Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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This week, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters around the world have declared a “Day of Rage” on April 22. Again. Their “Days of Rage” along with “Nakba Day” are pretexts to rally support for Palestinian Arabs, my heart sinks — not out of fear, but out of a profound sadness for the moral bankruptcy it reveals. This phrase, dripping with venom and incitement, is not a call for justice, peace, or progress. It is an orgy of anger, a glorification of destruction, and a stark reminder of timeless failure of Palestinian Arab leadership to...
President Trump’s recent statements about Gaza have raised many questions: What will be in Gaza? Who will be in control? Who will rebuild? Where will Gazans live? Who will be responsible for ensuring that neither the physical terrorist infrastructure that Hamas built, nor the genocidal Islamic ideology that it represents, will ever threaten Israel, or the well-being of Gaza’s Palestinian Arabs? Trump’s discussion of evacuating Gazans and U.S. controlling Gaza have received wide celebration and criticism. Whether these were meant as a negot...
Three more Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza for 491 days were released last week. The three men returned home emaciated, gaunt, and with signs of suffering from severe malnourishment including complex cardiac issues and infections. Seeing them paraded by Hamas in a dehumanizing public spectacle before thousands of armed terrorists and jeering “innocent civilians,” it was impossible to avoid the analogy that they looked like people who had survived Nazi concentration camps 80 years ago. In addition to deliberate starvation, there are mul...
In the past days, I have received a flurry of inquiries asking my thoughts regarding President Trump’s recent statements on Gaza, Israel, and Iran, each asking for my insight: friends, donors to Genesis 123, and journalists. So, what do I think of Trump’s statements and actions on the Middle East? My thoughts reflect that of many Israelis, ranging the gamut from foolish, dangerous, and impossible, to brilliant, bold, and about time. In the Middle East, nuance is like salt, needed to make most things taste a little better. Another dif...
Israel is celebrating the release and homecoming of three hostages this past week. At the same time Israel is grieving for the hostages and families that are not on the list of the 33 to be released in this stage of the current deal with Hamas. That’s assuming that Hamas does not violate the deal. It’s expected that at least one third of the hostages to be released in this current six-week phase are already dead. At least their families will have closure. But at such a price. To secure the release of the first three, Israel had to release 90...
As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches on Jan. 27, marking 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and the beginning of the end of the Holocaust and WWII, there are stories of inspiration that call to us to be remembered, beyond the horrible facts that most know: six million Jews murdered in the event that defined the word genocide. At Auschwitz alone, 1.1 million people were killed, including 1 million Jews. Throughout Nazi occupied Europe, entire Jewish communities were simply erased. Where there were survivors, like in the...
It’s been 458 days since the Oct. 7, 2023, inhuman massacre of 1200 people in Israel by Hamas terrorists, and kidnapping of 251 people, 100 of whom are still being held in captivity in Gaza. 458 days of unimaginable terror, pain, abuse, loss, grief, and suffering, especially for those most directly impacted. But all of Israel has been experiencing trauma since, something that I describe as Present Traumatic Stress Disorder. For most of us, Post Trauma is still far off. Today a step toward that may have been taken. A list of 34 hostages to be r...
Ok, Jimmy Carter died. Many will fill volumes writing now that he was a good guy, honest, smart, did some good things as president and in his post presidency. Despite many of these things being true, to me Carter was an unrepentant antisemite who made excuses for Arab aggression and terror against Israel. For that alone and using the pulpit of his presidency in exile to spread these messages, I say good riddance. As a failed one-term president despite some achievements including helping to broker the Camp David peace agreement with Israel and...
“The Emperor’s New Clothes,” by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, was published in 1837. It has been adapted in many forms. Today, “the emperor has no clothes,” is a metaphor for people living or perpetrating a lie or are too stupid to admit that. In the original story, an emperor with an obsession for fancy clothes hires conmen posing as weavers to make him magnificent clothes that are so unique, they are invisible to those who are incompetent or stupid. One day, the “weavers” report that the emperor’s new clothes are finished. They...
Yeah, I’m celebrating. For the past two weeks, Israel (including the Mossad, IDF, and military intelligence) have shown unparalleled prowess and success in the global war on terror. First, thousands of Hezbollah beepers exploded on command. Then their walkie talkies. This is recognized as the most precise anti-terrorist operation ever. Before and after, Israel took credit for the targeted assassination of nearly all the top Hezbollah leaders. Israel targeted and destroyed countless Hezbollah missiles and launchers, along with other weapons a...
As the United Nations General Assembly convenes in New York this week, all eyes will be on Lebanon, and all daggers will be drawn to blame Israel. But in looking to ascribe blame, paraphrasing Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, they should look no further than their own backyard. To that end, I launched a plan to send mirrors to each of the UN member states (and observers) to mount behind the microphone and their country’s name, so when they sit in the General Assembly and blame Israel, they can see where the real blame lies. Let’s be clear, eve...
The question was wrong, but the answer was wronger. Upon returning to the White House from his vacation, a reporter asked President Biden, “Mr. President, do you think it’s time for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do more on this issue? Do you think he is doing enough (to free the hostages)?” Biden responded, “No.” The timing of the question, and Biden’s response, were significant. This was the day after the funeral of American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem. Hersh was one of more than 250 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists...
