Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2705 - 2729 of 10919
(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...
(JNS) — The heavily Jewish town of Surfside, Florida, passed a resolution last week establishing a twin city relationship with the Samaria Regional Council. Passed by a 5-0 margin, the partnership encompasses some three dozen Jewish communities and will honor Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan with a ceremonial key to the town. Surfside’s first Orthodox Jewish mayor, Shlomo Danzinger, told JNS the move was motivated in part by a desire to thank Israel for its help in the search and rescue operation at the site of the collapse las...
(JNS) — Between 2017 and 2022, 92.82 percent of the articles in leading U.S. college newspapers that strayed from journalistic objectivity were anti-Israel, according to a report from Alums for Campus Fairness. ACF surveyed 75 leading college and university newspapers. Of all the articles about Israel exhibiting a bias, 181 were biased against Israel and 14 portrayed it positively. Coverage spiked during periods of tension between Israel and Hamas, including in November 2018, May 2019, November 2019 and May 2021. There is an intense fixation o...
(JTA) — Couscous lovers who frequent the grocery store Trader Joe’s may have noticed a change in the grain aisle: The chain’s brightly colored purple boxes of “Israeli Couscous” are now simply known as “Pearl Couscous.” The Nosher, a sister website to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, first reported the label change after word of it spread on the popular Facebook group Kosher Trader Joe’s. The move raised questions in the group about whether Trader Joe’s was trying to distance itself from Israel, a move that some companies have made for politica...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The Biden administration is still hoping to close a deal between Israel and Lebanon on a maritime border. Still, Israel is citing the deal's apparent collapse to prepare for tensions on its northern border. "Special Presidential Coordinator Amos Hochstein continues his robust engagement to bring the maritime boundary discussions to a close," a National Security Council spokeswoman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "We remain in close communication with the Israelis and...
New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss pledged "wholehearted" support for the Jewish State during a speech at the Conservative Friends of Israel conference on Monday. "I am so pleased to be here for the first time at the CFI event as your prime minister," Truss was quoted as saying by the Jewish Chronicle. "As you know I am a huge Zionist, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and I know that we can take the UK-Israel relationship from strength to strength." "In this world - where we are facing threats...
(JTA) – It seemed like a headline out of the 19th century: a warning of “Jew-free zones” at the University of California-Berkeley. That’s the phrase being employed by some prominent pro-Israel groups this week to describe a dispute at UC Berkeley’s law school, where nine student groups recently voted to adopt by-laws that state they will not invite any visiting speakers to campus who “hold views in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” But is the “Jew-free” label accurate? Not according to Jewi...
White House ‘alarmed’ by Iran crackdown, still committed to nuke deal (JNS) — The Biden administration is “alarmed” by the Iranian regime’s ongoing deadly crackdown on demonstrators across the country but is still committed to forging a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “So, we’re alarmed and appalled by reports of security authorities responding to university students’ peaceful protests with violence and mass arrests,” she said, adding that these “crackdowns are pre...
(JTA) — October is a busy month for U.S. sports fans. The MLB playoffs get underway, the NBA season begins, the NFL season kicks into high gear and both the women’s and men’s pro soccer leagues start their postseasons, too. Sometimes another milestone gets hidden under the headlines of it all: the start of the NHL season. The first puck drops on Friday, ironically in Prague, in a match between the Nashville Predators and the San Jose Sharks. (The first stateside games start on Tuesday night.) Another phenomenon that hasn’t been widely covered...
(JTA) – Three Jewish women have sued to protest Kentucky’s restrictive abortion laws on religious freedom grounds, arguing that they violate Jewish teachings as to when life begins and place undue burdens on their ability to use in vitro fertilization to achieve pregnancy. The suit is at least the third religious freedom lawsuit to be filed by Jews against a state abortion restriction since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. It follows a synagogue’s challenge to Florida’s laws and a Jewish pro-choice group’s lawsuit i...
In December 1968 an open house was held to dedicate the new Kinneret Apartments for low-income elderly people. The developing process began in 1960 when the Central Florida Jewish Community Council president, Flossie Gluckman, learned from Ernie Rapp about a program offered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A Jewish senior housing council was formed. Abe Wise found two acres of land on Lake Lucerne. The founders likened it to the Sea of Galilee and named the future apartme...
(JNS) - As the ongoing protests in Iran reached their two-week mark on Friday, the death toll has reportedly exceeded 80 people. Iranians have been protesting against the regime since the Sept. 16 killing of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested for "unsuitable attire" by the Islamic Republic's "morality police" and then beaten to death. Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO, tweeted that "at least 83 people including children, are confirmed to have been killed in (the) #IranProtests." On Friday,...
JFS Orlando’s Family Stabilization Program is a preventative, six-month case management program. It is designed to help individuals and families obtain self-sufficiency by teaching them critical skills and tools to improve financial management, employability, family stability and mental health functioning, as well as maintain or improve housing. Program participants have special access to several services at no cost, including food assistance, financial education workshops, employability s...
The 2nd Annual Good Ghoul Gala is coming to the Rosen JCC on Saturday Oct. 29 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This event was created by the Miles to Go Charity. This charity helps create custom drawstring bags filled with personal items for the homeless. The bags can include items such as toothbrushes, deodorant, hand sanitizer and clothing items. Proceeds from this event will help support the non-profits Miles to Go and the Rosen JCC This is a fun-filled family Halloween themed event with something for every age group. This is a non-scary gala that is...
(JNS) — The Israeli global crowd-funding venture firm OurCrowd announced this week its launch of a $200 million Global Health Equity Fund. News of the collaboration with the WHO (World Health Organization) Foundation was shared at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The fund will focus on healthcare solutions with a potentially global impact. “COVID-19 was a wake-up call for me as an investor,” said Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd. “The pandemic opened my...
(JNS) — The City University of New York has reversed course after it assigned a former employee of a vehemently anti-Israel NGO to investigate allegations of anti-Zionist discrimination. The probe came at the request of Prof. Jeffrey Lax, chair of the business department at CUNY’s Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. He alleged pervasive discrimination and harassment against Zionists and Jews on campus, as well as retaliation and a hostile work environment created by Kingsborough President Claudia Schrader. Lax’s complaint came as Kings...
(JTA) — The holiest day of the Jewish calendar couldn’t come at a worse time for Michigan public schools this year. Yom Kippur falls on Oct. 5 — which is also the state’s “student count day,” the one day a year when the number of students who attend school determines how much that district will receive in state funds the following year. By Michigan law, count day is on the first Wednesday of October, and superintendents typically go to great lengths to entice students to attend. Districts have coaxed students to attend on the days using raffles...
(JTA) — Doreen Alhadeff was the first American Jew granted Spanish citizenship under Spain’s 2015 law to repatriate Sephardic Jews from around the world. Now she is going to be knighted by Spain’s monarchy for helping others obtain that same citizenship. Alhadeff, a 72-year-old real estate agent from Seattle, will be knighted under the order of Queen Isabella the Catholic next month, the Seattle Times reported Monday. Since earning Spanish citizenship in 2016, Alhadeff has helped guide people around the world, from Greece to Hong Kong, through...
