Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Israel and Lebanon agreed to a 10-day ceasefire on Thursday following calls between U.S. president Donald Trump and the leaders of each country. After Trump announced the truce on social media, the State Department released a statement with details of the agreement between the two sides. “Israel and Lebanon will implement a cessation of hostilities” that will start at 5 p.m. Eastern on April 16 for “an initial period of 10 days, as a gesture of goodwill by the government of Israel, intended to enable good-faith negotiations toward...
(JNS) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated a $655.5 million judgement against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority for supporting terrorist attacks and making payments to the perpetrators. In a March 30 decision, the three-judge panel reversed its previous decision to throw out the case following a 2025 Supreme Court decision in a similar suit and the passage of a 2019 federal law designed to enable the victims of terrorism to pursue civil court cases against the perpetrators. The plaintif...
(JNS) — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) issued a joint statement on Wednesday that they would proceed with the Senate’s funding bill for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. U.S. President Donald Trump appears to have precipitated the move by demanding congressional action in a social media post earlier on Wednesday. “I am asking that the bill be on my desk no later than June 1,” Trump wrote. “We are going forward to fund our incredible Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and Borde...
Most American Jews oppose the U.S.-Israeli military operations against Iran, according to a poll released on Monday. The Jewish Electorate Institute found that 55 percent of Jewish respondents said that they opposed the war, 32 percent approved and 13 percent were undecided. When asked for a more detailed breakdown of their feelings about the stated objectives of the conflict, a similar number of Jews (31 percent) said that they supported action against Iran, because the Islamic Republic cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and 41...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a plan to end the war in Gaza, with a 72-hour deadline, which begins when Israel accepts the agreement, for Hamas to return the hostages it holds in Gaza. Speaking at a press conference after the White House released the plan, Trump said that Hamas has not agreed to the proposal but that Arab and Muslim countries are negotiating with the terrorist group. “We’re relying on the countries that I named and others to deal with Hamas, and I’m hearing that Hama...
(JNS) — Most House Democrats signed a letter on Thursday warning the Israeli government against trying to annex territory in Judea, Samaria or Gaza. Led by Reps. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and joined by the entire Democratic House leadership, the 178 congressmen told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that Israeli annexation of any territory would “plunge the region” into “further chaos and violence.” “We are convinced that unilateral steps by eith...
(JNS) — Hundreds of pro-Israel students met in Washington last week for the Israel Campus Coalition’s national summit. Jacob Baime, the group’s CEO, told JNS that the 21 months since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic protests on campus marked a “new moment” for students who support the Jewish state. “As horrible as everything has been, as horrific as it’s all been since Oct. 7, there’s the silver lining of a huge surge in Jewish pride and interest in the issue,” Baime said. “This is a...
(JNS) — Auburn University men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl didn’t mince words talking about his Jewish identity and love for the United States and Israel during a Jewish American Heritage Month breakfast in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. “I’m a Jewish-American basketball coach, who coaches basketball in Auburn, Ala.,” he told attendees. “Don’t tell me this isn’t the greatest country in the world.” About 100 people attended the event, which included speeches from more than half a dozen members of Congress, including Sens. Jim Banks (R-Ind.)...
(JNS) - Some 100 people, ranging in age from about 8 to 102, huddled for warmth as they braved 40-degree temperatures on a damp day at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday to watch, as speaker after speaker put it, Pfc. Adolph Hanf and Pvt. David Moser "come home." Neither of the Jewish soldiers, who served in World War I and who have been dead for more than 100 years, underwent a geographic relocation. But with the help of Operation Benjamin, a donor-supported nonprofit, Moser (1898-1919) and...
(JNS) - The U.S. Senate voted 53-46 on April 9 to confirm Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to be U.S. ambassador to Israel. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was the lone Democrat to back Huckabee, who has mounted two presidential campaigns since leaving office, and has been a TV and radio host since 2008. Every Republican voted to confirm Huckabee except Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who did not vote. Ahead of the vote, Republicans said that Huckabee would be a more pro-Israel diplo...
(JNS) — Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, stated several times during the press briefing on Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump has not committed to deploying American soldiers to Gaza. Trump announced on Feb. 6 that the United States would “take over,” “own” and “be responsible for” the reconstruction of Gaza. During the explosive press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that the United States would redevelop Gaza’s waterfront as “the riviera of the Middle East.” He also said that...
(JNS)- U.S. President Donald Trump said that the United States will "take over" and rebuild the Gaza Strip during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday. "The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too," Trump said. "We'll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings. " Trump said in the explosive press...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump called for “permanently” resettling Palestinians outside Gaza on Tuesday, as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took questions from reporters at the White House. Trump did not say whether he thought Palestinians would have a “right” to return to Gaza but asked why they would want to return given the level of destruction. “I don’t think people should be going back to Gaza,” Trump said. “I think that Gaza has been very unlucky for them. They’ve lived like hell. They live like you’re living in he...
