Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 103
(JNS) — On the first day of the Jewish National Fund-USA’s annual Global Conference, held in the heart of South Florida’s extensive Jewish community from Oct. 23-26, CEO Russell Robinson met with representatives from cities not particularly known as bastions of American Judaism. It’s part of a basic business strategy, Robinson told those in attendance. “If you’re not forecasting where your customer acquisition is going to be, if you’re not looking at your customer base and examining those pieces, you won’t be in business long,” he said....
(JNS) — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) are urging the Trump administration to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations for possible links to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Congress members wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, asking him to look into whether CAIR, a decades-old organization that says it advocates for Muslim civil rights, is providing material support for terrorism, based on its history and its conduct following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel. The Tre...
(JNS) — A senior Trump administration adviser told reporters on Wednesday that efforts are underway to demilitarize Gaza. “We’re defining a path that makes everyone feel safe,” the adviser, who declined to be named, told reporters. “It’s not realistic to expect people to just drop arms.” “The dynamic is complex, but the sentiment from Arab mediators and from Hamas is to keep working together toward a solution,” the adviser said. The adviser and another senior U.S. adviser, who also spoke to reporters anonymously, told reporters that ph...
(JNS) — Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, referred on Monday to convicted Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, including those with blood on their hands, as “political prisoners” during a press briefing. Leavitt confirmed that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for special missions, and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser, are in Egypt to lead technical talks with Israel and Hamas on implementing the peace plan which Trump unveiled last week. Leavitt said that Hamas’s...
(JNS) — Meeting with European diplomats on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly went as one would expect of representatives of countries that have been recognizing a state of “Palestine,” which the Jewish state and others say rewards Hamas, according to Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International. “What we have here on an international level is a ‘don’t confuse me with the facts’ worldview,” Mariaschin told JNS. “All of these arguments, which we feel are well grounded, are clearly not getting through in terms of p...
(JNS) — The Israeli mission to the United Nations held an event honoring the “women who stepped forward when the world stood still” at U.N. headquarters in New York City on Tuesday. “On Oct. 7, not only was the cruelty of Hamas revealed to the world, but also the heroism of Israeli women,” Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said at the event. “In the face of terror and murder, they stood up like lionesses,” he said. “They fought, saved and protected.” “We carry their spirit with us. The women of Israel have proven...
(JNS) — Marco Massari, mayor of the Italian city of Reggio Emilia, was presenting a civic honor to Francesca Albanese, a United Nations special rapporteur for Palestinian rights, on Sunday, when he told an audience of hundreds, “the end of the genocide and the release of the hostages are necessary conditions to start a peace process.” The U.N. adviser, who has a long history of Jew-hatred, reportedly scolded Massari, as the crowd jeered the mayor. “The mayor was wrong and said something that is not true,” Albanese said. “Peace does not need co...
(JNS) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, wrote in The New York Times on Sunday that she is endorsing Zohran Mamdani, a state representative with a long history of denouncing Israel, for New York City mayor, giving the Democratic socialist his most high-profile backing to date. “I didn’t leave my conversations with Mr. Mamdani aligned with him on every issue,” she wrote. “But I am confident that he has the courage, urgency and optimism New York City needs to lead it through the challenges of this moment.” Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo, a fo...
(JNS) — A federal court ruled that a Chabad couple, which alleges that a Florida homeowners association is guilty of Jew-hatred for blocking it from using its property as a synagogue, can go forward with its lawsuit. Rabbi Naftaly and Henya Hertzel also accuse the association of vandalism and discrimination based on their faith. Aileen Cannon, a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and an appointee of U.S. President Donald Trump, rejected last month the effort of the Loggers Run Homeowners Association in Boca Ra...
(JNS) — Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, has accused the United Nations of being “transparently antisemitic.” The claim, made in an internal employee forum, was first reported by The Washington Post and followed a published report by a controversial U.N. official accusing a selection of businesses, including technology firms, of profiting from the “genocide carried out by Israel” in Gaza. Google and its parent company, Alphabet, were among those listed in the U.N. report as a result of their provision of cloud and AI tech for the Israeli g...
(JNS) — The way to prevent the Iranian regime from buying itself more time and securing enough funds to rebuild its nuclear program is to “double down on secondary sanctions, with shipping, so they can’t do their illicit oil sales,” according to Sandra Hagee Parker, chair of the CUFI Action Fund. “Now that they have been brought to their knees, we must put their face to the pavement,” Hagee Parker told JNS. “Now is not the time to let up off the gas.” On Tuesday, thousands of attendees of Christians United for Israel’s 20th annual Washington...
The United States has started the voluntary evacuation process for U.S. citizens who wish to leave Israel amid the country’s conflict with Iran. “Urgent notice,” Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, posted on social media on Wednesday. “American citizens wanting to leave Israel, the U.S. embassy in Israel is working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures.” The envoy urged citizens to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to receive updates. The U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday that it established a Middle...
