Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida has raised over $1m in philanthropic commitments of $150K or more in 2025, marking unprecedented organizational momentum and setting the stage for transformative years ahead. These crucial gifts, to fund annual operations and innovations, reflect confidence in the Center's strategic direction and long-term impact. Founded in 1980 as a lecture series on the Holocaust, the Holocaust Center was established in 1982 and opened its museum...
(JNS) - Seven years ago, in the calm of a Saturday morning in Pittsburgh, the world convulsed. The Oct. 27 massacre at the Tree of Life*Or L'Simcha, in which 11 Jewish people were killed, did not merely shatter bones and hopes; it bent the axis of everyday life in my hometown neighborhood of Squirrel Hill. And now, in this seventh year, the hard work is no longer just to remember what happened or to respond with declarations of unity; it is to reckon with how memory demands us to live...
(JNS) - Walking down 3rd Avenue and 85th Street during a recent visit to New York, I was approached by a young, professionally-dressed woman who recognized me from news interviews. "Thank you for everything you do for Israel," she said, and held out her hand. I shook it, blushing. "No," I replied, "Thank you for standing by us during this difficult period." "Difficult period" is, of course, an understatement. For the past two years, the Jewish state and the nation it represents have been...
(JNS) — An Assyrian inscription on a pottery sherd over a possible tax revolt from the First Temple period about 2,700 years ago has been uncovered near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. The tiny fragment, about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in size, was uncovered six months ago during an excavation in the archaeological garden adjacent to the Western Wall, the state-run archaeological body said. It is the first such inscription in the Akkadian language eve...
Israeli singer Yair Levi’s melodies, in Hebrew and English, have touched the hearts of Jewish, Christian and secular men and women worldwide. Take his song, “The Blessing”: At a performance in The Netherlands, the overflowing crowd of Jews and Christians sang with him the Aaronic Blessing — “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace” — in Hebrew and Dutch and English. Cent...
Keep a folder of all medical information. It is good to have a binder in addition to a folder on the computer, so you can take critical medical information with you to appointments. Information Needed: • Health insurance cards, Medicare cards, and so on • Appointment reminder cards from health care providers • A list of medications including dosages, frequency, date started and reason • A medical history • A list of emergency contacts, relationship, addresses and all phone numbers • A sheet for recording the date of visits, the provider an...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — After the initial euphoria over the return by Hamas of 20 living Israeli hostages and the outrage at the terrorist organization for handing over only a fraction of the deceased hostages, talks on the next steps to end the war in Gaza are advancing. Before moving to the next stage of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan, ending the first stage is required, namely the return of all deceased hostages, 24 in total. Hamas already said last week that it would have difficulty locating all the deceased, since some wer...
(JNS) — In an interview with “60 Minutes” host Lesley Stahl that aired on Oct. 19, White House envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff recounted the chronology of events that led to the hostage-for-ceasefire deal that Israel and Hamas signed in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Oct. 9. Kushner said their approach was rooted in “pragmatic realism,” which he defined as preventing wars through strength and making deals instead of lecturing the world. The focus, he said, was on shared interests over shared values, working with other nations where goa...
(JNS) — Likud Cabinet and deputy ministers have signed a letter calling on Israeli President Isaac Herzog to pardon Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in connection to his ongoing criminal trial. The letter, dated Oct. 19, was initiated by Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, who posted it on X. “Unfortunately, today it is already clear to everyone that as long as his trial is underway, which is like a bleeding wound in the body of Israeli society, there will be no unity in Israel,” the letter states. The move comes in the w...
(JNS) — Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) led 44 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who caucuses with the Democrats, in a letter urging U.S. President Donald Trump to tell Israel that he is opposed to Israel annexing territory in Judea and Samaria. All of the Democrats in the Senate signed the letter except Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Congress. “Since your plan for Gaza does not address the West Bank, it is imperative that your administration reinforce your comments and emphasize its oppositi...
(JNS) — My daughter Alisa was murdered in a Palestinian Islamic Jihad-Iranian sponsored terrorist attack in Gaza on April 9, 1995. She was 20 years old, a college student studying at Nishmat in Jerusalem on a leave of absence from Brandeis University. She had worked hard at college for more than two years to take that leave of absence. It was her sixth trip to Israel. In that instant, my world was divided into “Before and After.” It has never returned to Before; it never will. I can’t read stories about hostage returns or terror victims without...
(JNS) — Fifty years apart, two disasters in Israel are bound by the same Hebrew word: conceptzia. Following the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the term became shorthand for the conceptual failure that enabled Egypt and Syria to launch their joint surprise attack against the Jewish state. Translating to something between “governing assumption” and “preconceived notion,” it regained prominence in local vernacular following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel five decades later. Since Oct. 7, 2023, conceptzia has become a polemical catch-all for blame ov...
