Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Israel is embarking on the largest expansion of Judean and Samarian settlements in decades, its finance minister announced Thursday, a step meant to reinforce Israeli control of the territory. Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right minister who holds authority over civilian affairs in Israel’s settlements, announced the establishment of 22 settlements in Judea and Samaria. Some are existing outposts that the Israeli government considered illegal but will now authorize. Others will be new towns. Smotrich called the announcement a “once-in-a-gener...
After a gunman murdered two people outside a Jewish museum, a wide range of major Jewish groups has asked the federal government to sharply increase its funding for religious institutions’ security to $1 billion. The request is one of several made by the coalition in the wake of the attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday, when a shooter killed two employees of the Israeli embassy. In the wake of the shooting, Jewish security analysts are assessing what went wrong, and how such attacks can be prevented in the future. One piece o...
(JTA) — Cardinal Robert Prevost, who was just elected as Pope Leo XIV, studied under a pioneer in Jewish-Catholic relations when he attended seminary in Chicago. The Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, who taught for nearly half a century at the Catholic Theological Union until his retirement in 2017, served as co-founder and director of the school’s Catholic-Jewish Studies Program and also served four terms on the board of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. More than 40 years after Leo’s ordination as a priest, Pawlikowski remembers the new pope as a...
(JTA) — Only 38 percent of American Jews believe in an afterlife, far fewer than in Israel, according to a new study of spiritual practices around the world. That share was lower than the 83 percent of U.S. Christians who believe in life after death, as well as the 58 percent of Israeli Jews who say there is an afterlife. The finding dovetailed with other results in the survey published May 6 by the Pew Research Center, which found that Jews were among the least likely in the United States to say animals or objects can have spirits, or that fea...
(JTA) — Israel’s government approved a plan on Sunday to conquer and occupy the Gaza Strip, a major expansion of its military campaign there and a sign that the war is far from ending. The plan passed unanimously in Israel’s cabinet despite warnings by the country’s military chief that it will endanger the lives of the hostages still held by Hamas. It will also trigger an extensive call-up of military reservists, many of whom have already served for extended periods during the war. The plan was approved alongside a new structure for deliver...
Hamas has released Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli citizen, back to Israel under a deal reached with the United States. The release, conducted Monday evening in Gaza, may inaugurate a new phase in the hostage crisis that has consumed Israel since Hamas attacked on Oct. 7, 2023, taking 250 captives and opening the war in Gaza. “I’m very happy to announce that Edan Alexander, an American citizen who until recently most thought was no longer living, thought was dead, is going to be rel...
(JTA) - Florida's Todd Golden became the first Jewish coach in 37 years to win March Madness, the NCAA men's basketball tournament, since 1988. The Gators edged Houston 65-63 in the final on Monday night. Golden's championship capped an especially Jewish- and Israeli-inflected Final Four. Along with Florida, Duke and Auburn were coached, respectively, by Jon Scheyer and Bruce Pearl, both of whom are Jewish. Houston player Emanuel Sharp is the son of longtime Maccabi Tel Aviv player Derrick...
(JTA) - The Passover Haggadah is one of the few sacred Jewish texts that has a long history of including illustrations, and among the most remarkable are detailed images of rabbit hunts that often appear in the opening pages, even before the text of the Seder really begins. The images, which are varied in style and can be found in editions dating back to medieval and early modern Germany, often present hunters and dogs chasing rabbits, the latter of which are generally depicted escaping over a f...
(JTA) — Days after Yeshiva University announced that it would recognize a club supporting LGBTQ students, its president said the values espoused by a typical “Pride” club are “antithetical” to the school. Rabbi Ari Berman also claimed that the Modern Orthodox school’s decision to allow an LGBTQ club, after years of fighting in court not to recognize one, did not represent a reversal. He apologized for how the school had initially communicated the announcement. “I deeply apologize to the members of our community — our students and parents, al...
(JTA) - As the most exciting time in college basketball begins, Jewish coaches are in the spotlight. For much of the season, four coaches - Auburn's Bruce Pearl, Duke's Jon Scheyer, Florida's Todd Golden and USC's Lindsay Gottlieb - have been at or near the top of the game. And on Sunday, all of them were rewarded with No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Division I men's and women's college basketball tournaments. Each tournament has four regions, with sixteen teams each. And in this year's men's...
(JTA) - Bruce Pearl, whose Auburn men's basketball team advanced to the Sweet Sixteen this weekend, opened his postgame press conference by calling to "bring the hostages home." Auburn is one of three No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament with a Jewish coach. All three made the tournament's round of 16, as has the biggest Jewish star on the court, Danny Wolf. Pearl is known for his outspoken support for Israel, which he put on display Saturday after the Tigers beat...
(JTA) — Immigration authorities have arrested a second Palestinian involved in protests at Columbia University, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Friday. A third person who was involved in pro-Palestinian protests at the school, a current graduate student, “self-deported” earlier this week after having her visa revoked, according to the department. The announcement comes as Columbia reels from both the arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian protest leader with a green card, and the loss of $400 million in federal funding as re...
(JTA) — Yeshiva University has approved a new club for LGBTQ students, reversing a policy that it has spent years defending in court. The school’s announcement on Thursday marks a significant shift for the Modern Orthodox flagship in Manhattan. For years, and particularly during a stretch of fall 2022, the school fought to avoid recognizing the Pride Alliance, a support group for LGBTQ students that launched unofficially in 2009 but had not received formal recognition as a student club. The dispute revolved around Orthodoxy’s prohibition again...
