Palm Beach mayor: 'People who spread hate are not welcome here'

Town officials, residents and community leaders are speaking out against hatred and bigotry following a flurry of antisemitic activities in the town and other communities throughout Palm Beach County.

After four men were issued littering citations for distributing antisemitic flyers to private residences on the island Jan. 28, Mayor Danielle Moore and the Town Council vowed to stand in solidarity against behavior that "so clearly violates our town's values and standards," she wrote in a letter to Rabbi Moshe Scheiner of Palm Beach Synagogue.

"On behalf of my fellow Town Council members, I want to express our collective outrage regarding last week's antisemitic activities in our town," she wrote Friday. "Such hatred and bigotry will not and should not be tolerated ever."

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The Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews also decried the rash of antisemitic incidents throughout the town and county in a letter to the editor that was published Sunday in the Palm Beach Daily News.

Noting that antisemitic flyers similar to the ones found in Palm Beach also have been distributed in Boca Raton, Lake Worth Beach, Atlantis and West Palm Beach, Town Attorney John Randolph, who also is chairman of the fellowship, urged residents to join the fellowship in standing together against hate.

"The hateful rhetoric and actions by extremists have underscored the need for the fellowship and the entire community to continue to address issues rooted in intolerance, incivility, lies, hate and discrimination of all kinds," Randolph wrote.

"We urge the residents of this community to join the fellowship in voicing its disdain for the dramatic rise in antisemitism, and the verbal and physical attacks against ethnic minorities and other marginalized communities."

The flyers found in Palm Beach were distributed on the Jewish Sabbath and the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day, Randolph noted.

They were left in bags with pellets on residents’ driveways in the town, including those of Town Council President Maggie Zeidman and Scheiner.

The flyers decried nationally elected and appointed Jewish officials in relation to gun control, “the COVID agenda,” allegations that the U.S. media are controlled by Jewish interests and the Biden Administration in general.

"How distorted are these people to take the time and energy to spread this kind of hate and antisemitism, and to know that they're here on the island distributing these door to door?," Scheiner told the Daily News Monday.

The four men who were issued the littering citations all come from outside the state, police said.

One is a well-known antisemitic agitator from Sonoma County, California, who once boasted on social media that he had been handcuffed and arrested for “hate speech” outside the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, the Palm Beach Post said.

Another was arrested by Atlantis Police on Jan. 21 on charges of obstructing a law enforcement officer without violence after receiving a littering citation for “throwing antisemitic hate speech flyers” on residents’ lawns.

Hate crime charges in the case are unlikely, a Palm Beach Police spokesman told the Post, but the department is asking residents to call its non-emergency line at 561-838-5454 if they see anyone distributing antisemitic literature.

The Palm Beach Police & Fire Foundation took out an ad in the Daily News on Sunday to share that information.

"If you see something, say something," the ad read. "The Palm Beach Police & Fire Foundation opposes any and all forms of hate, bigotry and discrimination, whenever and wherever it appears. The resurgence of antisemitism is a gravely serious global problem. We must speak out against oppression and all forms of bigotry and extremism, and not allow the hate and violence it engenders to become normalized by staying silent."

A new bill introduced Feb. 1 by State Rep. Mike Caruso, R-Delray Beach, would prohibit the distribution of certain materials that lead to littering, Moore noted in her letter to Scheiner.

The bill, which also would prohibit the projection of certain images onto buildings or other property without permission and provide enhanced criminal penalties for persons who commit violations while ''evidencing religious or ethnic animus,'' among other actions, is now in the state's Criminal Justice Subcommittee, Moore said. If passed, it will take effect Oct. 1.

"The people who spread hate are not welcome here," Moore told the Daily News Tuesday. "If I find them, we're going to get them off our island as quickly as we possibly can. It's not acceptable. There's not reason for it. Palm Beach is a civilized town. We don't want it, and we won't accept it."

Scheiner, whose congregation will host a forum focused on the First Amendment and antisemitic speech at 6 p.m. Wednesday, said he is grateful for the support shown by residents and town officials.

"We were happy to see a strong response from the mayor, the Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and Maggie Zeidman," he said. "When I walk the streets of Palm Beach, people come up to me all the time, people I don't know, and they tell me they are sorry. They don't want to see this in their community. They won't tolerate it. There were a lot of words of sympathy, and solidarity with us. It's been very heartwarming."

Registration for Wednesday's Levy Forum for Open Discourse at Palm Beach Synagogue, 120 N. County Road, is available at palmbeachsynagogue.org. A reception is scheduled for 5 p.m., followed by the presentation Antisemitism: The First Amendment and Anti-Semitic Speech, at 6 p.m.

Nadine Strossen, a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and New York Law School professor emerita, will be the guest speaker.

Jodie Wagner is a journalist at the Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at jwagner@pbdailynews.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Hatred and bigotry 'will not be tolerated' in Palm Beach, officials say