Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—President Donald Trump said his first overseas trip as president would be to Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Vatican—a triad that signals his plan to join the three Abrahamic faiths in the fight against terrorism. Trump’s announcement and how his aides framed it to reporters sought to allay concerns stoked during his presidential campaign and the first weeks of his presidency that he is anti-Muslim. “My first foreign trip as president of the United States will be to Saudi Arabia, then Israel and then to a place that my cardina...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-In an appearance on Al Jazeera, Bernie Sanders defended Israel's right to exist, rejected BDS as a tactic and assailed the United Nations for singling out the country for condemnation. The Vermont senator's interview Wednesday on the Qatar-based network, known for its often hypercritical coverage of Israel, was consistent with a style that Americans came to know last year during his run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination: Sanders does not modify his messaging for his audience. Sanders, despite his defeat in the... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-President Donald Trump got the memo on the Holocaust and the Jews. In a barrage of statements this week from the president and his aides, the Trump administration wants you to know, he gets it, he really gets it: The Holocaust describes a genocide committed only against one people, the Jews. It's a radical departure from the first days of the Trump administration, when a statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day omitted any mention of Jews. That was made worse, in the eyes of most of the Jewish establishment,... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Iran is not living up to the “spirit” of the nuclear deal, President Donald Trump said, the latest in a flurry of mixed messages on the deal his administration has relayed in recent days. “As far as Iran is concerned, I think they are doing a tremendous disservice to an agreement that was signed,” Trump said Thursday in a joint appearance at the White House with Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni of Italy. “They are not living up to the spirit of the agreement, I can tell you that, and we’re analyzing it very, very carefully, an... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Trump administration will not allow a repeat of last year's United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel for its settlements, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told AIPAC. "Never again do what we saw with resolution 2334 and make anyone question our support" for Israel, Haley said Monday at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, where she earned the warmest reception of any speaker with an extended standing ovation. The Obama administration allowed through the anti-settlements resolutions... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-"Many voices, one mission." If AIPAC's 2017 annual policy conference slogan, popping up on the conference app on activists' smartphones, isn't clear enough, the morning pick-me-up video it runs before conference business begins is pretty straightforward. In the video, activists are gravitating through sunny streets here toward the convention center, and titles float above them: Democrat, Republican, Independent, country music, classic rock, straight up coffee, triple-shot latte-but they're all pro-Israel. "Elements on each... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The U.S. Senate confirmed David Friedman, a confidante of President Donald Trump who outraged some Jewish groups with his broadsides against liberal Jews, as ambassador to Israel. The 52-46 vote on Thursday afternoon hewed mostly to party lines. Only two Democrats-Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin of West Virginia-backed the nomination among the 48 senators who caucus with the party. Friedman, a longtime Trump lawyer who is heavily invested philanthropically in the settlement movement, had derided liberal Jews... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-One state. Flexibility. Two states. Hold back on settlements. Stop Iran. When President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: What a press conference! But wait. In the Age of Trump, every post-event analysis requires a double take. Not so much "did he mean what he said?"-he appears to mean it, in real time-but "will he mean it next week? Tomorrow? In the wee hours, when he tweets?" This is a president who, after all, speaks of a "ban" on travelers from Muslim-majority countries and then deploys his spokesmen to... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have been talking each other up plenty since the latter’s election upset in November. But those expecting Trump to turn his kind words and pledges on Israel into fast action may have to be patient. The starkest example of Trump walking back concrete promises is his retreat from what he had indicated during the transition period would be an accelerated push to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. Asked Thursday on the Fox News Channel about whether he would mov... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—“Five million non-Jews died in the Holocaust.” It’s a statement that shows up regularly in declarations about the Nazi era. It was implied in a Facebook post by the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesperson’s unit last week marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And it was asserted in an article shared by the Trump White House in defense of its Holocaust statement the same day omitting references to the 6 million Jewish victims. It is, however, a number without any scholarly basis. Indeed, say those close to the late Na... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-"Cantor Kaufman!" Rabbi Jonah Pesner shouted across the intersection of 3rd and D in Washington's Northwest quadrant, packed sidewalk to sidewalk with women in pink pussycat hats and their male friends. "A song!" Jason Kaufman, the cantor at Beth El in Alexandria, Virginia, draped in a rainbow tallit and in the middle of telling a joke, cocked an eyebrow and pivoted gracefully from the guy hanging with his buddies at Saturday's Women's March on Washington to the religious leader ready to, well, lead. Kaufman's rich tenor... Full story
