Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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On Sukkot, we strengthen our local communities, hosting elaborate meals with relatives and friends and leaving one wall of the sukkah open, symbolizing hospitality. Sukkot also invokes the Jewish community in time. We build temporary structures to commemorate our biblical ancestors wandering through the desert, and we invite ushpizin – symbolic guests. Traditionally, ushpizin have been biblical characters, kabbalistically associated with particular divine attributes. In my community in Los A...
(JNS) - Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage who was freed in May after 584 days in Hamas captivity, was honored with a street named for him in the borough in which he grew up. "To have a road named here in the place I call home is something I never would have imagined," Alexander said during a ceremony before the street sign was unveiled. "Every time I see this road, I will remember not just the struggle but the love and unity that brought me back home." Alexander, who was...
I'm sitting and waiting for my wife in the hotel lobby after a wedding and reception. It's October 2013 in Michigan. A group of men enter from outside and they disperse with only one remaining a few feet away from me. I'm thinking I've seen him before. He's tall, thin at the time, and dark complected. I stand up and say "Excuse me, you look familiar. Aren't you...?" He perceives my hesitation, with grace and a look of sophistication extends a hand and replies "JB Smoove. How are you this...
People often talk about “trading a Palestinian state for peace,” yet few know the history of this land. While Gaza fills headlines, another phrase is hitting the headlines lately: the “Occupied West Bank.” The West Bank is the heartland of ancient Israel and Judah, including Hebron, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem. It was seized by Jordan in 1948 and then captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The West Bank has never been a Palestinian state; before 1948 it was part of the British Mandate, and before that it was under Ottoman rule. Biblica...
(JNS) — The New York City mayoral race has narrowed to three candidates following incumbent Eric Adams’s decision to drop out on Sunday, but polling suggests that that will do little to increase the odds for former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa to defeat the Democratic frontrunner, state representative Zohran Mamdani, in the general election in November. Experts told JNS that the political defeat of one of the most philosemitic and pro-Israel mayors in the city’s history at the hands of a self-described socia...
Sara Netanyahu visits gravesites of Lubavitcher rebbe and rebbetzin in Queens, NY By JNS Staff (JNS) — Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Ohel in Queens, N.Y., late Sunday night under heavy security, reported the COLlive news site. It is the resting place of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson; his wife, the rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson; and his father-in-law, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. There, she prayed for the Jewish people; the defeat of their enemies; and the s...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled a comprehensive proposal to end the Israel-Hamas war. Below is the full text of the proposal: • Gaza will be a deradicalized terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbors. • Gaza will be redeveloped for the benefit of the people of Gaza, who have suffered more than enough. • If both sides agree to this proposal, the war will immediately end. Israeli forces will withdraw to the agreed upon line to prepare for a hostage release. During this time, all military operati...
(JNS) - Several hundred family members, friends, members of Knesset and Israel Defense Forces soldiers gathered at the Oz VeGaon Nature Preserve in Gush Etzion on Sept. 28 for the annual Lion of Zion prize in memory of renowned Israel advocate Ari Fuld, on his seventh yahrzeit. Fuld, 45, who was born in New York and made aliyah in 1994, was murdered by an Arab teenager in a 2018 terrorist stabbing, several days before Yom Kippur, outside a mall near the Gush Etzion Junction. With his last...
