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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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Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028
(JTA) — Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American writer who has worked with anti-Zionists, is the first Democrat to challenge Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman in the 2028 primary.
Fetterman, who has faced sharp criticism from within the Democratic Party for his staunch support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, has yet to announce whether he plans to run in 2028. A defeat or retirement would remove one of the Democratic caucus’s most pro-Israel voices.
Moor, 42, enters the playing field with radically different positions on Israel, and on foreign policy in general, from those Fetterman has promoted. Claiming that the United States “funds wars based on corruption and lies and has turned its back on its own people,” Moor pledged on his campaign website to ensure “this never happens again.”
Moor, born in Gaza, moved as a child to Philadelphia, where he earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard. He switched from finance to journalism, reporting in Beirut and Egypt for The Guardian and other outlets, and co-editing the book “After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine.” He also spent many years in Jordan, where he launched a peer-to-peer lending organization, before moving back to Philadelphia in 2021.
“A few years ago my birthplace was turned to rubble in a genocide funded by our tax dollars,” Moor stated, saying that this has occurred “with the support of politicians on both sides of the aisle who can’t find money for transit or removing asbestos from our schools.”
Moor, who has served on the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, has never held public office. He says he is determined to address corruption, affordability, foreign policy and constitutional authority, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which first reported his candidacy.
Moor told the Inquirer that he was “not really running against Fetterman” but instead “running for the rule of law.” He acknowledged that he would face an “uphill battle” against Fetterman, who took office in January 2023.
Fetterman has irked some fellow Democrats by siding with Republicans on numerous issues, especially on Israel. He has also drawn praise from the pro-Israel community and Israel’s leadership. With Democrats securing a Senate majority of at least 54 seats, including two independents who caucus with the party, Democratic leadership will be less dependent on Fetterman’s vote when the new Congress convenes in January.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Palestinian-American to challenge John Fetterman for Senate seat in 2028 appeared first on The Forward.
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Northwestern launches civil rights investigation into club that banned pro-Israel group from its food festival
Northwestern University’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating a club that said it canceled its annual “Cultural Food Fest” after students objected to its initial inclusion of a pro-Israel student group.
Spoon University Northwestern, a student-run food magazine, wrote in an email to students that it was calling off its Nov. 6 food festival because of concerns about the participation of Wildcats for Israel, a club housed within Hillel that describes itself as focused on Israeli culture and society.
“There’s been a lot of disappointment expressed in and around Hillel today,” Michael Simon, executive director of Northwestern Hillel, told the Forward on Friday. “What should be an opportunity for connecting across differences and having really positive engagement got turned into a sort of political catfight.”
Students involved with Wildcats for Israel were initially “really excited” to participate in the fest, Simon said.
But amid student backlash, Spoon reversed course and disinvited Wildcats for Israel, Simon said. In a statement posted to Instagram, Spoon cited “the ongoing genocide in Gaza” to explain the group’s removal.
Yet even that exclusion was not enough for some student organizations. Northwestern’s Asian Pacific American Coalition; Alianza, the Latinx student alliance; and the Middle Eastern North African Student Association, issued a joint statement saying that they were withdrawing from the fest because of the original inclusion of Wildcats for Israel.
“A ‘culture’ born from the active land theft and genocide of Palestinians should not be recognized,” the student groups wrote on Instagram.
Spoon then cancelled the event altogether.
Now, Spoon’s status as an officially registered student organization has been frozen while the investigation into allegations of discrimination is being conducted, a Northwestern spokesperson wrote in an email to the Forward.
The investigation comes as Northwestern faces additional obligations to address and report allegations of antisemitism as part of its $75 million settlement with the Trump administration in November 2025. As part of the agreement, the university pledged that its Office of Civil Rights would publish annual reports with data about complaints of antisemitism, including investigative and disciplinary actions taken.
Spoon did not respond to the Forward’s request for comment.
In its email to students, Spoon said Wildcats for Israel was removed because of its status as “a political action group, not a cultural organization.”
Simon pushed back on that characterization of the club. “They’re not engaged in political advocacy or political work, certainly not in their current iteration,” Simon said. “They’re really focused on doing cultural and educational programming, connecting with Israel and with the Israeli people.”
The idea that Wildcats for Israel is considered political, while other student organizations opposing Israel are not, “appears to be a real double standard,” Simon said.
Still, Simon said the cancellation did not prevent Wildcats for Israel from having its own cultural food event — inviting students to the Hillel building on Friday to talk about what had happened over slushies in two flavors popular in Israel, limonana and iced cafe.
“They’re really turning to a place of being in community and supporting one another,” Simon said.
The post Northwestern launches civil rights investigation into club that banned pro-Israel group from its food festival appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s love affair with Trump may be over – with no other suitor in sight
Israelis were among the few groups outside America who genuinely liked Donald Trump, and they had persuaded themselves that the feeling was mutual. Now, as the American president pledges to terminate military assistance and blames Israel’s unpopularity for the Republicans’ electoral humiliation, they are confronting the possibility that their greatest supposed friend may become one of their gravest strategic liabilities.
In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 24 countries, 69% of Israelis expressed confidence in Trump to do the right thing in world affairs. Israelis saw a champion where much of the democratic world saw a menace.
Israelis, who tend to be more direct and plainspoken than other Western societies, were less inclined to be scandalized by Trump’s personal shortcomings. But mainly it was policy that made him so popular: Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and cultivated a conspicuously warm relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his increasing toxicity around the world. Trump opposed Hamas and ultimately joined Israel in attacking the Iranian regime.
