Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Iran fires 15 missiles at Israel in latest barrage By JNS Staff Some 15 ballistic missiles were launched at Israel’s north in Iran’s latest attack on Thursday afternoon, with no reports of direct hits or casualties. Air-raid sirens sounded across Israel’s north, including in Haifa, sending the city’s almost 300,000 residents running for bomb shelters. The IDF Home Front Command gave the all-clear some 20 minutes after the military detected launches from Iran. “At this stage, no calls have been received by the Magen David Adom 101 hotline r...
The United States has started the voluntary evacuation process for U.S. citizens who wish to leave Israel amid the country’s conflict with Iran. “Urgent notice,” Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, posted on social media on Wednesday. “American citizens wanting to leave Israel, the U.S. embassy in Israel is working on evacuation flights and cruise ship departures.” The envoy urged citizens to enroll in the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to receive updates. The U.S. State Department announced on Tuesday that it established a Middle...
(JNS) — Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday endorsed Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, saying it was doing essential work for Germany and others. “This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us,” Merz told the ZDF broadcaster during an interview on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Alberta, Canada. The phrasing came in response to a question from an interviewer who had used the term. “We are also affected by this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world,” Merz added. Israel’s ambassador to Germany, Ron...
(JNS) - Anti-Israel and Anti-Jewish sentiments have been on public display in university classrooms and campuses around the world, especially since Israel responded militarily to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre. According to the CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis) watchdog group, that hatred has also seeped into the classrooms of children from kindergarten to 12th grade. On Sunday night, CAMERA, in partnership with the Menachem Begin Heritage Center, held...
(JNS) - They remembered Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky at the U.S. Capitol Tuesday evening, as lawmakers of both political parties vowed to continue the fight against the Jew-hatred that has led to violence and the deaths of two young, Israeli embassy employees on a Washington street earlier this month. "It's a dangerous time to be a Jewish American," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said at the beginning of a 30-minute vigil, which drew more than 100 people, on the House steps. "Where is...
(JNS) — Dozens of Israeli jets attacked dozens of targets, including military and nuclear sites, in Tehran in a “preemptive, precise, combined offensive” strike against Iran’s nuclear program early in the morning on Friday, June 13, the Israel Defense Forces stated. The IDF said that the attack was based on “high-quality intelligence” and came “in response to the Iranian regime’s ongoing aggression against Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the operation, dubbed “Rising Lion,” would “continue for as many days as it...
Just minutes after Shabbat began in Israel, sirens sounded, sending Israelis back to their shelters to await the next salvo in their country's new war with Iran. Roughly 100 missiles were on their way from Iran, officials warned, teeing up a repeat of an April 2024 attack that marked the first direct exchange of fire between the two countries. Soon, projectiles fell across the country's center, injuring dozens of people. Less than 24 hours had passed since Israel launched a dramatic and...
We are all following the devastation of war in Israel on TV, social media, and via direct reports from friends and family who are there. We are getting reports of community members who are unable to return to Florida due to the closure of Ben Gurion Airport and the airlines canceling their flights indefinitely. The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, part of the Shalom Orlando Family, is actively monitoring the situation and wants to make you aware of several resources that are being offered to help evacuate American citizens currently in...
(JNS)- The 2025 Maccabiah Games scheduled to take place in Israel in July have been canceled and postponed until 2026 as a result of the ongoing war against Iran, the Maccabi World Union announced on Monday. It said that in consultations between the heads of Maccabi World Union and the 2025 Maccabiah, together with Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar and his staff, it was decided that due to Operation Rising Lion, the Israeli military campaign against Iran that began on June 13, "the...
Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation has a new full-time rabbi. Rabbi Shai Specht-Sandler will officially begin his tenure at SOJC on July 1, 2025. Rabbi Shai's life experiences span the Jewish world, as well as the globe itself. "I was born in Israel and left at 13," he said, "then spent my formative years in Manchester, England and the United States. I come from a proudly pluralistic and Masorti background, both Sephardi and Ashkenazi, and from a long line of educators and rabbis... [I've]...
(JTA) — President Donald Trump is pressing forward in seeking a nuclear deal with Iran following a massive wave of Israeli attacks on the country’s nuclear program. Trump, who has built his public persona around a verve for making deals, addressed his now-weakened negotiating partner in a post on Truth Social on Friday morning, several hours after the Israelis began carrying out a daring and apparently successful mission in Iran that took aim at the places and personnel involved in the country’s effort to develop a nuclear weapon. Trump said...
By JNS Staff (JNS) — A Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria probably won’t happen “in our lifetime” and is no longer Washington’s goal, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Tuesday. “Unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it,” Huckabee told Bloomberg, adding that a culture shift is unlikely to take place “in our lifetime.” When asked by Bloomberg if an independent Palestinian state is the goal of the Trump administration, the diplomat responded: “I don’t think so.” A Pa...
(JNS) — The head of Israel’s Civil Aviation Authority, Shmuel Zakay, warned this weekend that it will take weeks before all Israelis stranded abroad will be able to fly home, as Israel’s main international airport remained closed for a third day on Sunday amid the war with Iran. The remarks came as tens of thousands of Israelis remain stranded abroad since Israel closed its airspace after launching a pre-emptive strike on Friday against Iranian nuclear and military sites. “I want to say to Israelis abroad: It will take weeks, not days or hour...
