Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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As the United States gears up to celebrate its 250th anniversary, I have watched with growing alarm as the freedoms we cherish have been systematically exploited by those who despise these very freedoms and use them to destroy America and American values. The chief offender of this systematic invasion is the Moslem Brotherhood. The “Brotherhood” motto declares “Allah is our objective; the Koran is our constitution; the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” It has been executing a decades...
Part Two of a Six-Part series On May 15, as has been done for decades, Palestinian Arabs, their supporters and Israel detractors observed the “Nakba” or the catastrophe of Israel’s birth in 1948. In order to understand the veracity of that narrative and how it’s been conflated in modern dialogue and reporting, it’s important to understand what lies behind that. A core element of the Nakba narrative is the notion that there was an independent entity known as “Palestine,” that was occupied, and a “Palestinian” people that were displaced with th...
Last week we marked the anniversary of Israel's hasty withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and with it, bringing thousands of Lebanese Christians to Israel. This is the story of a young man who was a child then. "G" was born into a Maronite Christian family in South Lebanon, part of a community that traces its roots to the ancient Phoenicians. His early childhood unfolded in a quiet Christian village just 15 kilometers from the Israeli border, surrounded by rolling hills, farmland, and deeply...
Part One of a Six Part series On May 15, as has been done for decades, Palestinian Arabs, their supporters and Israel detractors observed the “Nakba” or the catastrophe of Israel’s birth in 1948. In order to understand the veracity of that narrative and how it’s been conflated in modern dialogue and reporting, it’s important to understand what lies behind that. A name with a history My father was a Palestinian. A Palestinian Jew. He was born in Palestine in 1937, at a time when the only people commonly referred to as “Palestinians” were the Jew...
I visited with a friend named Linda recently whom I had not seen in 40 years, but who has been my neighbor for the last 20. In 1985, as young students, Linda and I had planned to visit the Soviet Union together as part of our respective and collaborative activism on behalf of Jews in the USSR. Other than catching up on our children, grandchildren, and careers, we reflected on how the movement among Western Jews like us to free Soviet Jews was in many ways the movement that strengthened us and...
I was talking to a neighbor in the elevator of our building the other day. In Israel these days, there’s a shorthand in our speech and mannerisms that are just understood and can be discerned quickly in under five floors. Talking about life and our families, and the living between the ceasefires, she said, “It will never really change so appreciate the quiet now.” The message was clear and sound. In 78 years we have always been attacked by one enemy or another. Today many of them have long range rockets, missiles and drones, the detec...
After six canceled and delayed flights, I was finally able to get home to Israel last week having been stranded in the U.S. for three weeks due to the war. I used my time productively, conducting 20 interviews and briefings in the last two weeks alone. Most of my interviewers were interested in my perspective as a dual American-Israeli citizen on the war against the Islamic Republic, the challenges in Israel, and my not being there with my family. In one of the conversations, the host affirmed his support for the war, and Israel, repeatedly...
Homecomings are always meaningful. Some are ancient, even biblical. It is the theme of modern films and music, depicting the draw we all have and feel towards home. Until this week, I was caught up in my own attempts to come home, stranded in the United States amid the unfolding war against the Islamic Republic of Iran. My trip started surpassing one million miles on United, and ended after six canceled and changed flights, finally arriving home, one of hundreds of thousands doing so amid the wa...
In the America in which I was born, Jews did not need to have armed guards to pray, send their kids to school, go shopping, or take public transportation. Yes, there was antisemitism and discrimination. Quotas limiting Jewish enrollment in universities. Neighborhoods and upscale apartment buildings were off limits to Jews. “Exclusive” clubs preventing Jewish members. Antisemitism in the pews. Jewish children chased and beaten up for “killing Jesus” or whatever other antisemitic tropes other children had been raised with. Jews were discrim...
Part I Jan. 16, marked the anniversary of the day in 1979 when Iran's Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was forced to flee Iran with his family, including his then teenage son and Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi. This year, the date will be marked at the height of protests that have been taking place for over three weeks, the largest and most widespread protests in Iran against the Islamic Republic. Iranians across Iran and expatriates around the world are more hopeful and inspired by these protests than...
