Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 11269
(JNS) — Barnabás (Barni) and Noa Szollos, brother and sister and Team Israel’s representatives on the ski slopes for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, have already cemented their place in Israeli winter sports history. Noa, 23, became the youngest Israeli to medal at the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics in Lausanne, Switzerland, taking bronze in the super-G (super giant slalom) speed-focused event and silver in combined, an event that features a speed and a technical portion. Part of her motivation was beating her brother’s personal best, she to...
(JNS) — Elaine Grossinger Etess, the third-generation Jewish proprietor of the famed Grossinger’s resort in Liberty, N.Y., in the Catskill Mountains, died on Jan. 27. She was 98 years old. The hotel was part of the famed Borscht Belt, where Jewish residents—many of them from the five boroughs of New York City—would go to unwind with their families amid expansive lawns, swimming pools, exercise and dance classes, day and nighttime activities, and legendary comedy acts, complete with all-you-could-eat kosher food. Etess was the daughter of Harr...
(JNS) — The Israeli currency surged to one of its strongest levels in decades, trading at 3.09 shekels per dollar at noon on Thursday. A similar exchange rate was last recorded in November 2021 and in 1996. The Bank of Israel’s representatives exchange rates set on Wednesday afternoon included 3.0910 per U.S. dollar, 4.2609 per British pound, 2.2798 per Canadian dollar, 2.1657 per Australian dollar and 3.7039 per euro. The shekel’s strengthening is not a momentary outlier, as it has been rising against the nominal effective exchange rate...
Temple Israel brought together ancient heritage and modern innovation last Thursday night with an unusual offering: Into to 3D Pringing with Rabbi Neely. The class, held Jan. 29, invited congregants to explore how new technology can give timeless Jewish traditions a creative twist. Rabbi Neely showcased a table full of colorful 3D-printed objects he'd designed himself, including mezuzahs-the decorative cases that hold a small scroll of sacred text-crafted using sites like Tinkercad. He even...
(JNS) — Lebanon’s prime minister vowed on Tuesday to keep his country out of war after Hezbollah’s leader last week warned that a strike on Iran would be an attack on its Lebanese terror proxy. “We will never allow anyone to drag the country into another adventure,” AFP quoted Nawaf Salam as saying during the World Governments Summit in Dubai, in response to a question about comments made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem. Hassan Nasrallah’s replacement said on Jan. 26 that his Lebanese Shi’ite terror army and its main backer in Teh...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Eighty-one years after the Holocaust, in a scenario that once seemed inconceivable, Israel and Germany have become allies. Germans defend Israel in the international arena, and Israel provides military defense for Germany. In an interview marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, one of Israel’s most prominent friends in the Bundestag, explained why Berlin will continue purchasing weapons from Israel and supporting it in the international arena despite imp...
(JNS) — The Pulitzer Prize Board is facing scrutiny following the election of Vijay Iyer, a composer, pianist and professor at Harvard University with a documented history of anti-Israel bias and activism. A Jan. 25 announcement from the Pulitzer Prize Administrator’s Office, which also included the election of Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the Associated Press, stated that Iyer, a tenured professor of the arts at the Ivy League school with joint appointments in music and African and African American studies, and...
(JNS) — Israel’s Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli lashed out on Sunday at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, calling him a “dictator,” “Hamas sympathizer” and “promoter of Sharia-based authoritarianism.” Chikli referenced a short video clip posted on social media in which Erdoğan apparently spoke recently in Turkish about the need of the region’s peoples to unite on the “common ground of Islamic brotherhood.” It is unclear whether the Turkish leader was referring to the Muslim Brotherhood group, whos...
(JNS) — A bill increasing government support for bereaved Israel Defense Forces families and victims of terrorism passed its final reading in the Knesset on Monday, following approval by the Labor and Welfare Committee. Among other provisions, the amendments to the Families of Soldiers Who Fell in Battle Law and the Benefits for Casualties of Hostile Acts Law grant orphans aged 21 and up a monthly stipend of 3,500 shekels ($1,120) until age 30 and 2,000 shekels ($640) per month until age 40. The amendments also significantly increase the m...
(JNS) - Professor and Jewish historian Deborah Lipstadt, former U.S. envoy for monitoring and combating antisemitism from 2022 to 2025, is set to receive Bar-Ilan University's 2026 Jonathan Sacks Institute Prize for Outstanding Achievement as a Public Intellectual. The award, established by the Gewurz family of Montreal in memory of Samuel Gewurz, honors figures whose work advances the ideas and moral vision of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the...
(JNS) - Backed by Mexico and Brazil, Gabriel Boric, Chile's outgoing president, nominated former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, a harsh critic of the Jewish state, to be the next secretary-general of the United Nations. Boric, who is also anti-Israel, made the announcement on Monday. José Antonio Kast, a right-wing politician who is set to assume the Chilean presidency next month, would be unlikely to nominate Bachelet, 74, for the role. Bachelet, who was Brazil's president twice-from...
(JNS) - Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says he has become more open about his Jewish faith following the massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the Hamas attack against Israel and subsequent rising Jew-hatred. "As people have approached me and expressed to me the fear that they have to live openly about who they are in this country, I have felt the responsibility to be more open about my faith, to offer some comfort to them," Shapiro told a group of reporters at an event sponsored by th...
(JNS) — In recent years, the number of Jews in New York applying for German citizenship has nearly doubled, according to a Deutsche Welle report. That includes Ruth Gruenthal, who fled Nazi persecution in her teens and rebuilt her life in the United States. The 103-year-old told the German publication that U.S. President Donald Trump’s reelection “evoked feelings that I thought I would never in my lifetime have to deal with again.” The German consulate in New York City has recorded 666 restorations of naturalizations of Jews, whose citizen...
