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What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president
(JTA) – In late April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Jerusalem, voicing support for Israeli West Bank settlements, touting a law he had just signed giving families thousands of dollars per year in private school tuition vouchers and signing a bill that increased penalties for antisemitic harassment.
Two weeks later, his education department rejected two new textbooks on the Holocaust as part of a clampdown on what he has called “woke indoctrination.”
Those two developments may anchor the Jewish arguments for and against DeSantis as he stands on the cusp of announcing a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Supporters paint him as a steadfast ally of Israel who speaks to the pocketbook concerns of Jewish families. In the years since he became Florida’s governor in 2019, the state has seen an influx of Orthodox Jews, drawn both by lax pandemic policies and the promise of discounted day school tuition.
But DeSantis’ opponents portray him as a cultural reactionary whose anti-“woke” politics are inhibiting education on the Holocaust and antisemitism — along with teaching about race, gender and sexuality. He has repeatedly condemned George Soros, the progressive megadonor who is an avatar of right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories. Surveys show that his near-total restriction of abortion rights is unpopular with Jews nationally.
And hanging over the campaign is the candidacy of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term, is leading in the polls — and shares much in common with DeSantis even as he has attacked him.
While DeSantis’ allies have played up some of their differences (such as DeSantis’ youth and military service), when it comes to their respective records on issues of interest to Jewish voters, Trump and DeSantis are less distinct.
Each has sought to cultivate Jewish support by focusing on Israel and erasing church-state separations that, Orthodox Jewish leaders argue, inhibit religious freedoms. And both have attracted white nationalist supporters while leaning into the culture wars.
DeSantis is set to officially announce his campaign in a chat with Elon Musk, who was just condemned by a wide range of Jewish figures (and defended by a handful of others) for tweeting that Soros “hates humanity.”
Here’s what you need to know about DeSantis’s Jewish record:
He has been an outspoken booster of Israel.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a Jerusalem Post conference at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on April 27, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
DeSantis, a Catholic, has a visceral affinity for Israel, and has framed his support for the country in religious terms.
“When I took office, I promised to make Florida the most pro-Israel state in the United States, and we have been able to deliver on that promise,” he said this week, addressing evangelical Christians at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Orlando, The Jerusalem Post reported.
He likes to tell audiences that on his first visit to Israel as a U.S. congressman, his wife Casey scooped up water from the Sea of Galilee into an empty bottle to save for baptisms. The couple had yet to have children.
The water came in handy for the baptisms of their first and second children, but after DeSantis was elected governor, staff at his residence cleared away the unremarkable bottle (which was still half full) after their second child was baptized in 2019. Not long afterward, DeSantis mentioned the minor fiasco in passing at a synagogue in Boca Raton, and before he knew it people were sending him bottles of water from Israel.
The gesture still moves him. “I was sent, all the way from Israel, this beautiful big glass jar filled with water from the Sea of Galilee that sat on my desk in the governor’s office in Tallahassee until our third child was born and baptized, and we used that water to do it,” DeSantis said last month when he visited Israel.
DeSantis made Israel a focus when he was congressman, taking a leading role in advocating for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among a group of lawmakers who toured Jerusalem in March 2017 and was bold enough to pick out what he said would be the likeliest site.
In November of that year, as chairman of the House national security subcommittee, he convened a hearing on what he called the necessity of moving the embassy. The following month, Trump announced the move, and the site the Trump administration chose was the one DeSantis had identified.
In May 2019, just months after becoming governor, DeSantis convened his state cabinet in Jerusalem and gave a definition of antisemitism favored by the pro-Israel community the force of law. The same year, he banned government officials from using Airbnb after the vacation rental broker removed listings in West Bank settlements. DeSantis’ blacklisting of the company was seen was key to Airbnb reversing the decision.
He’s garnered allies — and enemies — among Florida’s Jews.
DeSantis has done much to cultivate support in Florida’s growing Orthodox community, which shares his enthusiasm for bringing faith into government.
In 2021, DeSantis came to a Chabad synagogue in Surfside to sign two bills, one affording state recognition to Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance service, and the other tasking all Florida public schools with setting aside a daily moment of silence, long a key initiative of the Chabad movement.
In his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, DeSantis campaigned on steering state money to religious day schools. This year he made good on the promise, signing a law that makes $7,800 in scholarship funds available annually to schoolchildren across the state, regardless of income, and to be used at their school of choice.
DeSantis also has plenty of Jewish enemies in a state where the majority of the Jewish community votes for Democrats.
In his first term, he had a contentious relationship with Nikki Fried, a Democrat who, as agriculture commissioner, was one of the four ministers in the Cabinet who had a vote. DeSantis maneuvered to freeze her out of the decision-making process.
