Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(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...
Israeli FM congratulates new Japanese premier on ‘historic election’ Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday congratulated Japan’s first female prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, on her “historic election.” “We look forward to further deepening the partnership between Japan and Israel across various fields and building a prosperous and secure future for both our nations,” tweeted Sa’ar. Takaichi, who leads Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was voted in as premier by a clear majority of the nation’s parliament on Monday. While the 6...
(JNS) — Jewish families have been banned from living in Saudi Arabia for dec-ades. Is this the model that Democratic House leaders now support for Judea and Samaria? When 178 House Democrats signed a letter on Sept. 25 to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposing any Israeli move to annex territory in the West Bank, they weren’t just making a policy statement but endorsing a future where no Jews would live in Judea and Samaria. Do they believe that Jews should be barred from living in their ancestral homeland—the biblical heart...
(JNS) — The Hamas terrorist organization, through the International Committee of the Red Cross, returned the remains of two more slain Israeli hostages it had been holding in the Gaza Strip. After being handed over to Israeli forces by a Red Cross team inside the Strip, the bodies were transferred to the Jewish state and received in a military ceremony, the Prime Minister’s Office said. Following an identification process at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in Tel Aviv, the PMO confirmed the hostages’ identities as Ar...
(JNS) - Rom Braslavski, one of the 20 hostages freed by Hamas as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire, was held alone for two years, and was offered better treatment if he agreed to convert to Islam. His testimony was shared with the media via his mother, Tami Braslavski, at Ramat Gan's Sheba Hospital, where he is being treated. During some of those two years, his only company was the bodies of murdered hostages, she said. She added that upon his return to Israel, he had reported the location of...
(JNS) — Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday passed in preliminary reading two opposition bills to extend legal sovereignty to Judea and Samaria. One bill, by Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Liberman, seeks to annex Ma’ale Adumim, a large city in the Judean Desert, while a second, by Noam Party head Avi Maoz, concerns all of Judea and Samaria. The legislation will now be forwarded to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee for consideration ahead of three additional votes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had sought to thwart the...
(JNS) — Freed hostage Avinatan Or was discharged Tuesday from Rabin Medical Center’s Beilinson Hospital and returned to his parent’s home in Shiloh, Samaria, eight days after he was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza. The Petach Tikvah hospital said that Or, who was freed on Oct. 13 as part of the U.S.-brokered deal with Hamas, had passed all medical examinations and would continue his rehabilitation through its unit for ex-captives. “Beilinson will continue to accompany Avinatan and his family, who will receive all the support they need,...
(JNS) — Freed Hamas hostages Eitan Horn and Nimrod Cohen were discharged on Thursday from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center’s Ichilov Hospital, three days after returning to Israel under the truce deal that secured their release after more than 700 days in captivity in the Gaza Strip. Sourasky Medical Center said the ex-captives completed all the required medical evaluations before their release and that medical teams would continue to accompany them and their families during their recovery. Horn, 38, was released to his family’s home in the c...
(JNS) - Forty-eight Israeli children who lost a parent serving in the Israel Defense Forces celebrated their b'nei mitzvah on Monday in Jerusalem, in a day-long program that blended joy, remembrance, and unity. The event, organized by the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization (IDFWO), began with a moving reception at the President's Residence, where President Isaac Herzog and his wife, Michal, warmly welcomed the children and their families. "It's OK to be sad," Michal Herzog told them. "You...
A new teaching and religious organization was recently incorporated in DeLand, Fla. The nonprofit is called The Center for Jewish Discovery of Central Florida, and was developed by Rabbi Michael Asher, who was ordained in June 2025 by the Jewish Spiritual Leadership Institute. A kickoff Shabbat dinner was held in early September with nearly 30 people attending. "We offer meaningful classes, open conversation, and spiritual exploration for Jews of all backgrounds," Asher told Heritage. "Through...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and former U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman took to the stage on Saturday in Jerusalem to perform a rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s hit rock song, “Sweet Home Alabama.” American comedian and actor Elon Gold led the ensemble, singing “Sweet Home Yerushalayim” (“Jerusalem” in Hebrew) over the catchy chorus. Huckabee expertly pulled off the song’s funky bass line on electric bass, with Friedman accompanying the group on electric guitar. The performance was shared on X by Eli Beer, president a...
