Week of May 29, 2026
Week of May 29, 2026
(JNS) — Canadian border authorities interrogated and refused to let into the country the director of the Muslim Association of Britain, who had denied the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacres in Israel. Immigration officials in Montreal had questioned Anas Altikriti, a dual citizen of the U.K. and Iraq, at Montreal’s main airport for 11 hours before escorting him to a London-bound airplane, Britain’s Telegraph newspaper reported on Wednesday. Altikriti had planned to speak at a Muslim Association of Canada convention in Toronto on May 16-18,...
Nickolay Mladenov, high representative for Gaza at the U.S.-backed Board of Peace, told the United Nations Security Council to “use every means at its disposal” to pressure Hamas to disarm. Amid concern that the stalled effort to get the terror group to lay down its arms will leave Gaza’s recovery paralyzed, Mladenov, a former U.N. envoy for the Middle East peace process, addressed the Security Council on Thursday. “There is no recovery in Gaza,” he said. Mladenov briefed the council on the board’s first report on the state of...
(JNS) - The creation of a new Jewish Federation in the Maryland state capital was inspired, in part, by the death of Sarah Milgrim, who was murdered along with her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky a year ago Thursday, when the two Israeli embassy staffers left an American Jewish Committee event about a mile from the White House. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of her and mourn her loss, while also recognizing that it could happen to any Jew at any time anywhere at this point,"...
On Sunday, May 17, 2026, 7th-grade students from the Shevet Agam Chapter of Israeli Scouts volunteered at Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando's Pearlman Food Pantry as part of their Bar/Bat Mitzvah Year Program, an experience designed to cultivate leadership, responsibility, and meaningful community engagement. The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Year Program guides students through a series of missions centered around the different circles of their lives - from their immediate family and close...
(JNS) - Six men assaulted an Israeli man in London on early on Monday morning after hearing him speak Hebrew on the phone, he told police and the media. The Israeli, Shalev Ben Yakar, 22, also complained to police about the beating that he said the six men gave him outside the Solomon Hotel in Golders Green, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on Monday. "[They caught me] completely off guard. I was not ready. I saw [them] coming [toward] me, and I had a suspicious feeling [about them], but...
(JNS) - The Israel parade on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue this year is slated to have a Muslim group marching alongside Jewish organizations in what is believed to be a first time in the parade's 61-year history. It will also be the first time in memory that New York City's mayor will not participate in the parade, which shows support for the Jewish state. The annual event, scheduled this year for May 31, typically has thousands of participants, with groups marching from Jewish day schools,...
(JNS) — Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Tuesday accused the Palestinian Authority of waging “war” against the Jewish state, as he confirmed that International Criminal Court prosecutors had submitted a secret request for an arrest warrant against him. “The prosecutor submitted a request for arrest warrants. Whether they will actually be issued or not, we do not know; they also do not want us to know; this is part of the tactic,” Smotrich told reporters at a press conference in Jerusalem. “What is certain is that the...
(JNS) — The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles forced an Orthodox Jewish woman to remove a religious head covering while posing for a driver’s license, violating state policy and the Constitution, according to a federal law suit filed on April 27. The state didn’t follow its own rules in its demand of Sara Fellig, the Brooklyn resident’s lawyer Emma Lerner Freeman told JNS. “Especially in New York City, which prides itself on being a safe place for people of all faiths, the DMV needs to do better,” the lawyer told JNS....
(JNS) - To mark Jerusalem Day, (which was erev May 14-15), Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund unveils rare historical documentation from its archives, depicting the city between the 1930s and the 1950s, before the establishment of the State of Israel. Scenes of Jerusalem during the British Mandate and in the early years of the State of Israel are captured through the camera lens just a few years before its independence. The photos present an exceptional mosaic of a multifaceted city,...
(JNS) — Israel officially handed over to Argentina the rotating chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance on May 13, amid the worst burst of global antisemitism since the Holocaust. The symbolic ceremony held at the United Nations in Geneva took place two months after Argentina, on March 18, became the first South American country to assume leadership of the organization, which seeks to promote Holocaust education and awareness worldwide. IHRA Chair Marcelo Mindlin, president of the Holocaust Museum of Argentina since...
