Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - Top Israeli architects and planning teams spent five action-packed hours in Beersheva learning about the Jewish National Fund-USA's ambitious plans for the World Zionist Village, a transformative center for Zionist education, leadership, innovation, community-building and lifelong engagement with the land and people of Israel. When completed, the 48,000-square-meter global hub in the growing Negev city will host the Alexander Muss High School, an English-language high school for...
With Iran's rulers threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, the modern world is reminded of an ancient truth: geography is power. The Strait is just a narrow channel between Iran and Oman, yet a huge share of the world's oil flows through it. Control that passage and you can rattle global markets, spike prices, and make nations nervous. Why the land of Canaan was so important When God told Abraham to go to the land He would show him, Abraham was being sent to Canaan, one of the great...
FASTSIGNS® of West Orlando, a staple of the local business community since 2011, has officially been acquired by franchise veterans Renee Friedman and Richard Goldstein. The strategic acquisition transitions the established West Orlando center into a high-capacity, multi-location network, massively scaling its production power and service capabilities. By merging the West Orlando facility's local expertise with the infrastructure of Friedman and Goldstein's top-tier Orlando Central...
A senior Iranian cleric called on Muslims worldwide to attack U.S. interests, saying that waging jihad against the “infidel enemy” was a religious obligation “for anyone capable of carrying it out.” “It is incumbent upon the free people of the region not to remain silent in the face of the aggression of the Zionist-American enemy,” said Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a top member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, in a statement carried by the semi-official Mehr News outlet. “America is a hostile infidel enemy, and jihad against it with all one’s stren...
Connecticut man arrested for allegedly yelling slurs at visibly identified Jews, slapping kippah off man’s head By Jessica Russak-Hoffman (JNS) — Community members helped the New Haven Police Department identify Paul Smith, 36, of East Haven, Conn., who was arrested and accused of shouting antisemitic slurs at three visibly Jewish people and of slapping a kippah off a victim’s head. Victims said that the alleged attacker smelled of alcohol and that he approached the three Jews on Crown Street on June 2 and yelled, “get out of my city,” “baby ki...
(JNS) — As details of U.S. President Donald Trump’s new Iran framework agreement begin to emerge, Jewish organizations and policy experts said that questions remain whether its terms go far enough and if Tehran can be trusted to adhere to them. “Whether or not this agreement succeeds lies in strict verification and intrusive enforcement,” Daniel S. Mariaschin, CEO of B’nai B’rith International, told JNS. “Given Iran’s 47-year history of deceit and deception, its secretive nuclear program and its role as paymaster and armorer of terrorist proxi...
(JNS) - Israel on Sunday, June 7, marked the 59th anniversary on the Gregorian calendar of its capture of eastern Jerusalem and reunification of the capital during the 1967 Six-Day War. June 7, 1967, marked the day "the Jewish people returned to the heart of their ancient capital," according to an Israeli Foreign Ministry X post. It described the reunification of the holy city as a moment of "historic joy and liberation." The MFA's statement highlighted the significance of Jerusalem in Jewish...
(JNS) - The Israel Defense Forces struck military targets in western and central Iran early Monday after the Islamic Republic launched ballistic missile barrages at the Jewish state overnight. The military said the Israeli Air Force, guided by Military Intelligence, carried out strikes on military targets belonging to the Iranian regime. IAF fighter jets "completed a large-scale strike on strategic defense systems," according to a statement. "Recently, defense systems were deployed in numerous...
(JNS) — As Israel prepared to mark the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War on June 7, the Tower of David Jerusalem Museum is asking the public to help uncover a visual record of one of Judaism’s most cherished sites—the Western Wall. The museum has launched a nationwide appeal for photographs, postcards and other visual materials documenting the Kotel from the earliest days of photography through 1968, ahead of a major exhibition to open in 2027, on the 60th anniversary of the war. The exhibition, titled “Eyes on the Wall,” will be t...
(JNS) — The House Armed Services Committee voted on Thursday to reject an amendment from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) that would have stripped a provision from the annual defense authorization bill calling for greater defense cooperation with Israel. Khanna and other critics of section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act have said that it would “fuse” the U.S. and Israeli militaries and was an example of Congress bowing to the wishes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The American people are tired of the arrogance and insolen...
(JNS) — Iran on Monday warned it would carry out “far more severe and crushing” missile attacks against Israel if the Jewish state continued military operations against Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy. The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran’s highest operational military command, said Tehran delivered “heavy, targeted and costly blows” to Israel in its attacks on Sunday and Monday. “The cessation of armed forces operations is hereby announced,” the statement continued, according to a translation by Iran’s Press TV outlet. The annou...
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Sunday praised former President Bill Clinton’s approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict, saying he wished more Democrats shared his understanding of the issue. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) “is one of the few who do,” Huckabee tweeted, sharing footage of Clinton’s October 2024 remarks about negotiations he led between Israel and the PLO in the ’90s and early 2000s. PLO leader Yasser Arafat “didn’t tell me the truth ... when he promised me he was gonna accept the peace deal that we had worked out, which wo...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa discussed the ongoing high-level trilateral talks between Israel, Lebanon and the U.S., in a meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in Beirut on Monday. Issa, who was born in Lebanon, said the U.S.-brokered talks would resume in Washington, D.C. He praised the professionalism of Lebanon’s negotiating team. According to the State Department, talks will reconvene during the week of June 22. Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire on June 3. The ceasefire was to be contingent on Hezbollah, an...
