Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!” (Psalm 137:5-6) There’s no place that’s more central to Jews...

Wait, what? Jews and Christians can pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Why is that news? At the conclusion of the 1967 Six Day War, Israel negotiated a cease fire with the Arab countries that had gone to war against it. A cease fire, not peace....

More than Facebook crashing, news in Israel this week has been about the vague announcement and gripping story of efforts to locate Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force officer who has been missing in action since October 1986. Ron Arad was a 28-year-old...

I followed reports of Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent exchange with a student at George Mason University with great interest, and dismay. In many ways, she reminded me of an incident with Hillary Clinton, not in a good way. Harris addressed stud...

By I woke up to the echoes of the Islamic prayers through the Judean mountains that were both beautiful and haunting. Living here among Palestinian Arab Moslems I hear the call to prayer daily, five times a day, but today was different. Today the...

Israel just inaugurated a new president. He is largely a ceremonial figure as the official “head of state.” He has a limited but very structured constitutional role. Nonetheless, amazingly, he is a Palestinian. Isaac “Bougie” Herzog is Israel...

Unlike many Israelis, I am not spiking the ball or dancing in the end zone today. (Forgive the exclusive American cultural reference for those who don’t follow U.S. football.) Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi, is not public enemy No.1. But his time t...

My social media has been full of proud parents posting pictures of their high school, college, and graduate school graduates which no doubt comes with extra meaning on the heels of a pandemic that’s interrupted so many of our lives. As happy as I a...

I have been hosting a variety of briefings and doing media interviews this week, putting into perspective many of the complicated, frustrating, and scary things that Israel is undergoing and enduring this week. Today I read a vile comment that Israel...

I was at a social gathering recently. In Israel, social events can easily become political events, or even indistinguishable from one another, especially in the turbulent period in which we find ourselves, hovering on the verge of a potential broad...

Iranian eyes will be on Washington, D.C., while looking over their shoulder at home. The Iranians are looking over their shoulder because a series of attacks attributed to them and their puppets in the Middle East are targeting Israeli commercial...

President Rivlin tapped Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government. He has 28 days to try to put together a coalition and if he doesn’t succeed, the president can designate another person with a period of two weeks to do so, and then yet another attempt...

With most of the votes counted and no decisive outcome as far as who the next prime minister will be, or if Israel will be headed to an unprecedented fifth national election in less than three years, one thing is clear, the big winners in Israel’s n...

Earlier this week, the Israeli Air Force carried out a three-day exercise simulating a large-scale war against Hezbollah, the terrorist group that controls much of Lebanon, and which reportedly has as many as 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel....

Jewish tradition is to read the Torah, the first Five Books of the Bible, in an annual cycle so that every year we read and study it in its entirety. The weekly Torah portions, parsha, are divided into segments from Genesis through Deuteronomy, each...

Just a year ago, Jerusalem was inundated by world leaders commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. At the time, it was announced that in Israel there were only 192,000 remaining Holocaust survivors, 15,000 fewer than the...

The following is a detailed, complete, and accurate account of a phone call I did not have with now President Joe Biden — he was president elect at the time. The other day, my phone rang. Halfway into the third ring, I answered. “Hello?” “Plea...

In the year of the pandemic, it’s no wonder that horrible things continue to come back in ways that are threatening and objectively wrong. This year, maybe because of the virus and people being stuck at home with nothing better to do, a gross lie h...

I have written before how the last decades’ trend of Europe in general, and France in specific, opening their doors to Islamic and Arab immigrants with no limitations is akin to feeding, even breeding, a dangerous Trojan horse within its walls. T...

Perhaps it’s inappropriate for an Orthodox Jew to write about issues related to, and a consequence of, the recent inappropriate social media post by Jerry Falwell Jr. that suggested other inappropriate behaviors, and his taking a leave of absence a...