Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - A rare sight, a halo surrounding the sun, was seen in Israel's northern skies on Saturday, May 2. The striking halo was reportedly spotted by residents in the city of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee Panhandle and at Shavei Zion beach near Nahariya in the Western Galilee. Dr. Amir Givati, director of the Israel Meteorological Service, told Ynet that the phenomenon is the result of high-altitude clouds typical of heatwave conditions. Due to their high altitudes of four to five miles in the...
(JNS) — Several pro-Israel, Democratic House members, including multiple Jews, could face tough races to be reelected to Congress if proposed redistricting maps, which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled come to pass. “The proposed map is a blatant attempt to push out pro-Israel, Democratic champions in Congress,” Brian Romick, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, told JNS. “It’s bad for our country. It’s bad for those who care about Israel, and it’s a violation of Florida’s redistricting constitutional amendment,” Romick said. “We...
Sent to Heritage by Rabbi Naftali For many readers unfamiliar with Orthodox Jewish life, the word Hatzalah may sound unfamiliar. Yet in Orthodox Jewish communities across the country, the presence of Hatzalah often marks something significant: a community that has developed enough internal strength, organization, and volunteer commitment to build one of its most serious communal services — rapid emergency medical response. The Hebrew word hatzalah means “rescue,” and that is exactly what Hatzalah South Florida provides: highly trained volunteer...
(JNS) - Israeli journalist Amit Segal shared video footage on Monday, May 4, showing rare May snowfall on Mount Hermon, noting that it marked the first snowfall on the mountain's upper slopes this late in the season in 15 years. A clip posted to his X account showed the popular northern resort blanketed in white as an unseasonably cold front swept through the region....
Members of the Temple Israel Sisterhood gathered Sunday afternoon for a flavorful and festive luncheon at Sabbaba Market, celebrating the restaurant's recent transition from kosher dairy to kosher meat service. The special event, playfully dubbed a "meat-up," gave attendees the opportunity to sample Sabbaba's newly expanded menu under the supervision of the Greater Orlando Vaad Hakashrut. The gathering drew enthusiastic diners eager to support the local kosher establishment and enjoy a...
An elderly lion dies at the Bronx Zoo in 1957. Inside its body: a silver SS ring. This is the opening to “The Girl Who Rode the White Lion,” the forthcoming novel by National Jewish Book Award–winning author Yishay Ishi Ron. The story spans Nazi Germany and postwar New York, uncovering long-buried secrets through a striking and highly original narrative. In this new release, Ron delivers a sweeping story of courage, survival, and unlikely sanctuary set against the dark backdrop of Nazi-...
Looking for some entertainment that will really blow your mind? On Sunday, May 17, Temple Israel proudly presents Mentalmania, a comedy, mindreading, and ESP show from mentalist Mark Stone. One of the most sought-after entertainers in the country, Mark Stone will have your jaws dropping and your minds wondering just how he does it. He has performed for corporate audiences, colleges, private parties, holiday events, civic groups, religious organizations, and on cruises and television. Doors open...
(JNS) — U.S. Central Command said early on Monday that it would begin supporting “Project Freedom” to ensure the free flow of commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital global trade route. The operation, directed by U.S. President Donald Trump, aims to safeguard merchant vessels transiting the strait, through which U.S. Central Command noted that roughly a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil and significant volumes of fuel and fertilizer pass. CENTCOM said the mission will include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraf...
(JNS) — The lower house of the Swiss parliament voted on Tuesday against recognizing Palestinian statehood, following the example of the upper house last year. In the vote at the National Council of Switzerland, 116 lawmakers out of 200 voted against recognition and 66 voted in favor, according to a bulletin by the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, the country’s bicameral parliament. Another 11 lawmakers abstained and the vote of the remaining seven lawmakers was not recorded. The vote was on a text submitted by the Geneva Canton and, in additio...
(JNS) — Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s book, When We See You Again, has reached the top spot on The New York Times nonfiction hardcover best sellers list, a week after its national publication. Hamas terrorists executed Goldberg-Polin’s son Hersh Goldberg-Polin in cold blood in an underground tunnel in Gaza, 330 days after he was taken hostage from the Supernova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. The book is “a searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength in the wake of unthinkable tragedy,” publisher Random House writes. Goldberg-Polin is an Ameri...
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said on Monday that the United States must moderate its demands on the Islamic Republic, warning that Washington “cannot use the language of threats and force.” He said “our priority is to end the war,” urged the “other side” to abandon “excessive demands” and reiterated Tehran’s claim that it is the “guardian and protector” of the Strait of Hormuz. “The international community must hold the United States and the Zionist regime accountable for imposing insecurity on this waterway and for creati...
(JNS) — The fear is palpable. Every week brings new horrors. Every conversation is dominated by one topic. British Jews are struggling to come to terms with what is happening on our streets, outside our synagogues and in the public discourse. One thing we are not, however, is surprised. We have all watched as events have unfolded across recent years to bring us to this position, even if most of us never believed it would become this serious. The massive surge in antisemitism in Britain has, in the past few weeks, exploded onto the streets w...
