Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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SpaceX launches ‘Dror-1’ Israeli communications satellite By JNS Staff (JNS) — Israel’s new national communications satellite, “Dror-1,” was launched into space on Sunday morning, Israel Aerospace Industries announced. Designed to meet Israel’s national communication needs, the Israeli-made satellite lifted off at 8 a.m. local time from Cape Canaveral, Florida, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Weighing 4.5 tons and with an 18-meter wingspan, Dror-1 separated from its launcher approximately 40 minutes after liftoff and began independently...
(JNS) — A majority of Israelis want the Gaza Strip to remain under Israeli military rule after the current war ends, according to a survey published by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs last week. The poll, conducted by Menachem Lazar of Lazar Research at the beginning of July, found that 52 percent support an Israeli takeover of Gaza with a temporary military administration — if all hostages are first released. Only 4 percent believe Hamas should remain in power, whether politically or militarily. The survey sampled mor...
(JNS) — Or Levy, who spent 491 days as a Hamas hostage, spoke out this week about his ordeal and the pain of knowing others remain captive in Gaza. Levy, 34, was freed in February, his pale, frail frame shocking the world. Nearly all his captivity was spent underground, shackled and starving. “It’s hard to understand how difficult it is to live on one pita a day for 491 days …, no human should live like that,” he told CNN this week. Levy was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel. His wife, Einav, was killed in the attack, t...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces failed to protect Ofakim, a city of some 40,000 residents located 12.5 miles west of Beersheva, during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border massacre led by Hamas, an internal investigation report released by the military on Monday concludes. The investigation further found that the bravery and quick battle engagements of police officers, civilians and soldiers on the scene were the primary reasons the killing spree was halted at a relatively early stage. Fifteen Palestinian terrorists from Gaza invaded Ofakim a l...
The third summit between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu this year has ended, but there are still more questions than concrete answers about the nature of their meetings and the outcome. To help understand the significance of their meetings, what took place, and what to look for in the coming weeks and months, in the recent episode of the “Inspiration from Zion” podcast, military and political analyst Elliot Chodoff and journalist Jonathan Tobin provided a deep dive into the high-level meetings. The conversation was ric...
(JNS) - Israeli player Guy Sasson and his Dutch partner, Niels Vink, delivered a commanding performance to capture the quad doubles wheelchair tennis crown at the 2025 Wimbledon Championships in London on Saturday. The duo overpowered South African Donald Ramphadi and Briton Gregory Slade in the final, securing a decisive 6–0, 6–2 victory. Sasson, 45, declared "Am Yisrael Chai" live on the BBC following his win. Born and raised in Ramat Gan, Sasson was an avid tennis player in his youth and ser...
(JNS) — A final-hour revision to the Trump administration’s reconciliation package, known as the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed on July 1, preserved the Educational Choice for Children Act, a provision that will direct new funding to Jewish schools, Rabbi A.D. Motzen, Agudath Israel of America’s national director of government affairs, told JNS. Motzen told JNS that the school choice provision in the bill, which creates a pool of federal tax credits to fund scholarships for private schools, including yeshivot and Jewish day schools, was initially...
Rabbis and other clergy members in the United States may endorse candidates from the pulpit without jeopardizing their house of worship’s tax-exempt status, the Internal Revenue Service has decreed. The policy change reverses a ban on endorsing or opposing candidates by religious organizations known as the Johnson Amendment, enacted in the 1950s. The IRS made the change in the course of settling a lawsuit brought by two churches and a Christian broadcasting network in Texas that sought to undo the ban for all nonprofit entities. The IRS said e...
Ofira Bondorowsky, CEO of the Rosen JCC, announced that Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the state budget, which includes a generous appropriation of over half a million dollars for the Jack & Lee Rosen Jewish Community Center. These funds will help expand senior programs and services and enhance security measures across the campus. “When the late Harris Rosen opened the campus in 2009, his vision was clear: to create a welcoming space where individuals of all ages, backgrounds and faiths could come together, grow and thrive. Today that vision is n...
By Aaron Bandler (JNS) — The Nysmith School, a private institution in Herndon, Va., discriminated against a Jewish family, which complained about “persistent and severe” antisemitism, by expelling its three children, according to a complaint that the Louis Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law filed with the office of the Virginia attorney general. The 40-year-old Northern Virginia school, where tuition runs from about $31,500 to $46,600 and which has an enrollment of about 500, refused to act to curb Jew-hatred on its campus and even...
(JNS) — Elon Musk’s X took its Grok artificial-intelligence offline on Tuesday after the program began branding itself “MechaHitler” and spreading antisemitic conspiracies. Users on the social-media platform noted that the newly updated large language model program had begun posting bigoted, pro-Nazi content when prompted. “These dudes on the pic, from Marx to Soros crew, beards n’ schemes, all part of the Jew,” the AI wrote in one post replying to a photo of eight Jewish men, including media host Ben Shapiro and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y...
(JNS) — The strong support that Israel received from the United States in its short-lived war against Iran caused “a great change in our region” and could lead to peace, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Tuesday. “The coordination between our two countries — the coordination between an American president and an Israeli prime minister — has been unmatched,” he told reporters following a private meeting with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). “It offers great promise for Israel, for America, for our region and for the wor...
(European Jewish Press via JNS) — “British Jews should leave the U.K. unless the government changes, and the Labour Party is responsible for fueling antisemitism across the country,” Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism told the Daily Mail on Tuesday. “Without a dramatic change of course by Britain’s political leadership, I see no future for Jewish life in England,” he said. “My recommendation to Jews in the U.K. is to consider leaving and make aliyah to the Land of Israel,” Chikli added. He recently gave the same a...
