Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The Israeli currency surged to one of its strongest levels in decades, trading at 3.09 shekels per dollar at noon on Thursday. A similar exchange rate was last recorded in November 2021 and in 1996. The Bank of Israel’s representatives exchange rates set on Wednesday afternoon included 3.0910 per U.S. dollar, 4.2609 per British pound, 2.2798 per Canadian dollar, 2.1657 per Australian dollar and 3.7039 per euro. The shekel’s strengthening is not a momentary outlier, as it has been rising against the nominal effective exchange rate...
(JNS) — Lebanon’s prime minister vowed on Tuesday to keep his country out of war after Hezbollah’s leader last week warned that a strike on Iran would be an attack on its Lebanese terror proxy. “We will never allow anyone to drag the country into another adventure,” AFP quoted Nawaf Salam as saying during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, in response to a question about comments made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem. Hassan Nasrallah’s replacement said on Jan. 26 that his Lebanese Shi’ite terror army and its main backer in Teh...
(JNS) — Israel’s Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli lashed out on Sunday at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling him a “dictator,” “Hamas sympathizer” and “promoter of Sharia-based authoritarianism.” Chikli referenced a short video clip posted on social media in which Erdoğan apparently spoke recently in Turkish about the need of the region’s peoples to unite on the “common ground of Islamic brotherhood.” It is unclear whether the Turkish leader was referring to the Muslim Brotherhood group, whos...
(JNS) — In recent years, the number of Jews in New York applying for German citizenship has nearly doubled, according to a Deutsche Welle report. That includes Ruth Gruenthal, who fled Nazi persecution in her teens and rebuilt her life in the United States. The 103-year-old told the German publication that U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection “evoked feelings that I thought I would never in my lifetime have to deal with again.” The German consulate in New York City has recorded 666 restorations of naturalizations of Jews, whose citizen...
(JNS) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday received the diplomatic credentials of the new ambassadors of Fiji and Thailand to Israel in formal ceremonies at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. Welcoming Fiji's envoy, Jesoni Vitusagavulu, Herzog said, "I am honored to welcome the first-ever ambassador of Fiji to Israel in Jerusalem." Herzog congratulated the Pacific island nation on its decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem, calling it a historic milestone in bilateral relations....
(JNS) — In an E.U. survey published on Tuesday, 69% of some 25,000 respondents said that events in Israel shape how Jews are perceived in their country. The poll, published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, showed an increase in the perception that Israel influences how Jews are thought of: In a similar poll from 2018, 54 percent indicated there was a link to the Jewish state. The European Commission’s Eurobarometer survey on the perception of antisemitism also reported that 55 percent of respondents consider antisemitism to be a pro...
(JNS) - A Jewish morning prayer took place on Thursday at Joseph's Tomb in Samaria, for the first time in 25 years. The shrine, which is venerated by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims, has a decades-long history of violence. Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, entry to the complex on the southeastern outskirts of Nablus was permitted only at nighttime, under heavy security. Hundreds of worshippers, including Religious Zionism lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and Samaria Regional Council head Yo...
(JNS) — A large stone storage vessel used by Jews in the Galilee during the Roman period nearly 1,800 years ago is on display as part of an exhibition marking the Knesset building’s 60th anniversary. The vessel, standing about 80-centimeters (31.5-inches) high and 50-centimeters (19.5-inches) in diameter, was recently unearthed at the Pundaka de Lavi (“Lavi Inn”) site, located in the Lavi Forest near the Golani Junction in the Lower Galilee, by the Israel Antiquities Authority and KKL-JNF. Stone vessels were important in ancient Jewish society...
(JNS) — Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk told Al Jazeera that the terrorist organization never agreed to disarmament as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal for the Gaza Strip. “Not for a single moment did we talk about surrender the weapons, or any formula about destroying, surrendering or disarmament,” Abu Marzouk claimed in an interview with the Qatari state broadcaster. According to him, Hamas gunmen have already moved to “restore order” across parts of the Strip from which the Israeli military has withdrawn. The Unite...
(JNS) - "The pride is so much stronger than the sadness," Talik Gvili said on Monday, speaking with reporters outside the family home in Meitar, southern Israel, hours after her son's body was retrieved from Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces announced on Monday that the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, who was killed and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, was found in Gaza. With the return of Gvili, a 24-year-old Police Special Patrol Unit (Yasam) office...
(JNS) - Israel has agreed to reopen Gaza's Rafah Crossing with Egypt for the passage of people after the IDF concludes "Operation Brave Heart," which seeks to return the remains of Israel Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage held in the Strip. The Israel Defense Forces "is currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return the fallen hostage, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili of blessed memory," the Prime...
(JNS) — Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem warned that any military strike on Iran would also be considered an attack on his Lebanese Shiite terror army, and cautioned that a new war against Tehran would set the Middle East ablaze, AFP reported on Monday. According to the report, in a televised address to supporters at a solidarity rally for the Islamic Republic, Qassem said Hezbollah and its main backer were facing “aggression that does not distinguish between us. … [W]e are targeted by any potential aggression and determined to defend ourse...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces on Monday confirmed its soldiers recovered the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the last remaining hostage, from the Gaza Strip. "Following the completion of the identification process by the National Center of Forensic Medicine in collaboration with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, IDF representatives informed the family of the hostage Ran Gvili, of blessed memory, that their loved one has been identified and will be laid to rest," the IDF...
