Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - A brand-new Passover Haggadah titled, "Empowering Seder Conversations," published just in time for the holiday, is designed to promote inclusion at the Seder table, making the special evening more accessible for those suffering from aphasia and other neurological challenges. Aphasia is a condition that robs a person of the ability to communicate. It can affect one's ability to speak, write, work with numbers and understand language, both verbal and written. The Haggadah was written by...
(JNS) - Despite a military closure, on Monday a diverse group of hundreds of protesters from all over Israel gathered at the country's Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza for the sixth day in a row, to demonstrate against the flow of humanitarian aid into the Hamas-controlled enclave. The demonstrators, including relatives of those murdered or kidnapped during Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre and of soldiers fighting the terror group in Gaza, avoided police checkpoints by driving through fields and...
(JNS) — Eran the potato farmer. Rachel the food hostess. Michaela the midwife. All three are residents of the northwestern Negev who were caught in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre; all three are heroes who were able to think quickly on their feet and save myriad lives on that dreadful day. Their stories of heroism, and many more, are being gathered and documented online for children, to give them strength and create a sense of unity amid the horrors being shared about Oct. 7. The name of the project is...
(JNS) - On September 16, 2018, Israel lost one of its fiercest defenders when a knife-wielding Arab stabbed Efrat resident Ari Fuld in the back at the Gush Etzion Junction, south of Jerusalem. Fuld used his last breaths of life to chase down and shoot the attacker, wounding him and saving the lives of other Israelis in the terrorist's path. Fuld, 45, not only defended Israel on the battlefield in the IDF's Golani Brigade, and as a reservist in the Second Lebanon War in an elite paratrooper...
(JNS) - "If you could change anything in this world, what would it be?" asked NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom, while seated among 30 Jewish, Christian and Muslim, children during a break in the action at a youth basketball camp he was helping to run this week at the YMCA in Jerusalem. To Freedom's delight, the most popular answer given by the children was: "We would want peace!" The 11-year NBA veteran, who currently is a free agent and a well-known human rights activist, was in Israel to lead...
(JNS) — NBA Hall of Famer Ray Allen wrapped up a whirlwind tour of Israel this week, taking time to speak with members of the press before heading back to the United States. Allen, a two-time world champion and team USA Olympic gold medalist, was in the country as a guest of America’s Voices in Israel together with the Ted Arison Family Foundation. The America’s Voices in Israel organization has brought many celebrities, influencers and high-profile, opinion-makers to Israel over the years, enabling them to experience the country for themselves...
(JNS) - The Sovereignty Movement recently organized a tour of Judea and Samaria for public figures, journalists, social media influencers and others to explore the complexities and dichotomies of life in the region. The Feb. 23 gathering - under the leadership of Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar - focused on explaining the situation on the ground in many areas, including diplomacy, infrastructure, education, environmental issues, employment and quality of life for both Jewish and Arab residents...
(JNS) - In a true "Cinderella story," 19-year-old Hailey Kops, a religiously observant athlete from West Orange, N.J., is preparing to take on the world's finest ice skaters while proudly representing Israel at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Kops and her partner 33-year-old Evgeni Krasnopolski recently qualified for the pairs ice skating competition at the Olympics, which will be held next February. They defied all odds when they finished in the top three at an Olympics qualifier event in...
(JNS) - Three Israeli documentary filmmakers arrived home safely from Nigeria at the end of last week, after what they described as 20 "hellish days" detained under inhumane conditions by the government's Department of State Services security agency. Rudy Rochman, David Benaym and Noam Leibman had set off for the African country as part of their "We Were Never Lost" documentary project aimed at telling the stories of disconnected and lesser-known Jewish communities around the world. However,...
(JNS) - SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit organization that strives to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and dreamers through innovative space missions, announced this week that it has secured crucial funding towards the launch of the "Beresheet 2" Spacecraft mission in 2024 with the goal of sending Israel back to the moon. In 2019, with its first "Beresheet" spacecraft, the organization became the first private entity in history to reach the moon, thereby securing Israel's...
(JNS) — At the end of June, the new Israeli government led by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett approved 31 new building projects throughout Judea and Samaria. The projects were green-lighted by the subcommittee on Jewish “settlements” within the Civil Administration. A Civil Administration spokesperson shared the list of approvals with JNS, which include the construction or enlargement of public buildings within various communities, such as a new shopping mall in Mishor Adumim just outside of Jerusalem, and a school for students with...
(JNS) - Frimet and Arnold Roth, whose 15-year-old daughter Malki, a U.S. national, was murdered in August 2001 in the Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, published a new video this week calling on the Biden administration to pressure the Kingdom of Jordan to extradite Ahlam Ahmad Tamimi, the Hamas terrorist who orchestrated the bombing, so that she can stand trial in a U.S. federal court. The release of the video came out four years to the date since the United States announced terrorism...
(JNS) - According to Gabi Harow, a resident of the Israeli settlement of Nokdim in Gush Etzion, there have been massive changes in the landscape since he moved to the community with his family in 2012. "The amount of illegal Arab building and the takeover of the land have grown tremendously," he told JNS. "You see structures going up all the time in our area and in the nature reserves between our community and the Judean Desert." Harow said that Nokdim has been "slowly, slowly" losing its 150...
