Is Randy Fine, the pugnacious Florida lawmaker, the future of Republican Jewish politics?

Randy Fine was sitting shiva for his mother when the Truth Social post went up.

A special election was approaching in the Florida politician’s House district after its congressman, Mike Waltz, was tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be his national security advisor.

Trump wanted Fine, the Jewish legislator who had just won his own race for the Florida state Senate, to run for the spot, calling him an “America First Patriot” and adding, “RUN, RANDY, RUN!” Fine himself actually lives several miles south of the district, but that wasn’t the source of his initial confusion.

“I woke up from my nap and I saw 1,000 text messages,” Fine recalled to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “My first thought was, who else died?”

The day after shiva ended, Fine formally jumped into the race. He had been fully prepared to move his family to Israel in the event Kamala Harris had won the presidential election, he says. But now, he’s getting ready for a different move — into Waltz’s congressional district: “I’m going to be, on day one, the most pro-Israel, anti-antisemitism member that’s ever served in Congress,” he said.

Fine’s announcement came with what has, for him, become a bit of characteristic bombast.

“The ‘Hebrew Hammer’ is coming,” he wrote on the social network X, promoting an endorsement from the Republican Jewish Coalition by likening himself to a Jewish movie character who takes violent revenge on antisemites. Pro-Palestinian Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, he wrote, “might consider leaving before I get there.”

He added, “#BombsAway.”

A range of voices condemned the post. That included the Anti-Defamation League, which called his comments “reprehensible.” Muslim civil rights groups have called for a criminal probe into Fine, who today insists his use of the phrase was “a term of art” not meant to be interpreted as a violent threat.

Yet the blowback has barely scratched the 50-year-old politician. In fact, it fits into the larger brand the politician has been building for himself in Florida, where he has a years-long history of making combative remarks that many have said cross the line into bigotry and personal attacks — often in the name of defending Jews.

And it’s not just talk: He also has a long list of legislation passed in Florida intended to protect the state’s Jews, including efforts to tackle antisemitism on both the far-left and far-right and other measures aimed at targeting Israel boycotts and similar progressive causes. He’s also not shy to call other Republicans antisemites, when he believes the label fits.

“It takes courage to actually call out people on your team. And Randy has that in spades,” Sam Markstein, the RJC’s national political director, told JTA.

For Jewish Democrats, both in Florida and beyond, Fine’s ascension is a mixed bag.

“He would probably consider it a compliment if I said that in some ways he is reminiscent of [Israel’s Benjamin] Netanyahu. I mean it as less of a compliment than he would take it,” Joe Geller, a Jewish former state representative and current Miami-Dade County school board member, said about Fine. The two served together in the state House, where they were both in the Jewish caucus, and accompanied Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on a trade mission to Israel.

“In all of his zeal, he has done things that have hurt Israel,” Geller said of the Israeli prime minister. “And Randy is a figure in some measure in that same line… His very strong and sometimes inappropriate tactics reflect badly on other people who share some of his strong views on things like antisemitism.”

Amy Spitalnick, head of the liberal-leaning Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a national group, was more blunt in her assessment of Fine.

“Islamophobia, threats against members of Congress, and other incendiary actions do nothing to keep Jews safe and counter antisemitism,” she told JTA. “In fact, it only makes it harder.”

Most would-be challengers for Fine’s House seat dropped out following the Trump endorsement, which itself was a reward for a key bit of loyalty; Fine publicly denounced DeSantis after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel and endorsed the once and future president’s reelection campaign. But he won’t be able to totally coast to the nomination: On Friday, one day before the filing deadline, Republican entrepreneur Ehsan Joarder threw his hat into the race — primarily, he said, because he despises Fine.

“To me Randy Fine is the epitome of the establishment and who the Deep State is,” Joarder told the Daytona Beach News-Journal. “I think he’s a terrible human being and he’s anti-American, and everything he says and does doesn’t line up with American values and who we are as a country.”

Joarder said he particularly objected to Fine’s support from political action committees. On Friday, Fine nabbed the endorsement from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.

“I am Jewish. I am an American. And I am a Republican. And I’ll never apologize for any of it,” Fine tweeted. I am proud to receive one of the fastest endorsements ever by @AIPAC. Because when it comes to standing with Israel and protecting America’s Jews, I will never compromise.”

