The golf course at the Boca Grove neighborhood in Boca Raton, Florida. Courtesy of Boca Grove
By Benyamin Cohen
June 12, 2025
What began as a two-minute ritual inside a Florida country club has grown into a federal civil rights case — and the latest flashpoint in a growing debate about religious expression in shared spaces.
Isaac Scharf, an Orthodox Jewish father of five, was suspended in March from the clubhouse of Boca Grove, a gated community in Boca Raton with more than 400 homes, after a video surfaced showing him helping a guest put on tefillin — small leather boxes traditionally wrapped on the head and arm at the start of weekday morning prayers. A week later, the suspension was extended to his entire family, including his wife and young children.
The leadership of the homeowners association, which includes Jewish board members, says the matter is not about the suppression of religious practice.
“The decision in question followed feedback from multiple members — Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike — who felt the behavior depicted in a publicly circulated video mocked sacred traditions in a way they found deeply offensive,” Boca Grove said in a statement to the Forward.
But to Scharf, who has lived in Boca Grove since 2020, the suspension felt like punishment for practicing his faith — and for doing so publicly.
He is now suing the Boca Grove Property Owners Association for religious discrimination and seeking $50 million in damages. The suit was filed by the Dhillon Law Group, a firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who now leads the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump. In that role, Dhillon has prioritized antisemitism-related cases and told the Wall Street Journal she begins each day scanning social media for civil rights complaints.
Her division this week sued a coffee house accused of refusing to serve Jewish customers. At a May conference, she said she called for a “paradigm shift” at her department towards conservative causes — investigating the participation of transgender women in women’s athletic programs and stepping up efforts to support Jewish students on college campuses, among other priorities.
Scharf’s case is different in one key respect: It is not just a conflict between Jews and outsiders, but between Jews of varying religious practice living in the same community.
At the heart of the conflict is a 90-second video posted to Instagram on Jan. 6 by Jake Adams, a Jewish comedian and golf influencer with nearly 2 million followers across Instagram and TikTok. Adams was invited by Scharf to visit the club and was filming a segment for his popular “Country Club Adjacent” channel, which features humorous takes on Jewish-friendly golf courses — including his now-signature pickle ratings.
The video shows Adams standing in the Boca Grove clubhouse, receiving help from Scharf as he wraps tefillin. Later, Adams bites into a deli pickle — delivered from the Grove Kosher Market — and declares it “a 9.5 or 9.6” and “top tier.”
Wrapping tefillin has become more visible
While tefillin is often associated with synagogue prayer, its public performance has deep roots. In 1967, the Lubavitcher Rebbe launched a global campaign encouraging Jews of all types of observance to wrap tefillin daily. Chabad emissaries across the world have since approached Jewish men in public places — city streets, airports, shopping centers — offering to assist them in performing the ritual.
The process is quick: a few minutes to wrap the black straps, recite a pair of blessings as well as the Shema prayer. In recent years, the ritual has found new life online. Yossi Farro, a Chabad influencer with over 144,000 followers, has shared videos of himself wrapping tefillin on celebrities, billionaires and political staffers. These moments — part spiritual, part viral content — are now a familiar sight on social media.
Complaints about the Boca Grove video, the property owners association said, came from across the Jewish spectrum, with some residents describing the footage as “disrespectful.” The board concluded Scharf had violated club rules about member conduct.
The lawsuit also points to the decision to deactivate the Scharf family’s car transponders — a windshield tag used by residents to access the neighborhood without being stopped at the security gate. Without it, Scharf and his wife had to line up in the visitor lane for three months. The lawsuit portrays the move as a form of exclusion from the community.
The suit depicts a pattern — citing two other Orthodox residents who were penalized with 90-day suspensions: one for “interference” with a kosher supervisor hired by the club, and another for his “persistent frustrations with the limitations on kosher food service” and with the club’s selective enforcement of rules against Orthodox residents. The lawsuit cites other examples of what it calls discriminatory treatment, including the alleged removal of a walking path along the 15th hole of the golf course — a path commonly used by Orthodox residents on Shabbat.
By contrast, the lawsuit alleges that a non-Orthodox resident accused of “sexual harassment towards a staff member” was treated “more lightly” — initially given a 90-day suspension, but later reduced to 75 days.
Scharf and his family’s suspensions ended June 9. But the legal battle is just beginning — and with it, larger questions about religious accommodation in private communities.
The demographics of Boca Grove — and of Boca Raton more broadly — have shifted in recent years. The pandemic brought an influx of Orthodox families from New York, drawn by Florida’s open schools, warm climate and expanding Jewish infrastructure. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of Boca Grove’s residents are Orthodox, according to those who live there.
