Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS Wire) - On Oct. 24 at 1 p.m. at the beautiful, lakeside Shamir Park located in Ma'ale Adumim, a growing city outside of nearby Jerusalem, the district's newest tourist and interpretive cultural attraction, the "Tree of Life," will be dedicated by Mayor Benny Kashriel. The public is invited to attend the ceremony and share in the programmed events and experiences. The enormous sculpted knurled olive tree is modeled on a 500-year-old olive tree trunk retrieved near the Garden of Gethsemane. T...
(JTA) — Israel’s government has approved an historic maritime accord with Lebanon, as both countries are under pressure to get the agreement signed before October ends and their leaders may change. The Israeli and U.S. governments pushed back against claims that the deal ceded too much to Lebanon. The details of the deal are not yet in place, but Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid said Wednesday at a press conference, hours after his cabinet approved the deal, that Israel had declined two last-minute Lebanese demands. Lebanon had wanted to rem...
(JTA) — The U.S. Air Force Academy has pledged to “correct” its processes to ensure that it does not schedule key events on major faith holidays after a mandatory training exercise took place on Yom Kippur. “The U.S. Air Force Academy recognizes the importance of the holy days of all faiths. A training event was unintentionally scheduled this week during the Jewish observance of Yom Kippur,” Lt. Col. Brian Maguire, the director of public affairs, said in a statement his office emailed Thursday to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The Academy’s A...
Palestinian terrorists have carried out attacks on an hourly basis, according to the data of the Judea and Samaria emergency center, which registered 23 terrorist incidents in the past day. These attacks included shootings, one of which killed Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch near Shavei Shomron, explosives, a lynching attempt at Nebi Salah, rock attacks, and arson. Israel’s security forces continued their counterterrorism operations throughout Judea and Samaria on Tuesday night, including in the villages of Beit Sira, Deir Abu Mashal, Esawiya, and H...
World Elder Abuse Awareness Day was launched by the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and the World Health Organization at the United Nations. The purpose of day is to provide an opportunity for communities around the world to promote a better understanding of abuse and neglect of older persons by raising awareness of the cultural, social, economic and demographic processes affecting elder abuse and neglect. The events took place on June 15th. Many seniors are not in a place to stand up for themselves, whether it’s b...
The 104th anniversary of the Armistice ending World War I will be observed by the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society on Veterans Day, Friday, Nov. 11, 2022. at 11 a.m. at the St. Augustine National Cemetery, 104 Marine Street, St. Augustine, 32084. A short and informal discussion of St. Augustine’s role in the Spanish American War and the Jews who were involved in those efforts, will be a part of the brief commemoration. The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society is a non-religious, non-sectarian organization. The Nov. 11 event is open t...
(JTA) — An official investigation by Stanford University released Wednesday confirmed longstanding suspicions that university administrators acted to limit Jewish enrollment in the 1950s while publicly denying that they were doing so. In tandem with the release of the report, Stanford’s president, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, apologized to the Jewish community on behalf of the university. “This ugly component of Stanford’s history, confirmed by this new report, is saddening and deeply troubling,” Tessier-Lavigne wrote. “As a university, we must acknow...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Thursday ordered IDF troops to prepare for “any scenario” on the northern border after a proposed maritime frontier demarcation accord with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon appeared to have hit a dead end. Gantz held a situation assessment attended by the IDF chief of staff and other security officials, and then instructed the military to increase its readiness for offensive and defensive actions should the enemy attack in the northern arena. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid rejected proposed chang...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday said that Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid was “making history” by agreeing to a maritime border deal with Lebanon to end a decade-long-plus dispute over gas-rich waters in the Eastern Mediterranean. In a phone call, Biden told Lapid, “You are making history,” and expressed his appreciation for the trust and confidence of all Israelis who participated in the U.S.-mediated process, according to a statement by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. Biden also emphasized his commitment to upholding the Je...
(JNS) - The Israel Allies Foundation has named Pastor Larry Huch of Dallas, Texas, as the No. 1 Christian ally of the Jewish state in its annual Top 50 list. The list of "Top 50 Christian Allies," published by IAF on the eve of Sukkot, known by Christians as the Feast of Tabernacles, celebrates men and women from around the world and of different Christian denominations who tirelessly support and defend Israel. Besides pastors, the list includes Hollywood stars and politicians, from Pat Boone...
(JNS) - Russia is deploying Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles in its war against Ukraine, and although it is not yet possible to determine their exact operational effectiveness, the weapons could pose a significant challenge for the Israeli military in a future conflict, a prominent drone and missile expert told JNS. Tal Inbar, former director of the UAV Research Center at Israel's Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, and co-founder of the Ilan Ramon Space Conference, said t...
(JNS) — Israeli lawmaker Sharren Haskel called on Christian parliamentarians from around the world to demand their governments sanction Iran, in a dramatic address that culminated with her cutting her hair in a show of solidarity with Iranian women. “Demand that your governments and elected officials stand by the Iranian people at this time, support their protests and help them attain the freedom which they deserve,” Haskel said. “Demand that your countries impose sanctions on the leaders of Iran, the dictators who are leading us to a regiona...
