington to refrain from military escalation amid a US buildup in the Caribbean and strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels.
“I place at the forefront of this battle our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom our homeland has been entrusted, the only king between heaven and Earth, Jesus of Nazareth, the young child and Palestinian martyr, Jesus of Nazareth,” Maduro said.
“I place Jesus of Nazareth as commander-in-chief of the battle for peace and the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people,” he continued.
He also tried to appeal to the American people, urging them to say “no” to war and “yes” to peace.
Maduro’s latest remarks came just before the Trump administration on Sunday announced the decision to designate the Cartel de los Soles, which the Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading, as a foreign terrorist organization. The designation could open the door to strikes on Maduro’s assets and infrastructure inside Venezuela.
“Based in Venezuela, the Cartel de los Soles is headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary,” the US State Department said in a statement, noting the designation will take effect next week, on Nov. 24.
“Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela’s legitimate government. Cartel de los Soles by and with other designated [foreign terrorist organizations] including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,” the statement continued. “The United States will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.”
Congress has seven days to review the decision after being notified, and “in the absence of congressional action to block the designation,” it will take effect, according to the State Department.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that, while he doesn’t believe the administration needs congressional authorization for potential military strikes inside Venezuela, he would like to keep lawmakers informed.
“We like to keep Congress involved. I mean, we’re stopping drug dealers and drugs from coming into our country,” he said. “We don’t have to get their approval. But I think letting them know is good.”
In recent weeks, Trump has ordered at least 21 strikes on boats believed to be carrying narcotics and has built up thousands of troops in the region.
Last month, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force, saying it was established “to crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe.”