Fried, who describes herself as a “good Jewish girl from Miami,” now chairs the state’s Democratic Party. She routinely calls DeSantis a fascist. In April, she was arrested at an abortion rights protest outside Tallahassee’s City Hall.
Under DeSantis, Florida has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That stance has set him up for clashes with other prominent Jews in the state as well. Last year, he suspended Andrew Warren, a Jewish state attorney, because Warren pledged not to prosecute individuals who seek or provide abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, spearheaded the first lawsuit filed against Florida’s abortion ban in 2022, citing religious freedom arguments. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Jewish lawyer who drew attention when he dressed as the Grim Reaper to protest DeSantis’s reopening of the beaches during the pandemic, signed on as an attorney for the synagogue.
His “war on woke” has had implications on Holocaust education.
Recently, much of DeSantis’ tenure has been defined by what he calls the “war on woke,” a term originated by Black Americans to describe awareness of racial inequity but now more often functions as shorthand for conservative criticism of progressive values. DeSantis has enacted multiple pieces of legislation restricting what can be taught in schools and has also limited transgender rights, banning gender-affirming medical care for children.
While most of the books challenged under DeSantis’ education laws have focused on race and gender, the study of the Holocaust has been affected as well. In addition to the education department’s rejection of the Holocaust textbooks this month, Florida laws that make teachers liable for teaching inappropriate content to students have led multiple school districts to take Holocaust novels off the shelves, including a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary.
DeSantis calls claims that he’s chilling Holocaust education “fake narratives.” He and his defenders point to his requiring all Florida public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust.
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity has increased under his watch.
A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by emerging white supremacist groups — some of whom have gone to bat for DeSantis in the past.
DeSantis has been dogged by accusations that he caters to the far right. One of the most stinging exchanges in the 2018 election season came when Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’s Democratic opponent in the race, accused DeSantis of not being forceful enough in renouncing the white nationalists who expressed support for him in robocalls.
“First of all, he’s got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state,” Gillum said. “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.” DeSantis flinched.
DeSantis eked out a victory a few weeks later, and was soundly reelected last year, but he remains sensitive on the issue. Last year, when neo-Nazis intimidated Orlando’s Jews with signs and shouts at an overpass, politicians in the state reflexively condemned them. A reporter asked DeSantis why he had not done so, and after calling the neo-Nazis “jackasses,” the governor said the question was a “smear” and added, “We’re not playing that game.” (Several months later, the leader of the antisemitic propaganda group Goyim Defense League moved from California to Florida, saying he thought the Sunshine State would be more hospitable to his efforts.)
DeSantis has also called liberal prosecutors “Soros-funded”. It’s not an unusual political gambit — the billionaire Jewish liberal donor does fund progressives running for prosecutor. But Soros has also been the focus of multiple conspiracy theories that antisemitism watchdogs say are antisemitic, casting the Holocaust survivor as a malign influence with excessive power.
Some Jewish donors are already supporting him.
DeSantis appeared last year at a conference in New York of Jewish conservatives, where he talked to a friendly audience about his war against the “woke” and was also conveniently in the room with some of the most generous Republican donors.
He is reportedly working some of those donors, who gave generously to his gubernatorial runs. He was a star last November at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Las Vegas confab, and Axios reported that he met with Miriam Adelson, the widow of GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson, as well as other Jewish donors when he was in Jerusalem last month.
A number of them are hanging back, not wanting to alienate Trump while he remains influential in the party. (Adelson has said she does not want to weigh in on the primaries.)
Among the Jewish donors and fundraisers said to be in DeSantis’s camp: Jay Zeidman, a onetime Jewish White House liaison who is now a Houston based businessman; Gabriel Groisman, a lawyer who is the former mayor of Bal Harbor; and Fred Karlinsky, a leading insurance lawyer.
Last week, Jewish conservative political commentator Dave Rubin tweeted that DeSantis would bring “Freedom, sanity and competency” to the country. Groisman shared the tweet with the word “This.”
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Turkey Court Ousts Opposition Leader in Latest Blow to Erdogan’s Challengers
Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), speaks to the media at party headquarters after a Turkish court dismissed a case seeking to remove him and annul the party’s 2023 congress, in Ankara, Turkey, Oct. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Efekan Akyuz
A Turkish court effectively ousted the main opposition leader Ozgur Ozel on Thursday, annulling the 2023 party congress that elected him chairman in a ruling that dealt a blow to President Tayyip Erdogan’s challengers and hit financial markets.
The appeals court annulled the congress over irregularities and ruled that former Republican People’s Party (CHP) Chairman Kemal Kilicdaroglu – a divisive figure within the party who lost to Erdogan in an election earlier in 2023 – should replace his successor Ozel.