(JNS) — The U.S. State Department declined to clarify its position on a potential Palestinian state on Tuesday, following comments from Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, that such a state within the current Palestinian Authority-governed territory is unlikely “in our lifetime.” Huckabee told Bloomberg that he doesn’t think a two-state solution remains U.S. policy, and that “unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it.” He told the publication that Palestinians could settle...
(JNS) — Starting just after midnight on June 9, citizens of 12 countries are to be barred from entering the United States, and those of seven others are partly blocked, per a presidential proclamation on June 4. “This approach was designed to encourage cooperation with the subject countries in recognition of each country’s unique circumstances,” U.S. President Donald Trump said. “The restrictions and limitations imposed by this proclamation are, in my judgment, necessary to prevent the entry or admission of foreign nationals about whom the...
(JNS) - After signing agreements with Saudi Arabia worth about $600 billion on May 13, U.S. President Donald Trump was expected to tout the deals that evening during a speech in Riyadh at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum. Instead, he broke news announcing a major shift in U.S. foreign policy, by saying that he intended to lift sanctions on Syria, which had been imposed during the regime of Basher Assad. "In Syria, which has seen so much misery and death, there's a new government that will...
(JNS) — The United States opposes the candidacy of the Palestinian Authority for the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly. Riyad Mansour, the authority’s longtime “permanent observer” to the global body, is mounting a bid to helm the assembly presidency in 2026-27, despite the authority holding non-state “observer” status. The 22-member, U.N. Arab Group, which passed the nomination onto the 55-member Asia Pacific Group, backs the nomination. The latter group holds the rotating slot for the presidency in two years, based on re...
(JNS) — Some 5,000 people attended the annual Chabad lighting of the National Menorah on the Ellipse, south of the White House, on Wednesday night, the first night of Chanukah, according to organizers, who had to set up extra chairs for the overflow crowd. Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, emceed the event, which he and his father, Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, have organized for decades. He told JNS that the turnout and energy at the event show that Jews ha...
(JNS) - More than two decades on from suffering horrific injuries in a Hamas terror attack, a New Jersey resident says she and other victims have been "retraumatized" by ongoing support for Hamas on American streets and university campuses. Sarri Singer, a Lakewood native, was volunteering in Israel when she was seriously wounded in the Davidka Square suicide bombing on a Jerusalem 14A bus on June 11, 2003. The Palestinian terrorist, dressed as an Orthodox Jew, had boarded the bus at the Mahane...
(JNS) — The United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an Israel-Hamas ceasefire on Wednesday morning, citing its failure to condition a halt in hostilities directly to the release of the hostages. “We could not support an unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages,” Robert Wood, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told the council. Wood accused Hamas—and not Israel—of blocking a negotiated ceasefire and cited Israel’s reference for a temporary ceasefire and a phased release of hosta...
(JNS) — Several Democratic senators told JNS on Wednesday night that the significant number of their colleagues who voted for an Israeli arms embargo weren’t representative of the party. Republicans in the upper chamber said the figure—up to 19 on one measure—represented the Democrats’ abandonment of a key ally. Asked how decisive an issue the votes on the three resolutions of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), which would have banned the transfer of certain categories of weapons to Israel, were for his party, Cory Booker (D-N. J.) said, “When you...
(JNS) - Family members of those who have been held captive in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, told a gathering of largely American Jews on Monday that "the most Jewish thing you can do" is speak out on the need for a hostage deal. With the U.S. presidential election in the rearview mirror and a new government readying to take over, "we need to hear from all sides that this is really important for the Jewish community now," said Orna Neutra,...
(JNS) — As the three-day Association of the United States Army annual meeting and exhibition wound down on Oct. 16 in Washington, word spread among Israeli defense companies that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, intended to ban them from the upcoming Euronaval defense fair outside Paris. A spokesman for a major Israeli defense company told JNS on Wednesday at the Washington event that France’s decision to bar Israeli companies “is not surprising,” referring further questions to the Israeli Defense Ministry. A ministry representative at th...
(JNS) — In a statement marking the one-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack in southern Israel, António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, referred to the terror group’s “abhorrent” acts and said that the ensuing war “continues to shatter lives and inflict profound human suffering for Palestinians in Gaza, and now the people of Lebanon.” “The Oct. 7 attack scarred souls, and on this day we remember all those who were brutally killed and suffered unspeakable violence, including sexual violence, as they were simply livi...
(JNS) — In an address to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday morning, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas called the holiest Jewish site—the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—the “exclusive property of Muslims” and referred to Israel as a “terrorist state” that does not deserve membership in the United Nations. Abbas, whose presidential mandate expired in 2009–the last time P.A. elections were held–told those watching that “the world is responsible” for what he asserted were crimes against humanity taking place in the Gaza Strip amid Israe...
(JNS) — Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told JNS in July that Hamas poses a “tactical threat” to Israel, while Hezbollah presents a “strategic threat.” Since that conversation, Hezbollah has continued to attack the Jewish state regularly. But Washington is still not paying enough attention to the U.S.-designated terror group and to the plight of Israelis in the northern part of the country, Oren told JNS last week at the Israeli-American Council summit in Washington. “I’ve been trying to raise awareness in this...
