Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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This is a developing story. (JTA)—Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Jewish National Security Council staffer whose firsthand account of the July phone call between President Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine is at the center of the impeachment inquiry, testified in the impeachment hearings on Tuesday. Here are the biggest takeaways from his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee. Vindman was thrice offered the position of Ukrainian defense minister. He rejected the offers. This minor bombshell has not yet been reported. Steve C... Full story
This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA)—An Orthodox man was stabbed multiple times on his walk to synagogue for morning prayers. The man was approaching the synagogue Toshnad Heichel Torah Utfila in Spring Valley, New York, when a man got out of a car, began beating him and stabbed him. The assailant fled the scene before police and first responders arrived, according to Aaron Hershkowitz, an assistant to the synagogue’s rabbi. The incident occurred at approximately 5:45 a.m. “Upon arrival it was quickly determined that the individual had b... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-One of the most active times of day at the West Side Jewish Center begins precisely at 1:40 p.m., when 60 or so middle-aged men trudge in, mutter through the afternoon prayer service with their coats on, maybe throw a couple dollars of charity into a metal cup and walk back to their jobs. The whole thing is over in about 15 minutes. Other than that and two shifts of morning prayers, the building is mostly empty during the day. On a recent weekday afternoon, two men studied Jewish... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-Days after a series of attacks against Jews across Brooklyn, the Anti-Defamation League announced that it would double funding for a school program combating hate. But city officials say more than education is needed to stop the rash of attacks, which have spiked across this city in 2019. That's because the problem is hard to diagnose. Is it the local effect of a national rise in anti-Semitism? The resurfacing of old resentments? Are Jews being scapegoated for the impact of... Full story
(JTA)—A Palestinian student at Benedictine University called on a Holocaust survivor to condemn the establishment of Israel, and then walked out on his speech after he did not do so. Following a speech last week by Professor Harold Kasimow, who survived the Holocaust as a child, Benedictine senior Ayah Ali asked a question which drew a parallel between Kasimow’s experiences and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. Ali, according to her Twitter feed, is affiliated with the Chicago-area school’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palesti... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire media mogul, appears to be preparing to run for president. Bloomberg, 77, flirted with presidential runs in past election cycles before declining to run. As recently as March, he ruled out a presidential campaign this year, writing that he was "clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination in such a crowded field." But now he is registering to run in the Democratic primary in Alabama, whose... Full story
(JTA)—As of Wednesday morning, Israel’s embassies and consulates across the globe are on strike. “No consular services will be provided and no one will be allowed to enter,” one ambassador posted on Twitter. Those services include passport renewal and assistance to Israelis living abroad. Why has Israel’s entire foreign service shut down? In a word: taxes. Israeli diplomats get lump-sum expense stipends meant to cover a range of personal and official expenses. The Finance Ministry now says it wants the diplomats to submit individual receipts... Full story
(JTA)—Jared Kushner, the point man on the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan, appeared to endorse a unity government between Israel’s two largest parties. In a rare interview Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law also shot back at Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for saying Kushner was ill equipped to be negotiating Mideast peace. Regarding the unity government, Kushner was asked if he had called on the party leaders—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Gen. Benny Gantz—to find a way... Full story
SARASOTA, Florida (JTA)-Most American Jewish day schools go all in on Chanukah, in part to remind their students that Jews have a winter holiday of their own. But when December rolls around at the Hershorin Schiff Community Day School in southwestern Florida, you're almost as likely to see kids drawing Christmas trees as menorahs or dreidels. That's because the school asks its students to design their own holiday plates-and almost half the students at this Jewish day school are not Jewish.... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—In the past seven years, the American Jewish population has grown 10 percent. It remains a population that is mostly liberal, college educated and overwhelmingly white. And it’s not getting any younger. This is all according to a new American Jewish population estimate of the 48 contiguous U.S. states put out by Brandeis University’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute. The center published similar studies in 2012 and 2015. “The cynicism about American Judaism, and this belief that we are a shrinking population, we are a vanis... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed to 250 reported through the same period in 2018, according to Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari, who heads the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force. Molinari said 52 percent of the reported hate crimes, or 163, have targeted Jews. Over the same period last year, the NYPD rep... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Sitting at the front of a large room lined floor to ceiling with Jewish holy books, Rabbi Joseph Beyda’s voice broke as he processed, seemingly in real time, the idea that a trusted teacher had preyed on his students. “I think the overarching feeling of the administrators and the faculty and the board of the school is, we know you trust us, we take that trust very deeply, we dedicate our lives to it, we failed on this,” said Beyda, the principal of the Yeshivah of Flatbush’s Joel Braverman High School. “You could say it’s not our... Full story
