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

(JNS)—We’re still more than a month away from the first actual votes being cast in the Democratic presidential race. But an analysis piece published on the influential Politico website last week reminded observers of a possibility that many are ignor...

(JNS)—Chanukah’s popularity with American Jews was largely the result of a futile though determined effort to compete with Christmas. While enjoying freedom, prosperity and influence that was unprecedented in the history of the Diaspora, Ame...

(JNS)—Demographers have spent a great deal of time in recent decades trying to learn more about the changing demographics of American Jewry. But whatever else he has accomplished, President Donald Trump has, albeit unwittingly, gone above and b...

(JNS)—The news out of Iran should shock the conscience of the world. As The New York Times reported in a front-page article published on Monday, when Iranians tried to protest their government’s arbitrary decision to drastically raise gasoline pri...

(JNS)—The long-awaited indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges haven’t changed many minds in the Likud Party. His loyal followers are still not only convinced of his indispensability, but also of the bogus natur...

(JNS)—The atmosphere on North American college campuses today is one in which anything that can be labeled, fairly or unfairly, hate speech or which might make virtually any group feel “triggered” or otherwise upset can be banned or otherwise silence...

(JNS)—According to the Forward, the rationale for the New Israel Fund’s push to create an alternative philanthropic system can be explained by what a Philadelphia psychologist named Roy Idelson considered to be a reasonable request. He wanted his...

(JNS)—The still-crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field proved to be a godsend for the left-wing J Street lobby. It gained attention for its annual conference this week due to the presence of five presidential candidates. But the dynamic of the e...

(JNS)—Israelis are still trying to sort out the fallout from their second unsuccessful attempt to elect a government this year with little sign of a break in the impasse between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny G...

(JNS)—This July, Aaron Boone, the manager of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, created an Internet meme when he launched into an epic and profane rant in taking issue with a call that went against his team. His abuse of an inexperienced ump...

(JNS)—As the year 5780 begins, political division is the predominant theme in both Israel and the United States. In Israel, two attempts to elect a Knesset in one year may not have been enough. The stalemate that has prevented the formation of a n...

(JNS)—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted his supporters at Likud Party campaign headquarters on Tuesday evening, his demeanor as much as his words made the outcome of the vote clear to everyone. While he neither claimed victory n...

(JNS)—On the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, government officials and institutions throughout America commemorated the horror of that day. But after all these years, there is a sense that—other than for those who lost family mem...

By Jonathan S. Tobin (JNS)—For the overwhelming majority of Americans, Labor Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer. But like other federal holidays, such as Memorial Day, which were once rooted in specific historical experiences such as the c...

(JNS)—In the wake of the latest mass shootings to afflict America, some Jewish organizations and their leaders joined in the effort to place at least some of the blame for these atrocities on President Donald Trump. Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union of...

(JNS)—The radical anti-Zionist IfNotNow group hit the jackpot last week with its initial investment in efforts to impact the 2020 presidential election. IfNotNow’s attempts to infiltrate Jewish summer camps and alter the way they teach about Isr...

(JNS)—The critics are right about U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s presence at the ceremonial opening of Jerusalem’s “Pilgrimage Road” being unprecedented. None of his predecessors would have been caught dead at a Jewish site on the wrong...

(JNS)—When the Trump administration released the economic portion of its Middle East peace plan last week, the avalanche of criticism was immediate and harsh. Even though the president’s foreign-policy team couched the plan as a “vision” of peace r...

(JNS)—His death, like much of his life, was in service to the Islamist cause he championed. By dropping dead in a courtroom where he was caged and silenced, Mohamed Morsi served to bring attention to the dictatorial nature of the Egypt’s mil...

(JNS)—Israelis are rightly infuriated that their politicians couldn’t get their act together and form a government after national elections held on April 9. A rerun scheduled for Sept. 17 will be an enormous waste of time and money. But almost as...

(JNS)—Who could really be surprised by the story that grabbed the attention of the Jewish world this past weekend? When Felix Klein, Germany’s first Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism (yes, that’s his full tit...

(JNS)—There’s an old joke that tells of a person who has been accused of being a self-hating Jew. His response is to tell his accuser that he doesn’t hate himself. It’s other Jews he hates. That’s an apt introduction to the controversy over cart...

(JNS)—According to The New York Times, the re-election of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has left Palestinian families seeing “no light at the end of the tunnel.” A feature published on the front page of Monday’s Times focuses on the des...

(JNS)—You didn’t have to be French or Catholic to see the devastating fire at Notre-Dame de Paris as a tragedy for all humanity. The horrifying video of the flames engulfing the 13th-century structure and the iconic spire falling prompted hea...

(JNS)—Discussions about intersectional theory used to be confined to the fever swamps of the far left. But this idea—the idea that seeks to link the struggle for civil rights in the United States with the Palestinian war on Israel’s existence and e...