The Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians & Jews has recognized Dave Aronberg, a former Palm Beach County state attorney and state senator, with its John C. Randolph Award for 2026.
Aronberg received the award at the fellowship’s Annual Fellowship Dinner Thursday at the Beach Club. About 170 people attended.
The Randolph Award is named for the chairman and founder of the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians & Jews and a retired attorney who served as Palm Beach’s town attorney for 44 years until December 2023. The award has since 2004 honored people who exemplify the mission of the fellowship, which was established in 1993 to unite people of different faiths and cultures.
Aronberg, who is Jewish, was born in Miami in May 1971. He attended North Miami Senior High School and graduated from Harvard College with a bachelor’s degree in government in 1993. He received a J.D. degree with honors from Harvard Law School in 1996.
After graduation, he worked for three years in the litigation department of the law firm Steel Hector & Davis LLP in Miami and West Palm Beach.
Margaret Zeidman, vice chairman of the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews, said Aronberg could have climbed the ladder of private practice at the elite law firm. But he discovered a higher calling when he read an article that described the injustice of European insurance companies that refused to honor World War II-era policies sold to the Holocaust victims. Thus began Aronberg’s career of more than 25 years in the public arena.
In 1998, he took a three-month leave of absence from the law firm to work for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, who was then Florida’s insurance commissioner. Nelson and Aronberg’s investigation of the insurance companies led to the enactment of Florida’s Holocaust Victims Assistance Act, aimed at ensuring that insurance claims of Holocaust victims would be expeditiously identified and properly paid.
“These companies hid behind documentation they knew could not be produced,” Zeidman said. “Dave went after them and he won. Following this, Dave left the firm and took the road less traveled: he went into public service. Through it all, he used his formidable intellect not to enrich himself but to protect the vulnerable.”
Aronberg, who is a Democrat, became the youngest member of the Florida Senate when he was elected to that body in 2002 at the age of 31. Reelected to three additional two-year terms, he chaired the Military Affairs and Domestic Security Committee and the Everglades Restoration Committee, where he advocated for additional state and federal funds to protect and restore nature’s “river of grass.”
In 2010, Aronberg made an unsuccessful bid for the office of Florida attorney general. The following year, based on his work on opioid abuse, he was appointed special prosecutor for prescription drug trafficking, or “Drug Czar.”
In 2012, he was elected state attorney for Palm Beach County, a post he held from January 2013 until January 2025. Known for creating a “Sober Homes Task Force” to combat drug treatment fraud, Aronberg led a team of 115 prosecutors and 180 professional staff in five offices throughout Palm Beach County.
“He was elected state attorney three times, affirming his judgment, integrity and his commitment to justice,” Zeidman said. “His years in office are a hallmark of meaningful and tangible achievements.”
Aronberg, who is also a former assistant attorney General and White House Fellow, did not seek a fourth term as state attorney in 2024, opting instead to enter private practice by founding the Dave Aronberg Law firm in West Palm Beach.
Aronberg spoke highly of Randolph, who he said “is a founder of this prestigious group, a legendary legal figure in our community and one of the most beloved individuals in Palm Beach.”
He thanked the fellowship for allowing him to share a stage with the evening’s keynote speaker, Rabbi David Wolpe, who is the former visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School and the Max Webb rabbi emeritus of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles.
Aronberg noted that the Jewish people make up less than one-half percent of the world’s population, and said they cannot overcome pervasive antisemitism without friends.
“We cannot fight the tide of hate and the tsunami of misinformation alone,” Aronberg said. “That’s why our Christian allies are not just appreciated. They are vital.”
Aronberg said the Palm Beach Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the “frontline” of the fight for Jewish security.
“You are the guardrails … when Christians and Jews stand together, the darkness cannot win,” he said. “Our Christian allies light the way when many in the rest of the world are trying to blow out the candle.”
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