‘Challenging my Jewishness’: Randy Fine, Ben Marcus spar in wake of Abraham Accords
Reps. Randy Fine and Jason Fischer.

Fine Fischer
Representative, candidate exchange social media barbs.

The historic occasion of the Abraham Accords was one of celebration for many Florida Republicans, including two state lawmakers who greeted each other warmly at the White House signing ceremony.

Reps. Randy Fine and Jason Fischer said they were thrilled to be at the event, but not too long after the normalization deal was signed between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, hostilities broke out on Twitter between Fine and Fischer’s Democratic opponent in the November election, Ben Marcus.

By the end, Fine was saying that Marcus was “challenging his Jewishness,” in an exchange full of sharp elbows and personal attacks.

“Challenging my Jewishness. Perhaps I think it best to keep my politics out of my congregation. I thought you Democrats were all about separation of church and state. About what I’d expect from the party of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib,” Fine tweeted.

That comment came after Marcus chastised Fine for not going to local shuls, after noting Fischer had gone to two of them.

“I wouldn’t celebrate pandering to the Orthodox or getting laughed out of the Reform shul but slapping backs for mediocrity and shameful behavior is the Florida GOP way as of late, so I’m not surprised at your response. Pretty disappointing nonetheless,” Marcus asserted.

Marcus was voluble throughout the afternoon on Twitter, asserting that “my religion and culture is not available for exploitation by political hacks who don’t care about my community or Israel beyond getting votes. It’s absolutely despicable and Jewish politicians who silently stand by while colleagues lay claim are too.”

For his part, Fine tweeted to Fischer that he “look[s] forward to you kicking this loser’s butt.”

In terms of the resource war in HD 16, metrics are with the incumbent.

His “Conservative Solutions for Jacksonville” political committee has just over $100,000, and he has an additional $72,000 in hard money. Marcus has roughly $6,000 on hand for the homestretch.

The Fine versus Marcus fracas, meanwhile, underscores a larger battle happening between the parties in Florida about whether Republicans indeed are more successfully courting Jewish voters.

Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, addressing the Jewish Democratic Council of America last week, noted that Republicans are making a concerted effort to be seen as the pro-Israel party and are making inroads with Jewish voters with aggressive messaging that is taking root in Florida and the Middle East itself.

“They’re trying to get the Jewish vote in the state of Florida,” Fried said on a Thursday evening Zoom call. “DeSantis has been trying to say ‘Trump is the best President for the state of Israel.’”

“And the state of Israel, and the people who are there, sometimes they believe it,” she continued. “You walk around and they’ve got yarmulkes with Trump on [them.] They’re naming settlements after Trump.”

For his part, meanwhile, Fine contends that the President is “Israel’s greatest friend.”

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. He writes for the New York Post and National Review also, with previous work in the American Conservative and Washington Times and a 15+ year run as a columnist in Folio Weekly. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


6 comments

  • Ronald

    September 15, 2020 at 4:15 pm

    Now, isn’t this idiotic.

    The injection of religion in any way into government or foreign affairs breeds nothing but divisiveness. Now you have these two clowns making a campaign issue over which one is “more of” a Jew? What is “more of” of Jew? Who cares beyond a blatantly self-conscious minority of people and these politicians themselves?

    The waste of time that this creates disqualifies both of them. Please boys, if you have genuine skills, use them elsewhere and get off of the public payroll.

    • Charlotte Greenbarg

      September 16, 2020 at 7:17 am

      Um, it was the Democrat who injected it. The loser who uses religion as a weapon. That’s the clown.

    • Ocean Joe

      September 16, 2020 at 7:50 pm

      The establishment clause of the First Amendment carries no weight with these self proclaimed strict constructionists. By the way, Randy Fine begging Jews to support Trump as he did in a recent opinion piece is pathetic considering Trump’s reaction to a mob of rednecks chanting “Jew will not replace us!” as very fine people.

      Let’s vote for who can best lead the country for ALL of us. Leave religion out of it, as our founders wisely required.

  • Sonja Fitch

    September 16, 2020 at 5:32 am

    Vote Democrat up and down ballot! Enough of the hate and divisive of the goptrump cult ! Vote Blue!

    • Charlotte Greenbarg

      September 16, 2020 at 7:18 am

      Oh the resident far left troll opines the usual rhetoric🤪😜

      • just sayin

        September 16, 2020 at 8:28 am

        Going into every single thread and bombing the same “goptrump cult! Vote Blue!” every single morning demonstrates a complete lack of self-awareness.

Comments are closed.


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