Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - The U.S. seeks to silence Israeli opposition to a revived Iran nuclear deal by offering to broker a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal in exchange, Israel Hayom reported on Thursday. Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi flew Wednesday to Washington for meetings with U.S. officials about the possible Iran deal, which Israel strongly opposes, and Saudi-Israel relations, which Israel strongly supports. Although U.S. President Joe Biden...
(JTA) - An Egyptian security officer opened fire on Israeli soldiers on a routine patrol, killing two, and hours later killed a third before being felled in a shootout, the Israeli army said, in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called a "severe and extraordinary incident." The Egyptian military said the shootout occurred while the officer, who has now been identified as Mohamed Salah Ibrahim, was pursuing drug smugglers across the border. Cross-border attacks are rare between...
(JTA) — Israel’s health ministry tweeted that Elon Musk was engaging with “fake news” regarding COVID-19 data, the third Israeli government ministry to comment on the Twitter owner’s views in recent weeks. Musk had replied to a tweet from Zero Hedge, a far-right blog site that features conspiracy theories and has been accused of spreading Russian propaganda. The tweet claimed Israeli data showed “zero young healthy individuals died of COVID-19.” The billionaire businessman wrote “Zero …” In response, the health ministry wrote: “Elon, unfortunat...
Israeli man killed in shooting as West Bank violence continues (JTA) — An Israeli man was killed in a terror attack on Tuesday in the northern West Bank, the latest in a string of violent incidents in the territory this year. The Israel was identified as Meir Tamari, 32, a resident of the nearby settlement of Hermesh. He was shot while driving on a road close to the settlement and was treated by medics before his death was confirmed. Israeli forces have closed off roads in the area in order to find the attacker. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade c...
(JNS) - Trans activists failed in their efforts to cancel a talk by U.S. journalist Abigail Shrier to promote the Hebrew-language translation of her 2020 book "Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters." Activists' threats did succeed in driving the May 28 event out of Tel Aviv. Sella Meir, the Hebrew publisher, first intended to hold the book launch at the ZOA House cultural center, then moved it to Social Space, another Tel Aviv location, before transferring it to the c...
(JNS) - New York City Mayor Eric Adams made the controversy surrounding a law student's antisemitic remarks in a May 12 CUNY commencement speech his first order of business in his remarks at Gracie Mansion on May 31. Addressing a Jewish American Heritage Month event at the official mayoral residence, he railed against City University of New York Law School graduate Fatima Mohammed. The student's commencement remarks, which heavily criticized the New York Police Department where Adams once...
(JNS) - Thousands of participants from around the world joined the "March of Nations" event in Jerusalem to celebrate Israel's 75th year of independence. The event was organized by March of Life, an initiative founded by Jobst and Charlotte Bittner and the evangelical TOS Ministries from Tübingen, Germany. The southwestern German university town served as the training ground for the Einsatzgruppen, the SS death squads that murdered 700,000 Jews, primarily by shooting, during the Holocaust. Joine...
The Torah scroll is one of the Jewish people's most sacred objects. It has 304,805 handwritten letters. With a feather and special mix for ink, the scribe writes the five books of Moses on roughly 54 pieces of parchment. The average process takes over a year to produce the beautiful workmanship of a Torah Scroll. The writing of the scroll follows a strict set of laws that Jewish tradition has maintained for over 3300 years going back to the time of Moses. When a scroll is completed, it calls...
(JNS) — Celebrations were underway across Israel on Thursday for Jerusalem Day, the national holiday commemorating the city’s reunification in the Six-Day War. The main feature of the celebrations is the annual flag march in which tens of thousands of people waving Israeli flags walk through the streets of Jerusalem to symbolize the city’s unity. This year the parade followed the traditional route, departing from downtown and proceeding along King George and Agron streets before reaching the walls of the Old City. After this, the march split...
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2023 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando this summer. “For more than 30 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” said Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Edward Zissman. Former recip...
(JTA) — Citing “a major crisis in Jewish education,” Israel’s Diaspora ministry plans to pour about $40 million into training educators at Jewish schools in the United States and Canada. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister of Diaspora affairs, announced the initiative, called “Aleph Bet” after the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, on Monday. He hopes enrollment will increase at Jewish day schools, fearing that “we are losing large parts of the Jewish people,” and said the initiative would “focus on training teachers for Jewish educatio...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration said a visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, was “provocative” and cautioned against changes at the contested holy site. Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, which Muslims revere as the Noble Sanctuary, on Sunday morning, and declared that Israel was “in charge” of the sensitive site. The visit came days after Thursday’s annual “Flag March” through Jerusalem’s Old City, a right-wing parade that celebrates Jerusalem Day and perennially featu...
