Suit was filed last week in a Florida federal district court by a Chabad rabbi and related plaintiffs charging a Homeowners' Association with religious discrimination in violation of state and federal Fair Housing Acts and civil rights protections. The complaint (full text) in Hertzel v. Loggers' Run, Inc., (SD FL, filed 5/17/2024), alleges in part:
This action arises out of a campaign by the HOA... to discriminate against the Hertzels and, more broadly, to slow the growth of Jews within the Loggers’ Run planned residential community.....
The campaign began when the Hertzels began exploring the possibility of constructing a synagogue within Loggers’ Run, which they proposed locating near multiple similarly situated churches attended by HOA board members and residents. This synagogue is essential to the growth of the Orthodox Jewish community within Loggers’ Run because central tenets of that faith prohibit driving to religious services on the Sabbath and Jewish holidays. Members of the HOA Board intervened to prevent the HOA from even considering the Hertzels’ proposal.... Although the HOA would eventually muster pretextual reasons for the rejection, individual members of the HOA and its agents were shockingly honest, explaining that the HOA “didn’t want Jews” in Loggers’ Run and, more recently, that a synagogue would be constructed over then-HOA Board President Harp’s “dead body.”
First Liberty issued a press release announcing the filing of the lawsuit.
