Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1976 - 2000 of 10745
(JTA) — The Arkansas House of Representatives approved a resolution encouraging trade with Israel that specifically mentions “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the West Bank favored by Israel’s government. The resolution, approved last month by the Republican-led chamber, declares that “the State of Arkansas, which lies in America’s heartland, has a special kinship with Judea and Samaria, Israel’s biblical heartland” and notes that “cities across Arkansas bear the names of biblical cities throughout Judea and Samaria, such as Bethel, He...
(JTA) – The Sackler family, the Jewish billionaires whose marketing of the painkiller drug OxyContin fueled the United States’ ongoing opioid epidemic, will receive full immunity from all civil legal claims in exchange for spending up to $6 billion on addiction treatment and prevention programs. The decision to grant immunity by a federal appeals court panel Tuesday effectively ends the thousands of civil lawsuits that have been filed against Purdue Pharma, the Sacklers’ company, over opioid deaths. But it clears the way for the company to de...
(JNS) — The Southern Poverty Law Center is a Montgomery, Ala.-based nonprofit that according to its website was founded in 1971 “to ensure that the promise of the civil rights movement became a reality for all.” Before reaching that first paragraph on the group’s site, however, comes the SPLC’s self-identification as “a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.” SPLC is often quoted...
(JTA) — For years, as the Sackler name fell from art museums, colleges and even a wing of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater amid revelations about the family’s contributions to the opioid crisis, it remained very much attached to the medical school at Tel Aviv University. Now, three weeks after the Jewish family that produced the opioid OxyContin agreed to spend up to $6 billion on addiction treatment and prevention in exchange for immunity from civil claims, the university has announced that the family “has kindly agreed to remove their name” from t...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces is preparing for a scenario in which Israel’s Arabs join its enemies in wartime, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There are 10 military battalions training for this thing. Although it is still not enough, they are preparing exactly for this day,” said Netanyahu. The prime minister made the remarks in response to questions from lawmakers during a recent closed-door session of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Kan Bet, Israel’s Public Broadcaster, reported on Monday. L...
Jewish millionaire involved in GameStop saga, buys Charlotte Hornets from Michael Jordan By Jacob Gurvis (JTA) — Basketball legend Michael Jordan has announced that he will sell his majority stake in the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets to a group led by Jewish millionaires Gabe Plotkin and Rick Schnall for an estimated $3 billion. Plotkin, whose net worth is estimated at $400 million, is the founder of investment management firm Melvin Capital, which he named after his grandfather and which had been valued at around $8 billion prior to announcing its...
(JNS) — Social-media networks are being exploited by Palestinian terror factions to boost the recruitment of minors, an Israeli military source has told JNS. The source noted that although the trend of recruiting minors is not new, its current form and scope are both relatively new phenomena. In 2004 during the Second Intifada, 16-year-old Hussam Abdo, who was stopped at a Huwara military checkpoint wearing a suicide-bomb belt, made headlines across the globe. Since then, however, the smartphone revolution and the arrival of social media n...
PITTSBURGH (JTA) - The gunman who committed the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history is guilty of all charges he faced, according to the verdict delivered by a federal jury on Friday morning. Robert Bowers, who killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, was charged on 63 counts in total. Those include 22 capital charges - two for each of his victims: 11 charges of the federal crime of "obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death," and 11 ch...
(JNS) - First, she represented Iraq in the "Miss Universe" competition. Then she fled her country after posing for a selfie in 2017 with "Miss Israel." Now, Sarah Idan is running for California's 30th congressional district-the seat that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is vacating as he vies to replace the retiring Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. "I'm running because this is a critical time in U.S. history when our democracy is fundamentally at stake," the Baghdad native, 33, told JNS. "I've always...
(JNS) — Silvio Berlusconi was “a great friend of Israel,” Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday as the world reacted to the death of the 86-year-old Italian political leader. “I was deeply saddened by the passing of Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family and to the people of Italy,” Netanyahu said. “Silvio was a great friend of Israel and stood by us at all times. Rest in peace, my friend,” the premier added. The media tycoon served as the European country’s pri...
The new school year will be starting sooner than you think. The Rosen JCC is already preparing for their After School Program with a special offer. If you register before July 1, you can take $100 off one month tuition. The Rosen JCC After School Program is designed to help parents have more quality family time. Children are picked up for free from Dr. Phillips, Bay Meadows or Sand Lake Elementary schools. But this program is open to all students living in Orange County. Once the children arrive they can work with tutors or specifically on...
The Jewish Chamber has arranged for a family friendly (kids encouraged) event on July 9 from 1-3 p.m. to put together spa-care packages and decorations for children fighting cancer. The event will be held at Shalom Orlando. The Chamber is partnering with the charitable organization Rosie's Adventures Childhood Cancer Foundation, JAO, J Camp, and Shalom Orlando. The founder of the charity, Nikki, had a daughter named Rosie, who started cancer treatments at three years of age. Last year, Nikki...
