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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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The post What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Seder under sirens: Israelis mark Passover in the shadow of war with Iran
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — The day before Yael Ben Cnaan was set to take over ownership of Bishvil Flowers, a corner flower shop located in the upscale Lev Hair neighborhood, an Iranian cluster munition landed on the street outside.
The March 9 impact shattered the store’s windows and left shrapnel holes in the walls. The flowers inside, which Ben Cnaan was unable to access due to police closure of the street, were left to wilt. “In the meantime, the shop was not operating. There was no income, but the expenses continue: rent, payments and commitments I already took on when entering the business,” Ben Cnaan said.
All of this took place in the lead-up to the Passover holiday, which, according to Ben Cnaan, is the most important time of year for flower shops like hers.
“We depend on the revenue during these weeks to keep us alive,” she said in an interview at her shop.
Ben Cnaan was seemingly undeterred by the strike and wasted no time setting up a crowdfunding campaign and posting on Instagram that she would soon reopen with a limited number of orders available for pickup ahead of the holiday. “I don’t have a choice. If I don’t manage to sell bouquets, we would have to close.”
An online fundraiser has raised 45,000 shekels (about $14,000), according to Ben Cnaan, allowing her to cover repair costs in the short term. But the long-term survival of the shop, which has become a community staple over its 17 years, remains uncertain.
In the Instagram post announcing the limited resumption of sales, she urged community members to consider purchasing bouquets or making donations to help sustain the business. “It will likely not be enough,” Ben Cnaan added.
Nearly four weeks into Israel’s war with Iran, which has quickly escalated into a regional conflict, stories like Ben Cnaan’s are commonplace. Businesses are struggling due to widespread closures and damage from Iranian missiles, which have killed at least 18 Israelis since the start of the war on Feb. 28.
Now, Israelis are starting the Passover holiday under wartime, with the conflict casting a somber shadow on the celebrations. Iran launched the largest missile salvo since the start of the war as families sat down to their seders on Wednesday night.
Earlier in the morning, as Iran launched another barrage of missiles toward central Israel, one man was killed, and at least 11 others were injured.
The missiles punctured efforts to approximate normality in the hours leading into the holiday. Early Wednesday morning, Orthodox families gathered to burn chametz, or leavened grains prohibited during the holiday, before the deadline to sell or discard it, while more secular families walked their dogs just hours after multiple sirens sounded due to incoming missile attacks. Throughout the day, Israelis preparing their meals had to pause cooking and cleaning to run to their shelters multiple times.
With a ban on large public gatherings still in place, major public seders, such as those typically hosted by synagogues in Tel Aviv, had waiting lists hundreds of people long.
And hotels hosting Passover retreats saw widespread cancellations as travelers from abroad were unable to get to Israel, and as families changed their plans to stay closer to home.
The war has also prompted new reflections on the meaning of the holiday. “We know there were Passover celebrations in all kinds of surreal circumstances. My grandmother told stories about celebrating Passover during the Holocaust,” said Avital Rosenberger, head of the emergency unit at the Israeli branch of the Joint Distribution Committee. “It’s still our mission to remember, to maintain routine and to ask what freedom really means.”
The JDC has been on the front lines of assisting Israelis affected by the war, including residents of Beit Shemesh, Arad, and Dimona whose homes were destroyed by ballistic missile strikes.
Those involved in relief efforts fear the full scale of the damage will only become clear after the war ends.
“We are so deep in it, and I’m not sure we’re seeing the whole picture,” said Rosenberger. “Some of the damage, especially the mental and emotional toll, will only emerge at the end. We already understand what’s coming.”
The growing human toll is one dimension of the damage. Ben Cnaan’s example underscores the financial toll of the ongoing war, as well.
On the morning of Passover, while many other stores on Lincoln Street remained closed, Ben Cnaan was still at work taking orders and assembling bouquets for last-minute shoppers.
A concept and tattoo artist who lives in Tel Aviv, she has worked on films including “Beirut,” starring Jon Hamm, Ben Cnaan worked in the flower shop for years before taking ownership. Because her business sustained physical damage due to the war, she is eligible for state compensation to offset losses and fund limited repairs. But she still fears that she will need to close down if business does not pick up soon.
According to estimates from Israel’s Finance Ministry, the economy is losing at least 4.3 billion shekels per week due to the fighting. As gas prices continue to rise following disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, civilians, whether affected directly by missile strikes or rising costs, are bearing the burden of the war.
For Johnny, who is spending a year volunteering with the JDC on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra in the north, the toll of the war ahead of the holiday is becoming increasingly stark.
“They’re exhausted. They’re absolutely exhausted. And the thought of several more months like this could really break their spirit,” she said.
