Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - Israel's Foreign Ministry revealed that it had sent a letter to world leaders calling on them to help secure the release of Israelis being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The letter was sent to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross Mirjana Spoljaric Egger,and Pope Francis, among others. Hamas released an undated video purportedly of Israeli captive Avera Mengistu, who crossed into the Gaza Strip on his own accord in 2014....
(JNS) — The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a case involving religious accommodations in the workplace. An appeal in the case of Groff v. Dejoy was filed by Gerald Groff, an Evangelical postal worker who refused to work on Sundays, his sabbath, going so far as to offer to work make-up shifts and to transfer branches in order to maintain his day of rest. The Pennsylvania man says he was forced from his job in 2019 after the burden was placed on him by the U.S. Postal Service to regularly find replacements following the service’s agr...
Join Congregation Ohev Shalom on Saturday, Feb. 18, 2023 in welcoming Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jonathan Kaufman as the first speaker in the Bernard and Samra Gotlib Jewish Speaker Series. Kaufman will speak about his latest book, "The Last Kings of Shanghai – The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China." Kaufman is the author of two other well-reviewed books, "A Hole in the Heart of the World: Being Jewish in Eastern Europe" and "Broken Alliance: The Turbulent Times Between B...
(JNS) — George Washington University responded to the new antisemitism-related complaint against the university, which the Israel education organization StandWithUs filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. “The George Washington University strongly condemns antisemitism and hatred, discrimination and bias in all forms,” the university’s official Instagram account stated. The university further said it was “committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive environment where all feel safe and free of harassment,...
(JNS) — A recent surge in legal immigration has led to a decrease in Israel’s Jewish majority, according to an analysis of data from Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Channel 14 reported on Sunday. The Israeli Immigration Policy Center, an NGO established in 2012 to promote immigration policy which serves Israel’s strategic interests, found that last year’s 23-year record in the number of new immigrants had resulted in a 0.3 percent decline in Israel’s Jewish majority, to 73.6 percent from 73.9 percent at the end of 2021. This...
(JNS) — Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, a vocal defender of the Jewish state, recently rebutted an absurd Holocaust parallel drawn by President Joe Biden. When asked by a reporter whether immigration was a basic human right, Biden responded, “Well, I think it is a human right if your family is being persecuted, if you’re being dealt with in a way—like I thought it was a human right for you know, Jews in Germany to be able to go and escape and get help where they could. But the other side of this is, there’s also, the people in this coun...
HAIFA - On a recent chilly morning, six Israeli Druze women gathered in a room at the University of Haifa library to discuss the joys and frustrations of living in a modern, Jewish, largely secular country. Chatting in Arabic and Hebrew, many of the women, all students at the university, spoke about the challenges of balancing their traditional Druze identity with their modern Israeli aspirations. "I spend two hours each way to come to school. But my education is so important, I'd do it even if...
(JNS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday stressed the importance of bilateral relations with the United States in a meeting with top officials from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Netanyahu met with AIPAC President Betsy Korn, CEO Howard Kohr and Israel Director Cameron Brown. The Israeli leader also emphasized that the country's main struggle has been-and remains-against Iran. Netanyahu earlier this month addressed the AIPAC Political Leadership Forum,...
(JNS) - In a speech on border security and enforcement Thursday, President Joe Biden compared asylum seekers at America's southern border to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. The remark came in response to a question about whether Biden viewed migration as a human right. "Well I think it is a human right if your family is being persecuted," Biden said. "I thought it was a human right for, you know, Jews in Germany to be able to go [...] escape and get help where they could." Vice President Kamala...
(JNS) — Israel on Sunday revoked the VIP pass of Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki, in line with a Cabinet decision last week to sanction Ramallah in response to the U.N.’s passage, at the P.A.’s behest, of a resolution asking the International Court of Justice to weigh in on the legal status of Judea and Samaria. Border officials stopped al-Malki as he crossed from Jordan into the P.A., and confiscated the travel document allowing him to expedite or altogether bypass normal security checks in Judea and Samaria. “In the dip...
(JNS) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog said on Sunday that “profound” disagreement over the government’s judicial reform plan was tearing the country apart, and vowed to work towards averting a constitutional crisis. “We are in the grips of a profound disagreement that is tearing our nation apart. This conflict worries me deeply, as it worries many across Israel and the Diaspora. The foundations of Israeli democracy, including the justice system, are sacred and we must strictly safeguard them, even at a time of fundamental arguments and debat...
(JTA) — An exodus of Jews from Russia since President Vladimir Putin invaded neighboring Ukraine has drawn widespread attention over the last year. But according to statistics released recently by Russia’s official statistics bureau, the country’s Jewish population had fallen sharply long before the tanks began rolling. The statistics, published last month by Russia’s Federal State Statistics Service, showed that just 82,644 people identified themselves as Jews on the national census, conducted in 2021. Another nearly 2,000 people identif...
Pentagon transferring arms stationed in Israel to Ukraine—report (JNS) — The Pentagon is dipping into a store of American ammunition in Israel to help Ukraine replenish its dwindling supply of artillery shells, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. “With stockpiles in the United States strained and American arms makers not yet able to keep up with the pace of Ukraine’s battlefield operations, the Pentagon has turned to two alternative supplies of shells to bridge the gap: one in South Korea and the one in Israel,” the Times reported,...