(JTA)-Like other local officials, Deborah Lauter can't say exactly what's causing the recent spike in hate crimes against Jews in New York City. It could be, in her words, "the rhetoric that's coming out of various elected officials." It could be animus among the city's diverse communities. It could be that the attacks are getting more press and therefore inspiring copycats. It could just be a hot summer when people need to blow off steam. "It's difficult to make generalizations," Lauter said.... Full story
(JTA)—As of this writing, Israel has not bombed Iran’s nuclear program. But according to an exposé in The New York Times that dropped Wednesday, it could still happen. And nearly did. The 10,000-word story details how close Israel came to attacking Iran, how Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush tried to deter the Israelis and what actually stopped the would-be bombing raid. It also tells the story of how President Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement and what that means for the future of the Iran-Israel-U.S. hate... Full story
(JTA)-One of the most befuddling questions surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein saga is why Leslie Wexner, a billionaire entrepreneur, entrusted all of his money to Epstein, a secretive financier with no college degree. For those immersed in the Jewish world, there's an added question: How did Wexner-a prominent philanthropist seen as a champion of Jewish learning and ethical teaching, whose foundation has trained waves of rabbis, Jewish professionals and volunteer board leaders-end up so enmeshed... Full story
(JTA)—President Donald Trump said “hate has no place in America” in an address to the nation following the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Trump pledged additional resources to the FBI to investigate domestic terrorism. He called for strengthening detection of early warning signs of shooters and for better background checks on gun owners. The president also condemned video games and social media for encouraging violent tendencies. He said “those who commit hate crimes and mass murders should face the death p... Full story
(JTA)-Out of all of the unrealistic scenes in "The Red Sea Diving Resort," the most absurd one might be when Ben Kingsley, playing a supposedly gritty Mossad agent, shows up in the desert wearing a suit and a jaunty ascot around his neck. "The Red Sea Diving Resort"-about how a crew of Israeli spies smuggled thousands of Ethiopian Jewish refugees out of Sudan while running a beachfront hotel-could have been a good movie. But at a time when Israeli commando thrillers are the new fad ("7 Days in E... Full story
(JTA)—Before he killed at least 22 people at a Walmart on the southern border, the gunman in El Paso posted a white supremacist manifesto on the fringe social network 8chan denouncing a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The U.S. Justice Department announced that it would treat the shooting as a “domestic terrorist case.” “It appears to be designed to intimidate a civilian population,” U.S. Attorney John Bash said at a news conference Sunday, referring to the shooter’s motives. “And we’re going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which i... Full story
(JTA)-In July 1939, eight months after Kristallnacht and seven weeks before Hitler would invade Poland, Congress killed a bill that would have allowed 20,000 Jewish refugee children into the United States. Opponents of the bill, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, said America should help its own poor people before foreigners, and worried that letting in children could later lead to admitting their parents. "I have nothing against the Jews," said a woman quoted by JTA at the time as Mrs.... Full story
(JTA)—U.S. Jews know more about religion in general than their non-Jewish neighbors, a new survey shows. Americans who are not Jewish, meanwhile, don’t know a lot about Judaism. But they like Jews more than any other religious group. And they think there are more Jews in the country than there actually are. The more non-Jews know about Jews, the more they like them. The data comes out of a new survey on what Americans know about religion published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. The survey asked a group of diverse Americans a set of 32 que... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-If you're going to physically block an entrance to an ICE detention center, the handbook says, don't act nice about it. Do chant in Yiddish. Do sing Hebrew prayers. "Defiant, angry, urgent, Jewish," reads the #NeverAgainIsNow Action Toolkit, a six-page Google Doc meant for Jews planning to protest at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. "The goal is to actually make it impossible for ICE and/or the Democratic Establishment to do business as usual. Find the... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-Bernie Sanders wants you to know that he's not grumpy all of the time. "There are some times I'm not grumpy. Now is not one of those times," he says, a wry smile crossing his face. This might be the most Jewish moment of Sanders' latest interview with NowThis-a progressive social media video site with a following-even though he was asked about what it would mean to be the first Jewish president. The ten-minute interview, titled "Twenty Questions for 2020," was designed to help... Full story
(JTA)-When the ushers locked the door to the sanctuary, and the congregants prepared to flee the synagogue in preparation for a mass shooting, Rabbi Neil Cooper made sure it all happened before they had to take the Torahs out of the ark. Ten minutes later the worshippers were back in the pews, doors unlocked, and getting ready to hear the weekly Torah portion. The first active shooter drill at this suburban Philadelphia synagogue was over. "It was not a high-energy, kind of catching people... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—New York City is shuttering an Orthodox school in Brooklyn because it has continued to admit unvaccinated students in violation of a city order. The Central UTA Satmar School for Boys, a hasidic school in the Williamsburg neighborhood, is being closed Tuesday afternoon for violating city orders regarding vaccines and vaccination records, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned. It is the tenth Orthodox school in New York City to be closed this year due to the issue, according to a city official with knowledge of the matter. W... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—The weirdest part of an Orthodox anti-vaccine conference here was probably when the emcee, a rabbi wearing a black hat and white beard, quoted the Gospel of Luke. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” he cried, reciting the Gospels nearly verbatim. Rabbi Hillel Handler wasn’t referring to the 200 people gathered in the basement of a haredi Orthodox wedding hall in Brooklyn to hear about the alleged dangers of vaccines. Rather, he was talking about the doctors, rabbis and politicians who he says are all hoodwin... Full story