If Fine can best Joarder in the Jan. 28 GOP primary, he should easily coast to a victory in the April 1 general election in the state’s 6th, and very red, district — a coastal region of few Jews that broke heavily for Trump, and has also experienced a growing white nationalist and neo-Nazi presence in recent years. As long as he moves to the region before the election, he is eligible to run for the seat.

Fine represents a new profile for Jewish politicians in Trumpworld 2.0, where the GOP has claimed to dominate the fight against antisemitism, and where bullish, uncompromising personalities are rewarded. For his conservative Jewish backers, that’s a good thing.

“I think that there’s been a real thirst in the Jewish American community for fighters, for people who will say what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s good, what’s evil,” Markstein said. “And I think people like Randy Fine are going to fill that void really well.”

The RJC hosted a fundraiser for Fine in Boca Raton this week, an area hours outside of his district with considerably more Jews. They pulled in more than $100,000; Fine referred to its organizer, RJC board member Barbara Feingold, on social media as “my honorary Jewish Mother.”

But Fine doesn’t claim to be much of a politician at all and says he has no sights on any higher office. “I didn’t have my sights set on this office,” he said. “This job has real costs to me and my family. I don’t need the money. I don’t need the title.” He’s only running, he said, because Trump — whom he believes God saved from his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, this summer — asked him to.

He’s used to being one of the only Jews around. Born in Tucson, Arizona, Fine spent most of his childhood in Lexington, Kentucky, where his father was a professor. He recalled his mother Harriet fighting with the district when Yom Kippur caused him to miss an exam. The algebra teacher, Fine recalled, “told my parents, ‘If that was a real holiday, everyone would have it off.’”

Soon, he said, his mother became “my strongest advocate.” When she visited him at school, “they put out an announcement so everyone could hide: ‘Mrs. Fine is in the building.’” When, in high school, Randy became a House page, his mother moved the whole family to Washington so he wouldn’t be alone.

A Harvard University graduate and former gambling industry executive, Fine moved his family to Brevard County, Florida, in 2006 to be close to his parents — who had been drawn to property that was relatively inexpensive compared to South Florida, where his grandparents lived. He first won a state House seat in 2016, out of what he said was anger over education issues. Quickly, though, he became an advocate for the state’s religious Jews in Tallahassee.

“I was not the only Jew, but I was the only Republican Jew, and I’m certainly willing to fight,” he reflected, adding that his status as “a member of the majority party” was crucial.

Currently Fine affiliates with his local Chabad-Lubavitch center, whose rabbi officiated his mother’s funeral; although he grew up Reform and celebrated his son’s bar mitzvah at the local Conservative synagogue, he said the family since had a falling-out with them over political differences.

Not every community Jewish official considers themselves close with Fine. The director of his local Jewish federation, which covers the region around Daytona Beach, told JTA, “I really don’t know him at all.” Other local officials, though, are in the fight with him.

“I think I have a kindred spirit with him,” Michael Chitwood, the sheriff of Volusia County, said. The two of them, he says, are frequently sued by local hate groups for infringing on their free speech rights.

Chitwood has made a name for himself by loudly and publicly waging war against various neo-Nazi and white nationalist entities in the region, which has become a hotbed for such activity in recent years as the leader of the antisemitic Goyim Defense League has decamped to the area. Antisemitic banners hung above major speedways; flyers targeting private properties; and neo-Nazi marches are just some of the activity that Chitwood has contended with.

Some of Fine’s legislation at the Florida statehouse, including laws that made targeted religion-based harassment a felony, have aided Chitwood’s ability to respond to white nationalists. They’ve also prompted the ire of those groups. For that reason the sheriff has endorsed Fine, despite what he says are some serious personality differences between the two.

“I don’t think anybody would accuse him of being warm and fuzzy,” Chitwood said, adding that Fine’s comment about Tlaib and Omar “doesn’t do us any good.” But, the sheriff added, Fine’s stated commitment to fighting white nationalism — and the chance some of his Florida legislation could be introduced nationally — “are where I find my common ground with him. And I try to look at things from that perspective.”

(Fine, for his part, declined to comment on his legislative priorities in Congress, saying, “I’m still figuring that out.” His campaign page lists standard conservative policies not specifically related to Jewish concerns, including “Secure our borders,” “Protect our elections from fraud,” “Defend life” and “Protect the Second Amendment at all costs.”)