(JNS) — George Deek, Israel’s newly appointed special envoy to the Christian world, said Wednesday that Christians in the Jewish state “are not just surviving — we are thriving.” In a video message posted to X, Deek, an Arab-Israeli diplomat from a “Christian family that has lived in this land for centuries,” said his role was to strengthen ties with Christian communities worldwide. “My mission is simple, to speak the truth, to listen carefully, and to deepen friendship between Israel and Christian communities everywhere,...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces jammed the radios of the Turkish-led Gaza flotilla and broadcast Britney Spears’ “Oops! … I Did It Again,” a source familiar with the matter confirmed to JNS on Tuesday. Flotilla organizers told Reuters that Israeli Navy commandos on Monday boarded 39 vessels in the eastern Mediterranean, some 250 nautical miles (463 km) from the Gaza Strip, and arrested those aboard, including 44 Turkish nationals. Israel’s Foreign Ministry shared video footage showing the activists celebrating and hugging aboard...
Last week we marked the anniversary of Israel's hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and with it, bringing thousands of Lebanese Christians to Israel. This is the story of a young man who was a child then. "G" was born into a Maronite Christian family in South Lebanon, part of a community that traces its roots to the ancient Phoenicians. His early childhood unfolded in a quiet Christian village just 15 kilometers from the Israeli border, surrounded by rolling hills, farmland, and deeply...
(JNS) — Israel on Monday barred entry to American YouTuber Tyler Oliveira, known for viral videos that claimed Jews had “invaded” parts of New York and New Jersey. Oliveira was stopped at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport and deported back to the United States, Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli confirmed to JNS on Tuesday. “It was my decision,” Chikli said. “We have a direct line of communication with the Population and Immigration Authority, and when we submit the name of...
Elon Musk praises Israeli innovation as ‘number one in the world’ By JNS Staff (JNS) — Elon Musk, considered to be the richest person on the planet, has lauded Israeli innovation as “number one” in the world. “I’m a huge admirer of the innovation coming out of Israel,” Musk said Monday in video remarks at the Samson International Smart Mobility Summit at Expo Tel Aviv. “I think it is objectively true that Israel punches high above its weight for population.” The owner of Tesla and SpaceX added, “My hat is off to Israel...
(JNS)— Philadelphia Democrats nominated Chris Rabb, a state representative who has accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and supports a Palestinian “right of return,” in Tuesday’s primary to succeed retiring Rep. Dwight Evans (D-Pa.). With no Republican running in Pennsylvania’s heavily Democratic 3rd Congressional District, Rabb is widely expected to win the general election and join the U.S. House in January 2027. He received 44.3 percent of the vote in the four-candidate race, defeating Sharif Street, a Democratic...
(JNS) — Elected Democrats denounced a candidate for a House seat in Texas this week over her calls to imprison and castrate Zionists and raised questions about her funding from a newly-formed super PAC with possible Republican ties. Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist who led the first round of the Democratic primary in Texas’s 35th Congressional District, has drawn scrutiny for her social media posts about Jews and calling to turn immigration detention centers into prisons for Zionists. “She’ll turn Karnes ICE Detention Center into a...
(JNS) - No Israeli athlete had assumed the podium at the Olympic games before Yael Arad won a silver medal in judo at the 1992 summer games in Barcelona. More than 30 years and 20 Israeli medals later, the legendary judoka, who is now president of Israel's Olympic Committee, is traveling across the United States to raise support for Israeli athletes ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics. "We feel that Israeli athletes are doing much more than sports," Arad, 59, told JNS on a visit to New York. She...
(JNS)— Israel participated at the Special Operations Forces Week 2026 exhibition in Tampa, Fla., last week, dispatching 11 Israeli defense companies to the event. The three-day exhibition that started on May 19 brought the international Special Operations community together and was supported by the U.S. Special Operations Command and the Global SOF Foundation. The Israeli pavilion showcased advanced capabilities in five key areas: counter-drone and UAV defense systems, cyber and situational...
(JNS) — Yechiel Leiter, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, referred to J Street as a “cancer within the Jewish community” on Monday. Speaking at a National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism meeting at Museum of the Bible in Washington, Leiter said that “the worst thing about J Street is it’s duplicitous.” “How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that’s fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?” the ambassador said. J Street, a liberal Jewish organization that bills itself as “the...
