Week of June 19, 2026
Week of June 19, 2026
FASTSIGNS® of West Orlando, a staple of the local business community since 2011, has officially been acquired by franchise veterans Renee Friedman and Richard Goldstein. The strategic acquisition transitions the established West Orlando center into a high-capacity, multi-location network, massively scaling its production power and service capabilities. By merging the West Orlando facility’s local expertise with the infrastructure of Friedman and Goldstein’s top-tier Orlando Central...
In an historic medical breakthrough, doctors in Israel's Clalit Health Services -Schneider Children's Medical Center, became the first in the world to treat a baby born with a fatal genetic brain disorder by injecting a healthy gene directly into his brain, in a pioneering effort that united an Israeli physician, an Arab scientist and the Israeli-born CEO of an American biotech company in a race to save the life of an eight-month-old ultra-Orthodox infant. The treatment was performed at...
With Iran's rulers threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, the modern world is reminded of an ancient truth: geography is power. The Strait is just a narrow channel between Iran and Oman, yet a huge share of the world's oil flows through it. Control that passage and you can rattle global markets, spike prices, and make nations nervous. Why the land of Canaan was so important When God told Abraham to go to the land He would show him, Abraham was being sent to Canaan, one of the great...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the peace deal with the Iranian regime had been completed. “I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the U.S. Naval blockade,” the president stated just before 5:30 p.m. in Washington. “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose government has served as a key mediator, wrote on X that the United States and Iran had reached...
The Unites States military on Wednesday completed another round of airstrikes against a series of Iranian regime targets, CENTCOM announced. “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” United States Central Command said. “U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal and ready.” The latest attacks targeted military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites across the Islamic Republic, according to the statement. “U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy assets fired precision...
A senior Iranian cleric called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.” “It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet. “America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with...
(JNS) — Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Monday morning that the memorandum of understanding reached overnight by Washington and Tehran does not bind the Jewish state. “Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation,” he tweeted in Hebrew. The Israeli government’s duty is to its citizens, its soldiers and the Jewish people, he said. “Every time we succumbed to international pressure at the expense of Israel’s security, we paid in blood with interest. It was true...
More than 150 guests gathered at Grand Living Park at Lake Mary on Wednesday, June 10, for the annual Jewish Pavilion Senior Services Cocktail Party, enjoying an evening filled with delicious food, refreshing drinks, live music, networking, and philanthropy. The event brought together community leaders, business professionals, supporters, volunteers, and friends of Jewish Pavilion Senior Services. Guests mingled throughout the beautiful senior living community while enjoying an impressive...
(JNS) — While overall congressional travel abroad has fallen sharply this year, Israel remains the top destination for lawmakers taking privately sponsored overseas trips, according to data compiled by the LegiStorm tracking platform. More than one-quarter of the roughly $1.62 million spent on privately funded congressional travel through April went toward trips to Israel, the report found. The total reflects 14 trips sponsored by organizations including the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, the J Street Education Fund...
(JNS) — As details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Iran framework agreement begin to emerge, Jewish organizations and policy experts said that questions remain whether its terms go far enough and if Tehran can be trusted to adhere to them. “Whether or not this agreement succeeds lies in strict verification and intrusive enforcement,” Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS. “Given Iran’s 47-year history of deceit and deception, its secretive nuclear program and its role as paymaster and armorer...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that an agreement with Iran would allow it to enrich uranium at low levels that “could never be used for military purposes.” “They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said in a phone call with The New York Times. The report suggested that the deal could include a 15–20-year period of “suspension,” but it was unclear whether this would involve a total ban on enrichment. When asked whether the limit would match the 3.67 percent cap set under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive...
(JNS) — Israel is not at war with Lebanon but with Iranian proxy Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday in a video message to the Lebanese people. “Do you remember what Lebanon was like before Iran and Hezbollah turned it into a nightmare?” he asked. “Remember the cafés? Remember the culture? Remember the calm? All that’s gone because Hezbollah and Iran want to drag us into war over and over and over again. You deserve better. Your children deserve better,” he said. “You know by now that...