Larnaca, Cyprus — In a remarkable and unprecedented emergency operation, Birthright Israel successfully evacuated approximately 1,500 program participants earlier today aboard the Crown Iris, a luxury Israeli cruise ship operated by Mano Maritime, sailing from Ashdod Port to Larnaca, Cyprus. The 13-hour voyage (more or less) is conducted under the close protection of the Israeli Navy, which escorted the vessel across the Mediterranean to ensure the participants’ safety amid ongoing regional tensions. The cruise ship was secured by Bir...
The White House was informed of Israel’s strikes against the Iranian regime ahead of time but was not involved militarily, U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News‘ Bret Baier on Friday. Washington still hopes that Tehran will clinch a nuclear agreement with the United States, Trump told Baier. “Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see,” Fox News cited the commander-in-chief as saying. “There are several people in leadership that will not be coming back,” he added. U.S. officials w...
(JNS) — A new report published by Israel’s Regavim Movement NGO on Sunday has found that some 90 percent of incidents of “violence” attributed to Judea and Samaria Jews in recent years by the United Nations were fabricated. Regavim’s 128-page research report in English, titled “False Flags and Real Agendas,” scrutinized a database maintained by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which claims to have documented thousands of alleged incidents of Israeli “settler violence” against Palestinian Arabs from January 2016...
(JNS) - Eight people were killed and nearly 300 wounded in the early hours of Monday by an Iranian ballistic missile barrage on Israeli civilian population centers in the central and northern regions of the country. The impacts were spread across four locations. Four of the deaths took place in the greater Tel Aviv area - four in Petach Tikvah and one in Bnei Brak. Three people who were initially reported as being trapped in Haifa were later declared dead, while a 30-year-old woman is...
(JNS) - Haitham Amal wasn't always propelled toward science. He wanted to study international relations; he said he liked the networking and learning about new cultures. Then he took physics and chemistry in high school, and "fell in love with science," he told JNS. More specifically, he wanted to understand the pharmacological aspects of it - how drugs worked to help people. The trajectory seemed natural. Amal, 39, a Christian Israeli, grew up in Haifa with three siblings in an educated...
(JNS) - The worldwide Jewish population grew by 870,000 in the decade from 2010 to 2020, according to the Pew Research Center's global religion survey released on Monday. The analysis of worldwide religious trends looked at self-reported religious belief, except in Israel, where the surveyors used the government's population register. "The number of Jews around the world grew by 6 percent, from an estimated 14 million in 2010 to nearly 15 million in 2020," the researchers wrote. "That's fewer...
Ra'anana Today’s a day that’s really going to be remembered, maybe even more than the pager attack on Hezbollah’s leaders last year. In today’s confusing world, it’s hard to tell right from wrong. This makes it tough to stay morally clear. I think we need to stop and think about what just happened today. Friday the 13th of June...also written as 6.13 (if you know, you know) is a day of incredible events that will help finally remap the colonialist maps of the Middle East. These maps go back t...
The name of Israel’s newly launched military operation — Operation Rising Lion — echoes one of the most enduring symbols of Jewish strength and identity. For Jerry Klinger, founder and president of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, the lion is more than metaphor — it is the centerpiece of a growing public art campaign that visually affirms Jewish history, survival, and legitimacy. “This military operation and our Lion’s Trail projects share a powerful metaphor — both the...
(JNS) — A 72-year-old Jewish man in New York City hanging posters of hostages being held in Gaza was punched in the face last week by thugs shouting, “Free Palestine.” Since the Oct. 7 massacre, the campaign to “Globalize the intifada” has exploded with a vengeance, threatening the safety of American Jews as never before on U.S. streets. A couple was shot and killed last month in Washington, D.C., by a radical leftist gunman outside the Capital Jewish Museum. Jews in Boulder, Colo., who were marching for the release of hostages in Gaza befo...
Following a directive from Israel’s political echelon, the Israel Defense Forces launched what it described as a preemptive, precise and combined offensive codenamed “Operation Rising Lion” in the early hours of Friday, targeting Iran’s nuclear program and other military targets across the Islamic Republic, as well as, reportedly, senior Iranian military and Islamic Republican Guards Corps commanders. The decision was, according to a defense official, signed off on by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, i...
IDF to civilians in much of northern Gaza: Leave now (JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces issued an “urgent” and “serious” evacuation notice for noncombatants in parts of the northern Gaza Strip on Monday morning. Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the military’s Spokesperson’s Unit, posted to his Arabic-language account the areas that have become dangerous combat zones where IDF troops will be engaging with terrorists: Jabalia, Jabalia Camp, the Old City, and the neighborhoods of Al-Nahda, Al-Rawda, Al-Salam, Al-Noor, Al-T...
(JNS) — The U.S. State Department declined to clarify its position on a potential Palestinian state on Tuesday, following comments from Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, that such a state within the current Palestinian Authority-governed territory is unlikely “in our lifetime.” Huckabee told Bloomberg that he doesn’t think a two-state solution remains U.S. policy, and that “unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it.” He told the publication that Palestinians could settle...