Johnny, who is Israeli but has lived most of her life in the United States, returned before the current round of fighting. She said it has been reassuring to be closer to her mother in the Galilee while volunteering on the kibbutz.
“At the same time, the community is incredibly supportive and empowering,” Johnny added. “I know they’ll be OK.”
She said she knows her seder plans with a host family in Rosh Hanikra may be interrupted by incoming missiles from Lebanon but remains in good spirits.
“We may have to head to the shelter,” she said. “But it’s certainly not the worst conditions for a seder our people have had to endure.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Seder under sirens: Israelis mark Passover in the shadow of war with Iran appeared first on The Forward.
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Antisemitic Incidents in Brazil Shot Up 149% Since 2022, New Figures Show
Demonstrators wear keffiyehs during an anti-Israel protest during the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas from Gaza, in front of the Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper offices, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amanda Perobelli
Brazil has experienced a major surge in antisemitism following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, according to newly unveiled research.
The Israelite Confederation of Brazil (CONIB), the country’s main Jewish umbrella organization, on Monday released its annual report on antisemitism for 2025.
StandWithUs Brazil, the Holocaust Memorial of São Paulo, ECOA, and the Holocaust Museum of Curitiba all contributed to the report, which CONIB described as “the most comprehensive ever produced in the country.”
Analysts found 989 antisemitic incidents were registered in the country in 2025, representing a 149 percent explosion from the 397 documented acts of bigotry against Jews in 2022.
Brazil is currently home to an estimated 120,000 Jews, the second largest population in Latin America behind Argentina.
CONIB President Claudio Lottenberg introduced the report by sharing wisdom from his mother-in-law Esther Sztamfater, a Holocaust survivor.
“Esther survived the war as a refugee in the Polish forests for three years. Three years in hiding. Cold, hungry, afraid — and with a lucidity about human nature that I have never seen in any other human being,” Lottenberg said. “Over 25 years, we had hundreds of conversations. Sometimes long. Sometimes just a sentence. But always with the same underlying lesson: The horror doesn’t begin in the gas chambers. It begins before. It begins with the tolerated word, the repeated lie, the stigma that no one questions. And that’s why this report matters.”
Warning that the numbers in the report represent “a snapshot of an environment that’s forming,” Lottenberg described the developing picture as “one that Esther would recognize.” He said that “antisemitism, as Esther taught me, doesn’t announce its arrival. It settles in gradually. In the tolerance of lies. In the indulgence towards aggression. In the silent acceptance of intimidation. And when a minority needs to get used to fear to preserve its community life, the problem is no longer the minority’s. It is democracy’s. It is Brazil’s.”
CONIB’s Secretary Rony Vainzof added that “antisemitism in Brazil has not receded; it has become normalized. Unfortunately, this is the new normal.”
CONIB’s legal director Andrea Vainer emphasized that antisemitism in Brazil “constitutes a crime of racism. And the law that protects us in this regard is Law 7716 of 1989.” He added that Brazil “has a whole constitutional framework to punish racism in general.”
Under Law 7716, those convicted of racial discrimination in hiring can face prison sentences of as much as five years. Individuals who incite racism or other forms of ethnic and religious bigotry face a maximum of three years. However, Brazilians who choose to use mass media in promoting their hateful feelings could spend five years in jail and face a fine.
The report showed that antisemitic incidents peaked last year in June with 138 cases reported. The Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Rio Grande do Sul accounted for 40 percent of all outrages.
In looking at social media-related complaints, researchers found Instagram came in worst with 37.13 percent of online reports. In a survey of Jews conducted for the report, 81.5 percent of respondents named online hate speech as the threat that most worried them for the future.
The survey also showed that 46 percent of Jews had experienced antisemitism in their professional lives and 39.84 percent had concealed or considered concealing their Jewish identity for fear of moral or physical aggression.
Twenty-five percent of Jews surveyed said they experienced antisemitism in the workplace. A minority of Jews said they reported antisemitic incidents they witnessed, with only 32.58 percent saying they informed a Jewish organization or safety group.
The report also found gaps in Holocaust education in Brazil, with a general survey finding only 53 percent able to correctly define the Holocaust and 87.3 percent saying they have never participated in any Holocaust educational activities, including those in school.
Rising antisemitism came amid growing tensions between Israel and Brazil.
In August, Israel announced it was downgrading diplomatic relations with Brazil after Brasília rejected its proposed ambassador.
“[Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva] has now revealed himself as an outspoken antisemite and Hamas supporter by pulling Brazil out of the IHRA, the international body established to fight antisemitism and hatred toward Israel, aligning the country with regimes such as Iran, which openly denies the Holocaust and threatens the existence of the Jewish state,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel posted on social media at the time.
