Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — A Pittsburgh jury agreed unanimously on Wednesday that Robert Bow-ers, 50, should be put to death for killing 11 Jewish worshippers at Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018. The judge will formally sentence the convicted killer on Aug. 3. “As we collectively process the jury’s decision today, what should always be top of mind is the memory of the 11 people murdered in a synagogue while at prayer by a cold-blooded hater of Jews,” said the American Jewish Committee. “Ultimately, what is of most significanc...
(JNS) — All 15 justices of Israel’s Supreme Court will hear the petitions asking them to cancel the “reasonableness law” that the Knesset passed last week, Supreme Court President Esther Hayut announced on Monday. The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. on Sept. 12, three days before the start of the High Holidays. The government will have to file its response to the petitions 10 days earlier. It will be the first time in the court’s 75-year history that a panel of 15 justices will preside over a case. On July 24, all 64 lawmakers in the gover...
(JNS) — Dov Hikind, a former New York state representative, announced last week that he is leaving the Democratic Party. In an interview with JNS, Hikind said the decision to become a Republican was a long time coming. “Over the recent years, and with some of the stuff that has happened even more recently, I’ve become very disillusioned with the Democratic Party that exists right now,” he told JNS. Members of the Democratic Party, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan O...
(JNS) — If Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, strikes down the “reasonableness law” that the Knesset enacted on Monday it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis, legal experts tell JNS. Several Supreme Court justices visiting Germany, including Court President Esther Hayut, cut their trip short and are returning to Jerusalem to study petitions opposition groups filed against the amendment to Basic Law: The Judiciary. “The court has recognized Basic Laws as...
(JTA) — Speaking at an event geared toward Jewish voters on Tuesday night, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said, “The charge of antisemitism is one that cuts me.” Kennedy, the anti-vaccine theorist and Democratic presidential candidate, was responding to mounting backlash against his claim that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to avoid Jews and Chinese people. That remark, made without evidence at a campaign event earlier this month on the Upper East Side, led to criticism from a range of figures including Jewish leaders and Democrats in Congress. He...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - In an extraordinary swipe at a popular Fox News Channel host, a White House official condemned Greg Gutfeld's claim that "you had to be useful" to survive Nazi death camps. "What Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday - and has so far failed to condemn - is an obscenity," Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said Tuesday in an unsolicited email to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The comment came as Gutfeld berated a Jewish cohost who was critiquing a Florida Depar...
TEL AVIV (JTA) —Israel’s parliament voted on a measure that, advocates on both sides say, will determine the country’s fate — or whether it can even survive. It isn’t a peace deal or an attempt to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What it will do, if passed, is bar the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions it deems “unreasonable.” Behind that somewhat technical language is a struggle over Israel’s soul. It’s an escalating fight that has seen the largest, most sustained protest movement in Israel’s history....
(JNS) — Israel’s Supreme Court has decided to hear petitions against the “reasonableness law” that the Knesset enacted last week, with a court date set for September, according to the NGO Movement for Quality Government in Israel. While scheduling a hearing, the court did not go as far as to issue an emergency injunction against the law, as several of the seven petitioners had requested. “We are ready. We will appear at the Supreme Court to defend Israeli democracy and do everything we can to stop the judicial coup,” the Movement for Quality...
(JTA) – An association for American anthropologists has voted to formally boycott Israeli academic institutions, seven years after shutting down a similar vote, in a sign of the shifting tides of the Israel debate on American college campuses. The American Anthropological Association, which represents thousands of anthropologists in academia and the professional space, announced that its members had voted to endorse a resolution that forbids the association from collaborating with Israeli academic institutions. More than 70 percent of the a...
Israel rebukes Amman over harassment of religious Jews By Etgar Lefkovits (JNS) — Israel has lodged an official complaint with Jordan over the repeated harassment of religious Jewish tourists at border crossings, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said Tuesday. The protest expressed in a letter from Foreign Minister Eli Cohen came two weeks after a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews said they were asked to cut off their sidelocks after being detained for two days at the Jordanian side of the Yitzhak Rabin/Wadi Araba border crossing north of Eilat. It...
(JNS) - If elected in 2024, Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur vying for the Republican presidential nomination, would combat antisemitism as part of a broad campaign against what he believes is a far-left ideology dividing the country into victim groups. "Antisemitism is a symptom of something that is broken in our society," Ramaswamy told JNS. He added that Jew-hatred points to a "void in our heart as a nation." "Whenever a society is broken, you have people who try to find someone to blame....
(JNS) — Israeli forces located an explosives workshop in the Jenin refugee camp on Monday containing hundreds of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) as well as mines intended for use against armored vehicles. The fighters also confiscated radios and military equipment and an instruction manual on how to prepare IEDs. A second workshop was also located containing means for preparing explosives. The forces confiscated all weapons. Separately, troops located weapons and explosives stored underground inside a mosque in the city. After a lengthy g...
