Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Now that President Joe Biden has finally bent to the will of his party’s leaders and donors, the praise for his presidency is nearly universal on the left. The paeans to his personal greatness and acclaim for his time in the White House accelerated once his infirmity became clear in the June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump. Liberal corporate media spent years covering up the president’s cognitive decline, including accusing any journalists who brought up the subject of spreading “misinformation.” But once the lies were...
(JNS) — At what point does angry political discourse cross the line between legitimate impassioned advocacy and direct incitement to violence? It’s a question that’s been all too common in both the United States and Israel for the past generation. That is why acts of political violence—such as the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump this past weekend—can just as easily exacerbate the tensions within societies rather than help heal them. In seeking to understand how Americans can transcend their political divisions...
(JNS) — Most of the organized Jewish world is as outraged as the Anti-Defamation League. The decision of Wikipedia to label the ADL as an “unreliable source” on its site with respect to anything related to Israel generated a letter of protest from 43 of the largest and most influential American Jewish organizations, including a sampling of groups on the center, left and right. The notion that the ADL, still considered the authoritative source on the subject of antisemitism by the liberal media, being shut down by the ubiquitous online encyc...
(JNS) — In a life full of accomplishments, Joe Lieberman will almost certainly be best remembered as the answer to a trivia question. Even more significant was his role as a supporting player in one of the most intense political controversies as well as one of the great “what ifs” in American history. But as much as the 2000 presidential election—during which he became Al Gore’s running mate and the first Jew ever to achieve such a distinction—and its denouement over recounts in Florida was his moment in the sun, his life should be recalled wit...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputation as a master political schemer and a cynical seeker of power is so deeply embedded in the public consciousness that there is literally nothing he can do without being accused of acting only to seek some sort of advantage over his opponents. Yet in the current crisis as he seeks to lead his wobbly unity government to achieve what may well be two mutually exclusive objectives—the elimination of Hamas and the freeing of the remaining hostages still being kept captive in Gaza...
(JNS) — The images from the war Hamas launched against Israel on Oct. 7 have tugged at the heartstrings of Americans. By that, I don’t refer to the charred ruins of Israeli communities in southern Israel that were devastated by the Hamas pogroms. Nor do I refer to the horrifying evidence of that terrorist rampage of murder, rape, torture and kidnapping that is too graphic for most people to bear. As far as the international media is concerned, those victims were quickly forgotten almost as soon as the murder spree happened and then erased fro...
(JNS) — In the end, not even the support of former President Barack Obama and one of his former cabinet members was enough to save Claudine Gay from being forced out as president of Harvard University. Nor did the initial support of the Harvard Corporation itself, the endorsement of much of the Harvard faculty or the student newspaper allow Gay to remain in office at one of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions. After a month of controversy that began with her appalling testimony in front of Congress on Dec. 5, along with the pre...
(JNS) — I was poised to go on a live broadcast of WION, an English-language Indian television network, last week to discuss the war against Hamas. But before my turn to speak came, I was startled by the program host’s introduction to the segment. He spoke of images that were shocking the world and the world’s outrage about them, and gave what might be termed a trigger warning for those about to see them for the first time. As I soon learned, he wasn’t referring to the evidence of the indescribable atrocities committed against Israeli civilia...
(JNS) — In times of crisis, the public looks to its most revered leaders for insight and wisdom. But in the case of Barack Obama, what passes for wisdom is not only unwise but amoral. After weeks without saying much of anything about the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel on Oct. 7, the 44th president has weighed in on the subject while appearing on a podcast hosted by former staffers Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vieter. In the wake of the greatest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, the most brazen example of t...
(JNS) — In the past weeks, anti-Israel protests on college campuses and in the streets of major cities have continued and grown in size. In Europe, the numbers of those expressing “solidarity with Palestine” are even greater as hundreds of thousands marched as Israel began its ground offensive inside the Gaza Strip. The images of massive throngs of individuals waving Palestinian flags and yelling insults about Israel and Jews have been widely published and broadcast. So, too, have accounts of incidents in which Jews were subjected to intim...
(JNS) — Vivek Ramaswamy may not be heading to the White House, but his candidacy did serve a useful purpose in the week leading up to the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle. Ramaswamy’s comments about foreign policy drew fire from his opponents while also giving him some attention in a race where all of the focus is on the man who isn’t deigning to show up at the debate: former President Donald Trump. Ramaswamy drew the scorn of the mainstream media by saying that he would seek to divide Russia from China. His realp...
(JNS) — “Sound of Freedom” is the film that the chattering classes are encouraging you not to see. NPR says its success is due to support from the shadowy QAnon extremist group. It’s been blasted by The Guardian as “QAnon adjacent” and was linked to blood libels and conspiracy theories by a JTA article. A CNN segment labeled it as a crude and fraudulent piece of agitprop that is the product of a “moral panic.” It’s the kind of movie that enlightened and educated people are supposed to avoid at all costs. And yet, somehow in this season of Ho...
(JNS) — Up until now, the legal battles being waged about tolerating dissent against support for gay marriage or gay pride events have been focused on conservative Christians. But a kosher baker in West Orange, N.J., is highlighting the fact that the question of the right to refuse to produce services for causes, ideas or beliefs can not only involve Jews but also create difficult dilemmas for Jewish communities. While all those concerned understand that the baker has the law on his side, synagogues and even the local Jewish Federation seem p...