Months earlier, Lula accused the Jewish state of committing genocide and intentionally targeted women and children during its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
CONIB denounced Lula for his claims, accusing him of promoting an “antisemitic libel.”
Lula previously compared Israel to Nazi Germany and the war in Gaza to the Holocaust — a comparison described as an example of anti-Jewish hate under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism.
In May 2024, Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador from Israel.
In a panel discussion on Monday following the opening remarks presenting the report on antisemitism, CONIB’s Volunteer Director Paula Puppi discouraged people from feeling like they needed to argue on social media, stating that the platforms failed to foster healthy discussions.
“It’s a shallow, polarized environment where there’s no room for debate. And it’s not possible to be profound in a shallow environment,” Puppi said. “And that’s a mistake we make when we try to debate in that environment.”
Puppi urged attendees that “we need to learn how to deal with this environment. And that’s why this monitoring work that CONIB has been doing is so important.”
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Argentina Designates IRGC as Terror Group, Deepening Alignment with US, Israel Amid Iran War
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks at the 12th annual Algemeiner J100 Gala on March 9, 2026, in New York City.
Argentina has officially designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization, the latest signal of Buenos Aires’ tightening alignment with the US and Israel as tensions across the Middle East continue to rise.
President Javier Milei’s decision, announced on Tuesday, will expand the country’s previous counterterrorism framework to allow sweeping financial sanctions and additional restrictions against Iran’s ruling regime.
The move builds on Argentina’s designation in January to proscribe specifically the IRGC’s Quds Force, the elite unit responsible for directing Tehran’s proxy militias and overseas terrorist operations.
In a statement from his office, Milei announced the latest designation and, citing findings by Argentina’s federal courts, accused some IRGC members of involvement in planning and executing the two deadliest terrorist attacks in the nation’s history.
Argentina has long believed the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah was responsible for both the 1992 Israeli Embassy bombing in Buenos Aires that killed 22 people and wounded more than 200, and the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center that left 85 dead and over 300 injured.
“This government is determined to ensure that the Argentine Republic once again aligns itself with Western civilization, while firmly condemning and confronting those who seek to destroy it,” the statement read.
In 2019, marking the 25th anniversary of the AMIA atrocity, Argentina formally designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, intensifying its decades-long campaign to bring justice to the victims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on Tuesday praised Milei’s decision as a bold moral stand against Iran’s global terrorist network and a powerful signal of deepening strategic alignment between Jerusalem and Buenos Aires.
“This decision … places Argentina … at the forefront of the free world in the fight against the Iranian regime of terror and its proxies,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.
“With this decision, President Milei — one of the greatest leaders of our generation — has once again demonstrated moral clarity and an unwavering commitment to the values of freedom and the fight against its enemies,” he continued.
I thank the President of Argentina @JMilei for his decision, on the eve of Passover, the Festival of Freedom, to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.
This decision follows his designation of Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist organizations, and places… https://t.co/Y26ZXcimPI
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 1, 2026
Iran lambasted Argentina’s decision, calling it a strategic mistake and violation of international law that will damage bilateral relations. The Iranian media outlet WANA (West Asia News Agency) reported that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs claimed that, through their blacklisting the IRGC, Argentine leaders have “positioned themselves as partners in committed crimes and stand on the wrong side of history, triggering international responsibility for the Argentine government.”
As the ongoing US–Israeli military campaign against Iran continued to dismantle senior leadership within the regime’s security apparatus, newly appointed IRGC chief Ahmad Vahidi took over the force earlier this month after his predecessor, Mohammad Pakpour, was killed in the strikes.
Vahidi faces charges from Argentine authorities over his alleged involvement in the 1994 AMIA bombing.
At that time, Vahidi commanded the Quds Force.
Since taking office over a year ago, Milei has been one of Israel’s most vocal supporters, strengthening bilateral relations to unprecedented levels and in the process breaking with decades of Argentine foreign policy tradition to firmly align with Jerusalem and Washington.
With the outbreak of the war against Iran in late February, Milei has repeatedly voiced strong support for the US-Israeli campaign and offered steadfast political backing even as the Islamist regime continues issuing threats against the country.
Less than a year after the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Argentina became the first Latin American country to designate the Palestinian Islamist group as a terrorist organization.
Last year, Milei formally launched the Isaac Accords with the aim of strengthening political, economic, and cultural cooperation between the Jewish state and Latin American governments.
The Argentine leader also announced plans to relocate the country’s embassy to Jerusalem next spring, fulfilling a promise made last year, as the two allies continue to strengthen their bilateral ties.