HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – A crowd of at least 100 people gathered on a busy stretch of Hallandale Beach Boulevard on Sunday to not only express their concern with the situation that is going on between Israel and Palestine, but to rally against the rise in anti-Semitic crimes in South Florida and across the United States.
“Anti-Semitism or any kind of hatred is unacceptable,” said the rally’s organizer Joe Zevuloni.
Hallandale Beach Commissioner Annabelle Lima Taub was one of the peaceful demonstrators, which included Jewish Americans, Israeli Americans and allies, all voicing their support for Israel.
“The message we want to get out is that we stand firmly with the state of Israel and its right to defend itself, but also that we stand firmly with marginalized groups,” Taub said.
A fragile ceasefire continues to hold, but this comes after several days of violence between Israel and Hamas in Palestine and an increase in hateful acts toward Jewish Americans in the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
“Those incidents are rising simply because these haters out there are looking for an excuse to attack Jews,” Zevuloni said. “I had a ton of people reach out to me and tell me they were afraid to come, they’re afraid to get attacked out here.”
Taub said some of the incidents happened in her own city.
“First it was Bal Harbour, now we’ve several incidents here in Hallandale Beach. IT’s unacceptable, so we just wanted to show unity.”
Taub is planning on drafting a resolution in order to create a hate crime task force in Hallandale Beach.