(JNS) — The international reaction to the recent surge in Palestinian terrorism and Israel’s operation in Jenin to take out the gunmen and infrastructure of the groups responsible for the bloodshed has been as predictable as it is depressing. Though the Biden administration has paid lip service to the notion that Israelis have the right to defend themselves, the general tone of press coverage and commentary from Washington and the international community has been the usual mantra about a pointless “cycle of violence” and worries about the dec...
(JNS) — There is something about the story of the eight Jews who spent more than two years hiding in the secret annex on Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam that is irresistible to readers, as well as audiences for plays and movies. The travails of Otto Frank and his family, who were trapped in an intolerable prison with friends and a few others in an attic where they were forced to spend most of their time in silence, were immortalized by his younger daughter, Anne. Aptly characterized by Dara Horn as “everyone’s second favorite dead Jew” in her...
(JNS) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff had never shown any interest in his Jewish identity until his wife, Kamala Harris, was elected vice president of the United States. But though it would be an exaggeration to treat him as the Biden administration’s point person on anything, he has, almost by default, become one of its leading spokespersons on Jewish issues. It was understandable that he emerged from Harris’s recent trip to Eastern Europe with some Jewish anecdotes along with his comments seeking to bolster the administration’s stand on the wa...
(JNS) — After months of increasingly strident mass protests against his government’s plans to reform Israel’s out-of-control and highly partisan judicial system, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have given in to the pressure. He said he was going to be “delaying judicial reform to give real dialogue a chance.” But it’s highly doubtful that this will merely be a timeout that will help his supporters regroup and enable opponents to calm down and accept a compromise on the issue. On the contrary, Netanyahu is waving the white flag...
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign policy has been highlighted by the disaster in Afghanistan and its embrace of Ukraine, whose security it seems to value more than that of America’s own borders. But one consistent theme has been the attempt on the part of the Obama administration alumni back at work in Washington to revive their old boss’s pivot in the Middle East away from longtime allies Israel and Saudi Arabia to a new alignment based on a rapprochement with Iran. That’s the context for the Iran-Saudi pact. The two longtime foes will...
(JNS) — Don’t expect a flood of Jewish families moving to Arkansas in the wake of the state legislature there passing a bill this week that charts a path towards universal school choice. When Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders affixes her signature to the Arkansas Learns Act, it will make her state the fifth to enact legislation that allows state funds to follow students enabling parents to choose whatever school is the best fit for their children. Arizona was the first state to do so last year and since then West Virginia, Utah and Iowa have als...
(JNS) — There are many issues worth having an argument over; then again, some are better left alone. For example, a debate about whether or not the actress who is hired to play Golda Meir in a movie is Jewish is not worth a moment of anyone’s time. By contrast, the discussion about whether the current nearly unlimited powers of Israel’s Supreme Court should be checked and balanced by giving more power to the Knesset elected by the country’s voters is of utmost import. As it so happens, the British actress Helen Mirren is the focus of an unim...
(JNS) — When the spokespersons for the U.S. State Department and the foreign ministries of America’s Western allies churn out press releases condemning the building of homes for Jews, it’s all a matter of finding a similar document in the archive, and just cutting and pasting the text and slapping a new date on it. Their joint statement denouncing Israel’s announcement of approval for the planning and building of 10,000 new homes in Judea and Samaria, as well as the government authorization of nine “outpost” settlements, was strictly by...
(JNS) — Seen only in the context of the struggle between America’s two major political parties, the House of Representatives’ vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the Foreign Relations Committee is not a historic turning point. It is merely the latest evidence that the once largely polite battles between Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have escalated into a full-blown culture war. But while it is possible to frame House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s making good on his pledge to oust Omar from her seat on Foreign Relatio...
(JNS) — Over the past several weeks, the anger of the opposition to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s newly elected government has reached hysterical, and even apocalyptic, tones. This should seem familiar to Americans, who have grown accustomed to the same kind of fever-pitch discourse ever since the emergence of Donald Trump on the political scene. Indeed, his presidency wasn’t merely opposed by foes; it was “resisted,” with conspiracy theories about his colluding with Russia to “steal” the 2016 election. Since 2020, many on the right are...
(JNS) — After two years of pointedly ignoring a problem largely of his own making, President Joe Biden finally made a brief visit to the U.S. southern border in El Paso, Texas. While there, however, he saw little of the human cost of the catastrophe, as he didn’t meet or see any of the illegal immigrants who have streamed across the border since he assumed office. But in the days before he arrived for what was little more than a photo op, Biden rekindled a controversy that has been simmering for most of the last decade. The president dec...
(JNS) - It's been a difficult decade. 2020 was the year of coronavirus-pandemic panic and the general collapse of established norms. This was compounded by the Black Lives Matter riots that set off a moral panic about race, with the mainstreaming of fringe ideas and intersectionality. 2021 was a little better, as the world gradually shook off its COVID paranoia. But it was notable mainly for the Jan. 6 Capitol riot that has roiled American politics ever since, the disastrous withdrawal from...
