Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Surfside, Fla., elects its first Orthodox Jewish mayor

The businessman, father of five and native of Brooklyn, N.Y., seemed surprised by his election victory.

Shlomo Danziger. Source: Twitter.
Shlomo Danziger. Source: Twitter.

Shlomo Danziger was elected on Tuesday to be the first Orthodox Jewish mayor of Surfside, Fla.

Danziger, 42, beat two incumbents—Mayor Charles Burkett by 33 votes and Vice Mayor Tina Paul by 23 votes—and garnered about 35 percent of the total votes in the mayoral race, reported Local10.com.

The businessman, father of five and native of Brooklyn, N.Y., moved to Surfside in 2010. He ran for a commission seat in 2020 but was unsuccessful.

In fact, seemed surprised by his election victory on Tuesday and told The Miami Herald: “We got much higher than we thought we were going to get.”

The swearing-in ceremony took place on Wednesday.

Last month, Surfside approved a resolution to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism.

“This political environment could discourage congressional committee staff and federal agency personnel from pursuing investigations or enforcement actions involving antisemitism,” Karen Paikin Barall of the Brandeis Center told JNS.
“They get social credit within their political bases in terms of talking about settler violence and and taking up the side of the Palestinians on issues between them and Israel,” Rafael Mangual of the Manhattan Institute told JNS.
The U.S. envoy also said antisemitism “didn’t exist” during his upbringing and warned of an unintended clash between Israel and Turkey.
“There is not, and there will not be, a Palestinian state,” the Israeli prime minister pledged. He also called for the corruption trial against him to be dropped.