Recently, my social media has been overwhelmed with videos filmed by people on safari in Africa, capturing the moment when carnivorous animals attack, kill, and devour their prey. It’s fascinating to watch the instincts of the animals, as if they have taken a course in survival but, in fact, are intuitive. Projecting what it seems to me, sometimes the suffering of the animal being attacked and torn into pieces looks particularly cruel. While I have thought about human parallels this week, that cruelty seems so particularly relevant. This w...
While it’s not always appropriate to criticize a politician for something they don’t say, during the past several months, given the vile antisemitic protests that have taken place across the U.S. under the veil of “anti-Zionism,” one might have assumed that as a self-declared Zionist, President Biden would have shut down threats against Jews by affirming that he is also a Zionist. “When you vilify Zionists, you vilify me,” he could have said. A modern JFK “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) moment. One can consider that an oversight, a la...
Sunday, July 7, is not just another day. It is 275 days since the inhuman Hamas invasion and massacre in Israel, slaughtering 1200 and taking more than 250 hostages to Gaza. 120 are still in captivity in Gaza’s network of terror tunnels. Some may still be being held captive in the private homes of Hamas terrorist operatives, as were the four rescued in a bold IDF operation on June 8. Through forensic and other evidence, Israel has declared that a few dozen of the 120 hostages are already dead. But the actual number of hostages still alive is u...
There I stood, in Jerusalem’s Beit Ha’am theater, delivering remarks to hundreds of people gathered from some two dozen countries at the opening session of “March of the Nations.” I stood 10 meters from where Adolph Eichmann stood trial in 1961, behind bullet proof glass, and where he was sentenced. 62 years ago this week, Eichmann was executed for actual genocide and crimes against humanity, unlike the conflated obscene charges brought against Israel today. The “March of the Nations” was a redemptive respite we all needed. In the middle of a...
If you’re keeping score, to date 138 states have recognized the ‘State of Palestine,” most recently Ireland, Norway, and Spain. This begs the question, what are they recognizing? They have recognized a state that never existed, with a name never used before 1964, but whose national identity is that Israel “occupied” them in 1948. The first time the term Palestine was used was in the Second Century, over 100 years after Jesus was crucified, to subjugate and embarrass its indigenous people, the Jewish people, after a Jewish revolt to expel Rom...
Jerusalem, Israel - "Unprecedented." "Monumental." "Timely." "Powerful." These are just some of the words describing the upcoming Global Prayer for Israel, bringing thousands of Jews and Christians together from all over the world to pray for Israel. With Israel at war, and Christians standing with Israel and the Jewish people at levels that are unprecedented in history, Christians are experiencing the hate and persecution toward Israel and the Jewish people that's more than vicarious, but...
It's rare, if ever, that one sits at home watching news of an impending attack that's already been launched at your country. But that's exactly what I did last night. First the IDF issued instructions to keep Israelis safe, including closing all schools, banning gatherings of more than 1000 people, and what to do in case of an air raid siren. An hour or so later it was announced that Iran had already launched dozens (up to 150-200) armed drones at Israel that would take as long as 9 hours to...
Coming home to Israel after a trip overseas to anywhere, for any length of time, is always emotional. Choking back tears, in a matter of minutes I see the coast, cities with countless construction sites indicating growth and building for the future, low-lying houses and buildings surrounded by fertile cultivated fields. I anticipate seeing my family and sleeping in my own bed. Touchdown is often greeted with applause. I’ve never landed at any other airport where so many people applaud and get emotional. I’m home. Emotions continue minutes later...
Speaking at a press conference in Israel in the midst of another whirlwind Middle Eastern trip to seek a resolution to free the 136 hostages held in captivity by Hamas, Israel’s war on Hamas, and presumably reducing the immediate threat from Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iran in general, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a series of remarks that were foolish, and not conducive to a resolution of any of these. It’s shocking and embarrassing that the U.S. Secretary of State would do so, not just because it shows his foolishness on full dis...
There are many areas of agreement between Jews and Christians. For example, both emphasize the foundational importance of loving God and loving one’s neighbor, as well as the importance of living by the ethical ideals of the Torah and the Prophets. Both emphasize a final Day of Judgment where we give account for our lives before God. There are many more. Since Oct. 7, there have been obscene and outrageous lies and slander, along with tangible and genocidal threats against Israel and the Jewish people all over the world. One would be f...
Yes, that’s right. I agree with AOC. No, these were not words I ever expected I’d put together in the same sentence much less in that order. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is hateful, reckless, dangerous, factually challenged, and a member of the extremist wing of the Democratic Party. Other than the sun rising in the day and setting at night, and the existence of gravity (I assume she agrees), there’s nothing I can think of that I ever would have agreed on with her. This highlights the saying that even a broken clock is right once...
There are reports circulating Israel of high-level talks involving negotiations to release more of the hostages brutally kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and held captive in Gaza since. Reports of the hostages’ conditions from the 100+ who have been released are horrifying. They have suffered physical and psychological torture, starvation, held in underground cages in complete darkness, and suffered violent sexual assaults including gang raping women. Speculation is that many are dead, as some of the hostages’ bodies have been fou...
I always find it incredible that with the Jewish custom of an annual cycle of reading the entire Torah (Genesis through Deuteronomy) in the course of a year brings us back to the same verses, stories, and narratives that we read a year earlier, but in a different place in our lives that we relate to it differently each year. It underscores that the Torah, God’s word, is relevant to each and every one of us, no matter where we are in our lives, how old we are, or our circumstances. I see that often in my life, but never more than this w...
