Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - Now that the shock has worn off, the question for Birthright is who will step up. Last week, Miriam Adelson, Birthright Israel's most generous donor, addressed a board meeting of the organization known for bringing tens of thousands of young Jews to Israel each year. She and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, through the Adelson Family Foundation, have contributed nearly $500 million to Birthright over the past 15 years, but, after slashing the foundation's annual commitment nearly in...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Force's Paran territorial defense brigade is in charge of defending 170 kilometers of the Israeli-Egyptian border and large sections of the Negev desert. As such, dealing with the constant efforts of narcotics smugglers from both Egypt and Israel to push drugs across the border is an inevitable part of its duties. The brigade includes two co-ed infantry battalions that specialize in protecting the Egyptian border against terrorism and drug smuggling-the Caracal...
(JNS) - A new sculpture commemorating the life of writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel was dedicated on Thursday at a moving ceremony on the Mt. Scopus Campus of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The extraordinary sculpture, situated in a campus garden area, was created by French artist and sculptor Denis Chetboune. Among his numerous accomplishments, Wiesel authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Lee Zeldin, the Republican Jewish congressman who mounted a stronger-than-expected but failed bid to be New York’s governor, says he has decided not to run to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee. But in a sign that he expects to have continued influence despite exiting Congress, Zeldin, who has been the top-ranked Jewish Republican in the country, this week joined the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. That means he will play a key role in animating political giving by Republican Jews at a time whe...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration will base its relationship to Israel’s incoming government on the actions it takes, not the people installed in positions of power, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a speech Sunday. Blinken’s speech, to the conference of the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group J Street, was notable because it offered the first official response to deepening questions about how the White House would work with a Israeli government that includes far-right parties. Until now, sources close to the a...
Iran executes four convicted of working with Israel’s Mossad (JNS) — Iran on Sunday executed four men convicted of cooperating with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, Reuters reported. Three other people received prison sentences of between five and 10 years. “This morning, the sentences of four main members of the gang of mobsters related to the Zionist intelligence service were executed,” the Mizan Online website reported. Iran’s semi-official Mehr News Agency reported last week that those sentenced to death had been charged with “the crime...
Orlando Torah Academy will launch its annual 36-hour online matching campaign on Dec 13 at 10 a.m. OTA has grown to almost 170 children from more than 70 families this year. The OTA campus has grown as well and now includes 2 buildings. The growth of the school has also necessitated the need for additional scholarship funds. OTA prides itself on its mission and responsibility to accept all Jewish students regardless of their ability to afford tuition. Every Jewish child deserves the right to learn about and feel proud of our beautiful...
Max Curtis is a valuable employee at both Dick and Dottie’s Cafe and Kinneret Senior Living Apartments. At Dick and Dottie’s Max has learned how to be a barista making a variety of delicious hot drinks. Last week Max was excited to make a new drink — a Turkish coffee. At Kinneret Max is a favorite of all of the residents. Max has shown flexibility and is willing to do any task asked of them. Max is helping serve food at the resident run cafe and is wonderful in their interactions with the elder...
(JNS) - On September 16, 2018, Israel lost one of its fiercest defenders when a knife-wielding Arab stabbed Efrat resident Ari Fuld in the back at the Gush Etzion Junction, south of Jerusalem. Fuld used his last breaths of life to chase down and shoot the attacker, wounding him and saving the lives of other Israelis in the terrorist's path. Fuld, 45, not only defended Israel on the battlefield in the IDF's Golani Brigade, and as a reservist in the Second Lebanon War in an elite paratrooper...
(JTA) — Nearly seven months after they were denied boarding in Frankfurt, a group of more than 100 Hasidic Lufthansa passengers are getting paid for their troubles. The airline is paying each passenger $20,000 plus giving them $1,000 to reimburse them for expenses incurred during the May incident, according to Dan’s Deals, the discount travel website that first reported the incident at the time. After legal fees and some other expenses, each passenger will net approximately $17,400, the site is reporting. Lufthansa would not confirm the dol...
(JNS) — Conservative American commentator Ben Shapiro on Sunday tacitly condemned U.S. President Donald Trump for hosting a dinner last week attended by Ye and Holocaust denier and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, sparking a Twitter war-of-words with the artist formerly known as Kanye West. “A good way not to accidentally dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you don’t know is not to dine with a vile racist and anti-Semite you do know,” tweeted Shapiro. He was referring to Trump’s claim that he had not known anything about Fuentes, whom Ye h...
(JTA) — In a supermarket here, Ohad David made a beeline for the most expensive olive oil in the store. He took three bottles of the award-winning Midnight Coratina brand, which goes for about $3 per ounce. It has “medium potency, green fruitiness and a green-leaf, grassy bouquet,” according to its description on the website of Ptora, the boutique olive oil factory that makes it. But David, a 40-year-old insurance agent and father of five, did not buy the oil for its taste. Like thousands of Ort...
