Eight Jewish residents at Wednesday’s Coral Springs city commission meeting urged city leaders not to host the South Florida Muslim Federation’s annual conference at the Coral Springs Center for the Arts later this month, warning that the event has platformed speakers and participants they say promote anti-Jewish incitement as part of a broader ideological campaign targeting Israel and Jewish communities since the October 7 massacre.

The 2026 Florida Muslim Conference is scheduled for Jan. 30–31 at the city-owned arts center, which also hosted last year’s conference. The annual event is put on by the South Florida Muslim Federation, a tax-exempt nonprofit with more than 30 member organizations, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which Gov. Ron DeSantis recently designated a terrorist organization in Florida through an executive order. CAIR, which federal authorities and watchdog groups allege has previously been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood extremist group and financing of terrorism, has rejected the designation as discriminatory and is challenging it in court. CAIR also denies any links to terror financing or extremist groups. 

“Coral Springs, whether by complacency or complicity, has decided to provide the arts center – a tax-funded facility – to this group,” Rabbi Simcha Goldstein told commissioners. “Members of this group include organizations that have been determined to be terrorist organizations,” he said, referencing CAIR. 

The annual Florida Muslim Conference features a range of educational and cultural programming for the Muslim community, as well as entertainment, a shopping bazaar, and traditional foods. But residents say it has also platformed speakers who dehumanize Zionists, glorify terrorism against Israel, and falsely portray Israel as a racist, “genocidal” state that commits “apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing” against Palestinians.

Several residents cited remarks and social media posts by scheduled conference speakers they say glorified violence against Israel and Jews. They alleged that some speakers have spread Hamas propaganda and made statements that, in their view, amounted to advocating for the genocide of Jews in Israel.

All said the Federation’s affiliations raised serious concerns about antisemitism and the safety of the city’s Jewish community amid an unprecedented eruption of anti-Jewish bigotry, harassment, vandalism, and violence in the U.S. since October 7.

“This is not about one bad decision,” resident Randi Grossman said. “It’s about a pattern.”

The South Florida Muslim Federation did not respond to emails seeking comment for this article. When the Federation previously faced allegations of anti-Jewish bigotry, it forcefully rejected those claims and accused Jewish community members, and others making the accusations, of Islamophobia. 

Jewish watchdog groups and scholars – including the Movement Against Antizionism (MAAZ) – have classified the activities of some Federation members, including CAIR, as aligning with the antizionist hate movement  — a libel-centered ideological campaign that recycles antisemitic tropes and stigmatizes Jews by branding Zionism, a core part of most Jews’ identity, as racist, genocidal, and illegitimate.

Antizionists use three core libels – “genocide,” “apartheid,” and “colonizer” – to portray Zionists as bloodthirsty killers and mark them for violence and exclusion from civic spaces, according to MAAZ.

The South Florida Muslim Federation has previously drawn scrutiny for its participants’ rhetoric.

In October, the Federation hosted an online panel on Israel and Palestine that accused Israel of genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing — claims deemed racist libels by scholars of anti-Zionism — while never mentioning Hamas or the October 7 attack. Panel speakers from the anti-Israel groups Jewish Voice for Peace and U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights portrayed Israelis and Zionists as genocidal “colonizers,” spread anti-Jewish tropes, including one about the “heavily Zionist” news media; attacked the Anti-Defamation League as a “really horrible Zionist outfit;” and dismissed well-documented reports of rising antisemitism on college campuses as exaggerated.

The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights representative on the Federation’s panel told viewers Zionism “needed to ethnically cleanse the land” to create Israel, and asserted the Jewish state seeks to “finish the Nakba,” referencing the displacement of Palestinian refugees in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. 

Also in October, Federation President Samir Kakli urged his Instagram followers to protest the Jewish National Fund-USA’s Global Conference for Israel, a mainstream Jewish community event held at the Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Fl. Writing in an Instagram post, he said JNF “is not welcome in South Florida—their role in land theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians continues today.”

“Our government is funding a genocide of Palestinians [in] real time,” he wrote in another post.

Several city residents told commissioners that similar rhetoric had been used by speakers at the Federation’s annual conference, and would likely be used again.

The Florida Muslim Conference’s programming has generated controversy before; Two years ago, residents say, its invited speakers included people with documented histories of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist rhetoric. Their platforming stirred a high-profile controversy and resulted in the Coral Springs Marriott declining to host the conference.

In the aftermath of that cancellation, racist Islamophobic rhetoric was directed at the Federation and Muslim community members. Jewish leaders and civil rights organizations condemned that backlash as unacceptable. 

The cancellation triggered a U.S. Department of Justice inquiry into whether the conference’s civil rights had been violated, city officials said. City Attorney John Hearn told commissioners Wednesday that federal investigators ultimately determined the city had done nothing wrong.

Jewish residents noted that the underlying cause of the Marriott controversy — the Federation’s platforming of speakers they say had documented records of spreading hate — was never publicly acknowledged by the organization. Federation leaders attributed the cancellation to Islamophobia, critics say, while their antizionist advocacy continued. The Federation also filed a lawsuit against the Marriott and various Broward community leaders, alleging a discriminatory scheme to shut down their conference.

