There may be some merit to a federal lawsuit alleging that county commissioners in Orlando were wrong to oppose expanding an Orthodox Jewish temple in a residential area.
But that can’t explain why state Attorney General James Uthmeier is waving the specter of antisemitism to interfere in a local zoning dispute.
A threatening letter from Uthmeier to Orange County’s Democrat-dominated commission is steeped in warnings that if their vote to reject expanding Orlando Torah Center was religious-based, then “serious legal consequences” could follow. This smacks of performative politics, not defense of religious freedom.
His attempt to bully the county out of its zoning vote won’t make the Orlando Torah Center’s desire for a larger place of worship more acceptable to neighbors, or the congregation’s need for more space better understood.
Nor will it make worshippers feel safer. In fact, it will do the opposite.
Politics, pure and simple
It’s one small step from an angry assessment that “Florida is threatening us to make the county approve a bigger Jewish temple” to a much darker assessment: “Jews are responsible for this.”
They aren’t. Politics is. Leading Jewish groups and rabbis have warned for months that the threat of antisemitism is being cynically used as a club to quash free speech, justify attacks on democratic principles, and use Jews’ genuine safety concerns as a pawn in political power plays.
Uthmeier, who quickly began raising campaign cash and grabbing headlines soon after his February appointment by Gov. Ron DeSantis, wants to position himself as a champion of religious freedom. Don’t fall for it.
He sent a similar letter to city officials in Clearwater, warning them against religious discrimination in a land deal with the Church of Scientology.
Watch what he does
Uthmeier was the giddy mastermind of the notorious Everglades detention camp that a federal judge ordered closed. That’s hardly evidence of a civil rights champion.
“There wasn’t anything that happened in our administration that James was not involved in,” DeSantis said at Uthmeier’s swearing-in ceremony.
And what did Uthmeier and DeSantis do with their combined power to protect Jews in Florida?
It is possible to support Israel by picking up a phone, as DeSantis believed he was doing in 2023 when he directed the shutdown of a pro-Palestinian student group at two state universities. But DeSantis can’t always defend Jews from his desk. He has to stand up for them, and repeatedly.
The governor signed a law in 2020 mandating Holocaust education in schools, but three years later, when the state Board of Education rejected “Modern Genocides” and “History of the Holocaust” textbooks, he did nothing.
When school districts temporarily pulled “The Diary of Anne Frank” and a graphic novel version off shelves for fear of running afoul of DeSantis’ anti-pornography crusade, the governor remained mute. Silence is complicity.
Silent about neo-Nazis
When the public demanded that DeSantis repudiate neo-Nazis demonstrators, he accused Democrats of trying to “smear” him.
By the time masked men in the Orlando suburb of Altamonte Springs chanted “Jews get the rope” and the American Nazi Party livestreamed Orlando neo-Nazis shouting “The Jew is the devil,” it was apparent that neo-Nazis were flocking to Florida. Faulted for his silence, DeSantis suggested they were an irritant best ignored.
This from a governor who wanted sidewalk-chalk scribblers arrested.
Has there ever been a time when ignoring threats made Jews safer? The flood of antisemitic literature peppering Florida lawns is down, according to the Anti-Defamation League. But danger isn’t.
In June of last year, a bomb threat forced 50 Florida synagogues to evacuate in a single day. In 2020, antisemitic incidents in Florida totaled 127. Last year, they totaled 353, the ADL found, a 277% increase.
Now that Orlando Torah Center is suing to overturn Orange County’s zoning decision, a federal judge, not the attorney general, will have the evidence and testimony needed to determine whether antisemitism was a factor.
Even if the judge rules against the county, a zoning decision was never the danger here. A letter designed to create alarm and stoke community divisions in search of a headline is.
The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writers Pat Beall and Martin Dyckman, and Executive Editor Gretchen Day-Bryant. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
