‘She’s wrong.’ Son of Miami-Dade mayor joins fight against county Israel bonds
Ted Cava, 36, put on a black “Divest from Genocide” T-shirt for an event Thursday calling on Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to endorse selling off the county’s Israeli bonds. Cava said his advocacy against the Israel-Hamas war has caused strain in his family. That includes with his 70-year-old mother, the county’s first Jewish mayor.
“This is very uncomfortable for me. I love my mother a lot,” said Cava, a freelance writer who attended the County Hall press conference with his 1-year-old daughter, Leila. “I think she’s been a great mayor. I disagree with her on certain issues. This, to me, is probably the most important one.”
Miami-Dade’s $151 million portfolio of Israeli bonds has made Levine Cava a target for critics of the Gaza humanitarian crisis, which has been described as genocide by human-rights groups and a justifiable armed conflict by Israel.
After the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel in 2023, Levine Cava championed the county expanding its Israeli investments by $25 million as a show of support. Today, the Democratic mayor is waving off criticism of the bonds as something out of her control now that a change in state rules has Miami-Dade’s elected clerk in charge of the county’s investment portfolio.
“I’m not weighing in,” she told the Miami Herald ahead of a County Commission meeting to consider her $12.9 billion budget for 2026.
As starvation and death of Palestinians in Gaza has worsened, Levine Cava has posted statements condemning conditions there. “We must speak out against the horror of starvation in Gaza,” she wrote on July 25. “No child, no human, should ever spend days without access to food.”
But Levine Cava’s statements on the issue have not quieted criticism of Miami-Dade’s Israel bonds, a subject of criticism in budget-related town halls Levine Cava held this summer.
Asked about her son’s comments at the County Hall event put on by Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, the mother of two adult children declined to shed much light on family dynamics when it comes to the war in Gaza.
“I know many, many people — including in my own family — who are extremely concerned about the situation, as am I, and exactly how we deal with it,” Levine Cava said of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war and related issues. “Yes. There are differences, of course.”
Her son wasn’t one of the featured speakers at Thursday’s press conference criticizing the county’s Israel bonds. But he agreed to an interview with the Herald, despite saying that it would likely be another source of friction with his mom.
“I decided to kind of take our family disagreement public,” he said, “knowing that some of her opponents could use it in bad faith against her.”
He said his split with his mother on Israel reflects what he’s hearing from friends.
“I think a lot of Jewish families right now are divided on this issue,” he said. “My family is very divided on generational lines. … We’re in WhatsApp chats where people are really very upset with each other on both sides.”
Cava, who until recently worked in communications for the county teachers union, said he had hoped to join the anti-bond group and address the commission dais where his mother sits during Thursday’s budget hearing. But with his wife away, Cava said he needed to get his daughter home.
While he went public with his high-profile family split over Israel, Cava said the divide hasn’t soured his relationship with Levine Cava.
“We’re very close,” he said. “We’re going to have Shabbat dinner tomorrow night. But she’s wrong on this.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2025 at 8:08 PM.