If Fine wins his seat, the number of Jewish Republicans in the House will also double from last term, from two to four, with Texas’s Craig Goldman also joining. He would also add to the vitriolic rhetoric in Congress.

“If you’re not an Islamophobe, you’re a fool,” the legislator told Jewish Currents magazine earlier this year, adding that he didn’t “personally feel bad” about the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza, whom he called “human shields,” since the start of the year-plus Israel-Hamas war. When Israeli troops killed the Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi in the West Bank in September, Fine’s response went even further: “Throw rocks, get shot. One less #MuslimTerrorist,” he tweeted at the time.

He was a mudslinger way before the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, too. In 2019, while serving in the state House, Fine took to Facebook to call a local Jewish progressive a “Judenrat,” the term for the councils Nazis set up in Jewish ghettos, because he had supported a progressive group’s event that brought together Israelis and Palestinians for a shared dialogue.

A request for comment to that progressive group was not returned, but Fine says he has no regrets about such rhetoric today. “Anyone who wishes to give terrorists a platform, who’s Jewish, is a Judenrat,” he said, claiming the Palestinians present at the event were Hamas supporters. “I stand by it.”

Outside of Jewish issues, he’s also been engaged in a years-long, public feud with a Democratic school board member that has escalated to Fine slinging personal insults at her. (The board member, who today runs a progressive education advocacy group, did not respond to a request for comment.) He’s been the target of a state ethics commission, and, last year, video emerged of Fine appearing to avoid a subpoena by hiding behind his desk (he claimed he had been following safety protocols related to antisemitic threats he had received for his support for Israel). A month before the general election, Fine was found in contempt of court for giving the middle finger to a judge.

His record on transgender issues is also of deep concern to many in the LGBTQ community, though Fine insists he has “a lot of friends who are L, G or B” and adds, in reference to the nationwide controversy around gender therapy treatments, “You don’t need to take drugs to be gay.”

In 2023, after pushing a state law that would heavily restrict drag shows, Fine called drag queen story time events “the gateway propaganda to this evil” and remarked, “If it means erasing a community because you have to target children, then damn right we ought to do it.” The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has deemed him “the bully of Brevard.”

Speaking to JTA last year during the height of a statewide controversy over a school in his district pulling an illustrated version of “The Diary of Anne Frank” from shelves, due to objections to a panel depicting Frank’s same-sex attraction, Fine called the book “antisemitic” and an “Anne Frank pornography book.”

Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, offered a blistering take on such behavior. “Randy Fine epitomizes Trump-era politics — he vilifies political opponents, espouses extremist views, and attacks our democracy. He does not represent or align with the values of the vast majority of Jewish Americans,” she told JTA.

Fine reserves much of his ire for the left.

“Charlottesville was a pimple on a gnat’s ass, compared to what’s happened to Jews on our college campuses in this country,” he said, regarding the 2017 far-right rally that ended with the death of a counter-protester. Yet he’s also been sharp against fellow Republicans whom he accuses of peddling antisemitism, most notably DeSantis, a one-time ally of Fine’s who signed huge chunks of his legislation intended to benefit Jews. Since their fallout, Fine and DeSantis staffers have sniped at each other online (among his critiques of the governor was over a recent visit to Ireland, a nation that sympathizes heavily with Palestinians over Israel).

Would Fine ever similarly turn against Trump, who himself has associated with antisemitic figures and who was widely seen as declining to unequivocally condemn the Charlottesville rally while he was in office?

“That’s a hypothetical I don’t even have to entertain,” he insisted, citing some of Trump’s administration picks (Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz, the man he’s running to replace) as “people who were as hardcore on these issues as I am. … You couldn’t pick anybody more pro-Israel than these four.”

As for Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth, two other initial Trump cabinet picks who themselves have had associations with Christian nationalism and, in the case of Gaetz, hosted a Holocaust denier at the State of the Union: “I’m not involved in those, so I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on there.” (Gaetz withdrew his nomination over mounting objections to his character and record, while Hegseth’s bid for secretary of defense appears to be in jeopardy as of this writing. One of Trump’s rumored replacements: DeSantis.)

As he looks ahead to Washington, Fine’s thoughts again turn to his mother, whose death came after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. “I’m going to get sad here, but my mom would be really happy I’m doing this,” he said. “I’m grateful because it gives me something to throw myself into.”

Correction (12/13/24): An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect first name for Randy Fine’s mother, Harriet. This has been corrected.