(JTA)-There are plenty of paradigms in the history of humor for how Jews and non-Jews get along, or don't: as persecutors and victims, as saviors and saved, as allies against a common oppressor. All these are fraught with the tensions between the powerful and the disempowered, which makes sense: Fear drives humor. But there is a uniquely American paradigm, one devoid of fear, instead celebrating the Jew as an inextricable part of the national fabric. Its best exemplar was Mary Tyler Moore, who died Wednesday at 80. Jews were coming into their... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—There’s a striking difference between competing bids in Congress addressing last month’s U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. It’s not that they differ on the United Nations—the two nonbinding congressional resolutions under consideration condemn the Security Council, as well as the outgoing Obama administration for abstaining and not exercising the U.S. veto. Here’s the difference: Missing from one of the resolutions are the word “two states.” In the other resolution, the two-state outcome feature... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Barack Obama got his kishkes back. The president, whose alleged aloofness was the signature flaw cited by his rivals, his critics and at times his friends, ended his presidency with an impassioned appeal for the preservation of democracy-his lower lip trembling, a tear streaking his cheek. For sure, Obama could be emotional, heimishe even-remember his tears while speaking with the parents of the children slain in Newtown, Connecticut, or his singing of "Amazing Grace" during his eulogy for one of the Charleston shooting... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Reps. Ed Royce and Eliot Engel are that Capitol Hill rarity: a Republican and a Democrat who truly have each other's back. And nothing unites Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Engel, D-N.Y., its top Democrat, like support for Israel. Not simply Israel-Royce and Engel take their cues on the issue from the mainstream pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Right now, that means keeping the United Nations out of the... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Ahead of the unknowns a Trump administration will bring to American Middle East policy, the Obama administration allowed a bracing reminder on Friday that the international community does not recognize the validity of Israel's presence in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. The U.S. abstention on the U.N. Security Council vote last week was hardly unprecedented, but neither was it entirely consistent with recent U.S. policy. The Obama administration did not quite endorse Resolution 2334, but its abstention ensured the... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for-and got-the endorsement of one of Obama's fiercest pro-Israel critics. "Dan has always spoken to us, patiently and carefully explaining the administration's position, and he does so with aplomb, with concern, and with intense appreciation of the other side's position," Morton Klein, the Zionist Organization of America president, said at the time. Don't expect... Full story
President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign he wants to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His nominee for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has said he hopes he will work from an embassy in the city. Trump’s transition team has affirmed the intention to move the embassy, albeit without a timeline. And now, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, in a forceful speech at Tuesday night’s Chanukah party at the embassy here, encouraged Trump to make good on the pledge, saying it was long past due. Dermer last night enume... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA) Weird paradoxes have been packed into Chanukah observance forever. It's the holiday about killing infidels that is now celebrated as a victory of religious pluralism. It's the unofficial little Jewish holiday that a U.S. congressman once tried to turn into a major American holiday. It's the Jewish holiday with terrible songs written by Jews competing with the Christian holiday with wonderful songs, also written by Jews. Add this to the ironies: When eight or so Jewish organizations dropped out of a Chanukah party this year... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-A year ago, when several dozen Washington-area Jewish and Muslim religious and lay leaders jostled for spots in a group picture, the mood was convivial. The most novel item on the agenda for that November 2015 confab was bringing in non-Middle Eastern Muslims into the Jewish-Muslim dialogue. The meeting and the venue-an Indonesian-American Muslim center in Silver Spring, Maryland-helped "dispel the myth that Muslims are inherently of Middle Eastern descent," a release said. On Sunday, the meeting of the third Summit of Greater... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Haim Saban, a major Democratic Party funder, said Rep. Keith Ellison's election as chairman of the Democratic National Committee would be a "disaster" for the relationship between Jews and the party, signaling a looming crisis between the party's progressives and the centrist pro-Israel community. The scathing broadside delivered Friday by the Israeli-American entertainment mogul from the floor of the annual Saban Forum, an event he funds bringing together U.S. and Israeli leaders and influencers, underscores the degree to... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Add sweeping school reforms-and with them, funding for private schools that Orthodox groups embrace and secular Jewish groups fear-to the campaign promises that Donald Trump plans to fulfill. Last week, just before Thanksgiving, the president-elect named Betsy DeVos, a billionaire education reform activist and champion of charter schools and public funding for private schooling, as his education secretary. As leader of the American Federation for Children, a group that promotes charter schools, DeVos promotes exactly the model... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry signaled in a speech that the Obama administration was still considering action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its final days, although it might fall short of a direct intervention on the issue. There's no way to "force-feed" peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Kerry said in a lengthy speech delivered Tuesday at the Women's Foreign Policy Group conference, but there are "other things we can do" to preserve a two-state solution. It's not clear whether President Barack Obama... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The most shocking thing about talk of Keith Ellison's Israel record as he rises within the Democratic Party is how few think it's shocking. Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, despite a record of tough criticism of Israel that pro-Israel insiders say would easily have disqualified him a decade ago. That he is being seriously considered now-and with the backing of the party's foremost pro-Israel stalwart, incoming Senate minority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer,... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-In recent months, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have each emphasized what in recent years hardly needed emphasizing: mainstream Jewish support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reiterations of support signify a concern growing among Jewish organizations about deepening partisan differences on what has been since 2002 a rare area of broad political consensus in Israel and the United States. It also shows how centrist... Full story