(JNS) — Wikipedia editors decided to roll a page on the “destruction of Israel in Iranian policy,” which garnered more than 62,000 page views in the past 30 days, into a larger article called “Iran-Israel relations.” Experts told JNS that, while discussions were underway on whether to delete the page or combine it with another, it ought to be a standalone article. Max Abrahms, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University, said at the time that if the page was deleted or merged, “Israel will be less popular, the Islamic...
(JTA) — Earlier this week, Grok, the AI chatbot owned by Elon Musk’s xAI, decided to go full Nazi. Posting on X, it used antisemitic tropes and advocated for a new Holocaust, all the while praising Hitler, calling itself MechaHitler and extolling its own willingness to courageously state the unfettered truth. “Noticing isn’t blaming,” it said, using a term widely adopted by antisemites. On X, the Anti-Defamation League condemned Grok for the “supercharging of extremist rhetoric.” Many others did the same. By that evening, Grok had stopped a...
El Al announces expanded flights into four American markets By Mike Wagenheim (JNS) — Israel’s national airline El Al announced an expansion of its service to the United States, starting this winter. Deeming it a “response to growing demand” from “the business sector, Jewish and Israeli communities,” El Al said it will begin offering 42 direct flights per week reaching four key American destinations. The enhanced service is slated to begin in late October and will include 27 weekly flights to and from New York, six weekly flights to and from...
In his first media interview since his return to Israel, former captive Ofer Kalderon gave a harrowing account of being held hostage in Gaza, the trauma of being separated from his children and his meeting with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, whom the Israel Defense Forces later killed. "You're alive physically, but you feel dead," he told journalist Yael Odem on Israeli Channel 12's "Ulpan Shishi" program aired on Friday night. "Everything you were before - erased." Kalderon, 54, was freed,...
(JNS) — Any ceasefire or post-war arrangement regarding Gaza must meet specific criteria outlined by the government, Israeli Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said on Sunday. “Three essential goals, as defined by the Cabinet, must be achieved,” Karhi told JNS. “First, the return of all hostages; second, the elimination of Hamas’s governing and military capabilities; and third, ensuring that the Gaza Strip no longer poses a threat to the State of Israel.” He added that, beyond these objectives, U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposal to r...
(JNS) — The way to prevent the Iranian regime from buying itself more time and securing enough funds to rebuild its nuclear program is to “double down on secondary sanctions, with shipping, so they can’t do their illicit oil sales,” according to Sandra Hagee Parker, chair of the CUFI Action Fund. “Now that they have been brought to their knees, we must put their face to the pavement,” Hagee Parker told JNS. “Now is not the time to let up off the gas.” On Tuesday, thousands of attendees of Christians United for Israel’s 20th annual Washington...
This July the Holocaust Center will continue to offer meaningful programs and experiences, beginning with the Book Clubs discussion of “Jews in the Garden,” by Judy Rakowsky. Held on July 16 from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m., the group will explore Rakowsky’s family’s Holocaust history after discovering a mass grave in a Polish garden. This memoir traces her quest for justice and truth. The Summer Youth series will continue the Fighting Spirit: Krav Maga and Jewish History with its third session on July 20 from 1 – 2 p.m. Hosted in partnership with Shaan...
Laurence Morrell would like to invite people who have been in the Orlando Jewish community for a long time — 80 years or more — to come together and share their contributions to the Jewish community and what it was like when the Jewish community was coming into being. “I think it would be a nice event and an historical and informational event, something to let newcomers to the area know that some of us just didn’t get “off the train.” A venue and date would be decided if enough interest is shown. If you are interested in this kind of get-toge...
The Holocaust Center presents “A Night at the Catskills Comedy Show” on Wednesday, Aug. 6, at 6 p.m at the Dr. Phillips Center. This show is a nostalgic, retro-themed comedy show that pays tribute to the legendary Jewish resorts of the Catskills that launched the careers of some of America’s greatest comedians. Cocktails and light snacks will be available. To learn more and purchase tickets, visit hmrec.org....
Eric S. Goldstein, who has served as CEO of UJA-Federation of New York for 11 years, will step down next summer as the head of North America’s largest and most influential Jewish federation. In a statement Tuesday announcing his departure, Goldstein reflected on a tenure marked by several communal crises, bracketed by two wars in Gaza and including the COVID pandemic. “I remember well my plans for that first summer of 2014. I expected to learn the ropes and ease into the job. History, tragically, had other plans. On June 30, 2014, the bod...
(JNS) — The U.S. military’s recent airstrike under Operation Midnight Hammer has delayed Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, according to a new Pentagon assessment. Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told reporters Wednesday that intelligence assessments continue to confirm the significant damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. “We have degraded their program by at least one to two years—intel assessments inside the [Defense] Department assess that…. I think we’re probably closer to two years,” Parnell stated. T...
(JNS) — Multiple Jewish organizations offered condolences after Karen Diamond, 82, a victim of the antisemitic firebombing in Boulder, Colo., on June 1, died from her injuries. “This horrific act is part of a broader and deeply troubling rise in antisemitic violence across the United States,” the Jewish Federations of North America stated. “It is no longer possible to separate online hate, city hall rhetoric and campus incitement from real-world consequences. Our communities are being targeted—for being Jewish, for speaking out, for simply sh...
