Fla. municipality passes nation's first bill defining anti-Semitic crime

Bal Harbour is a south Florida municipality and it made history when it became the first in the United States to pass an ordinance that defines an anti-Semitic hate act.

The purpose of the ordinance is to help law enforcement identify and process anti-Semitic crimes, especially when official definitions aren't available.

"Tonight we become the first in the nation to codify the State Department's 2010 working definition of anti-Semitism," Bal Harbour Mayor Gabriel Goisman said.

The mayor added that the increase in anti-Semitic crimes makes the new rules an effective tool to tackle the problem. "It's our role to do something to combat the rise of anti-Semitism. Year after year, it's growing exponentially, and we shouldn't wait for the federal government, or even the state government, to do something. We can do it at the city levels."

In spite of the fact that Jews make up only about 2.2 percent of the U.S. population, over half of religiously motivated hate crimes in America are directed at them, wrote Josh Block, President and CEO of The Israel Project, in the Tablet Magazine. 

FBI statistics for 2016 report that of 1,273 religion-based hate crimes, 684 were anti-Jewish with Muslims being the second most-victimized group.

Most of these crimes are vandalism, not crimes directly against an individual, and that's where the new rules come into effect. For example, graffiti of the depiction of a swastika will now be treated as a hate crime under the ordinance, instead of simply as vandalism--because, let's face it, that's what it is.

The ordinance is in effect and community leaders hope other municipalities in Florida and elsewhere in the country will follow their lead. The initiative has received bipartisan legislators support.

The change in law came a few weeks after a man was caught on cellphone video shouting anti-Semitic threats outside a synagogue in Surfside, Florida on Thanksgiving morning.


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