(JNS) - The latest edition of the "West Bank Jewish Population Stats Report," commissioned annually by former Member of Knesset and National Union Party head Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz, shows a 2.62 percent growth in 2020, and a 17 percent in growth in the past five years, in the number of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, more commonly known as the West Bank. According to the report, some 475,481 Jews currently call these regions home. The statistics do not take into account the more than 325,000...
(JNS) — According to Israel’s Coronavirus Project coordinator, Ronni Gamzu, his main goal right now is to combat and contain the virus “without implementing a full lockdown on the country.” “I am not sure we will succeed, but I am trying,” he said. He made his remarks in a briefing to the foreign press this week. Gamzu, who in the past served as the Health Ministry director general, was appointed to the role in July by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Health Minister Yuli Edelstein. He told reporters at the briefing that despit...
(JNS) - Atop a nearly barren mountain ridge at the tip of southeastern Gush Etzion, with breathtaking views overlooking the Judean Desert and the Dead Sea, two American immigrants are building an oasis - a working organic farm and spiritual retreat center - with the hope of turning the site into a global tourist destination. Meet Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel. Both are rabbis, former Israeli Defense Forces' soldiers, best friends and business partners, who combined their life savings and move...
(JNS)-United Hatzalah of Israel, the country's largest independent volunteer emergency medical response organization, put on an online fundraising telethon on Sunday to support the group's coronavirus fund. Dubbed "Saving Lives Sunday: A Streaming Event Honoring First Responders and Welcoming Home Eli Beer," the program highlighted the life-saving work of the organization's 6,000 volunteer first responders, in addition to paying tribute to the organization's founder and president, Eli Beer, who...
(JNS)—In what is being dubbed as a historical development, Israel’s Transportation Ministry announced this week that it is moving forward with plans to extend the new Tel Aviv-Jerusalem high-speed rail line in order to connect Ben-Gurion International Airport directly to the Western Wall in Jerusalem. The new route for the railway extension was approved by the National Planning and Construction Commission. It will feature a 1.8-mile underground tunnel with two new stations, including one adjacent to the Khan Theatre Complex in downtown Jer...
(JNS)-Israel might be known globally as a high-tech juggernaut, but the "Startup Nation" is on the verge of being a superpower in diamonds as well. No, not the kinds that shine, but the kinds you use for pitching, catching and batting-as for the first time in history, the Israel men's national baseball team has qualified for the Summer Olympic Games to be held this summer in Tokyo. This past September, Israel stunned the competition by winning the "A" pool Olympic-qualifying tournament in...
(JNS)-Proclaiming Justice to The Nations, a Tennessee-based nonprofit evangelical Christian organization committed to standing with Israel and fighting anti-Semitism, has been removed from the AmazonSmile program, which enables Amazon customers to donate a percentage of their purchase to their favorite charity. PJTN president Laurie Cardoza-Moore told JNS that "all of a sudden, we began being inundated with e-mails from supporters whose AmazonSmile donations to Proclaiming Justice to the...
(JNS)-It was the year 2000, at the beginning of the Second Intifada, and Arab terror attacks were being carried out against Israelis on a nearly daily basis throughout the country, and particularly on the roads in Judea and Samaria. After one particular deadly attack, former Sephardic chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu approached one of his aides, Arie Levy, who had been a volunteer medic and ambulance driver with Magen David Adom (MDA) for about six years, asking why no emergency...
(JNS)-"We are not strangers in Hebron, and we will stay here forever!" were the climactic remarks made on Wednesday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an official state ceremony at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron commemorating the 90th anniversary of the 1929 Jewish massacre. Netanyahu also said that he was proud that his government approved dozens of additional housing units last year for Jewish residents of the ancient city. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin...
(JNS)—Traveling two hours from Haifa to Ramat Gan, Liza Kouniavsky, 16, arrived at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan for the second “Youth Sovereignty Conference” to date on June 13, telling JNS that “I’m here because I love my country. I love the nation of Israel.” She added that “once the world understands and accepts that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish nation, we will quell those who issue threats against us.” Kouniavsky was joined at the conference by nearly 800 like-minded youth from different parts of the country who believe tha...
(JNS)-In the midst of his whirlwind week-long Florida governor's business development mission to Israel with more than 100 delegation participants, Gov. Ron DeSantis visited the Gush Etzion region, just south of Jerusalem and over the Green Line. His purpose was to meet with community leaders and small-business owners who are on the front lines as targets of the anti-Israel BDS movement. During a press briefing on Wednesday hosted at the Hub Etzion business center, DeSantis said, "Here is the th...
(JNS)-Many have pointed to Israel's security barrier in Judea and Samaria as being one of the primary contributors to the reduction in Palestinian terrorism since the years of the Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005. However, a growing chorus of experts disputes this notion, while pointing to the barrier instead being used as a political tool to divide the land. A new study on Israel's separation fence in Judea and Samaria asserts that while the yet-to-be-completed barrier was constructed under t...
