St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline smiles for a photo with a group of Israeli Boy Scouts during her trip to the country in June. | Courtesy Nancy Sikes-Kline
Published on July 17, 2025 at 4:41 pm
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After a recent trip to Israel, St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline says the city’s relationship to the Jewish state is stronger than ever.
Still, Sikes-Kline says there’s room for growth and she would consider St. Augustine’s becoming a sister city with one in Israel.
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Inspired by her trip, Sikes-Kline brought a resolution to the St. Augustine City Commission this month supporting The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, the same definition that the state of Florida has codified into law.
Current members of the City Commission unanimously adopted the measure, which is largely symbolic.
While mostly focused on the treatment of individuals who are Jewish, the alliance’s definition of antisemitism has been criticized by groups like Amnesty International and the ACLU for its provisions about the State of Israel.
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Sikes-Kline tells Jacksonville Today that defining antisemitism is not simple but that she believes the city’s resolution distinguished between criticism of Israel and of Jewish people. It noted, “The definition of antisemitism does not include criticism of Israel that is akin to criticism of any other country.”
Criticism that the definition does consider antisemitic includes “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”
Local Jewish individuals and groups like the Jewish Federation and Foundation of Northeast Florida praised the city for the move, saying that St. Augustine is the first municipality in Northeast Florida to support the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
Among speakers at the St. Augustine City Commission meeting praising the move were Chabad of St. Augustine Rabbi Levi Vogel.
“It’s very important we’re having this discussion not so much, at least from my personal experience, that we suffer from this epidemic here in this town, thank God,” he said, “but because it’s important to talk about, and this sets an example for other cities in our area to also take up this issue.”
A ‘life changing’ trip
While not Jewish herself, Sikes-Kline says she has a strong connection to Judaism through her stepfather, a childhood survivor of the Holocaust.
In part because of that connection, she said, her June trip to Israel was “life changing.”
“To live in a state of defense at all times, it must be fairly stressful for those folks, although they seem to live very well,” she says. “I’m very impressed by Israel. It’s such a young country, and it’s so vibrant and they’re so smart about everything they do.”
Sikes-Kline was a guest of the consulate general of Israel in Miami. The group paid for her trip, along with a group of other Florida elected officials and municipal staffers.
Her trip included a visit to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), tours of cities including Tel Aviv and visits to sites attacked by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7 attacks in 2023.
While Sikes-Kline says her group did not visit any occupied areas, like Gaza, where Israel is actively launching an offensive, they came within a mile of the border to the region.
“We did hear some things and saw some fighting, like smoke and stuff like that,” Sikes-Kline says. “That was as close as I feel like they would take us without us feeling unsafe.”
Returning to the U.S., the mayor of St. Augustine said she believes the relationship between Israel and St. Augustine is strong.
St. Augustine’s support for the state isn’t out of place in St. Johns County. The county government has been a big supporter of Israel, recognizing Israel Friendship Day on Oct. 15 each year.
But support for Israel has been a polarizing political topic for years, and especially since Israel began its retaliation to the Oct. 7 attack.
The UN has criticized Israel’s killing of some 60,000 people in Gaza, many of them civilians, as “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” Asked whether Sikes-Kline believes members of her constituency would be troubled by her support for the country, she said she wasn’t “a spokesperson for Israel or a spokesperson for the Jewish community,” and certainly doesn’t know everything about the conflict.
“I look forward to learning more and hearing more about all the sides of it,” Sikes-Kline says. “It’s life and death, it’s strident, it’s difficult, but I am very comfortable sitting in uncomfortable conversations, and I’m willing to have them.”
She says she is “willing to listen” to anyone interested in talking with her about Israel and her support for the country and its people.
Above all, Sikes-Kline wants people in St. Augustine to know that she is a strong opponent of antisemitism and believes that while she can’t change things on an international scale, she can make St. Augustine a more welcoming place.
“I’m just concerned about my small community treating everybody with dignity and compassion regardless of what their faith is, or how they look, how they worship, where they live, what they drive, what they wear,” Sikes-Kline says. “That, to me, is my job.”