The case was seen as a test of Turkey‘s shaky balance between democracy and autocracy, and the ruling may throw the opposition into further disarray and possible infighting. It could also boost Erdogan’s chances of extending his more than two-decade rule of the big NATO member country and major emerging market economy.
OPPOSITION HIT BY JUDICIAL CRACKDOWN
The CHP, running roughly even with Erdogan’s ruling AK Party in polls, has separately faced an unprecedented judicial crackdown since 2024 in which hundreds of members and elected officials have been detained as part of corruption charges that the party denies.
Among those imprisoned for more than a year is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who is seen as the main rival of Erdogan and remains the CHP’s official candidate for a presidential election set for 2028 but that could come next year.
After the court ruling, Ozel convened party leaders to discuss possible steps and members were called to the CHP headquarters building in Ankara to protest against it.
Ali Mahir Basarir, CHP deputy parliamentary group chair, told Reuters the ruling “is an attempted coup carried out through the judiciary [and] a blow against the will of 86 million people.”
The party rejected the ruling, he said, adding that those who signed off on it were “complicit in this coup attempt and will be held accountable before the courts.”
Turkey‘s main Borsa Istanbul .XU100 dropped 6% in response, triggering a market-wide circuit breaker, while Turkish government bonds slid. Sovereign bonds sold off as much as 1.2 cents, which for many was the biggest fall since late March.
The ruling by the Ankara court overturned a decision last year by a court of first instance that said the case surrounding the CHP’s 2023 congress had no substance.
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Supreme Leader Says Enriched Uranium Must Stay in Iran, Iranian Sources Say
A woman walks next to a banner with a picture of Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, May 8, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran‘s Supreme Leader has issued a directive that the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad, two senior Iranian sources said, hardening Tehran’s stance on one of the main US demands at peace talks.
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s order could further frustrate US President Donald Trump and complicate talks on ending the US-Israeli war on Iran.
Trump vowed on Thursday that the United States will not allow Iran to have its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
“We will get it. We don’t need it; we don’t want it. We’ll probably destroy it after we get it, but we’re not going to let them have it,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Israeli officials have told Reuters that Trump has assured Israel that Iran‘s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, needed to make an atomic weapon, will be sent out of Iran and that any peace deal must include a clause on this.
Israel, the United States, and other Western states have long accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, including pointing to its move to enrich uranium to 60%, far higher than needed for civilian uses and closer to the 90% needed for a weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will not consider the war over until enriched uranium is removed from Iran, Tehran ends its support for proxy militias, and its ballistic missile capabilities are eliminated.
“The Supreme Leader’s directive, and the consensus within the establishment, is that the stockpile of enriched uranium should not leave the country,” said one of the two Iranian sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Iran‘s top officials, the sources said, believe that sending the material abroad would leave the country more vulnerable to future attacks by the United States and Israel. Khamenei has the last say on the most important state matters.
When asked for comment for this story, White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said: “President Trump has been clear about the United States’ red lines and will only make a deal that puts the American people first.”
Iran‘s foreign ministry did not respond to request for comment.
DEEP SUSPICION AMONG TOP IRANIAN OFFICIALS
A shaky ceasefire is in place in the war that began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, after which Iran fired at Gulf states hosting US military bases and fighting broke out between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But there has been no big breakthrough in peace efforts, with a US blockade of Iranian ports and Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global oil supply route, complicating negotiations mediated by Pakistan.
The two senior Iranian sources said there was deep suspicion in Iran that the pause in hostilities was a tactical deception by Washington to create a sense of security before it renews airstrikes.
Iran‘s top peace negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said on Wednesday that “obvious and hidden moves by the enemy” showed the Americans were preparing new attacks.
Trump said on Wednesday the US was ready to proceed with further attacks on Tehran if Iran did not agree to a peace deal, but suggested Washington could wait a few days to “get the right answers.”
The two sides have started to narrow some gaps, the sources said, but deeper splits remain over Tehran’s nuclear program — including the fate of its enriched uranium stockpiles and Tehran’s demand for recognition of its right to enrichment.
IRAN HARDENS STANCE ON ENRICHED URANIUM STOCKPILE
Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran’s priority is to secure a permanent end to the war and credible guarantees that the US and Israel will not launch further attacks.
Only after such assurances are in place, they said, would Iran be prepared to engage in detailed negotiations over its nuclear program.
Israel is widely believed to have an atomic arsenal but has never confirmed or denied it has nuclear weapons, maintaining a so-called policy of ambiguity on the issue for decades.
Before the war, Iran signaled willingness to ship out half of its stockpile of uranium which has been enriched to 60%, a level far higher than what is needed for civilian uses.