(JNS) — After the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, the world should have responded with moral clarity. Thousands of Hamas operatives and even ordinary Palestinians from Gaza carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust; families slaughtered, children burned, civilians hunted and kidnapped. Instead, across the West, we saw something else: justification, celebration and the rapid return of one of history’s most dangerous lies. That Jews cannot be trusted. Today, it hides behind fashionable language: “Zionist,” “coloni...
(JNS) — Most people in America are against the war with Iran, as they are in Britain, too. Very few, however, actually understand why this war is as necessary as it is unavoidably complex. Few seem aware that Iran has been actively at war against America for the past 47 years. Few seem to grasp that Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime has killed hundreds of U.S. servicemen, perpetrated numerous attacks on U.S. bases, committed countless terrorist atrocities and taken Americans hostage. Few grasp that U.S. and Israeli intelligence had discovered tha...
(JNS) — Antisemitism today is like an atomic bomb: anything can happen if institutions fail to take it in hand and act quickly, so that no one feels authorized to deal with it on their own. This is a very delicate moment. All countries and states in Europe and across the world must act against antisemitism; otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous. The young Jewish man who fired an air gun during an April 25 Liberation Day rally in Rome, targeting two representatives of the National Association of Italian Partisans, acted with a...
Dear Editor: For Jews, there is always a sense of that impending danger even during the last few decades when we have risen to positions of leadership and power here in the U.S. and abroad. There were other times in modern history where Jews were well integrated professionally, economically and sometimes politically yet later faced persecution — Jews during the Golden Age in Spain, Jews in 19th century France, Jews in the Ottoman Empire and, of course, Jews in modern Germany and Poland. It would be histrionic, paranoid and hyperbolic to say t...
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 Minyan at J...
(JNS) — The U.N. Security Council returned its focus to Gaza on Tuesday during an open debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after months in which other global crises had drawn attention away. The council had concentrated heavily on Gaza following the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, before a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in late 2025 shifted priorities. “A pivotal juncture has been reached” in U.S. President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, said Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and a founding executive board m...
For many, this is an absurd question. Actually, for "experts," it is a question not even worth discussing. Yet, it is a true story that the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation has been trying to advance for nearly a decade. Only now, because of an exhibition that opened at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia on April 22, is the answer gaining traction. In the past few days, a flood of articles has come out in the media, especially the Jewish...
(JNS) — Most Jewish New Yorkers, 58 percent, think that Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, is doing a poor job, while 32 percent approve of his job performance and 10 percent weren’t sure, according to a survey from the Jewish Majority. Mercury Group, which conducted the poll and surveyed 664 Jewish adults who voted in November in the New York City mayoral election, found that 84% of respondents support the city passing a law creating barrier zones around the doors of houses of worship to prevent harassment and intimidation of wor...
(JNS) - A jurist who reviews anti-terrorism legislation for the British government and the head of the opposition called last week for a ban on anti-Israel rallies in the near future following a series of serious antisemitic attacks. Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, said the government should consider a "moratorium" on the marches following the April 29 stabbing of two Jews in London's Golders Green neighborhood, allegedly by a Somalia-born British citizen named Ess...
A couple of hundred French Jewish doctors interested in moving to Israel gathered in Paris on Sunday in a major immigration fair for medical professionals. The event was held during a time of global turbulence in the Jewish Diaspora, which is especially noticeable in the 450,000-strong community in France that is also home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, and where a recent survey showed that nearly four of five French Jews feel unsafe. "It is becoming more and more difficult to live...
(JNS) — Lindsey Boylan, whom New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed and who has called the Israeli prime minister a “war criminal and a danger to Israel” and accused the Jewish state of “genocide,” conceded the special election in the New York City Council’s third district on Tuesday night. The New York Times reported that Boylan, a Democratic Socialist, called Carl Wilson, a former chief-of-staff to Erik Bottcher, who resigned the council seat to join the state Senate, to concede the race. With 99 percent of votes counted, Wilson appe...
(JNS) - The U.S. State Department approved a possible sale of $992.4 million worth of laser-guided rockets, or "advanced precision kill weapon system" and relevant equipment, Foggy Bottom said on Friday. Israel sought 10,000 of the APKWS equipment, which is made by BAE Systems, the State Department said. "The secretary of state has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to Israel of the above defense articles and defense services...
Judith Barbara Jacobs, beloved wife, mother, sister, and friend, was born on July 22, 1950, in the Bronx, New York, to the late Lawrence and Ruth (Yellin) Epstein. She passed away peacefully on April 21, 2026, in Boca Raton, Florida. Judy was an avid pet lover, especially with dogs, birds, fish and turtles. She enjoyed going on cruises and spending time with family. Judy was a fighter who faced every challenge with strength, grace, and quiet determination. She is a breast cancer survivor and... Full story