(JNS) - The Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund Board of Directors approved a budget of four million shekels (~$1.3 million) to upgrade the Nova Memorial Site and the Iron Swords Forest in Israel's northwestern Negev, the organization said on Thursday. Both sites have become national memorial spaces in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Nova Memorial Site alone attracting more than a quarter of a million visitors during the first four months of 2026, according...
(JNS) - Top Israeli architects and planning teams spent five action-packed hours in Beersheva learning about the Jewish National Fund-USA's ambitious plans for the World Zionist Village, a transformative center for Zionist education, leadership, innovation, community-building and lifelong engagement with the land and people of Israel. When completed, the 48,000-square-meter global hub in the growing Negev city will host the Alexander Muss High School, an English-language high school for...
Connecticut man arrested for allegedly yelling slurs at visibly identified Jews, slapping kippah off man’s head By Jessica Russak-Hoffman (JNS) — Community members helped the New Haven Police Department identify Paul Smith, 36, of East Haven, Conn., who was arrested and accused of shouting antisemitic slurs at three visibly Jewish people and of slapping a kippah off a victim’s head. Victims said that the alleged attacker smelled of alcohol and that he approached the three Jews on Crown Street on June 2 and yelled, “get out of my...
Chabad has announced a four-session course, Sinai and Civics: How Jewish Values Helped Shape America's Founding Ideals, beginning the end of June, 2026. The program is offered through the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. On July 4, 2026, the United States turns 250. Most Americans will celebrate. Fewer will know that when Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were appointed to design the first national seal in 1776, they proposed an image of Moses parting the Red Sea, with the...
Hollywood star Natalie Portman added her voice to the many critics of film directors set to attend a French festival next month who pressured an Israeli colleague to drop out of the event. Portman, who is Jewish and was born in Israel, addressed the issue in an op-ed that Le Monde published on Tuesday, and which she co-authored with several French film industry figures, including French directors Justine Triet and Jacques Audiard. In it, they criticized the open letter from last week of several directors from Arab countries, who said they...
(JNS) — In my media interviews, I am often asked: “Has Israel become the 51st state of the U.S.?” With half a smile, I answer: “If only. American states have far more freedom and room to maneuver than Israel does.” This situation is hardly new. Ever since U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower demanded that Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion halt the Israel Defense Forces’ campaign against Egypt in Sinai in 1956, and later withdraw from Gaza, the United States has consistently forced Israel to stop fighting and agree to a...
(JNS) — The IDF’s top brass is convinced that Hezbollah is a semi-dismantled organization that has suffered the hardest blow in its history. It had 30,000 fighters on Oct. 6, 2023; since then, 8,000 have been killed and about the same number wounded. “Even a jihadist enemy is dying for a ceasefire.” The chief of staff, for example, said in closed discussions that he is in favor, under the following conditions: One, Hezbollah’s withdrawal beyond the Litani River. Two, the destruction of all its infrastructure, this time not by the...
It’s not easy writing and editing dictionaries. As the world changes so does the vernacular. Besides introducing new words that come along, there is a core responsibility of the lexicographer to revise existing words that have taken on new or expanded meanings. The profession certainly must have its challenges. Take the word “ceasefire.” We can all agree that it means a temporary pause in hostilities between warring factions. Yet, for quite some time, the president — a high-profile influencer because of his communication skills and...
(JNS) — As the father of a terror victim, as a Zionist and as an Israeli citizen, I quake with the report of every missile strike or terror attack against the Jewish state. That is not a figure of speech. It is not political theater. It is the involuntary reaction of someone who knows what a phone call can mean, what a headline can hide, and how quickly an ordinary day can become the day that divides a family’s life into before and after. The targets are always civilians. They are people going about their lives, trying to make a shekel,...
