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(JTA) – Responding to a current rise in neo-Nazi exercise in his state, a Jewish lawmaker in Florida is attempting to outlaw shows of “spiritual or ethnic animus” on non-public property in his state.
H.B. 269 takes intention at a wide range of actions that neo-Nazi teams within the state have undertaken, from distributing flyers with hate speech to broadcasting intimidating messages in public locations.
These teams’ exercise has been rising in Florida for a number of years, in keeping with a 2022 report by the Anti-Defamation League titled “Hate within the Sunshine State.” The report was printed earlier than the founding father of the Goyim Protection League, which distributes antisemitic literature in public locations and to personal properties, relocated to Florida.
“We now have precise Nazis who’ve proudly taken up residence in Florida,” the invoice’s co-author, Rep Randy High quality, just lately advised the Algemeiner. “The issues that they’re doing, all of which I discover disgusting, are reprehensible, and we’re going to make them felonies.”
High quality, Florida’s solely Jewish Republican state legislator, didn’t reply to Jewish Telegraphic Company requests for remark.
During the last couple of years, antisemitic teams have rallied outdoors Walt Disney World and a Chabad home in Orlando; displayed messages of Jew-hatred on a Jacksonville stadium throughout a extremely watched faculty soccer recreation; and visited Florida universities attempting to impress college students with messaging together with “Ye Is Proper” (referring to the rapper, previously generally known as Kanye West, who went on an antisemitic tirade final fall).
Many however not all of these actions have been fueled by members of the Goyim Protection League, whose founder particularly mentioned he anticipated Florida to be extra hospitable to him and his worldview when he moved his operations there from California’s Bay Space.
Now, the Goyim Protection League’s signature tactic would rework right into a felony beneath H.B. 269, which has bipartisan help and this week superior to the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, a vital step within the passage of laws.
The invoice would prohibit Floridians “from distributing onto non-public residential property any materials that evidences spiritual or ethnic animus for goal of intimidating or threatening [the] proprietor or resident.” It could additionally prohibit harassing or intimidating individuals “sporting or displaying of any indicia referring to any spiritual or ethnic heritage,” reminiscent of kippahs and different objects of spiritual Jewish apparel.
Different sections of the invoice describe actions that the state’s neo-Nazi teams have undertaken in current months, together with displaying messages of ethnic intimidation on sports activities stadiums and different buildings, and getting into faculty campuses with a view to intimidate. The invoice would classify such actions as third-degree felonies, with violations carrying jail phrases of as much as 5 years.
Among the invoice’s targets seem like mobilizing in opposition to it. A month-old on-line petition opposing H.B. 269 has attracted greater than 2,500 signatures, and its feedback are full of antisemitic rhetoric. One commenter decries “the Jewish assault on freedom of speech”; one other, figuring out themselves because the American airplane pilot and Nazi sympathizer “Charles Lindbergh,” wrote, “No group, irrespective of how small their hats are, has the best to inform us what we are able to or can’t say,” an obvious reference to kippahs.
High quality himself has attracted consideration previously for feedback that critics mentioned have bordered on hate speech. In 2021, the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations known as for an ethics investigation into High quality after he made feedback on social media calling Hamas militants “animals” and celebrating Israel’s bombing of the Gaza Strip with the hashtag “#BombsAway.” He additionally drew criticism after responding with what some interpreted as a menace to President Joe Biden after Biden known as for gun management following the 2022 faculty capturing in Uvalde, Texas, wherein 19 kids and two lecturers have been murdered.
Holding Nazi views isn’t unlawful, High quality acknowledged in a press launch final month, including that his invoice builds on present felony codes.
“It’s unlawful to trespass. It’s unlawful to litter. It’s unlawful to assault individuals,” he mentioned. “And we have to say that, when your silly Nazism strikes from phrases to motion, we’re going to carry you accountable.”
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