Q. Does the Zionist Organization of America still believe that President Trump deserved ZOA’s Theodore Herzl Gold Medallion Award for being the best president ever towards Israel and the Jewish people? A. Absolutely, yes. He earned it and deserves it because of his fabulous, unparalleled beneficial policies toward the Jewish State of Israel and toward the Jewish people. As we stated at the ZOA Gala, where we gave this rare award to President Trump, he also deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his numerous great accomplishments, such as the Abraham...
IRONMAN Israel competition draws 2,500 competitors (JNS) — Patrick Lange of Germany took first place in the IRONMAN Israel-Middle East Championship in Tiberias on Friday, with a personal best time of 07:42:00. In the women’s pro category, Ruth Astle from Great Britain finished first, with a time of 08:41:13. The event featured two races: a full distance one and a shorter race. The full distance race included a 2.3 mile swim in the Sea of Galilee, a 111-mile bike ride and a 26-mile run. More than 800 Israeli and 400 international athletes com...
(JTA) - Two bombs rocked bus stops at crowded entrances to Jerusalem early Wednesday morning, killing a teenager and sending about 20 people to the hospital, some in serious condition. The fatality was a 16-year-old yeshiva student named Aryeh Shtsupak from Har Nof, a largely Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. He may have held Canadian and American citizenship, according to local media reports. The attacks represented the first time in years that terrorists used bombs in a deadly assault...
LAS VEGAS (JTA) - For Republican Jews looking for an alternative to Donald Trump in 2024's presidential race, Ted Cruz presented a tantalizing choice on Saturday - at least for a few minutes. "When I arrived in the Senate 10 years ago, I set a goal to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States," the Texas senator said during his chance to address the Republican Jewish Coalition conference last weekend. The crowd packed into a ballroom deep in the gold lame reaches of the Venetian...
Keith Dvorchik sent via email a statement from Shalom Orlando on the recent Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in which five people were murdered and 25 wounded. The statement went out to all members of the Federation, but it needs to be shared on as many venues as possible. Here is the statement: Sunday morning the Jewish Community Relations Council, a committee of Shalom Orlando, published an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel about the rise of anti-Semitism and the threat to the Jewish community. That same morning, many of us woke up to the...
(JTA) – Birthright Israel is drastically cutting back on the number of free trips it plans to offer to Jewish young adults, scaling back its operations by up to a third, the organization announced Monday. The cuts come amid what the organization said is a mix of financial pressures: inflation, heightened travel expenses in a post-COVID world and dwindling fundraising support. It plans to make added appeals to its top donors but still expects to heavily reduce its Israel trips in 2023 to as few as 23,500 participants, down from 35,000 this y...
The following article was submitted to and was published in the Orlando Sentinel on behalf of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Orlando. The JCRC, a standing committee of Shalom Orlando, is the leading advocate for the Greater Orlando Jewish community, engaging in important public policy discussions and ensuring that our voices are amplified. The term “antisemitism” was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a scientific-sounding term for Jew-hatred, and this has since then been its use. Despite being only 1.8 percent of the...
The Rosen JCC Saturday Night Out can help relieve the stress. Members and nonmembers of the Rosen JCC can sign up for Saturday Night Out on Dec. 10 from 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Adults can drop their kids for a night of games, arts and crafts, reading and playground time. There will be pizza and a movie along with the night’s theme which is “Cookie Night.” While the kids are having fun, parents can take a night for themselves. Relax with a night out on the town, visiting with friends or do some holiday shopping. You can register at www.r...
(JNS) — U.S. Jews who participated in Birthright trips to Israel are more highly identified and engaged in communal life than their peers who did not, according to an analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey of American Jews conducted by researchers at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. The profound disparity in attitudes and behavior also held true when the analysts took into account differences in the respondents’ backgrounds. Among the adults surveyed by Pew, nearly 45 percent had been eligible to pa...
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he would remove Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in part because of her criticism of Israel. He also hinted that her personal criticism of him last year was a factor. McCarthy, a California Republican whose party just won a narrow majority in the House, was speaking Saturday to the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas. “I remember what she said about me,” he said. “I remembe...
(JNS) — Bipartisan members of the Senate’s Black-Jewish Caucus on Thursday introduced a historic resolution recognizing the contributions of the Israeli-American community in the U.S. The measure, which was introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), is the first resolution focused on Israeli-Americans. It stated that the values of the more than 800,000-strong Israeli-American community contribute significantly “to the welfare and diversity of the United States” and help strengthen the bonds between the U.S. and Israel....
(JTA) — Elon Musk bantered with Kanye West and trolled the Anti-Defamation League this weekend, in the latest of mounting signs that he is choosing to let the platform become a free for all after acquiring it last month. West, the rapper and designer who also goes by Ye, had been banned from Twitter last month for threatening Jews; he returned to the platform Nov. 4 and was swiftly banned again after he launched a new round of anti-Jewish invective. “Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” West tweeted midday Sunday. Several hours...
When NBA players union president CJ McCollum criticized Kyrie Irving for linking to an antisemitic movie on Twitter last month, he seemed to confirm what many had already guessed. "I don't think he understood the magnitude of the movie," McCollum said, "because he didn't watch it." Irving, who hasn't played since he was suspended Nov. 4, may not have watched the three-and-a-half-hour "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," but I did, both to see for myself what was in it and to see if it we...
