Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(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...
(JNS) — Israel on Wednesday continued making preparations for rocket attacks and the threat of a wider conflict following the air force’s targeted killing of three top Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders in strikes across the Gaza Strip. The IDF identified the targets of the operation as Khalil Bahitini, PIJ’s commander in northern Gaza; Jahed Ahnam, a senior member of the terror group’s military council; and Tarek Azaldin, who directs its activities in Judea and Samaria. Israel also struck 10 sites in Gaza belonging to PIJ, including weapons...
MELBOURNE (JTA) - Jews in Australia have seen their community prosper in many areas, from business to the arts to the highest levels of government. But there is one arena that Aussie Jews have not featured prominently in: Australia's biggest sport, Australian Rules Football. AFL, referred to colloquially as "footy," is a uniquely Aussie sport, which has been played in some form since teams from Melbourne and Geelong first came together in a paddock in East Melbourne in 1858. Professional footy...
(JNS) — Ahead of a visit to Israel by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Sunshine State’s chief financial officer told JNS that Norway is out of line in considering divesting from the Jewish state. Jimmy Patronis, the Florida CFO, sent a letter late last month to Heidi Olufsen, Norway’s consul general in New York, to “express serious concerns regarding reports that Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund is reviewing recommendations by your nation’s ethics committee to add Israel to its excluded funds list.” Among the world’s largest investo...
(JNS) — At one point, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel appeared to adopt a small-ball strategy: enough singles, even soft ones, in the court system would knock the pitcher out of the game. No need to swing for the fences. That strategy, however, which seeks to win narrow injunctions that result in U.S. state legislatures tweaking relevant laws, appears to be a doomed game plan, as evidenced by recent court decisions. The latest swing and miss came earlier this month when a federal appeals court rejected a challenge...
French parliament rejects resolution calling Israel ‘apartheid’ (JNS) — After a group of far-left members of France’s National Assembly put forward a measure labeling Israel an “apartheid state,” the lower house of Parliament rejected it by a margin of 199 to 71. “We can only reject the use of the term apartheid to describe the situation in Israel,” Laurence Boone, French secretary of state for European affairs, tweeted. “This term carries a heavy load, attached to terrible suffering and bruised memories.” “We commend France’s National Ass...