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — “If I have chance, will continue war,” appeared in a scrawl on a notepad, projected onto large TV screens in the courtroom. The image showed a note taken by a psychiatrist in early June as he assessed Robert Bowers, the man who murdered 11 worshipers in a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. The psychiatrist, George Corvin, was working for the gunman’s lawyers, in an attempt to demonstrate that the gunman is mentally ill and so should not receive the death penalty. His testimony is part of the final phase of the trial, in which t...
(JNS) - Just as Israel's president was settling in following a busy day in Washington, a gift came his way from the Capitol, courtesy of the Jewish state's opponents. Less than 24 hours before he was to address a joint session of Congress, the House passed a Republican-sponsored resolution stating that Israel is not a racist or apartheid state. The resolution's filing was inspired by a flippant insult hurled at Israel by the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who, under heavy...
(JNS) — More than 1,200 people gathered on July 17 in Arlington, Va., for the annual Christians United for Israel Washington Summit. It was the event’s 18th—or chai—iteration, gathering some of the more than 10 million members of the nation’s largest, pro-Israel organization. Throughout the day, political, scholarly, advocacy and religious speakers addressed various topics, many centered on the themes of courage and fighting antisemitism. “God’s love for the Jewish people will be here forever,” Pastor John Hagee, founder and chairman of CUF...
"I'm thrilled to announce the appointment of Chana Ben-Abraham as our next head of school," said Joe Schwartz, JAO Board president, in a press release announcing the new hire. "She is a charismatic and inspiring leader with a contagious enthusiasm for education. She is passionate about helping students learn and grow, and she is committed to providing our students with the best possible education. She is also a gifted communicator and a natural leader. I am confident that she will build on our...
(JNS) - U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was officially honored as Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire during a "moving" ceremony at Windsor Castle on Tuesday, his office announced. King Charles III bestowed Britain's highest honor upon Rabbi Mirvis in the 2023 New Years Honours, which were publicly announced earlier this year, recognizing his "significant services to the Jewish community, to interfaith relations and to education." The 2023 honors list was the first approved by...
(JNS) - Surgeons at Hadassah Medical Center-Ein Kerem managed to reattach a boy's head after a horrific accident left him internally decapitated. A car hit Suleiman Hassan, a 12-year-old Arab from the Judea and Samaria region, as he rode his bike, the Jerusalem hospital announced. After he was airlifted to Hadassah's trauma unit, doctors discovered that the ligaments holding the rear base of his skull were seriously damaged, leaving it disconnected from the top vertebrae of his spine. "The...
(JNS) - In a statement, U.S. President Joe Biden announced plans to add 10 people to four executive organizations, some centered on culture and others on international issues. Biden has named Susie Gelman as a commissioner on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Gelman brings extensive experience on the subject, as she has led and contributed to numerous Jewish and Zionist organizations. From 2016 to 2023, Gelman served as board chair of the Israel Policy Forum. She...
(JNS) — A petition calling for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be removed from office over an alleged conflict of interest will be heard by the High Court of Justice on Sept. 12. Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, agreed last week to hear the petition claiming Netanyahu violated a 2020 agreement to not involve himself in his government’s judicial reform initiative due to his ongoing corruption trial. Leaders of the parties in Netanyahu’s coalition condemned the court’s move, saying in a joint statement that “an...
TEL AVIV (JTA) — President Joe Biden has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet in the United States soon, after months of holding off on inviting him to the White House. The invitation was extended and accepted during a phone call between the two leaders on July 17. Israeli prime ministers typically receive an invitation to Washington shortly after taking office, but Biden, who has known Netanyahu for decades, has so far held off on inviting him to the capital. This invitation may not exactly end the wait: According to r...
(JNS) — The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a resolution affirming that Israel is “not a racist or apartheid state,” in a rebuke to remarks Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) made last weekend. The resolution introduced by Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) was approved by a vote of 412-9, with 195 Democrats joining all Republicans in voting yes. It also states that Congress rejects antisemitism and that the United States “will always be a staunch partner and supporter of Israel.” Israel is our strongest partner in the Mi...
(JNS) — A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is calling on the State Department to update Congress on negotiations to end the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying terrorists. In a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the 50 members of Congress noted with concern the uptick of violence in Judea and Samaria in recent months and the P.A.’s refusal to condemn the killings of Israelis while at the same time continuing its “pay for slay” program. Led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), the letter was signed by 30 Democrats and 20 Re...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden’s concerns about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned overhaul of Israel’s courts system should be taken into account by the Israeli parties seeking a compromise, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said after meeting Biden. Herzog’s advice, effectively aimed at Netanyahu and appearing only in his comments in Hebrew to Israeli media after his White House meeting on Tuesday, was unusual in a foreign leader insisting that the United States had a role to play in a matter of internal debate. “It’s not...
(JNS) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday after visiting President Joe Biden at the White House. In statements issued before the meeting, the two leaders expressed mutual appreciation for the "unique relations" between the countries and discussed the shared goal of countering the Iranian threat. "I want to thank you Mr. Secretary for pursuing such important goals as containing and limiting, and stopping the Iranian nuclear program, as...