(JNS) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday received the diplomatic credentials of the new ambassadors of Fiji and Thailand to Israel in formal ceremonies at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. Welcoming Fiji's envoy, Jesoni Vitusagavulu, Herzog said, "I am honored to welcome the first-ever ambassador of Fiji to Israel in Jerusalem." Herzog congratulated the Pacific island nation on its decision to open an embassy in Jerusalem, calling it a historic milestone in bilateral relations....
(JNS) — A year into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, experts are divided on how to grade the administration’s efforts to protect Jews on campus—an area that the White House and the U.S. Justice and Education Departments, among other agencies, have made a priority. In 2025, Columbia University, Northwestern University and Cornell University agreed to pay $221 million, $75 million and $60 millionrespectively to settle federal probes over alleged Jew-hatred, and the Trump administration has sought $500 million from Harvard Univers...
US, Israeli navies conduct planned Red Sea drill By JNS Staff (JNS) — Israeli naval vessels on Sunday conducted a joint exercise with a U.S. Navy destroyer, as part of ongoing cooperation between the Israeli Navy and the U.S. 5th Fleet in the Red Sea arena. The American destroyer docked at the port of Eilat as part of a “pre-planned, routine visit,” according to the Israel Defense Forces. The exercise “highlights the close cooperation between the two navies and the respective militaries,” the IDF stated. The USS Delbert D. Black arrived a...
(JNS) — The upcoming U.S.-Iran nuclear talks are now expected to be held in Oman on Friday after the Trump administration agreed to Tehran’s request to move the venue from Turkey, Axios reported on Tuesday, citing an Arab source familiar with the discussions. The source told reporter Barak Ravid that there are ongoing negotiations about whether Arab and Muslim regional countries will join the talks in the Gulf state, with the White House declining to comment. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Tuesday that he had instructed For...
(JNS) — In an E.U. survey published on Tuesday, 69% of some 25,000 respondents said that events in Israel shape how Jews are perceived in their country. The poll, published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, showed an increase in the perception that Israel influences how Jews are thought of: In a similar poll from 2018, 54 percent indicated there was a link to the Jewish state. The European Commission’s Eurobarometer survey on the perception of antisemitism also reported that 55 percent of respondents consider antisemitism to be a pro...
NANCY GAIL SCHWARTZ Nancy Gail Schwartz, 72, passed away on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, in Winter Park, Florida. She was a devoted wife, loving mother, cherished grandmother, and a truly beautiful soul whose warmth and kindness touched everyone she met. Born on May 24, 1953, in New York, New York, Nancy was the daughter of the late Sam Schechter and Helen "Cookie" Small. She grew up in Fresh Meadows, Queens, where she developed the warm, light-hearted spirit and wonderful sense of humor for which s...
(JNS) - A Jewish morning prayer took place on Thursday at Joseph's Tomb in Samaria, for the first time in 25 years. The shrine, which is venerated by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims, has a decades-long history of violence. Since the outbreak of the Second Intifada, entry to the complex on the southeastern outskirts of Nablus was permitted only at nighttime, under heavy security. Hundreds of worshippers, including Religious Zionism lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and Samaria Regional Council head Yo...
The Ormond Beach Police Department arrested Robert Tuck, 57, in relation to a bomb threat directed at Temple Beth-El in Ormond Beach. In a statement from the school, Gayle Belin, co-president of Temple Beth El stated, “on Wednesday morning, Jan. 28, Temple Beth-El received a call from a man who said he had thoughts about bringing a bomb to the Temple and wanted to speak to the rabbi (Rabbi Stanton Zamek). He furnished his name and because of caller I.D., we were able to provide that information to Law Enforcement.” Local law enforcement respond...
(JNS) — A Norwegian parliamentarian has nominated Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Jerusalem memorial center is “one of the world’s most significant institutions in the fight against antisemitism, hate ideologies and historical distortion,” Joel Ystebø of Norway’s Christian Democratic Party wrote in a letter addressed to the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Tuesday. “I believe that the Nobel committee should take a stand on antisemitism by issuing this award to Yad Vashem even though I understand it...
(JNS) — A large stone storage vessel used by Jews in the Galilee during the Roman period nearly 1,800 years ago is on display as part of an exhibition marking the Knesset building’s 60th anniversary. The vessel, standing about 80-centimeters (31.5-inches) high and 50-centimeters (19.5-inches) in diameter, was recently unearthed at the Pundaka de Lavi (“Lavi Inn”) site, located in the Lavi Forest near the Golani Junction in the Lower Galilee, by the Israel Antiquities Authority and KKL-JNF. Stone vessels were important in ancient Jewish society...
On Jan. 30, 2026, President Donald J. Trump announced his nomination of Kevin Maxwell Warsh to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, succeeding Jerome Powell when Powell’s term concludes in May. Warsh was born in Albany, New York,[13] to a Jewish family, the youngest of three children of Judith and Robert Warsh. Warsh, 55, brings to the nomination a rare depth of experience in both public service and financial markets. A former Federal Reserve governor (2006–2011), he was the youngest member — confirmed at age 35 — ever appoint...
(JNS) — New York City Police Department officers arrested a man who repeatedly rammed a car into an entrance to Chabad world headquarters in Brooklyn on Wednesday night. No injuries reported. The NYPD told JNs that officers responded at around 8:45 p.m. to 770 Eastern Parkway, where they saw a gray Honda sedan which “collided into entrance doors at the bottom of a sloped driveway in front of 770 Eastern Parkway.” “The operator of the vehicle was taken into custody and the investigation remains ongoing,” NYPD said. The department told JNS that...
