Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 11571
(JNS) - The Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund Board of Directors approved a budget of four million shekels (~$1.3 million) to upgrade the Nova Memorial Site and the Iron Swords Forest in Israel's northwestern Negev, the organization said on Thursday. Both sites have become national memorial spaces in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion on Oct. 7, 2023, with the Nova Memorial Site alone attracting more than a quarter of a million visitors during the first four months of 2026, according...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that the peace deal with the Iranian regime had been completed. “I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the U.S. Naval blockade,” the president stated just before 5:30 p.m. in Washington. “Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow.” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, whose government has served as a key mediator, wrote on X that the United States and Iran had reached a peace d...
(JNS) — Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Monday morning that the memorandum of understanding reached overnight by Washington and Tehran does not bind the Jewish state. “Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation,” he tweeted in Hebrew. The Israeli government’s duty is to its citizens, its soldiers and the Jewish people, he said. “Every time we succumbed to international pressure at the expense of Israel’s security, we paid in blood with interest. It was true in the Oslo...
More than 150 guests gathered at Grand Living Park at Lake Mary on Wednesday, June 10, for the annual Jewish Pavilion Senior Services Cocktail Party, enjoying an evening filled with delicious food, refreshing drinks, live music, networking, and philanthropy. The event brought together community leaders, business professionals, supporters, volunteers, and friends of Jewish Pavilion Senior Services. Guests mingled throughout the beautiful senior living community while enjoying an impressive...
Chabad has announced a four-session course, Sinai and Civics: How Jewish Values Helped Shape America's Founding Ideals, beginning the end of June, 2026. The program is offered through the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute. On July 4, 2026, the United States turns 250. Most Americans will celebrate. Fewer will know that when Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were appointed to design the first national seal in 1776, they proposed an image of Moses parting the Red Sea, with the...
(JNS) — Israel is not at war with Lebanon but with Iranian proxy Hezbollah, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Wednesday in a video message to the Lebanese people. “Do you remember what Lebanon was like before Iran and Hezbollah turned it into a nightmare?” he asked. “Remember the cafés? Remember the culture? Remember the calm? All that’s gone because Hezbollah and Iran want to drag us into war over and over and over again. You deserve better. Your children deserve better,” he said. “You know by now that Israel will do what...
(JNS) — While overall congressional travel abroad has fallen sharply this year, Israel remains the top destination for lawmakers taking privately sponsored overseas trips, according to data compiled by the LegiStorm tracking platform. More than one-quarter of the roughly $1.62 million spent on privately funded congressional travel through April went toward trips to Israel, the report found. The total reflects 14 trips sponsored by organizations including the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, the J Street Education Fund a...
Hollywood star Natalie Portman added her voice to the many critics of film directors set to attend a French festival next month who pressured an Israeli colleague to drop out of the event. Portman, who is Jewish and was born in Israel, addressed the issue in an op-ed that Le Monde published on Tuesday, and which she co-authored with several French film industry figures, including French directors Justine Triet and Jacques Audiard. In it, they criticized the open letter from last week of several directors from Arab countries, who said they...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday that an agreement with Iran would allow it to enrich uranium at low levels that “could never be used for military purposes.” “They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said in a phone call with The New York Times. The report suggested that the deal could include a 15–20-year period of “suspension,” but it was unclear whether this would involve a total ban on enrichment. When asked whether the limit would match the 3.67 percent cap set under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,...
The Unites States military on Wednesday completed another round of airstrikes against a series of Iranian regime targets, CENTCOM announced. “The strikes are in response to Iran’s unwarranted and continued aggression,” United States Central Command said. “U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal and ready.” The latest attacks targeted military surveillance capabilities, communication systems and air defense sites across the Islamic Republic, according to the statement. “U.S. Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy assets fired precision munitions o...
In an historic medical breakthrough, doctors in Israel's Clalit Health Services -Schneider Children's Medical Center, became the first in the world to treat a baby born with a fatal genetic brain disorder by injecting a healthy gene directly into his brain, in a pioneering effort that united an Israeli physician, an Arab scientist and the Israeli-born CEO of an American biotech company in a race to save the life of an eight-month-old ultra-Orthodox infant. The treatment was performed at...
(JNS) - Top Israeli architects and planning teams spent five action-packed hours in Beersheva learning about the Jewish National Fund-USA's ambitious plans for the World Zionist Village, a transformative center for Zionist education, leadership, innovation, community-building and lifelong engagement with the land and people of Israel. When completed, the 48,000-square-meter global hub in the growing Negev city will host the Alexander Muss High School, an English-language high school for...