(JNS) — Israeli Minister of Transport and Road Safety Miri Regev on Monday convened an initial discussion regarding the recent hantavirus outbreak, her office told JNS. Regev instructed her ministry to prepare measures aimed at preventing the virus from spreading into the Jewish state through border crossings or airports, according to the statement. A special team headed by ministry Director-General Moshe Ben-Zaken will coordinate with the Health Ministry on the issue. “At the moment there is no concern, but we are preparing all systems...
(JNS) — Forty-seven years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran vowed “Marg bar Amrika!,” “Death to America!” That declaration of war was followed by multiple acts of war from the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran to the orchestration of two bombings of Americans in Beirut in 1983 to the arming of Shia militias who killed more than 600 Americans in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 to numerous assassination and kidnapping plots. American attempts to end the war diplomatically failed. Five presidents vowed that Iran’s rulers would never...
(JNS) — The violent anti-Israel demonstration in Brooklyn last week took place practically in my own backyard. I live in the Midwood section of the borough, where a 400-plus police presence was necessary to protect Jews at the Young Israel of Midwood from masked antisemitic demonstrators wearing keffiyehs, waving Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, and yelling antisemitic slurs. The protesters were out in force to scare people away from the synagogue, which hosted an event promoting real estate in Israel. The front of the synagogue looked like...
(JNS) — In his typically acerbic style of dry humor, comedian-pundit Bill Maher marked the 78th anniversary of Israel’s Declaration of Independence with a hard-hitting monologue that promptly went viral. During the closing segment of the May 15 episode of his eponymous HBO show “Real Time,” Maher stated that “everyone must either wish [the Jewish state] a happy birthday or admit they’re antisemitic.” He didn’t mention that Zohran Mamdani—who openly mourned the nakba, the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in...
In a May 10 interview on “60 Minutes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained bitterly about social media: “We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost—I would say, it correlates almost 100 percent with the geometric rise of social media.” A key function of this trend is the way critics of Israel use—and often misuse—celebrities. Let’s look at one example. Last month, memes began appearing all over social media with a quote from actor Richard Gere: “There’s no defense...
(JNS) — About 20 pro-Israel activists gathered last month for a dinner meeting in suburban Washington, D.C. A veteran Democratic congressman was our guest speaker. Though his district contains comparatively few Jews and not Jewish himself, he has been for decades a staunch supporter of close U.S.-Israel ties, backed the Soviet Jewry movement and promoted other issues dear to most Jewish voters. The representative expressed qualified optimism about November’s midterm elections. Though much can change, he said he expects the Democrats “to...
"Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory," by Barbara Yelin. Translated by Heige R. Dascher and edited by Charlotte Schallie and Alexander Korb. SelfMadeHero. 192 pps. $27.99. The theme of this latest entry into the growing, and increasingly respected, field of graphic novels about the Holocaust is amply expressed by the pair of nouns in the book's title: color, and memory. (The book – released in time for Yom HaShoah last month -- was published in London, and "developed" with the support of the...
Submitted by Jewish Pavilion Senior Services When a loved one undergoes major surgery, it can be one of the most emotionally taxing days a caregiver will face. The hours spent waiting can feel endless, filled with worry, uncertainty, and the responsibility of being the patient’s advocate. For many older adults served by Jewish Pavilion Senior Services and the Orlando Senior Help Desk, family members and friends often step into the role of caregiver – sometimes unexpectedly. Preparation can make a meaningful difference. Having a...
Part One of a Six Part series 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 name with a history My father was a Palestinian. A Palestinian Jew. He was born in Palestine in 1937, at a time when the only people commonly referred to as...
Apple Pie Serves 8. Make a top and bottom crust for 9" pie. In food processor 1 1/2 cups cold butter, cut in pieces 3 3/4 cups flour, plus more for rolling dough 1 tsp. white vinegar 2 T. sugar 1 tsp. salt 3-4 T. Ice cold water. Process dough until it just forms a ball about 1 minute. 1 egg, lightly beaten, to brush top crust before baking 2 T. granulated or turbinado sugar sprinkled over assembled top crust before baking. Divide dough in half. Refrigerate dough pieces for 1 hour or overnight...
(JNS) — Barney Frank, a former House Financial Services Committee chair and Democrat who represented Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District from 1981 to 2013, died on Tuesday night. He was 86 years old. The late Jewish congressman had been in hospice in recent months at home in Ogunquit, Maine, and was treated for congestive heart failure, NBC reported, citing Frank’s sister and a close friend. Frank is known for co-authoring the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection...
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...
