Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Please note: The referenced book, compiled by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser just came to print in June. It is a compilation of Jewish thinkers and academics whose credibility warrants thoughtful consideration. It is my hope that the result will stimulate every contemporary Jew to become a proactive contributor in protecting our Jewish future. In the recent publication of “BETRAYAL, The Failure of American Jewish Leadership,” authors Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, assess the reasons for Jewish leadership’s ineffectiveness in comba...
On June 1, 1982, Israel undertook Operation Peace for Galilee, the second of its Lebanon invasions. Its goal was the elimination of Yasser Arafat and the PLO. Ultimately, public pressure and the Reagan administration’s US Special Envoy Philip Habib, enabled the PLO to survive and relocate to Tripoli. US press and TV news were fostering stories of Israel’s inhumane targeting of schools, hospitals, and indiscriminate bombing of civilian population. The press distortions were undermining US public support, as well as that of the American Jew...
By Howard Lefkowitz Last weekend, I had a heated discussion with my son-in-law, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, as to America’s right to demand change in Israel’s internal and external political directions. He asserted that Israel’s regional activities, as well as internal political structure, could become detrimental to the U.S.’s best interest. He argued that the US provides $4B a year in foreign aid to Israel. Therefore, the U.S. is entitled to demand certain actions that it deems appropriate. My son-in-law has a point r...
erally pulled my car to the curb, listening to determine the city in which it occurred, and sat until I could gain my composure. A lone gunman attack on a synagogue at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning. A baby naming in progress? Children in school? Worshipers in the sanctuary? Total disbelief. This is America, not Argentina; not France; not Turkey or Africa. We don’t live within the vestiges of this level of brutality. A heinous act encompassing the most blatant anti-Semitism in the purest of senseless evil. An evil that is not comprehendible b...
Dear Ira, You’re right: “I’m sure to hear from Americans who don’t like what I write about the US. They can insist that they are not living in a bubble, but admit that there is no reason to go to places that are unattractive, i.e., outside their bubble.” And your perception of this being a “la la land” by virtue of having a large underclass relative to other societies, will only hold water when its backed by statistics that weigh the size of the country (330MM) in its relationship to other countries. Frankly, I’m rather surprised that...
In January 2006, Pearl Lefkowitz organized a "mission" trip to Cuba. The following is her husband, Howard's, journal of this trip. He sent Heritage these impressions in light of the recent renewal of relations with the country. Interestingly, we were advised that 400 families (young people?) have made aliyah in the past year. That's a significant chunk of a community of 1500 Jews. I also wonder how many used this as an opportunity to immigrate to other places, particularly the U.S. We were furth...
Providing a proper response is like being caught in the horns of a dilemma. The real issue is a combination of first, how to avoid war; second, how to inhibit Iran from nuclearizing weaponry; and, third, how to impact Iran to become less of a terrorist outreach state. I assess the pragmatic goals in the following order: First priority is to keep Iran from a nuclear weapon. Unfortunately, there’s no practical way, short of all-out war, to keep Iran from having nuclear capabilities. Had the U.S. taken them on seriously five or eight years ago, w...
