Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — An Israel-Hamas ceasefire in Gaza will take place in three stages over several weeks, sources in the Palestinian Authority and Fatah claim. Parallel to this, Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas is said to be preparing certain reforms under U.S. pressure that he hopes would allow him to return to power in Gaza. The emerging ceasefire agreement will occur in three phases, according to the high-ranking sources and reports in the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel. The basic formula is the release of one Israeli hostage for 30 i...
New Title VI probes of Harvard, UMich, New School, USF, Indiana (JNS) — The U.S. Department of Education announced five new investigations under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Law. Harvard University, the University of Michigan, The New School (New York City), Indiana University-Bloomington, the Butler School District 53 (Illinois) and the University of South Florida are all being probed for violations “for discrimination involving shared ancestry.” Campus Reform said it filed the complaint against Indiana, a public university. The Educa...
(JNS) — The heads of the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus on Feb. 7 pressed Dutch legislators to cut funding to UNRWA altogether, as Israel seeks alternatives for the U.N. body over its ties to Palestinian terrorism. The discussion, at the Dutch House of Representatives, comes amid Israeli calls for UNRWA to be replaced by responsible aid agencies; U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that the work and functions of UNRWA need to be preserved. “With the recent horrific reports verifying UNRWA employees’ complicity in the Oct. 7...
BERLIN (JTA) — Police in Berlin have arrested a 23-year-old man who allegedly attacked and seriously wounded a Jewish student in a bar on Friday. The Jewish student and his family say the attack was a hate crime. The victim, Lahav Shapira, 30, was hospitalized and underwent surgery for non-life-threatening injuries to his face. He is the grandson of Israeli athletics coach Amitzur Shapira, who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in the Munich Olympics terror attack in 1972. His older brother, Shahak Shapira, is a prominent comedian and w...
(JNS) - The OneFamily organization on Sunday hosted a unique day retreat for 25 of the most senior officers of the "IDF Casualty Center," providing a short respite and critical support for soldiers with one of the most difficult jobs in the army. The IDF Casualties Center is a unique division of 1,800 people tasked with notifying the families of fallen soldiers. The unit was founded in 1948 but only became active two years after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which claimed the lives of thousands of...
(JNS) — Israel will not agree to the “delusional demands” Hamas is making to release the 136 remaining hostages being held in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address on Feb. 7. Bowing to the terrorist organization’s demands will lead to another massacre and a “major disaster” that no Israeli citizen will accept, he emphasized, speaking from his office in Jerusalem. “We are on our way to total victory,” he declared. “Total victory over Hamas will not take years. It will take months. Victory is within reach....
(JNS) — Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a member of the so-called progressive “Squad” in Congress and originally from Mogadishu, is facing calls for her resignation after, critics say, she promised to do all she could to prevent a Somaliland deal with Ethiopia over access to the sea. “The language she employed was regrettably unbecoming of both the office she holds and the constituents she represents,” wrote Rhoda Elmi, deputy foreign affairs minister of Somaliland, which declared its independence from Somalia in 1991 but which most countries...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A conflict that started on a tiny perimeter of land on Oct. 7 is, less than four months later, reverberating throughout the region, from Lebanon in the north to Morocco in the west, Iran in the east and Yemen in the south. “This is an incredibly volatile time in the Middle East,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday at a press conference. “I would argue that we’ve not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region since at least 19...
GAINESVILLE, Florida — Amid the record levels of antisemitism on college campuses, student leaders at the University of Florida held the fifth-annual Spread Cream Cheese, Not Hate® Bagel Day program on Jan. 31. Started in 2020 by University of Florida Hillel, Spread Cream Cheese, Not Hate® is a program that seeks to proactively combat antisemitism through education, outreach, awareness, and partnership. In connection with National Bagel Day, UF students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, and community members are invited to sign the pledge to...
Craig Polejes, Chair of the Shalom Orlando Board of Directors, announced that the Board of Directors of Shalom Orlando has appointed Melissa Youngblood and Rachel Greenspan as the interim co-executive directors. Melissa Youngblood has been an invaluable member of the Shalom Orlando team for the past six years, serving with distinction as the chief education officer of the Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center. In her role, Youngblood has exhibited exceptional leadership, driving forward transformative initiatives and ensuring that...
With only three representatives voting against it, the Florida House of Representatives passed House Bill 187 that defines what antisemitic speech is, and now it moves on to the Senate. Sponsor of the bill, Rep. Mike Gottlieb (D-Plantation), told the Orlando Sentinel the goal is to curb hate speech toward Jews and Israel. The bill includes the definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016 into Florida educational statutes. “We live in a time where people think they can say things and that has no...
(JNS) — Scores of Christian supporters from around the world gathered in Israel’s parliament on Tuesday, marking the 20th anniversary of the Knesset’s Christian Allies Caucus in a show of solidarity amid the war against Hamas in Gaza. The event, which came on a somber day following the single deadliest attack on Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip since the war broke out three and half months ago underscored the growing force of faith-based diplomacy around the globe. “Over the last 20 years, you have proven in the best possible way what true fr...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday set out the country’s core demands for ending the war against Hamas in Gaza. “The essential goal is, first of all, the elimination of Hamas. To achieve this goal, three things are needed,” Netanyahu told journalists ahead of the weekly Cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv. “The first requirement is the collapse of Hamas’s battalions. To date, we have leveled 17 out of 24 battalions. Most of the remaining battalions are in the southern Gaza Strip and Rafah—we wi...