But sources said that position changed after repeated threats from Trump to strike Iran.
Israeli officials have told Reuters it is still unclear whether Trump will decide to attack and whether he would give Israel a green light to resume operations. Tehran has vowed a crushing response if attacked.
However, the source said there were “feasible formulas” to resolve the matter.
“There are solutions like diluting the stockpile under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” one of the Iranian sources said.
The IAEA estimates that Iran had 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% when Israel and the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025. How much of that has survived is unclear.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said in March that what remained of that stock was “mainly” stored in a tunnel complex in Iran‘s Isfahan nuclear facility, and that his agency believed slightly more than 200 kg of it was there. The IAEA also believes some is at the sprawling nuclear complex at Natanz, where Iran had two enrichment plants.
Iran says some highly enriched uranium is needed for medical purposes and for a research reactor in Tehran which runs on relatively small amounts of uranium enriched to around 20%.
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Mediator Pakistan Pushes to Get US-Iran Peace Talks on Track
People walk near an anti-US mural on a building in Tehran, Iran, May 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Pakistan stepped up diplomacy on Thursday to hasten US and Iran peace talks even as Tehran appeared to harden its stance over nuclear materials amid new threats of strikes from US President Donald Trump if he did not get the “right answers.”
Six weeks since a fragile ceasefire took effect, talks to end the war have made little progress, while soaring oil prices are stoking inflation and straining the global economy.
Trump also faces domestic pressure ahead of November’s midterm elections, with his approval rating near its lowest since he returned to the White House.
Pakistan‘s Army Chief Asim Munir will decide on Thursday whether to travel to Tehran for mediation, three sources familiar with the negotiations told Reuters.
Pakistan‘s interior minister was in Tehran on Wednesday.
STANCE ON ENRICHED URANIUM
“We’re speaking to all the various groups in Iran to streamline communication and so things pick up pace,” said one of the sources. “Trump’s patience running thin is a concern, but we’re working on the pace at which messages are relayed from each side.”
Iran‘s ISNA news agency said Munir would travel to Tehran on Thursday for consultations. The text being discussed in Tehran is on the general framework, and some details and confidence-building measures as guarantees, the agency said.
However, Iran appeared to have hardened its stance over a key US demand for the removal of enriched uranium from the country. Two senior Iranian sources told Reuters that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei issued a directive that near-weapons-grade uranium should not be sent abroad.
Brent crude oil climbed after Mojtaba’s remarks on Thursday, gaining almost 2% to $107 a barrel.
US READY TO ACT FAST, TRUMP SAYS
Trump said on Wednesday he was willing to wait for Tehran’s response but was also ready to resume strikes.
“Believe me, if we don’t get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We’re all ready to go,” Trump told reporters.
“It could be a few days, but it could go very quickly.”
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards have warned that renewed attacks will trigger retaliation beyond its region.
Iran submitted its latest offer to the US this week.
Tehran’s descriptions suggest it largely repeats terms Trump previously rejected, including demands for control of the Strait of Hormuz, compensation for war damage, lifting of sanctions, release of frozen assets, and the withdrawal of US troops.
IRAN RESTATES SOVEREIGNTY OVER STRAIT
Iran’s deputy foreign minister on Thursday restated Tehran’s claims to sovereignty over the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas flows, saying aggression from the US, Israel, and some regional states had fundamentally altered security in the waterway.
In a legal commentary, Kazem Gharibabadi said Iran could adopt “practical and proportionate measures” to protect its security and maritime safety, citing international law.
With the strait now effectively closed for almost three months, increasing shortages are pushing up energy prices across the globe in what the International Energy Agency has called the world’s worst energy shock.
The IEA warned on Thursday that the peak of summer fuel demand coupled with a lack of new Middle East supply means the market could enter the “red zone” in July and August.
Some ships are managing to transit the strait, but only a trickle compared with the 125-140 daily passages before the war.
Iran‘s state TV reporter said on Thursday that around 30 vessels have requested to transit since Wednesday night. These vessels are coordinating with Iranian naval forces to pass and “will most probably do so by tonight,” the reporter added.
Iran said it aimed to reopen the strait to friendly countries that abide by its terms. That could potentially include fees for access, which Washington says would be unacceptable.
“It would make a diplomatic deal unfeasible if they were to continue to pursue that. So, it’s a threat to the world if they were trying to do that, and it’s completely illegal,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said their war aims were to curb Iran‘s support for regional militias, dismantle its nuclear program, destroy its missile capabilities, and make it easier for Iranians to topple their rulers.
But Iran has so far retained its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, and its ability to threaten neighbors with missiles, drones, and proxy militias.