Forman’s post on Hitler removed

Court clerk mistaken on quote attribution

Brenda Forman, who is running for a second term as Broward Clerk of Courts, posted a lengthy quotation inaccurately attributed to Adolf Hitler to her Facebook page.

A little more than

24 hours after she posted it, after community members and people in politics took to social media and email Tuesday night to spread word about the post, it was deleted from Forman’s Facebook page — after she had posted responses to critics in which she defended posting the quotation.

The quote — about how to take control away from people — has been erroneously attributed to Mein Kampf, the Nazi leader’s manifesto, and reproduced many times on social media.

Forman posted the quote at 8:19 p.m. Monday, but it seems to have been little noticed until Tuesday night, when word started getting around and people started posting negative responses. About 11 p.m., the post was deleted.

State Rep. Michael Gottlieb, a Broward Democrat, expressed outrage over Forman’s post.

“Historical leaders who were tyrants who committed genocidal murder are not leaders that our elected officials should be quoting. Brenda Forman made a choice to post [a] quote attributed to Adolf Hitler,” Gottlieb wrote on Facebook. “Her doing so in my opinion shows a complete lack of respect for the atrocities of the Holocaust and those who lost their lives fighting against Hitler’s tyranny. … She is not fit for public office and should be strongly rebuked for this antiSemitic post.”

U.S. Reps. Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wassserman Schultz, Ted Deutch and Frederica Wilson — all Democrats, as is Forman — issued a joint statement Wednesday sharply condemning Forman’s post.

“Using Hitler to convey any point of view or message is reckless and wildly insensitive,” the Democats, who collectively represent all of Broward County, said in a joint statement.

Forman’s sharing the message “is not

only painful and harmful, it is also repulsive that she would amplify the supposed ‘wisdom’ from the world’s most heinous mass murderer, anti-Semite, and white supremacist. Clerk of Courts Forman must apologize for giving a platform to this type of hateful and abhorrent rhetoric and for the damage and hurt she caused.”

Sabrina Javellana, the vice mayor of Hallandale Beach, also took to social media Tuesday night to criticize Forman’s post, writing that she was “disgusted.”

“What on earth is she thinking? Anti-Semitism is unacceptable and this must be condemned,” Javellana wrote on Twitter.

Rabbi Andrew Jacobs of the Ramat Shalom Synagogue commented on the post at about 10 p.m. Tuesday evening asking that Forman explain why she was posting the quotation.

“Seeing this on your page without any explanation — is very, very troubling,” he wrote.

On his own Facebook page, Jacobs urged his followers to contact Forman and ask the same thing. “Seeing it posted by a public official with no comments, without any context, is disturbing.”

Forman responded to Jacobs about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday: “I only reposted not my views, but we as people are color is being treated this way every day, with hate and bigotry, I am not racist or a bigot, I don’t hate anyone. This was a repost so others can see this man was not of the human race, this is still happening today, and for others to JUDGE me based upon a post will not stop from being a human being first and fighting for the rights of the people,” Forman wrote.

After her response was criticized by another poster on Facebook, Forman responded again: “this is an eye opener on people of color minorities who are brought down every day, this is not my posting it’s a repost, I don’t hate, I’m not a bigot, I have nothing against anyone religion, but to judge me I guess has always been in others heart to do even before this post.”

Forman has two opponents in the Aug. 18 election, retired judges Paul Backman and Mark Speiser, both of whom are Jewish. Forman’s ex-husband, former Circuit Court Clerk Howard Forman, with whom she had a contentious divorce, is also Jewish.

Gottlieb wrote that it was especially disturbing that she “chose Hitler as her inspiration in an election where she has only Jewish opponents.”

The quote is a photograph of a nine-line quotation attributed to Hitler in Mein Kampf next to a picture of him. It explains that the best way to take control from people is to do so a little at a time, so the erosion is imperceptible, and people won’t realize what’s going on until it is too late.

The quotation isn’t actually from Mein Kampf, and doesn’t reflect Hitler’s views, according to experts quoted by the Reuters news agency, which did a fact check about it in May, after it had become popular on Facebook.

In many cases — including Forman’s post — the quote was accompanied by a picture that looks something like Hitler, but Reuters said is actually a manipulated image of former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Last week, Forman posted a 40-minute video on Facebook airing a litany of grievances against people accused of crimes, racism and mental breakdowns.

Forman said in the video that while she was recovering from COVID-19, God communicated with her, and gave her a list of people to “expose.”

She said in the video that she has been treated unfairly as “the most hated woman of color in Broward County.”

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