(JNS) — The Florida Department of Education has distributed $25 million in security funding—of $43 million allocated by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R)—to more than 130 Jewish day schools and preschools across the state, the governor’s office announced earlier this week. “During a time of increased antisemitism around the world, Florida will continue to protect the Jewish community,” DeSantis stated on Jan. 30. “Today’s funding will give Florida’s Jewish day schools the tools they need to continue to keep their students safe.” The funding will help s...
(JNS) — The U.S. House of Representatives voted 422-2 on Wednesday to deny entry into the United States to non-U.S. citizen members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who attacked Israel on Oct. 7. Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) introduced H.R. 6679, the “No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act,” which drew dissenting votes from Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.), two leftist members of the so-called “squad.” Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) voted “present.” “Any alien who carried out, participated in, planned, financ...
(JNS) — A video clip making the rounds in Hebrew media features Ofakim Mayor Yitzhak Danino revealing disturbing details of a conversation he had with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as the Oct. 7 attack unfolded, in which he pleaded for army helicopters to save the small southern city, which Gallant promised but were never sent. Located 18 miles east of the Gaza Strip, Ofakim suffered more than 50 dead during the Hamas attack. The death toll would have been still worse but for the heroic actions of local residents, most armed only with h...
(JNS) - U.S. President Joe Biden is harming Israel's efforts to demilitarize the Gaza Strip by demanding that Jerusalem scale back its military offensive against the Hamas terror organization, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Channel 12 on Monday. Biden is "to some extent hampering the war effort by this desire to force Israel to engage in I think what he refers to as 'low-intensity combat'... That's sort of the kind of messaging that America has been giving Israel,"...
(JNS) - Despite a military closure, on Monday a diverse group of hundreds of protesters from all over Israel gathered at the country's Kerem Shalom border crossing with Gaza for the sixth day in a row, to demonstrate against the flow of humanitarian aid into the Hamas-controlled enclave. The demonstrators, including relatives of those murdered or kidnapped during Hamas's Oct. 7 massacre and of soldiers fighting the terror group in Gaza, avoided police checkpoints by driving through fields and...
(JNS) - In an exuberant display of support for re-establishing Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip, 5,000 activists filled three large halls to overflowing at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on Sunday night. A kind of Zionist revival meeting, the conference featured music, a cheering crowd, and a parade of rabbis and politicians delivering speeches and prayers. Religious Zionists made up the vast majority of the participants, with a smattering of haredim or ultra-Orthodox....
(JNS) — Israel’s National Security Minister, Otzma Yehudit Party leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened on Tuesday to bring down the government if it reaches a “reckless” hostage deal with Hamas. His tweet came amid apparent progress on an agreement to free the 136 captives remaining in Gaza whom the terrorist group abducted during its Oct. 7 attack on the northwestern Negev. In an apparent response to Ben-Gvir’s tweet, opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X that his Yesh Atid Party and its 24 Knesset members would give the government full back...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - There are about 245,000 Holocaust survivors alive, according to a new Claims Conference report. They are dispersed in more than 90 countries with 49 percent residing in Israel. The report, published ahead of the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27 and described by the organization-full name: the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany-as an "unprecedented demographic report," breaks down their locations as well as their countries of...
Hamas fires rockets at Tel Aviv for first time since Jan. 1 (JNS) — Air-raid sirens blared across Tel Aviv and its suburbs on Monday afternoon, warning of incoming rockets from the Gaza Strip for the first time since Jan. 1. Local reports said at least 10 rockets were fired towards the greater Tel Aviv area, sending millions of civilians racing for shelter. Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades “military” wing confirmed it fired a volley of rockets at the city “in response to the Zionist massacres of civilians.” There were no reports of casualties...
(JNS) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was set to meet on Tuesday with major donors to the embattled U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, the United Nations’ Palestinian-only refugee organization. A number of major donor countries announced in recent days the suspension of their contributions to the agency amid revelations that 12 UNRWA employees participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. The information was provided to UNRWA by Israel. Nine of the 12 employees had their contracts terminated, while anoth...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces will retain full security control over the Gaza Strip after the war with Hamas ends, giving it the freedom to operate there similarly to the way it currently does in Judea and Samaria, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli lawmakers on Tuesday. “After the war, when it’s over, I think it’s completely clear that Hamas won’t control Gaza. Israel will control [it] militarily, but won’t control it in a civilian sense,” Gallant told members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee dur...
(JNS) — A UN Watch report released this week further bolsters the assertions of UNRWA’s critics that the Palestinian aid agency, rife with terrorism supporters, is beyond repair. UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, has come under fire after The New York Times broke the story on Sunday that 12 staff members took part in the Oct. 7 massacre in which Hamas terrorists rampaged through Israel’s south, murdering some 1,200 persons, mostly civilians. At least 15 countries, including the U.S., have suspended funding to the organ...
