Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Around 1,200 Hollywood names, including stars like Liev Schrieber, Mayim Bialik and Jennifer Jason Leigh, have signed onto an open letter opposing a growing celebrity boycott of the Israeli film industry. Led by Creative Community for Peace, a pro-Israel entertainment group, the letter argues that the stated boycott against Israeli film institutions will harm Israeli work that pushes for peace and criticizes the government and further encourage antisemitism. It comes after similar criticism of the boycott from Paramount, whose former c...
Netanyahu: There will be no Palestinian state By JNS Staff (JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that there will not be Palestinian state, and said that an Israeli response to the international recognition by various Western countries will come upon his return from a visit to the United States. “I have a clear message to those leaders who have recognized a Palestinian state after the terrible massacre of October 7: You are granting a huge prize to terrorism,” Netanyahu said. “And I have another message: It will...
Adams is out — but who will get his votes? Mayor Eric Adams quit his reelection bid on Sunday, ending an unpopular, scandal-ridden administration and a longshot campaign to hold onto Grace Mansion. Adams was consistently polling fourth, behind Democratic nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. But Jews made up an important part of his base. According to a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month, of the 12 percent of voters who favored Adams, 42 percent said they were Jewish. A...
A pizzeria in the German city of Fürth, Bavaria, is banning Israelis in protest against the ongoing war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in the second such antisemitic incident in the country in as many weeks. The move sparked outrage, with the local Jewish community in the southeastern state denouncing the move as a rerun of the antisemitism of Nazi Germany, while the Israeli embassy in Berlin also stated that it seemed like a return to the 1930s. “We believe that children should not be harmed under any circumstances,” a sign posted at the...
(JNS) — The Hamas terror group published a propaganda video of Israeli hostage Alon Ohel, just hours before the Jewish people marked Rosh Hashanah. Ohel’s family has requested that no photos or excerpts from the video be published. “Our family is shaken and in pain following the release of Alon’s video by Hamas. It’s evident that Alon is losing vision in his right eye, and he appears thin and distressed,” said the captive’s parents, Idit and Kobi, in a statement issued by the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. “We demand that as a preconditi...
Elon Musk has intensified his long-running feud with the Anti-Defamation League, calling the Jewish civil rights group a “hate group” in a post on X, the platform he owns and renamed from Twitter. “The ADL hates Christians, therefore it is is [sic] a hate group,” Musk wrote Sunday, responding to a pseudonymous account that had claimed the ADL views Christianity as extremist. The exchange drew quick amplification from right-wing figures. U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, accused the ADL of “intentionally creating a targeted hate...
This past Sunday, Sept. 14, marked a historic and heartfelt milestone, as Chabad of Altamonte Springs celebrated the completion and welcoming of its very first Torah scroll. The Siyum Sefer Torah, a celebration that drew families and friends from across the community, was filled with joy, music, and pride as participants danced with the new scroll in the streets before bringing it into the synagogue. The idea for commissioning a Torah began about a year ago. Until now, Chabad of Altamonte...
(JNS) — The U.S. Postal Service dedicated a new, two-ounce stamp honoring Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during a first-day-of-issue ceremony on Tuesday at the 92nd Street Y on New York City’s Upper East Side. The 18th which the Postal Service has issued in its distinguished Americans series, the stamp features a black-and-white portrait of Wiesel. It will serve as a permanent rate stamp for two-ounce mail. The half-hour ceremony drew about 100 people, inc...
(JNS) - Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept. 15 reopened the Pilgrimage Road in Jerusalem, a first-century route linking the City of David to the Temple Mount. The Pilgrimage Road, a broad stone route used during the Second Temple period, connected the Pool of Siloam, where pilgrims purified themselves in ritual baths, to Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount. Jerusalem "is forever our city," Netanyahu declared at the ceremony in the City of Da...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - A shop owner in Flensburg, northern Germany, has sparked outrage after hanging a sign in his store window reading "Jews are forbidden here." He claimed it was a protest against Israel's military operations in the Gaza Strip. Despite police arriving at the scene on Wednesday night, the sign remained in place, according to German media reports published Thursday. The sign, written in large letters, read "Jews" with "forbidden here" underneath, followed by four exclamation...
The first Party for the Pavilion, hosted at One Senior Place, was a huge success. Jason Mendelsohn, board member and long-time Jewish Pavilion Senior Services supporter, chaired the event. Guests enjoyed food, drinks, liquor tastings, music, and schmoozing. Attendees also had the opportunity to honor a special senior in their lives with a tribute on the scroll of honor....
(JNS) — According to Lara Burns, a former FBI agent who spent years tracking Hamas in the United States, the terror organization has for decades had a detailed strategy for both fundraising and winning the propaganda war, especially on American campuses. One of the targets of the recent Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, which apparently failed, was Musa Abu Marzouk, who served as the first chairman of the Hamas political bureau from 1992 to 1996 and then as deputy chairman from 1996 until 2013, when he was succeeded by Ismail H...