(JNS) — This week, Jewish communities around the world mark the anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Escaping Europe and arriving in America during World War II, the Rebbe knew well where silence leads. His father died in exile for daring to defend religious liberty under communism. The Rebbe taught the world to lead with light—to fight hatred by speaking out against injustice wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head. Today, that ancient poison of global antisemitism strikes...
Sometimes it is exhausting reading all the lies that people say about Israel. It is true that if you tell a lie long enough people will believe it. This is why we must address all the lies that people — students, professors, congressmen, neighbors — hear and grasp hold of. Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun wrote in his editorial this week, “The Rebbe taught the world to lead with light—to fight hatred by speaking out against injustice wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.” I would add to that to also lead with truth — not just speak...
The Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, in association with the National Library of Israel, is pleased to announce that Amir Tibon, author of “The Gates of Gaza: A Story of Betrayal, Survival, and Hope in Israel’s Borderlands” (Little, Brown and Company), is the winner of its 2026 award for nonfiction. The $100,000 prize is awarded annually to an emerging author writing in or translated into English. In “The Gates of Gaza,” Tibon weaves together personal testimony, historical...
(JNS) - "Oct. 7 changed everything for me," said Dr. Adam Berkovits, an emergency room physician from Las Vegas who had not spoken a word of Hebrew for 30 years. "On Oct. 8, I became a 'born-again' Jew. While the attacks in Israel didn't surprise me, the reaction on Oct. 8 by people in the United States marked a turning point for me and for everyone around me." More than 2,500 miles away in Smithtown, N.Y., Dr. Richard Feldstein was equally shaken as he watched the death toll from the Hamas...
My journey to Kraków began long before I boarded a plane in Orlando. From my home in Central Florida, I traveled thousands of miles to Kraków to attend the 2026 Congress of the European Society of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine. On the surface, it was another international medical meeting. In reality, it became something far deeper: a journey through history, memory, friendship, and the enduring bonds that unite people across nations and faiths. As an observant Jewish physician, and as the son and grandson of Polish Jews whose lives...
Part Four of a Six-Part series A On May 15, as has been done for decades, Palestinian Arabs, their supporters and Israel detractors observed the “Nakba” or the catastrophe of Israel’s birth in 1948. In order to understand the veracity of that narrative and how it’s been conflated in modern dialogue and reporting, it’s important to understand what lies behind that. A Cold War creation The invention of modern Palestinian Arab identity in 1964 did not happen in a vacuum. Nor was it merely the product of the coalescing of an ethnic Arab...
Three remarkably well-preserved storage jars dating back thousands of years to the Middle Bronze Age have been unearthed near the site traditionally identified with the biblical Tabernacle during this year's archaeological excavations at Ancient Shiloh, in the Binyamin region of Samaria. Researchers are examining whether the vessels were used to store agricultural products, including grapes, wine and olive oil. The announcement by the Mishkan Shiloh Foundation came days before the annual...
Summertime and things are starting to boil My fault. After four straight years of angelic perfection, I went off the rails. Maybe it was my evolution towards curmudgeonly irritability. Or could it be that I was inspired by the late country music singer David Alan Coe? Not by his behavior which saw him serve time in reform schools and the Ohio Penitentiary. It was his song “Need a Little Time Off for Bad Behavior.” My bad wasn’t so bad but bad enough. It was lunchtime at one of our...
This article was submitted by Jewish Pavilion Senior Services There are moments in caregiving that divide life into “before” and “after.” For many families facing Alzheimer’s disease, that moment comes when a loved one looks directly at them and no longer knows who they are. Through the work of Jewish Pavilion Senior Services and the Orlando Senior Help Desk, this experience is one that countless caregivers quietly carry. It brings shock, heartbreak, and a profound sense of loss that can be difficult to explain to anyone who has not...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of Altamonte Springs — Sunday morning minyan, 8 a.m. Weekday morning minyan 6:30 a.m., 407-720-8111. Chabad of South Orlando — Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. and 10 minutes before sunset; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 8:15 a.m., 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael — Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona — Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community...