Coral Springs resident Rebecca Edell told commissioners that, given the event’s controversial history, she was “concerned that the speakers at the upcoming Florida Muslim Conference will spew hate speech against America and Jews.”

“One of [the speakers] used his social media in December 2023 to glorify Hamas and mock Israeli hostages,” Edell alleged. “Another one is a Gaza-born imam whose family participated in the October 7 massacre.”

“A third one prayed publicly for Israel’s destruction,” she continued. “A fourth one referred to Israel as a ‘brutal, disgusting excuse for a democracy.’”

Edell warned that such rhetoric can have devastating consequences for Jews.

“My maternal grandparents miraculously survived the [Nazi] death camps in Eastern Europe, while their family members on both sides were slaughtered,” she said. “Many of the people who will attend the upcoming South Florida Muslim Federation conference wish to see our nation annihilated.”

Resident Sherry Roth alleged that one advertised conference speaker had reposted social media messages from Hamas leaders, and claimed the speaker’s husband “told people to donate money to Hamas and said that if Arab leaders … crossed over the border into Israel, ‘the Jews would be in the ocean again.’”

Multiple residents also warned commissioners about a vendor they said sold merchandise glorifying terrorists at last year’s conference.

“The vendor that was there last year promoting [deceased Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar’s face [on merchandise] is the same vendor that’s going to be there this year,” resident Sara Horwitz said.

Several commissioners on Wednesday said they shared residents’ concerns over the issues they  raised about the conference, but were constrained by First Amendment law.

City Attorney John Hearn told commissioners the city could not deny the rental of its arts center based on viewpoint.

“The First Amendment is not for the popular opinion,” he said. “It’s for the unpopular.”

Hearn said city police officers would be trained to monitor specific merchandise and speech at the conference to uphold the law.

“To the extent… something that would be obscene under the Supreme Court standard could be addressed,” he said, adding that “we can train our officers in that in the next couple days.”

Mayor Scott Brook said he would review allegations raised by residents and inquire about CAIR and the conference’s vendors. He discussed his recent experience at the 2025 North American Mayors Summit Against Antisemitism in New Orleans, where he and other Jewish municipal leaders were targeted with racist antisemitic epithets outside the conference. 

Brooks said he felt safe as a Jew living in Coral Springs, but said he empathized with Jewish residents at the meeting who said they had experienced antisemitic harassment in the city.

“I empathize with you,” Brook said. “Surely after October 7, I felt that way, so I know how you feel.”

He said the city would act if new information emerged.

“If I learn of anything that needs immediate action, we’re going to take it,” Brook said. 

Commissioner Shawn Cerra said he would personally monitor the conference.

“From my seat, I’ll be watching the event very closely,” he said. “I know that we’re going to be taking serious measures to make sure that the event is safe.”

Another commissioner, Joe McHugh, asked residents to help train officers by “provid[ing] literature… [on what] is considered hate or considered part of a terrorist group, that would benefit the officers who are working that [conference] and can keep an eye out for that stuff.”

Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen said she had attended and spoken at last year’s conference.

“What is being described is not something that I experienced,” Metayer Bowen said.

She then pivoted away from the concerns of anti-Jewish bigotry raised by residents.

“As we continue the important conversation about antisemitic rhetoric, I also hope we are equally intentional in addressing Islamophobia in our community,” Metayer Bowen said. “Hate in any form has no place in our city.”

She then invited residents to attend a Muslim fast-breaking dinner.

“I invite our residents of all faiths to join me and the [city’s] Multicultural Advisory Committee for our community iftar on February 26,” she said, referencing an event put on in conjunction with the Federation.

Several Jewish residents later said Metayer Bowen’s remarks minimized the specific concerns they had brought forward about anti-Jewish racism and their safety, while reframing the issue as a generalized discussion of “all forms of hate” and shifting the focus to a Muslim holiday event. 

In a written statement, a city spokesperson said the Florida Muslim Conference “is not sponsored, hosted, or organized by the City of Coral Springs.”

“As a public entity, the city cannot deny or restrict facility use based on an organization’s religious beliefs, political viewpoints, or background, nor does the rental of a city facility constitute endorsement of the views, positions, or messages of any renter,” the spokesperson said. 

For several Jewish residents at Wednesday’s meeting, the issues of antisemitism and incitement against Israel are deeply personal. Some alleged that Federation member organizations and several invited conference speakers have engaged in antisemitism under the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Working Definition of Antisemitism, which is endorsed by 38 nations, including the U.S., and which Florida adopted into state law in 2024.

IHRA, a non-binding framework to identify and combat Jew-hatred, defines antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews,” and includes denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination by labeling Israel’s existence a racist endeavor or equating Israel with Nazism—while affirming that criticism of Israel, like that of any other country, is legitimate.

“On October 7, I was in Israel with my family… waiting for the hostage release,” Horwitz told commissioners Wednesday. “We watched the helicopters drop deeply, deeply wounded people into the hospitals.”

“I cannot believe my city is not supporting our pain,” she said. 

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Kevin Deutsch

Kevin Deutsch is an award-winning journalist and author of two nonfiction books. He covers general assignment news and Jewish community issues for Talk Media. He has also worked as a staff writer at The Miami Times, the Rio Grande SUN, the New York Daily News, Newsday, The Miami Herald, The Palm Beach Post, The Riverdale Press, and Bronx Justice News.

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