(JNS)— Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday invoked the memory of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States as he defended Israel’s strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders behind the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. “We remember September 11. On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery on American soil since the founding of the United States,” Netanyahu said. “We also have a September 11. We remember October 7. On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery against the Jewish people since the...
(JNS) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, wrote in The New York Times on Sunday that she is endorsing Zohran Mamdani, a state representative with a long history of denouncing Israel, for New York City mayor, giving the Democratic socialist his most high-profile backing to date. “I didn’t leave my conversations with Mr. Mamdani aligned with him on every issue,” she wrote. “But I am confident that he has the courage, urgency and optimism New York City needs to lead it through the challenges of this moment.” Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo, a fo...
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters five times on Sunday aboard Air Force One that Qatar, which has long housed Hamas leaders, is a “great ally.” Asked if he had a message for the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, who is also the state’s foreign affairs minister, Trump said, “look, we’re with them. They’ve been a great ally.” “A lot of people don’t understand about Qatar. Qatar has been a great ally. They also lead a very difficult life, because they’re right in the middle of everything,” Trump...
By Jonathan D. Salant (JNS) — American policy towards Israel is increasingly viewed along party lines, and more Americans now say that Washington is providing too much support for the Jewish state as its war with Hamas continues, according to a survey released on Thursday. The findings revealed a “strong and growing partisan factor in American views of U.S. support for Israel in its war against Hamas,” according to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Lester Crown Center on U.S. Foreign Policy. In the survey, 37 percent of Americans said...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Within six weeks, eight emergency distribution centers will operate in the Gaza Strip to provide food for the population expected to gather in the southern Strip as part of "Operation Gideon's Chariots II," during which Israel intends to evacuate hundreds of thousands of Palestinians currently in Gaza City, Israel Hayom has learned. Currently, three distribution points operate in the Gaza Strip (following the closure of one): in Gaza City's Saudi neighborhood; near the...
(JNS) - The Hostages and Missing Families Forum Headquarters on Wednesday highlighted three birthdays of Israelis still being held captive in Gaza after being abducted during the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, marked their 28th birthday. Their family lamented a "second birthday in hell" in a message shared by the Forum. "Our beloved Gali and Ziv, how we feared this day would come-a second birthday in...
(JNS) — A memorial mural featuring angel wings in a prominent city square in Israel. A sand sculpture on the Tel Aviv beach. An Israeli tank shell inscribed with a commemorative message. Spontaneous Israeli public tributes that have poured in since last week’s assassination in Utah of American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, 31, who was admired in Israel for his staunch support of the Jewish state and had a large following across the Atlantic. “If the world is divided into good and evil, the...
Netanyahu defends strike on Hamas terrorists in Qatar Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday night defended Israel’s strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, arguing that the terror group remains the main obstacle to ending the conflict. “The Hamas terrorist chiefs living in Qatar don’t care about the people in Gaza. They blocked all ceasefire attempts in order to endlessly drag out the war,” said Netanyahu. “Getting rid of them would rid the main obstacle to releasing all our hostages and ending the war,” he added. On Wednesda...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces launched the main phase of its ground operation into Gaza City in recent hours, a military official stated on Tuesday, initiating the final series of battles of the war to dismantle Hamas’s last remaining military and governing stronghold. The start of the offensive was reportedly marked by one of the most intense and widespread aerial and ground bombardments in recent months, with massive “belts of fire” reported across multiple neighborhoods throughout Gaza City, including Sabra, Daraj, Sheikh Radwan,...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed to Jerusalem what his office described as the largest-ever bipartisan delegation of American lawmakers to ever visit the Jewish state. “We value and cherish your support,” Netanyahu told the delegation of some 250 U.S. state legislators gathered at the Foreign Ministry, noting that there was an “active effort” ongoing to erode the ties between the two countries. These efforts are “orchestrated by the same forces that supported Iran,” he continued, accusing China and Qatar of spearheadi...
(JNS) — Israeli ministers on Saturday night called on the government to annex Judea and Samaria, after the U.N. General Assembly voted to adopt the so-called New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine, which outlines the implementation of a two-state solution and the path towards recognition of a Palestinian state. “The fact that a diplomatic attack on Israel is met with Israeli silence—is unacceptable and cannot continue,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is also a minister in the Defense...
Behind Kibbutz Nir Oz, on a small rise overlooking the fields toward Gaza, stands a new memorial. At 14 feet tall, the Lion of Judah sits with its mouth agape, teeth bared, eyes dark with anger and pain. One massive paw rests upon a dedicatory stanchion. This Lion is the work of Jerusalem artist Sam Philipe, a fifth-generation Jewish sculptor. The project was conceived and funded by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation in collaboration with the Nir Oz community. Philipe and I...
