Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Egypt has rejected an Israeli proposal to work together with Israel to reopen the Rafah Crossing into the Gaza Strip and manage its operation jointly, two security sources in Cairo told Reuters on Thursday. The Egyptian government demands the crossing be managed only by Palestinians, the sources said, adding that Jerusalem had offered a mechanism for how to manage the crossing after its forces withdraw. Officials from the Israel Security Agency presented the plan during a visit to Cairo on Wednesday, amid rising tension between the t...
(JTA) — An Iranian Jew who has been sentenced to death has reportedly received a one-month stay of execution after a global pressure campaign that included calls for prayer in Persian Jewish communities around the world. The stay came as Iran was plunged into political turmoil when a helicopter carrying its president and foreign minister crashed under unclear circumstances. President Ebrahim Raisi is known by the nickname “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in overseeing executions in the country, whose top official is the supreme leader Ayato...
(JNS) - Pro-Israel candidates fared well in primary races across the nation on Tuesday, although their opponents largely shared their views about the Jewish state. Sarah Elfreth, a Maryland state senator, won the Democratic primary for the state's 3rd Congressional District with $4 million in spending from AIPAC's United Democracy Project super PAC. She defeated Harry Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who rose to national prominence for his actions defending the Capitol during the Jan. 6...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Before sending the letter she knew would ricochet around the world, Lily Greenberg Call gave her parents a heads-up and said goodbye to her colleagues. Then she went home and prepared for the storm that she correctly predicted would be unleashed Wednesday night, May 16, when she was revealed to be the first Jewish staffer to resign from the Biden administration to protest President Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza. Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency after watching her story unfold in public, Green...
(JTA) — The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as the leadership of Hamas for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The charges Karim Khan announced Monday against Netanyahu and Gallant — the first ever to charge Israeli leaders by name — echo accusations Israel’s critics have made for months surrounding the war in Gaza: They include starvation as a means of war, willful killing and intentionally targeting civilia...
(JNS) - Israeli War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz on Saturday night threatened to leave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition if the premier does not declare a plan for the day after Hamas in Gaza. "I look you in the eyes tonight and tell you: The choice is in your hands. After talking to you again and again, the moment of truth has come. The time for a decision has come," said Gantz. "I have known you for many years as an Israeli leader and patriot, you know very well what needs to be...
(JNS) — The Israeli government on Wednesday unanimously approved a proposal to oppose a U.N. resolution promoting recognition of a Palestinian state. “No reward will be given for the terrible massacre of Oct. 7, which 80 percent of the Palestinians, both in the West Bank and in Gaza, support,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who initiated the proposal. “We will not allow them to establish a terrorist state from which they can attack us even more,” he added. “No one will prevent us, Israel, from exercising our basic right to defe...
(JNS) - "Somehow I know that Shani attended the Supernova festival on October 7 for a reason. Had she not, a lot more people would have died," Aviel Gabbay told JNS on Sunday. Aviel's sister Shani Gabbay was murdered by Hamas terrorists and later mistakenly buried along with another victim. "My father [Yaakov] would not have driven three hours from Yokneam [in the Lower Galilee] to Kibbutz Re'im [near Gaza] to look for her and would not have saved many others in the process," Aviel said. Shani...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — At least twice while campaigning in the small towns of the western stretch of Maryland’s 6th District, Joe Vogel headed to Shabbat services. Synagogues in Cumberland and Frederick were only too happy to accommodate when his campaign called ahead and said the Jewish candidate wanted to stop by on a Saturday morning. In fact, the Frederick congregation had a favor to ask of the young elected official: Could he lift up a Torah scroll? “It’s a slightly older congregation and they needed someone that could do the hagbah,...
(JTA) — On Tuesday night, the president of Sonoma State University sent an email to his school community announcing an academic boycott of Israel and other concessions to pro-Palestinian protesters on his campus. On Wednesday afternoon, he sent another surprising message: He was taking a leave of absence. “In my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalized other members of our student population and community,” Mike Lee wrote in the second email. “I realize the harm that this has caused, and I take full ownersh...
(JTA) – The student encampment at Cornell University is disbanding, in a rare instance of a campus pro-Palestinian protest dissolving on its own. Encampments at a series of other schools have ended only after schools made agreements with protesters or called in police. Police action has led to thousands of arrests, chaotic scenes of violence and accusations of suppressing free speech. Agreements with protesters have incurred the wrath of many in the organized Jewish community, who argue that the encampments should face consequences for e...
(JTA) — The Israeli military has recovered the bodies of three people who were killed in the massacre at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, including Shani Louk, whose body was photographed being carried away in a pickup truck by Hamas terrorists. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said Friday evening in a press conference that the three were killed on the day of the Hamas massacres that launched the war. Like other hostages held by Hamas, their bodies were taken into the Gaza Strip as leverage. “According to the cre...
Jewish population of Greater New York reaches 1.4 million (JNS) — Almost 1.4 million people in the Greater New York Area identified as Jewish in 2023, according to a study by UJA-Federation of New York. The Jewish Community Study of New York 2023 covers the five boroughs of New York City (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island), as well as Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties. UJA said the eight-county New York area continues to be home to the greatest concentration of Jews in the United States, adding that the area has e...