(JTA) — The case of Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian protester arrested by ICE officers at Columbia University over the weekend, has divided Jewish groups: Right-wing pro-Israel voices are praising the arrest as a blow to a terrorist sympathizer, while a range of liberal and progressive Jewish groups are slamming it as authoritarian and unconstitutional. On Monday, one more Jewish voice said Khalil should not be deported, at least for the time being: Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York. Furman, on the bench at a federal d...
(JTA) - Hamas has returned bodies of four Israeli hostages who were killed in captivity in Gaza - the final group of hostages to be released under the terms of the first phase of a ceasefire that began last month. The four hostages, all men 50 or older, were abducted in Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. Unlike previous hostage releases under the current ceasefire, their bodies were handed to Israel quietly, without a public ceremony early on the morning of Feb. 27. That stipulation came after Hamas...
(JTA) - "No Other Land," which chronicles Israel's demolitions in Judea of Masafer Yatta, won the Academy Award for best documentary feature. Taking the stage at the Oscars on Sunday night, two of the film's four co-directors - an Israeli and a Palestinian - used their acceptance speeches to call for Palestinian rights and a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "About two months ago I became a father, and my hope to my daughter: that she will not have to live the same life I...
(JTA) — The Palestinian Authority will no longer pay stipends to the families of convicted terrorists and other prisoners, in a gesture to President Donald Trump. The longstanding program determined the size of the stipend based on the length of a prisoner’s sentence, meaning that those who were convicted of the worst offenses often received the largest stipends. While Palestinians often view the thousands of prisoners with admiration as the front line of resistance against Israel, the payment program had been maligned for years by Israeli and...
President Donald Trump said he is “not confident” that the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war will last, adding that the United States could help rebuild Gaza. Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, made the comments following his inauguration Monday. A reporter asked whether he was confident he could “keep the ceasefire in Gaza and conclude the three phases of the deal.” “I’m not confident,” Trump responded. “That’s not our war, it’s their war. I’m not confident.” Then, presumably referring to Hamas, he added, “But I think they’re very weaken...
One of the flight attendants killed in the recent plane crash in Washington, D.C., was an alumnus of a Jewish youth group with a passion for travel and a talent for comedy. Ian Epstein, one of the four flight attendants on American Eagle Flight 5342, was an alumnus of the pluralist Jewish youth group BBYO, the group posted to Facebook on Thursday. He is one of 67 victims of the crash Wednesday night over the Potomac River, in which an army helicopter collided with a passenger plane. "Our hearts...
(JTA) - Hamas released four hostages on Saturday in a choreographed ceremony in Gaza, making them the second group of captives to go free in the ceasefire. The four hostages released on Saturday are Daniela Gilboa, Liri Albag, Naama Levy and Karina Ariev. All are Israeli soldiers. Before being allowed to return to Israel after nearly 16 months in captivity, they were paraded across a stage in Gaza wearing green fatigues, against a banner with English, Arabic and Hebrew slogans such as "Zionism...
President Donald Trump said he is “not confident” that the ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war will last, adding that the United States could help rebuild Gaza. Trump, sitting in the Oval Office, made the comments following his inauguration Monday. A reporter asked whether he was confident he could “keep the ceasefire in Gaza and conclude the three phases of the deal.” “I’m not confident,” Trump responded. “That’s not our war, it’s their war. I’m not confident.” Then, presumably referring to Hamas, he added, “But I think they’re very weaken...
(JTA) — Two Israelis were among those injured in Jan. 1’s truck ramming attack in New Orleans, which authorities are investigating as the work of a terror cell tied to the Islamic State. The attack, perpetrated in the first hours of the new year, killed 15 people at a crowded celebration in the city’s French Quarter, and wounded dozens. The attacker, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, was killed in a firefight with police. Jabbar, 42, had an ISIS flag in the car with him, and authorities are investigatin...
(JTA) — Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has fled the country and his government has fallen to rebels, a swift and stunning collapse after more than a decade of civil war. The country is now enveloped in joy and turmoil as hundreds of thousands of refugees stream home, political prisoners go free and Syrians — along with the rest of the world — wonder what’s next. Also wrapped up in uncertainty: Syria’s neighbor and longtime adversary, Israel. Assad’s fall came after several of his regional partners have been weakened in Israel’s multi-front w...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — As midnight arrived on the East Coast, it appeared increasingly likely that Donald Trump would retake the presidency — a victory that would reshape the United States and that could change its relationship with Israel while ushering in an administration whose domestic priorities do not match those of most American Jews. That victory was confirmed early Wednesday morning when news agencies called Wisconsin for Trump, confirming that he had passed the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win. The tally made clear that Trump...
(JTA) — President Joe Biden said he wants Israel’s strike on Iran to be “the end” of direct fighting between the two countries, as Iran said it had the right to respond to the attack but did not vow to do so. Israel said that it had concluded its strikes against Iran and warned Iran against beginning what it called a “new round.” The Israeli attack on Saturday came in response to Iran firing more than 180 missiles at Israel on Oct. 1 and was supported by the Biden administration. But American officials had pressed Israel to avoid bombing nuc...