(JNS) — Soon after the White House unveiled its 60-page, national strategy to counter antisemitism on May 25, the Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomed “the Biden administration’s efforts to implement national strategies to confront various forms of bigotry, starting with the threat of antisemitism.” CAIR added that the strategy’s fact sheet noted “CAIR as one of the many contributing organizations.” “Some of CAIR’s current leadership had early connections with organizations that are or were affiliated with Hamas,” the Anti-Defamation...
(JNS) — Political heavyweights and prominent journalists discussed key issues affecting Israel and the Jewish people at the opening plenary of the American Jewish Committee’s second AJC Global Forum in Tel Aviv on Sunday evening. Those issues included rising antisemitism, the Abraham Accords and Israeli-Diaspora relations. As many as 1,000 people from 60 nations were in attendance at the opening event, with a total of 1,500 expected throughout the four-day forum. Ted Deutch, in his inaugural AJC Global Forum address as CEO, celebrated the suc...
Vice President Kamala Harris took a thinly-veiled jab at the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan at an event hosted by the Israeli Embassy in Washington this week after she learned one of the plan’s architects was present, Ynet reported Thursday. On Tuesday, Harris spoke at an event hosted by the Israeli Embassy celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. In her comments, Harris made a dig at potential reforms to Israel’s judicial system and insinuated that Israel’s court should remain in its current form. “Un...
(JTA) — Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister who has antagonized some liberal segments of American Jewry, called J Street “hostile” to Israel after it retweeted a photo of the minister from New York City’s Celebrate Israel Parade. Chikli was photographed at the June 4 parade making what appeared to many to be an obscene gesture toward a group protesting the Israeli government. He and his staff said he was gesturing to the protesters to smile and did not intend to make the obscene gesture. Either way, the picture, taken last week by...
LONDON (JTA) - London's Jewish Museum is to close indefinitely next month and begin hunting for a new home for its collection of 40,000 objects, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The rising costs of maintaining its current premises in northwest London and a difficult fundraising environment exacerbated an already precarious financial situation for the museum, its chairman Nick Viner told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Jewish Museum intends to close its doors at the end of June and...
(JTA) - Among the many books that conservative parents have recently asked their children's schools to remove is a lushly illustrated version of the most famous Holocaust diary. The graphic adaptation of Anne Frank's diary, published in English in 2018, has found itself at the center of a growing number of controversies involving book removals from school libraries. A small number of passionate activists have pushed for the book to be removed from schools in Florida and Texas, calling it...
(JNS) - A concerted effort is underway by some mainstream churches to convince evangelical Christians to be less supportive of Israel, the incoming head of an evangelical organization headquartered in Jerusalem says. Rev. Peter Fast, CEO-elect of Bridges for Peace, spoke in an interview with JNS. The remarks come two months after the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem lambasted Israeli restrictions on the number of worshippers allowed into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration is fully invested in Israel-Saudi normalization, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Monday. He also said he does not see a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace happening anytime soon. “The United States has a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Blinken said Monday to applause at a policy summit of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He said it was critical not to escalate the Israe...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with European counterparts in Slovakia on Tuesday and called for unity in countering the Iranian threat before it is too late. During the closed-door session in the capital Bratislava, Cohen also discussed strengthening the Abraham Accords and relations with the E.U. bloc. He is the first Israeli foreign minister to address the Slavkov/Austerlitz format—a regional cooperation forum consisting of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The meeting included Ministers Alexander Schallenberg of Au...
Israeli rights group urges public broadcaster to stop referring to ‘West Bank’ (JNS) — Shai Glick, the CEO of the B’Tslamo rights group, wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Kan Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation urging it to have its journalists stop using the term “West Bank” for Judea and Samaria. In the letter to Kan CEO Golan Yochpaz, Glick noted that the official term in Israel for the territories captured in the Six-Day War is Judea and Samaria. “It is incorrect that the state corporation uses the foreign term ‘West Bank,’ which is le...
(JTA) - Toronto is home to one of the world's largest Jewish communities, nearly half of the 335,000 Jews in Canada. But until last week, the city did not have a dedicated Holocaust museum. The Toronto Holocaust Museum opened its doors on Friday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by an array of dignitaries and Holocaust survivors. Aimed at young learners who will inherit a post-survivor world, the space centers around 11 kiosks where large-as-life survivors share their testimonies through...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The Biden administration has joined the chorus of American voices criticizing Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli. A photo in which Chikli is making a face at a pro-Israel parade in New York City, and his unapologetic defense of the incident, is evidence that he is out of touch with the U.S. Jewish Diaspora, a senior Biden administration official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "The fact that a senior Israeli official came to the United States and did not have a...
(JTA) - Conditions didn't seem favorable in early May as Stuart Eizenstat entered annual negotiations with the German government over reparations for the estimated 240,000 remaining Holocaust survivors around the world. Eizenstat had served as the special negotiator for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany since 2009 and had analyzed the country's economic and political landscape: high inflation, spiraling fuel costs and unprecedented government spending on defense to support...