Preaching at AmFest, Tucker Carlson displayed his lack of integrity, fueling speculations of being bought and paid for by Islamists in Qatar, and brandishing the crown with which he has been coronated as a dangerous antisemite. His voice rising like a pre-pubescent child, he attacked the invisible boogeyman, but everyone knew who and what he meant. “Attacking millions of Americans because they’re Muslims—it’s DISGUSTING. And I’m a Christian, I’m not a Muslim,” he shrieked in a room so silent that you could have heard a pin drop. Trying to rec...
As a Jewish man, our tradition is that my job is to teach my children how to swim and a profession. We can explore what that means on a deeper rabbinic level, but simply to give my children the skills that they will be able to protect themselves from danger, and live and be productive self-sufficient members of society. Reading reports of the father-son duo, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24, who perpetrated the antisemitic murder in Sydney, Australia on the first day of Chanukah, I was shocked to think that either the father had the evil...
You can be forgiven for thinking that the war is over in Israel and peace has broken out. Since President Trump’s October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, countless reports and headlines have presented this as a peace deal. Barring reports of daily conflict in Gaza or the return of the bodies of the remaining hostage in captivity for 26 months, “quiet” can be misperceived as peace. But the truth could not be more opposite. There are abundant examples. One recent one hit home personally. This week there was another terrorist attac...
The past few days in Israel have been filled with heart wrenching euphoria mixed with cautious optimism, and foreboding. After two years in unspeakable conditions and captivity, Hamas has released all 20 living hostages who have returned home to begin a long process of physical and emotional recovery. Predictably, Hamas has also violated the terms of the agreement to release all the bodies of the 28 remaining hostages, as of this writing still 21 remain in the terrorists’ clutches. So far, one of the bodies that they have released has not b...
As world leaders attended the UN General Assembly, several Western nations marked this annual gathering with an act of treachery of global proportion. France, the UK, Canada, and Australia led the pack of those who made a mockery of international diplomacy, doing something sad and even illegal in recognizing the “State of Palestine.” The mockery would be funny if it weren’t so obscene, propagating a fake reality as if such an entity ever existed, or has the standing and legitimacy to exist as a state. Canada and the UK have raced to lead the p...
My mother used to tell a story about how when she was in college, she believed that she had a professor who liked her so much that her papers were never checked but just given an “A” automatically. Of course, that’s a better problem than a teacher automatically failing a student without looking at their work, but it bothered her all the same. To prove it, one day she submitted a paper having inserted a full type-written page from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland” in the middle. The teacher didn’t look, and my mother got an A. I learned from...
Until a few years ago Princeton, N.J. was the place I spent the longest part of my life. Since 2004, I have lived in Israel, but Princeton is my legal U.S. address from which I and my family file taxes, vote, and to which we get notices for jury duty. Princeton is in the New Jersey 12th district, represented by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson-Coleman. I receive her monthly updates about issues that she cares about, and how she’s allocating federal dollars to projects in the district. I don’t know a lot about a lot of things, but I do know a lot...
If you’re not watching developments unfolding in Syria with the Druze and Israel’s response, you should. You should also ask why you’re not seeing reports of these. One reason you may not be hearing about this is because it’s a situation of Arabs massacring other Arabs (though albeit Arabic speakers or Moslems slaughtering other Moslems and other minorities, though Druze do not consider themselves Arab or Moslem), which is “normal” and widespread throughout history. You’re not hearing about this because the Jews and Israel not only not be b...
The third summit between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu this year has ended, but there are still more questions than concrete answers about the nature of their meetings and the outcome. To help understand the significance of their meetings, what took place, and what to look for in the coming weeks and months, in the recent episode of the “Inspiration from Zion” podcast, military and political analyst Elliot Chodoff and journalist Jonathan Tobin provided a deep dive into the high-level meetings. The conversation was ric...
One of the best things in life is to have the privilege of taking one’s grandchildren out for ice cream. Even during a war. Perhaps especially during a war. This week, my daughter and son-in-law brought my four grandsons for a visit, partly as a fun outing and partly as a respite for themselves. Since the war erupted with Iran, all school and pre-school programs have been canceled, leaving parents of young children to figure out how to juggle keeping all the kids occupied without pulling their own hair out, and keeping them safe and close to h...
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...