(JNS) — Israel remains committed to destroying Hamas in Gaza, including its remaining battalions in Rafah, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a phone call overnight Sunday. Gallant, according to the Defense Ministry’s readout of the call, emphasized that the IDF is conducting a “precision operation” in the city along the border with Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, including securing the Gaza side of the Rafah Crossing, which Israel’s military took operational control of last week. For its part, the Biden a...
By Andrew Lapin (JTA) – The student encampment at Cornell University is disbanding, in a rare instance of a campus pro-Palestinian protest dissolving on its own. Encampments at a series of other schools have ended only after schools made agreements with protesters or called in police. Police action has led to thousands of arrests, chaotic scenes of violence and accusations of suppressing free speech. Agreements with protesters have incurred the wrath of many in the organized Jewish community, who argue that the encampments should face c...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White House denied reports that the United States withheld intelligence from Israel on the whereabouts of Hamas’ leaders. The reports alleged that the United States would provide the intelligence in exchange for Israel curbing its offensive in Rafah, the city in southern Gaza. “The United States is working with Israel day and night to hunt the senior leaders of Hamas, who were the authors of the brutal terrorist assault of Oct. 7,” a White House official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We are providing unprecede...
(JNS) - "Our unity gives us as much protection as our army. We need it just as much to secure our existence," Sapir Cohen, who spent 55 days in Hamas captivity, told JNS on Monday. On Oct. 6, on the eve of Simchat Torah, Cohen and her boyfriend, Alex Trufanov, drove to Kibbutz Nir Oz to spend the holiday with his parents. The next morning, they woke up to loud explosions. "We hid under the bed. There was nowhere else to hide. Then, I heard screams of 'Allahu Akbar.' Terrorists were yelling and t...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - The International Bible Contest, an Israeli Independence Day tradition that features contestants from all over the world, will be held at the Jerusalem Theater on Tuesday with 16 youths competing-12 from the Diaspora and four from Israel. All will vie for the title of World Bible Champion. The final list of contestants was determined through a qualifying exam held during a Bible camp preceding the event. As part of that process, contestants tour the country, meet...
(JNS) — The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee reached a deal on Sunday with anti-Israel protesters two weeks after the latter set up tents on campus “in defiance of a state rule banning camping on campus property,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. Mark Mone, chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, stated on Sunday that the “voluntary dismantling of the encampment is the safest conclusion for everyone.” In response to the protesters’ demands, the public university called for a ceasefire in Gaza and “for the release of the...
(JNS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday that the Israel Defense Forces would "keep going until the end" to defeat Hamas, as the Jewish state marked its first Memorial Day since the Oct. 7 massacre. "Pain is everywhere, but so is light. A fighter whose two legs were amputated told me: 'It is important for us to know that we are going to defeat them,' not to give up...keep going until the end, until victory," said Netanyahu at the ceremony on Mount Herzl. "This is a...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Twenty-six Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives have asked the White House for a briefing on why President Joe Biden suspended the delivery of large bombs to Israel, the latest sign of fractures in the party over Israel policy. “We are deeply concerned about the message the Administration is sending to Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist proxies by withholding weapons shipments to Israel, during a critical moment in the negotiations,” said the letter sent Friday to Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national securit...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared Thursday to defy President Joe Biden's warning that the U.S. would impose a sweeping arms embargo against the Jewish state if the IDF carries out its planned ground operation in Rafah. In a statement released May 9, the Israeli premier vowed that Israel would "stand alone" if necessary in its current war against the Hamas terror organization, alluding to the Biden administration's suspension of weapons sales to Israel and threat May 8 of a full...
Hundreds of curious Jews will be streaming into Miami, Florida, for the 18th National Jewish Retreat, which will run at Miami's Doral Hotel from Aug. 14 to Aug. 18. Seventy speakers will deliver 150 talks on intriguing Jewish topics over five days. "Every year we bring a group from Orlando to this meaningful vacation and they always love it," says Rabbi Yanky Majesky of Chabad North Orlando "While they decompress and network, they're soaking up gobs of knowledge and inspiration." Coordinated by...
On Sunday night, Shalom Club held its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event as planned. When I took over chairing this event around four years ago, we had 25 people in attendance. Tonight, there were between 130 and 150 people in a room meant to be at capacity at 108. Fortunately, it was a first-story room, and several stood outside the doors as we had too many for the fire code. Lou Ziemba's story was read by his wife Beth Landa. Two musicians provided musical interludes. Julia Wood sang...
In Life Care Altamonte, a skilled nursing facility, a moment of tranquility and spiritual connection takes place one Friday a month. A Shabbat service, designed to honor Jewish traditions and bring comfort to the residents, becomes a cherished event for those of mixed faiths residing in the facility. The service is led by a dedicated volunteer who ensures that the rituals of the Shabbat are followed with utmost care and respect. It begins with the lighting of the candles, symbolizing the start of the Sabbath and the separation from the...