With Iran's rulers threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, the modern world is reminded of an ancient truth: geography is power. The Strait is just a narrow channel between Iran and Oman, yet a huge share of the world's oil flows through it. Control that passage and you can rattle global markets, spike prices, and make nations nervous. Why the land of Canaan was so important When God told Abraham to go to the land He would show him, Abraham was being sent to Canaan, one of the great...
FASTSIGNS® of West Orlando, a staple of the local business community since 2011, has officially been acquired by franchise veterans Renee Friedman and Richard Goldstein. The strategic acquisition transitions the established West Orlando center into a high-capacity, multi-location network, massively scaling its production power and service capabilities. By merging the West Orlando facility’s local expertise with the infrastructure of Friedman and Goldstein’s top-tier Orlando Central flag...
A senior Iranian cleric called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.” “It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet. “America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with all one’s stren...
Connecticut man arrested for allegedly yelling slurs at visibly identified Jews, slapping kippah off man’s head By Jessica Russak-Hoffman (JNS) — Community members helped the New Haven Police Department identify Paul Smith, 36, of East Haven, Conn., who was arrested and accused of shouting antisemitic slurs at three visibly Jewish people and of slapping a kippah off a victim’s head. Victims said that the alleged attacker smelled of alcohol and that he approached the three Jews on Crown Street on June 2 and yelled, “get out of my city,” “baby ki...
(JNS) — As details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Iran framework agreement begin to emerge, Jewish organizations and policy experts said that questions remain whether its terms go far enough and if Tehran can be trusted to adhere to them. “Whether or not this agreement succeeds lies in strict verification and intrusive enforcement,” Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS. “Given Iran’s 47-year history of deceit and deception, its secretive nuclear program and its role as paymaster and armorer of terrorist proxi...
(JNS) - Israel on Sunday, June 7, marked the 59th anniversary on the Gregorian calendar of its capture of eastern Jerusalem and reunification of the capital during the 1967 Six-Day War. June 7, 1967, marked the day "the Jewish people returned to the heart of their ancient capital," according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry X post. It described the reunification of the holy city as a moment of "historic joy and liberation." The MFA's statement highlighted the significance of Jerusalem in Jewish...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces struck military targets in western and central Iran early Monday after the Islamic Republic launched ballistic missile barrages at the Jewish state overnight. The military said the Israeli Air Force, guided by Military Intelligence, carried out strikes on military targets belonging to the Iranian regime. IAF fighter jets "completed a large-scale strike on strategic defense systems," according to a statement. "Recently, defense systems were deployed in numerous...
(JNS) — As Israel prepared to mark the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War on June 7, the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum is asking the public to help uncover a visual record of one of Judaism’s most cherished sites—the Western Wall. The museum has launched a nationwide appeal for photographs, postcards and other visual materials documenting the Kotel from the earliest days of photography through 1968, ahead of a major exhibition to open in 2027, on the 60th anniversary of the war. The exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall,” will be t...
(JNS) — The House Armed Services Committee voted on Thursday to reject an amendment from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would have stripped a provision from the annual defense authorization bill calling for greater defense cooperation with Israel. Khanna and other critics of section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act have said that it would “fuse” the U.S. and Israeli militaries and was an example of Congress bowing to the wishes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolen...
(JNS) — Iran on Monday warned it would carry out “far more severe and crushing” missile attacks against Israel if the Jewish state continued military operations against Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy. The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran’s highest operational military command, said Tehran delivered “heavy, targeted and costly blows” to Israel in its attacks on Sunday and Monday. “The cessation of armed forces operations is hereby announced,” the statement continued, according to a translation by Iran’s Press TV outlet. The annou...
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Sunday praised former President Bill Clinton’s approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, saying he wished more Democrats shared his understanding of the issue. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) “is one of the few who do,” Huckabee tweeted, sharing footage of Clinton’s October 2024 remarks about negotiations he led between Israel and the PLO in the ’90s and early 2000s. PLO leader Yasser Arafat “didn’t tell me the truth ... when he promised me he was gonna accept the peace deal that we had worked out, which wo...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa discussed the ongoing high-level trilateral talks between Israel, Lebanon and the U.S., in a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut on Monday. Issa, who was born in Lebanon, said the U.S.-brokered talks would resume in Washington, D.C. He praised the professionalism of Lebanon’s negotiating team. According to the State Department, talks will reconvene during the week of June 22. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire on June 3. The ceasefire was to be contingent on Hezbollah, an...
The Wikipedia page for Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who has called the Israel Defense Forces a “Nazi army” and Orthodox Jews “inbred,” has received more than 327,000 views in the past 30 days. At the top of the page, it states that he has “regularly spoken about the Gaza war, advocating for Palestinians and criticizing the Israeli government.” Readers must scroll down quite a bit to learn that he has praised Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization. Despite an editor recommending it, the page does not note that the U.S. Department...