As a physicist, lawyer, and late-for-appointments human, I have always grappled with the concept of “time.” Time is not a physical or spatial metric even though it is categorized as the 4th dimension in conjunction with the three physical dimensions of length, width and depth. In Genesis, the initial words of the first book of the Torah, are, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (emphasis added). Was that the beginning of time or was that a reference point to mark on the continuous time scale when the universe came into exis...
(JNS) — What has happened to the camps of sympathetic and understanding Christian traditionalists who had identified Israel, and its Zionist identity, as an ally against Islamism in the struggle against anti-Americanism in the world? Why are some leaving the cause? Why do others have doubts? And why are still others now turning virulently anti-Israel and anti-Zionist, dog-whistling Jew-hatred? Is it an infection of xenophobic nationalism that can be argued, or is it a theological hatred that cannot be properly checked? Back in April 2024, in a...
(JNS) — As the plane touched down in Thailand, I received the check-in email for my journey back home. Despite the 11-hour flight, I could only stay one day. I had a wedding to officiate upon my return. As a “freelance rabbi” (meaning not the head of a synagogue), I serve in a few capacities. I help people join the Jewish religion, I help them marry, and I’m a mohel (ritual circumciser), performing the sacred ritual of brit milah (circumcision) in Israel and around the world. The latter was the purpose of my visit to the Far East. I make th...
(JNS) — One of the things that has made the Jewish people so unique and has led to our survival throughout history is the sanctity placed upon human life. In Deuteronomy (Chapter 30, Verse 19), it is written: “I have placed life and death before you, blessing and curse; and you shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live.” That is why the Jewish community has struggled with feelings of ecstacy at the homecoming of the remaining living hostages, who have been held for two years in the most brutal conditions imaginable, coupl...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of South Orlando — Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. and 10 minutes before sunset; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 8:15 a.m., 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael — Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona — Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy of Orlando — Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Temple Israel — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3...
(JNS) — A prominent American evangelical leader said Thursday that the faith-based Christian community needs to take a more verbal stand against antisemitism, and “shut down” people like the right-wing political commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson who feed hatred of Jews and Israel. The unequivocal remarks come at a time when polls show a drop in support for Israel among young evangelicals due to the fallout from the two-year war in Gaza and follow last month’s assassination of the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was...
When Israeli pop star Yoni Bloch created a music video in January depicting scenes of the Israeli hostages returning through the use of artificial intelligence, it was meant as a hopeful fantasy. At the time, Bloch's song, "Sof Tov" or "A Happy Ending," went viral in Israel for offering optimism for the release of the nearly 100 hostages still held in Gaza. It also envisioned peace in the region accompanying the end of the war in Gaza. Now, nine months later, after the remaining 20 living...
(JNS) — A poll in the New York City mayoral race released on Monday shows state representative Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, with a double-digit lead in a three-way race against independent, former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. The AARP/Gotham poll of 1,040 likely voters shows Mamdani leading with 43.2% of the vote against Cuomo’s 28.9 percent and Sliwa’s 19.4 percent. But those margins would tighten considerably if either of the trailing candidates were to drop out of the race. “In a head-...
(JNS) - The Gaza ceasefire agreement faced its most deadly challenge yet on Sunday following an unprovoked attack by Hamas in southern Gaza that killed two IDF personnel-a company commander and a soldier from the Nahal Infantry Brigade-and severely wounded a third soldier. Hamas conducted at least two other attacks on Sunday as well. A military official, speaking to reporters on Sunday, stated that some of the IDF personnel targeted in the attacks were working on dismantling tunnel...
(JNS) - A decision by Britain's Safety Advisory Group to bar visiting Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending an upcoming Europa League match at Aston Villa's Villa Park has sparked outrage, with British-Israeli released hostage and soccer enthusiast Emily Damari calling it "shocking" and "disgusting." "I was released from Hamas captivity in January and I am a die-hard fan of Maccabi Tel Aviv," said Damari, who also supports Tottenham Hotspur. "I am shocked to my core with this outrageous decision...
(JNS) — Documents obtained by the Israel Defense Forces in the Gaza strip show substantial cooperation between Hamas and Al Jazeera, according to a report published on Monday. That coordination extended to the existence of a secure phone line between the terrorist group’s military emergency operations room and the Qatari news agency. “Qatar’s Al Jazeera gives Hamas a propaganda and psychological warfare platform. Hamas operatives, from rocket launchers to hostage takers, work for Al Jazeera. Terror propaganda is not journalism,” Israel’s...
(JNS) — Four in 10 Jewish Americans say they try to hide their religious identity, according to a new Washington Post poll that also reported almost one in three respondents saying they don’t feel safe as a Jew in the United States. In the survey, 42 percent of respondents said they do not wear, carry or display anything in public that could identify them as Jewish, with 58 percent saying they do. In an American Jewish Committee poll taken in November 2023, a month after Oct. 7, just 26 percent said they hid their Jewish identity, while 73 perc...