(JNS) - The remains of two soldiers who fought in Israel's war of independence have been found, 74 years after their deaths. The Israeli Defence Forces announced on Friday that it had identified the remains of Privates Yitzhak Rubinstein and Binyamin Aryeh Eisenberg, who were members of the Palmach-the elite strike force of the pre-state Haganah militia-defending Kibbutz Yad Mordechai from an Egyptian attack in 1948, just days after Israel declared independence. The Egyptians captured the two...
(ISRAEL21c) - When a pregnant woman is worried about possible genetic defects in the child she is carrying, amniocentesis is the gold standard test. But amniocentesis is both invasive - a needle is inserted into the womb to extract amniotic fluid - and dangerous, resulting in miscarriage in as many as one out of every 200 tests performed. Furthermore, amniocentesis can only be done after week 15 of the pregnancy, yet many U.S. states and countries around the world ban abortion by that time,...
(JTA) — Since March, Rabbi Daniel Litvak has been required to appear three times a week at the magistrate’s office in Porto, the Portuguese city where he is accused of submitting fraudulent citizenship applications for Sephardic Jews. His passports were confiscated and he was barred from contacting the lawyer who is the other defendant in the criminal case against him. Now, an appeals court in Lisbon has ruled that Litvak does not need to abide by the stringent restrictions. The court also criticized Portuguese prosecutors for how they hav...
(JTA) — It started with a shirt and ended in a conflagration over antisemitism and Republican politics. Such is the extended news cycle over multiple antisemitic comments during the last week by Kanye West, the artist and provocateur who prefers to go by Ye. On Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show, Instagram and Twitter, West made a string of comments reflecting a range of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories. The spree culminated with West’s vow to “go death con 3 ON JEWISH PEOPLE.” DEFCON is an acronym that refers to the state of alert of Ame...
Ben Bernanke, former Fed chair, shares economics Nobel for research on banks and crisis By Ron Kampeas (JTA) — Ben Bernanke, the Jewish former chairman of the federal reserve, shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with two other scholars for their work in examining how banks function in economic crises. Bernanke was recognized for an influential 1983 paper, written when he was a professor at Stanford University, that examined the Depression era to show how runs on banks during economic uncertainty tend to exacerbate and broaden a crisis. His t...
(JTA) — As the Jewish new year was coming to a close Tuesday afternoon, Mexican Authorities raided a compound on the outskirts of Tapachula, a city on Mexico’s pacific coast about six miles from the Guatemalan border. There they arrested 26 members of the Lev Tahor Hasidic sect, which has widely been considered a cult around the world. The members, including a leader, Menachem Endel Alter, were arrested on charges of being part of a criminal organization, along with human trafficking, the Associated Press reported. The group, whose name means ...
(JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has emphatically encouraged dialogue with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, despite his disagreements with the center-right pro-Israel lobby and calls among the pro-Palestinian community to disengage from the group. In a recording of his meeting last month with Palestinian Americans on the sidelines of the United Nations’ General Assembly in New York City obtained by The Times of Israel, Abbas also faulted the current Biden administration for not doing enough to pressur...
(JNS) — Pro-Israel organizations in the U.S. are privately voicing their concerns that two Democratic members of Congress may have meddled in Israeli politics by recently calling on opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu to exclude a controversial, right-wing politician in his coalition should he win next month’s election. With just weeks to go until elections both in the U.S. and Israel, the private warning by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), followed by a public tweet with largely the same message by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), departed from the c...
It's unbelievable to see what happened to my city, my friends, my community. Hurricane Ian decimated Fort Myers Beach, along with homes, businesses, roads and vehicles, and left much of the area unrecognizable. It has been described as an apocalyptic scene. The death toll is currently at 109 deaths in the United States, the vast majority in Florida. Two Holocaust survivors in their 90s are among the many Southwest Floridians displaced by Hurricane Ian last week. The couple lived in a mobile...
Thirty-eight years ago, Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel, the only Jewish funeral home in Central Florida, opened its doors at 115 W. Gore Street in Orlando to serve the funeral needs of the Jewish community from Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties, as well as making arrangements for other contiguous counties and out of state burials. Thirteen years later they moved to 640 Lee Road, gaining much needed space. Recently, however, Beth Shalom had to move from this location because it became...
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando leads collaborative community effort to house Ukrainian refugees in our Central Florida community. Recently, St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Catholic Church in Apopka became aware of a Ukrainian refugee family of four, with a toddler and newborn, few belongings, and no place to stay. Father Roman Kuzminskyi reached out to JFS Orlando to help the family in urgent need of assistance. JFS sprang into action and mobilized the community. Through JFS Orlando’s relationship with Shalom Orlando, the newly merged...
Jewish National Fund-USA has installed two stellar professionals in new Orlando roles in response to the organization's rapid growth in the region. The appointments mark the first time that the city will have a full-time team of active professionals working to connect the community to Israel. Joshua Mellits, who lives in Bradenton with his wife, Lauren Brodsky, and his son Zev, has been with Jewish National Fund-USA since 2019 and is stepping into a new role as director, Western Florida and...
(JNS) — Wellesley College’s student newspaper endorsed the controversial Boston “Mapping Project” last week in an article penned by the editorial board, claiming the project provides a “vital service.” The project, published this past summer by BDS supporters, links a range of Massachusetts-based Jewish groups, synagogues, schools, police departments, media and other institutions that the anti-Israel activists claim participate in harmful activities and should be dismantled. The project’s website hosts a map with the locations of their targets...