(JNS) — Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both Democratic Georgia senators, are facing a backlash from the Atlanta-area Jewish community over their votes to halt certain arms sales to Israel. AIPAC, the Atlanta JCRC and the local Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee chapters joined 46 other Jewish organizations, including more than 20 Atlanta synagogues, in a letter to the senators on Thursday condemning their votes. “Your vote demonstrates that your commitment to Israel’s security is not ironclad,” the organizations wrote....
(JNS) — A poll of Jewish voters in the 2024 election suggests that President-elect Donald Trump made modest gains among Jews over his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris. The non-partisan Jewish Electorate Institute published the responses from a national survey of 1,000 Jewish respondents taken between Oct. 30 and Nov. 8. It found that 71 percent of Jewish voters went for Harris and 26 percent voted for Trump. “Jewish voters continue to support Democratic candidates by a substantial margin, while Republicans have made modest gai...
(JNS) — The U.S. Justice Department announced terrorism charges against senior leaders of Hamas for carrying out the Oct. 7 massacre. Merrick Garland, the U.S. attorney general, announced the charges on Sept. 3 in a recorded message. He said that Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders oversaw “a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States.” “On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists, led by these defendants, murdered nearly 1,200 people, including over 40 Americans, and kidnapped hundreds of civi...
(JNS) — The U.S. State Department stated on Tuesday that it “strongly opposes” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s call for construction of a synagogue on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The proposed Jewish house of worship “on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount” would “would demonstrate blatant disregard for the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said. “The ongoing reckless statements and actions of this minister only sow chaos and exacerbate tensions at a...
(JNS) - Anti-Israel protesters violently confronted Capitol Hill police and burned the American flag in front of Union Station on Wednesday afternoon during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hour-long address to Congress. In what the event organizers described as a protest to "Arrest Netanyahu: Surround the Capitol," thousands of attendees rallied at the intersection of Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. In their permit for the event submitted to the U.S. Park Police and obtained by JNS, the Answer Coalition estimated some...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden answered nearly an hour of questions at a potentially make-or-break press conference on Thursday, amid increasing pressure from Democrats for him to withdraw from the 2024 election over concerns about his age and fitness for office. Biden, who began the press conference 57 minutes after its scheduled start time, opened with eight minutes of prepared remarks, which he read from teleprompters, about Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the economy, border security and a potential Israel-Hamas c...
(JNS) - Pro-Israel candidates fared well in primary races across the nation on Tuesday, although their opponents largely shared their views about the Jewish state. Sarah Elfreth, a Maryland state senator, won the Democratic primary for the state's 3rd Congressional District with $4 million in spending from AIPAC's United Democracy Project super PAC. She defeated Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who rose to national prominence for his actions defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot in 2021. The left-wing, Israel-focused advocacy...
(JNS) — Members of Congress grilled education officials from New York, California and Maryland on Wednesday about “pervasive” antisemitism in K-12 schools. Members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education repeatedly asked David Banks, the chancellor of the New York City Public Schools, about a student-led rampage at Hillcrest High School in the borough of Queens that targeted a Jewish teacher. “We suspended students. We removed the principal of the school. W...
(JNS) — House and Senate Republicans slammed U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to pause an arms shipment to Israel and demanded that the administration explain why it failed to notify Congress. Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Ted Budd (R-N.C.) wrote to the Biden administration asking for answers about the frozen arms deal. “We are shocked that your administration has reportedly decided to withhold critical ammunition to Israel,” the senators wrote. “You promised your commitment to Israel was ironclad,” they added. “Pausing much-needed m...
(JNS) — Yale University police arrested 47 anti-Israel protesters for trespassing on Monday morning, as “Gaza solidarity encampments” continue to disrupt college campuses across the country. After the arrests in New Haven, hundreds of students continued to rally while university maintenance workers cleared Yale’s central Beinecke Plaza of tents, the Yale Daily News student newspaper reported. Anti-Israel students formed the first of the encampments at Columbia University on Wednesday ahead of congressional testimony by Columbia preside...
(JNS) — Christian and Jewish leaders gathered in Washington on Monday evening to call for Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria and to oppose proposals for the creation of a Palestinian state in the wake of Oct. 7. David Friedman, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and one of the leaders of the Keep God’s Land movement that organized the event, told JNS that the group proposes to extend Israeli sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria. “Some of the most important parts of biblical Israel—whether it’s the Old City of Jerusalem, the city of...
(JNS) — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a dozen pro-Israel and anti-Iran bills and resolutions this week, in the wake of the Islamic Republic’s missile attack against the Jewish state on Saturday. Lawmakers passed two bills on Monday that target Iran’s finances and a third that would deny tax-exempt status to U.S. charities that fund foreign terrorist organizations. The House passed nine bills and resolutions on Tuesday designed to support the Jewish state and combat Iran. Most of the bills passed overwhelmingly, facing oppos...