(JNS) — In a seemingly never-ending war of narratives, the Palestinians got center stage on Monday at the United Nations, though Israel was victorious in dwindling the audience down. May 15 marked the first official U.N. “Nakba Day,” per a resolution that the U.N. General Assembly passed in December. In Arabic, the word means “disaster” or “catastrophe,” in relation to the establishment of modern-day Israel on May 14, 1948. The ceremonies took place Monday morning at the United Nations, despite the history of the alleged “catastrophe...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Sunday sent a personal letter to all member state representatives urging them not to attend a “Nakba Day” event scheduled for the next day. Erdan characterized as “abominable” the planned event at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that commemorates what the Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948, saying that it destroys the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It is marked annually on May 15, the day after the nascent Jewish st...
As of Monday, May 15, this was the status of the onslaught by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza against Israel. Let's hope it holds as Heritage goes to press. (JTA) - Fighting between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza ended after five days, as a ceasefire took effect and appeared to hold late Saturday night. Over the course of the fighting, 33 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including civilians and combatants. Two civilians were killed in Israel - a woman in the central Israeli...
(JNS) - Israeli forces are "fiercely attacking the Gaza Strip and exacting a heavy price from the terrorist organizations," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an address on Wednesday night in Israel. "I would like to reiterate: Whoever harms us, whoever sends terrorists against us, will pay the price," he stated. Netanyahu said that developments in Israeli technological abilities, coupled with new operational tactics, have created "a new equation" seen in "Operation Shield and Arr...
(JNS) - On Wednesday, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews placed five bomb shelters in areas of Ashkelon identified by local authorities as lacking ample protection. The locations included residential neighborhoods where homes had no shelters as well as commercial zones where people had no safe place to go when incoming Gazan rockets are detected. The latest installation comes in addition to numerous other safety projects made possible by the IFCJ across Ashkelon, including a...
(JTA) - Tom Nides, the gregarious U.S. ambassador to Israel, is resigning this summer, at a time of unresolved tensions in the U.S.-Israel relationship he strove to uphold. An administration official confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Nides would be gone by this summer. The report first appeared in Axios on Tuesday morning. Axios quoted Secretary of State Antony Blinken as saying that Nides wanted to spend more time with his family. "Tom has worked with characteristic energy and...
Over 120 golfers hit the greens for the Jewish Pavilion's Charity Golf Tournament on Monday, May 8, at Heathrow Country Club. More than $20,000 was raised to benefit the Orlando Senior Help Desk at the Jewish Pavilion. Special thanks to committee members, golfers, sponsors and advertisers. The golf supporter's book can be found on the Jewish Pavilion website where it will remain for the year. The board encourages patronage of their businesses. Anyone (all races and religions) can call the...
Recently Dr. Edward Zissman brought a soferet to The Jewish Academy of Orlando to restore their sefer Torah. Soferet Linda did the restoration and fixed everything that needed to be fixed. All the children from K to fifth grade had the opportunity to watch the soferet work. She checked the entire Torah and used the traditional techniques for different issues: re-wrote some letters, patched a tear, and cleaned the parchment....
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2023 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando this summer. “For more than 30 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” said Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Edward Zissman. Former recip...
The Tenth Annual Commemoration of the largest mass arrest of rabbis in U.S. history will take place outdoors at the Hilton St. Augustine Historic Bayfront, 32 Avenida Menendez, St. Augustine, at noon, Sunday, June 18. This 30-minute event sponsored by the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, is free and all are welcome. On June 18, 1964, 16 rabbis and a Reform Jewish administrator, in St. Augustine at the request of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were arrested and held in the St. Johns County Jail. Overnight, they wrote a letter...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After being thwarted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Rashida Tlaib succeeded in spotlighting Palestinian perspectives on Israel’s founding in an event on Capitol Hill — with help from one of Congress’ most powerful Jewish members, Sen. Bernie Sanders. The Palestinian-American Democrat from Detroit also introduced a congressional resolution calling on the suspension of some aid to Israel. Tlaib’s event on Wednesday, called “Nakba 75 & the Palestinian People,” featured the Arabic word for “catastrophe” that Palestinians u...
(JNS) — Israel is prepared for a multi-front conflict against Iran and its terrorist proxies, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday after the Jewish state launched “Operation Shield and Arrow” against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip. “It’s clear that 95 percent of Israel’s security problems come from Iran,” the prime minister said in a Zoom address to a conference organized by the Israel Defense and Security Forum. “We are dealing with an attempt by Iran to start a multi-front campaign against us. I instructed the IDF [I...
(New York Jewish Week) — New York Republican Rep. George Santos, who spread a series of falsehoods about being Jewish and other parts of his life story, was arrested Wednesday on federal criminal charges on Long Island. The indictment said that Santos — who has also gone by other names, including the last name Devolder — used donations to a fraudulent political fund for personal expenses, such as buying designer clothes and paying off his credit cards. He was also accused of lying about his finances on congressional disclosure forms and receivi...