WASHINGTON (JTA) –Republican Party officials in Rep. George Santos’ Long Island district called on the serial fabricator to quit, citing among other lies his claims to Jewish and Holocaust heritage. The call Wednesday by officials of the Nassau County Republican party was significant because the Republican majority in the U.S. House of representatives is precarious — just five members — and the Republican Santos’ 3rd District could easily swing back to Democrats in a special election. “Today, on behalf of the Nassau County Republican Committee,...
(New York Jewish Week) — Three state lawmakers are asking if Yeshiva University misrepresented itself as a secular institution in order to qualify for more than $230 million in public funds. Their letter demanding a full accounting from the Modern Orthodox flagship is the latest twist in the university’s attempts to block an LGBT student club from getting official campus recognition. In fighting court orders to accept the club, Y.U. has been insisting that, despite a charter that describes it as a secular institution, it has a distinct religiou...
(JNS) — Punitive measures imposed by Israel on the Palestinian Authority will “promptly lead to its collapse,” P.A. Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday. Israel’s Security Cabinet last week approved the measures in response to what it described as the P.A.’s ongoing “political and legal war” against the Jewish state. They came a week after the U.N. General Assembly, at the urging of the P.A., passed a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupati...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - With a new right-wing government in Israel raising alarm bells among many in the United States, the timing seemed ripe for a gathering by AIPAC, which regularly convenes bigwigs to talk about the U.S.-Israel relationship. But the group's conference this week in Washington is focusing not on that relationship but on American electoral politics. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee's "Political Leadership Forum" this week is closed to press. But it offers the latest...
Many people describe Bethanne (Wellness) Weiss as someone with boundless energy and incredible wisdom. The Jewish Pavilion is pleased to honor Weiss at its upcoming fashion show on Thursday, Feb.16 at Dillard's Altamonte Mall. "Bethanne is someone who rarely says 'no' and she has the uncanny ability to do it all," says Nancy Ludin CEO of Jewish Pavilion. "She is not only chairing the fashion show, but she is modeling and serving as the honoree. For Bethanne, wearing three hats at the same time...
(JTA) — A prize established to honor a single inspiring Jew with a lifetime of achievements has been awarded this year to a nameless group whose work is ongoing: Jewish activists in war-ravaged Ukraine. The Genesis Prize Foundation said the war in Ukraine required a change in the approach it has taken since creating the prize, known by some as the “Jewish Nobel,” a decade ago. “Recognizing the extraordinary nature of events dominating the past 11 months, The Genesis Prize Selection Committee has decided to depart from the usual custom of awar...
(JNS) — Speaking at the annual Combat Antisemitism Movement Advisory Board meeting Wednesday night, chairman Natan Sharansky underscored the importance of countering the global rise of antisemitism. “For the last 20 years, we could say antisemitism is on the rise, so what makes this year different?” said Sharansky, addressing the online meeting. “In the past, we’ve talked about antisemitism on the left, and antisemitism on the right. This year it became mainstream.” The Combat Antisemitism Movement facilitates a non-partisan movement to...
(JNS) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Tuesday repeated his promise to block vocal critic of Israel Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In an interview with Punchbowl News, McCarthy said that he would also prevent Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) from assuming their assignments in the House Intelligence Committee. “Swalwell can’t get a security clearance in the private sector. I’m not going to give him a government clearance,” McCarthy said. “Schiff has lied too many times...
(JNS) — The White House announced on Thursday that Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff will travel to Europe this month to participate in Holocaust remembrance events. Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, is set to visit Krakow, Poland, from Jan. 26 -29. On Jan. 27, Emhoff, joined by U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism Deborah Lipstadt, is slated to visit the Memorial and Museum at Auschwitz-Birkenau. He will also participate in a wreath-laying ceremony and attend the annual commemoration of International H...
(JTA) — The zoo in Cologne, Germany, has gotten its first check from the $26 million gift promised by the widow of a Holocaust survivor who credited the city’s residents for saving him during the war. Elizabeth Reichert willed the funds to the Cologne Zoological Garden in 2017 in honor of her husband Arnulf, who died in 1998. Both Reicherts were born in Cologne and met during World War II, when Elizabeth was part of the local anti-Nazi resistance network and Arnulf, a German Jew, was in hiding with the network’s help. “They only survive...
(JTA) – As Israel’s new right-wing government continued to signal that it would push through measures to cripple the judiciary and clamp down on public dissent and news operations, thousands of citizens took to the streets in protest and one prominent opposition figure warned of imminent “civil war.” A reported 10,000 demonstrators gathered Saturday night in Tel Aviv to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing government, which contains several ministers who are openly hostile to Arabs and Palestinians, LGBTQ peo...
(JTA) - Pinchas Goldshmidt, the former chief rabbi of Moscow who fled the country earlier this year, said other Russian Jews should leave before it's too late in an interview with the Guardian. "When we look back over Russian history, whenever the political system was in danger you saw the government trying to redirect the anger and discontent of the masses towards the Jewish community," Goldschmidt told the Guardian. "We saw this in tsarist times and at the end of the Stalinist regime." He...