Still, warning signs were there – in the displays of U.S. dominance over decisions in the 2025 and 2026 Iran confrontations and in the Election Day announcement last week that Trump plans to terminate roughly $4 billion in annual military assistance to Israel this year.
The announcement threatened a cornerstone of Israeli security planning established under Barack Obama, whose administration negotiated a 10-year, $38 billion assistance agreement extending through 2028.
The precise legal and financial consequences remain uncertain, not least because Congress controls appropriations. But the political significance is unmistakable: The president whom Israelis regarded as their most dependable protector was proposing to dismantle an arrangement that even administrations regarded as unfriendly to Netanyahu had sustained.
Moreover, the aid is far more than a gift. Its greatest value is not financial but geopolitical: the unmistakable message to Israel’s enemies that Washington stands behind it.
As the dismal election results became clear, Vice President JD Vance highlighted a supposed demand among disaffected Republican voters to “change our relationship to Israel,” placing the alliance itself among the issues requiring political reassessment.
In Sunday’s 60 Minutes interview, Trump went further, identifying what he called a “great dislike” for Israel as one factor in the Republican electoral defeat.
Trump certainly has a point. A 2026 Pew survey found that 60% of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, up from 42% in 2022, including 57% of Republicans under 50. Gallup found that, for the first time in its 25-year tracking, Americans were no longer more sympathetic to Israelis than Palestinians: 36% favored Israelis, compared with 41% for Palestinians. The longstanding bipartisan consensus is unraveling. Among younger Americans, the situation is even worse.
Whether the reason is a global propaganda campaign against Zionism, social media manipulation, Netanyahu and his noxious far-right allies, or Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank are almost beside the point – the collapse in Western and U.S. opinion is undeniable.
Trump also asserted that “those countries that we’ve protected” from Iran – meaning Israel – “wouldn’t exist” without the U.S. and “are going to pay us back any and all costs that we’ve had for the war,” which was another major surprise and mystery that caught Israelis off-guard.
Whether this implies a demand that Israel reimburse the United States, and for precisely what, remains unclear. What is clear is that Trump has begun discussing a relationship Israelis considered existential in the language of electoral liabilities and financial transactions.
Writing in Maariv on Monday, veteran Washington correspondent Shlomo Shamir reported that senior Washington commentators described Netanyahu as having become effectively persona non grata in Trump’s inner circle – and that Trump’s seeming affinity for Netanyahu was “more a media relationship than a genuine friendship.”
The change in atmosphere in Israel has been extraordinary.
On Monday, Israeli television seemed preoccupied with little beyond the coalition negotiations following Israel’s election and the growing fear that the country might lose its most important international relationship.
Appearing on Channel 13, I argued that another Netanyahu government would have faced economic sanctions from Europe and even serious discussion of an American weapons embargo. This provoked very little disagreement.
“Netanyahu put all his chips on Trump, and it’s falling apart,” observed anchor Daniel Zilberstein. “It wasn’t only him, but the entire system,” replied Omri Rolls, an expert in monitoring and countering anti-Israel propaganda. “We put all our attention on the United States. Europe, we’ve completely given up on. All over the world, important elements are simply not on Israel’s agenda.”
The alarm was loud and clear this week across the Israeli political and diplomatic establishment.
Tovah Herzl, a former Israeli diplomat who served in Washington as liaison to Congress, captured the predicament in the title of her article in Maariv: “Netanyahu Bet on Trump — and Israel Could Lose Far More Than Money.”
“Israelis are unaware of the depth of the hole into which the country has fallen,” wrote Yedidia Stern, a leading expert on Israel-U.S. relations, in Ynet. “The hourglass has been turned over: we have two years to regain the legitimacy that has been lost” before a Democrat potentially wins the White House.
Ashley Perry, a former senior Israeli government adviser, wrote in The Jerusalem Post that Israel must urgently start arguing its case – “consistently demonstrating what Americans gain” in intelligence cooperation, joint defense development, investment, trade and Israeli contributions to scientific and technological progress.
Beyond all that, there is a general understanding that Israel will need some real policy changes – for example, cracking down on Jewish extremists in the West Bank. And it will need to court the U.S. Democrats and the Europeans once more – as it did decades ago.
There is a grim lesson at play, and it has more to do with morality than ethics.
Israelis are people badly traumatized by the conflicts that implacable enemies have forced on them. Over the decades, however, they took some pride nonetheless in what they believed was a moral high ground. It’s safe to say this has eroded, at least somewhat.
In a reflection of that erosion, one of Trump’s greatest attractions to Israelis – sadly enough – was his indifference to Palestinian human rights, an issue that had long complicated Israel’s relations with more conventional Western leaders. Trump was clearly untroubled by the West Bank occupation, the expansion of settlements or the absence of a credible political horizon for millions of Palestinians. In February 2025, he even proposed removing Gaza’s Palestinian population in its entirety and placing the territory under American control, a scheme whose breathtaking implications seemed scarcely to concern him.
Many Israelis overlooked the dark aspects of such absurdities, seeing only evidence of exceptional friendship. They overlooked the possibility that a president so utterly uninterested in Palestinian rights might also prove indifferent to Israeli interests whenever they ceased to coincide with his own.
They celebrated his willingness to discard diplomatic conventions – or even basic human decency – when it worked in their favor. They are discovering now that sometimes cliches are true: What goes around comes around.
The post Israel’s love affair with Trump may be over – with no other suitor in sight appeared first on The Forward.