(JNS) — Hamas terrorists must give up their weapons, or “all hell breaks loose,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CBS on Tuesday. Netanyahu spoke in response to a question on whether Israel’s two-year war against Hamas in Gaza was over. He replied that Israel was giving a chance to the ceasefire agreement forged by U.S. President Donald Trump, which includes “both demilitarization and disarmament,” which are “not the same thing,” the prime minister said. “Well, we agreed to give peace a chance,” Netanyah...
“If we have to, we’ll disarm [Hamas],” U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News’ correspondent Maria Bartimoro in an interview aired on Sunday night, in light of the terrorist group’s recent claims that it has not committed to disarmament. Trump said that during negotiations for the Gaza ceasefire that went into effect on Oct. 10, Hamas promised it would disarm but added that “these are very violent people; this is a very violent part of the world.” When asked who would disarm Hamas, Trump replied, “Whether it’s me, the U.S., or a proxy,...
(JNS) — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) are urging the Trump administration to investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations for possible links to Hamas and other terrorist groups. The Congress members wrote to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, asking him to look into whether CAIR, a decades-old organization that says it advocates for Muslim civil rights, is providing material support for terrorism, based on its history and its conduct following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel. The Tre...
President Donald Trump appeared to threaten violence against Hamas in Gaza on Thursday as he responded to reports that Hamas was executing Gazans following the ceasefire with Israel that Trump brokered last week. “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday, concluding with a trademark flourish: “Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Soon after, he clarified that he did not mean the United States would enter Gaza. “Somebo...
Hours after freeing 20 living hostages to a jubilant Israel, Hamas released the remains of four deceased hostages — far fewer than the 28 it is holding and obligated under the terms of the ceasefire to release. The group had already indicated that it was not prepared to release all of the deceased hostages’ remains immediately, following two years of war in Gaza, and Israel and negotiators had accepted that it could take some time. Still, the small number of bodies released on Monday represented a disappointment for many who had hoped that Mon...
(JNS) — One was held in a Gaza tunnel, deep underground, shackled in darkness for nearly two years. Another was kept in total isolation, enduring a process of deliberate starvation at the hands of his captors, losing nearly 40 percent of his body weight. They were tortured and tormented and in constant peril. These were some of the gruesome stories emerging from the 20 living Israeli hostages released two years after Gazan terrorists seized them during the Hezbollah-led invasion of the northwestern Negev. Elkana Bohbot, 36, one of the o...
(JNS) - "My life, my life," cried out Einav Zangauker, embracing her son, Matan, for the first time in one of many emotional moments, as the 20 living hostages embraced their joyful families upon their return to Israel after 738 days in Hamas captivity. Hamas kidnapped Matan and his girlfriend Ilana Gritzewsky from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on Oct. 7, 2023. On Dec. 7, 2024, Hamas published a letter that it said was from Matan. "We are still alive. We want to return safely before we go...
(JNS) - The Blue Sky Warden aircraft, the result of a collaboration between Israel Aerospace Industries and the U.S. company L3Harris Technologies, embodies an innovative concept in light strike and reconnaissance aircraft. It is an enhanced iteration of the Air Tractor aircraft, which is originally a farming workhorse and an aerial firefighter, and also serves in Israel in the Elad Squadron, the aerial firefighting squadron. The new version of the aircraft will be adapted in Israel for...
(JNS) — The Trump administration is pushing ahead with the second phase of its Gaza peace plan, aiming to rebuild the southern city of Rafah, Israeli media reported on Thursday, citing senior U.S. officials. According to Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, the aim is to create a “day-after” model for life in the Gaza Strip. Despite incomplete progress in returning Israeli hostages—only nine of the 28 bodies held by Hamas have been recovered—advisers to U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly said that the United States plans to begin reconstruction...
(JNS) — If you hadn’t known anything about the huge crowd that gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square two days before the actual return of the rest of the living hostages, you’d have thought you stumbled into a rally of the Israeli chapter of MAGA. The banners celebrated U.S. President Donald Trump as the godfather of the hostage deal, and Trump’s personal representatives—Steve Witkoff, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner—were warmly welcomed. The atmosphere was festive, even ecstatic. These have been two long years, during which massively lon...