The Wikipedia page for Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who has called the Israel Defense Forces a “Nazi army” and Orthodox Jews “inbred,” has received more than 327,000 views in the past 30 days. At the top of the page, it states that he has “regularly spoken about the Gaza war, advocating for Palestinians and criticizing the Israeli government.” Readers must scroll down quite a bit to learn that he has praised Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror organization. Despite an editor recommending it, the page does not note that the U.S. Department...
(JNS) — A grandmother and her three grandchildren were stranded in a wadi near Meron in the Upper Galilee on a dark, rainy Lag B’Omer night. Unable to climb out and unsure how they would reach safety, they waited for help. Before rescuers could reach them on foot, a drone appeared overhead. Operated by United Hatzalah volunteers, the drone located the family, illuminated the area with onboard lights, delivered thermal blankets and flashlights, and guided rescue teams to their location. The fam...
(JNS) — Iran and its regional terrorist proxies fired more than two dozen ballistic missiles at Israel overnight on Sunday and into Monday, sending millions of civilians running for bomb shelters. An Israeli military official told reporters on Monday that 22 ballistic missiles were launched by Tehran overnight, in addition to two projectiles fired by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists. As of Monday morning, 44 people had sustained injuries in the attacks, according to Israel’s Healt...
(JNS) - Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) was rebuked on the House floor on Wednesday after accusing Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) of supporting Hezbollah during debate over her War Powers resolution concerning U.S. forces in Lebanon. Tlaib's measure would direct the president to withdraw U.S. armed forces from Southern Lebanon, arguing the United States is acting without congressional authorization by providing intelligence and coordinating activities related to Israel's military actions against...
An old friend of mine, an academic who typically infuses his scholarly papers about such topics as economics and social trends with the perspective of Torah stories, Torah-based ethics and Torah scholars, challenged me the other day to write an essay about a subject that has increasingly bothered him in recent years — the growing uncivility in our culture. In politics. In religion. In journalism. In …. You get the idea. This increase in public hostility and decrease in mutual respect is evident in many venues: The standards of comedy roasts, wh...
10 evacuees from ‘Operation Roaring Lion’ still living in hotels By JNS Staff (JNS) — Sixty-four Israelis whose homes were damaged by Iranian missiles during “Operation Roaring Lion” against Tehran are still living in hotels, Knesset lawmakers heard on Wednesday. The evacuees are temporarily being housed in 11 hotels across the Jewish state, a representative of the Israel Tax Authority’s Compensation Fund told members of the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs. “According to our projections, by mid-June ther...
(JNS) — Israel “hit back” after Iran targeted it with missiles, U.S. President Donald Trump emphasized early on Tuesday, saying that he “can’t blame” Jerusalem for retaliating against the Islamic Republic. Trump told reporters after attending the NBA Finals in New York City that he had a “very good conversation” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the latest flare-up in hostilities. “He hit back, and I can’t blame him for that,” said the president. “Now they’ve called it quits, so they’re going to just leave each other al...
(JNS) - HAIFA, Israel-"You're from the Jewish school?" the French Ministry of Education official quizzed the teenage girl who had come for her post-high school baccalaureate exam. The examiner began firing off the most difficult questions on the physics test, seemingly seeking to trip up the high school senior, but Noa Uziel, 18, who was at the top of her class at Paris's Yabne school, stood her ground. "Are you going to cry?" the Education Ministry official pressed her. "I am the one who...
(JNS) — The Israel Day on Fifth parade in Manhattan on May 31 made a statement both for who was and was not present, according to Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York. “To all our enemies all around the world, but specifically here in New York City, we are here to stay, we are strong, we are proud and my suggestion to all of these elected officials, who are thinking that we will disappear, the answer is ‘no,’” Akunis told JNS after the parade. “The opposite is the truth,” the...
(JNS) - Hundreds of New Yorkers filled the normally quiet and bucolic Upper East Side street adjacent to Gracie Mansion, the official home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, on Tuesday evening, chanting "Hey, hey, no, no, Mayor Mamdani's got to go" and "stop Mamdani." Lilly Icikson was among the demonstrators-a group of mostly Jews with a few Muslims and Christians-and handed out stickers, which she prints at home and affixes to light poles and other surfaces outside Gracie Mansion and in...
Almost half of American Jews under 35 say the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be solved by creating a single country in Israel, the “West Bank” and Gaza with a government elected by both Israelis and Palestinians, according to a poll conducted by the Jewish Voter Resource Center. The findings signal a generational shift in U.S. support for a binational state in Israel, reflecting a core demand of anti-Zionist protests on college campuses and beyond — even as most major Jewish organizations classify calls for a single state as an expre...
(JNS) — Reported anti-Jewish hate crimes in Chicago declined from 79 in 2024 to 47 in 2025, and so far this year, there have been nine recorded in the Windy City, per Chicago Police Department data. In 2023, the year Brandon Johnson became mayor, Chicago had 50 anti-Jewish hate crimes, and the prior year, before Oct. 7, there were 39, according to a city crime dashboard. In 2026 so far, there has been one anti-Muslim hate crime—the same number as in 2025. In 2024 there were six, and in 2023, 16, according to police data. In 2022, there wer...