(JNS) — In a survey of 1,000 people in Ireland published on Wednesday, half of all adults surveyed and 54 percent of those aged 18-29 did not know that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. The survey, conducted between Oct. 15 and Nov. 6 last year for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, exposed widespread ignorance about the Holocaust, at a time when many Irish Jews believe expressions of antisemitism are rising in their country and elsewhere in Europe. Almost 10 percent of the younger groups of adults surveyed...
(JNS) — American businessman and investor Jared Kushner unveiled an ambitious economic development plan for a “new Gaza” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, as part of the launch of President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace. “We’ve developed ways to redevelop Gaza. Gaza, as President Trump has been saying, has amazing potential, and this is for the people of Gaza. We’ve developed it into zones,” said Trump’s son-in-law and adviser in his first administration. “In the beginning, we were toying with the idea of saying,...
(JNS) — Eight Muslim countries agreed on Wednesday to join the Board of Peace, which will “play an essential role” in realizing President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza conflict, according to a Jan. 16 White House statement. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates announced in a joint statement that they “welcome the invitation extended to their leaders by the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, to join the Board of Peace.” They s...
(JNS) — An Israeli-owned restaurant chain closed its final branch in Belgium and declared bankruptcy last week following a campaign of harassment and boycotts, local media reported. Owners Tom Sas and Lori Dardikman declined to provide details on the closure of the Bokertov chain’s final branch in Antwerp, the Made-Innews site reported. The couple did not respond to a request for comment from JNS before publication. However, the couple recently said their business, which marketed itself as an Israeli restaurant, had been financially imp...
(JNS) — A Czech cyclist on Sunday night completed a 620-mile journey in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be marked on Jan. 27. Identified as Lukáš Klement by Israel’s Government Press Office, the Czech national said that he began his route from the “Gate of Death” at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, where the Nazis in World War II exterminated about 1.1 million inmates, the majority of whom were Jews. Klement’s route spelled out “Never Again” when depicted on a map. With ice on his beard, Klement related...
(JNS) — Israel received its 11th university on Tuesday following the Higher Education Council’s decision to upgrade Tel Hai College near Kiryat Shmona in the Upper Galilee, and award it university status thanks to a $181 million grant to meet the relevant requirements. The unanimous decision by the Council for Higher Education in Israel—a supervisory board headed by Education Minister Yoav Kisch—means that beginning with the 5786–87 (2026-27) academic year, the University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee will have the title for a five-year...
(JNS) — Kibbutz Be’eri has decided to keep as is one of the homes burned in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on southern Israel as a testimony to the horrors of the worst single-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The move by the community, located five miles from the Gaza Strip, to move on and demolish the rest of the homes destroyed in the attack is opposed by some bereaved families, but is seen as an attempt to move on and rebuild. The house selected is on the edge of the community and belongs to a family that was abr...
(JNS) — Israeli authorities on Tuesday began demolishing UNRWA’s headquarters in Jerusalem, after a new law banning the organization’s operations in Israel took effect. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hailed the move as a “historic day, a holiday, a very important day for governance,” saying the government was finally expelling “terror supporters … with everything they built here” and vowing that “this is what will be done to every terror supporter.” Yisrael Beiteinu MK Yulia Malinovsky, who played a leading role in introducing the...
(JNS) — A landmark natural gas deal with Israel is a “strictly commercial” arrangement with no political dimensions, Egypt said on Thursday. The Egyptian government reaction, which came the day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the $34 billion, 15-year agreement—the biggest gas sale in Israel’s history—is seen as Cairo’s attempt to shield itself from Arab criticism over the mammoth agreement with the Jewish state. “The deal is a purely commercial transaction concluded exclusively on the basis of economic and investment...
(JNS) — David Cunio, one of the Israelis abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, gives a harrowing account of his nearly two years in Hamas captivity in Gaza, describing starvation, psychological torment, underground imprisonment and the struggle to survive for the sake of his family. In an interview aired on Channel 12, Cunio detailed his abduction alongside his wife, Sharon, their twin daughters Yuli and Emma, and other family members, as well as the brutal conditions he endured during 738 days in Hamas captivity. The ordeal began in t...
(JNS) — Canadian authorities detained Israeli comedian Guy Hochman for six hours at Toronto’s main airport after an anti-Israel organization filed war crimes charges against him in connection with his service in the Israel Defense Forces, Hochman said on Tuesday. “They tried to stop me from entering Canada, but after 6 hours of being detained, I got in. They tried to prevent me from performing in front of the Israeli community, I performed. And while they kept shouting ‘free Palestine’ to themselves in minus 10 degrees, we warmed up with laught...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that anti-regime protests in Iran could be approaching a critical moment, with the Iranian people poised to “take their fate into their own hands.” “We in Israel identify with the struggle of the Iranian people and their aspiration to liberty and justice,” Netanyahu said, speaking at a 40-signature debate, which the opposition can call once a month and which the prime minister is obliged to attend. “We may be at a critical moment,” he said. The premier stressed in his remarks t...
