Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Palestinian Authority security forces have begun entering Jenin in recent days, following the Israel Defense Forces’ intensive security operation to degrade the terrorist presence in Jenin camp on July 3 and July 4. Israel is watching closely to see whether the P.A. is able to re-establish control in a city where a power vacuum saw Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas, localized terror groups and Iranian financing create a terrorist hornet’s nest as well as a budding rocket launch base. The Israeli security establishment appears to be monit...
(JTA) – Jeff Nitz, a social worker and lay leader at his church, sees himself as a trained listener. But beginning in 2020, his congregation — Mosaic Church in the evangelical Christian hub of Lynchburg, Virginia — started becoming riven by fierce COVID-era fights over masking, distancing and vaccinations. Used to bridging divides among his fellow parishioners, Nitz was at a loss. “I’m used to doing active listening, but there were times where it felt like I would much rather just avoid this person than having the deeper conversat...
WASHINGTON (JTA) —A congressional committee approved an increase in funding for the office of Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s antisemitism monitor, from $1.5 million to $2.5 million. The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee approved the bill, which pays for State Department and foreign operations, late Wednesday. It now goes to the full House and must be reconciled with parallel Senate legislation. Senators who focus on antisemitism hope to get similar language into the corresponding Senate bill. This week, a bip...
Israel’s men’s soccer team is headed to the Olympics for the first time since 1976 By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Israel’s national men’s soccer team qualified for the Olympics for the first time in nearly 50 years by making a surprising run at a major under-21 European tournament. Israel lost to England on Wednesday in the semifinals of the UEFA European U-21 Championship, a biennial contest among the continent’s best under-21 teams. But three days earlier, after a win in the playoff round against Georgia, Israel earned a place at the 2024 Paris...
(JNS) — Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York hit Gal Luft, an Israeli professor who has been described as a key “missing” witness in the House Republicans’ investigation of Biden family corruption, with a litany of charges on Monday. Luft, 57, who was arrested in Cyprus on Feb. 17, 2023, and is on the lam after being released on bail to avoid extradition to the United States, is accused of helping recruit a former high-ranking U.S. government official “to publicly support certain policies” favoring China. While the official is...
BERLIN (JTA) - Alongside Munich's river, construction workers made a sensational discovery last week: Stone tablets carved with the Ten Commandments from the city's former main synagogue, which was torn down in the summer of 1938 on Adolf Hitler's orders. The find was announced almost exactly 85 years after the building was destroyed. The object - along with 150 tons of rubble from the synagogue, including parts of columns - had likely lain on the banks of the Isar River since the 1950s, when...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - President Joe Biden blamed increasing tension in Judea and Samaria on the "lost credibility" of the Palestinian Authority as well as on "extreme" ministers in Israel's government. In a televised interview on foreign policy with CNN host Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Biden also again declined to say when he would invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House. Biden has pushed off scheduling that meeting due to friction between the two men regarding...
MARGATE, Fla. — EL AL Israel Airlines, which recently relocated its regional headquarters for North America to Margate, Florida, is proud to announce that it is continuing to expand its activity in South Florida. Effective on Sept. 13, 2023, EL AL will begin seasonal service from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to Tel Aviv. The new non-stop flights will operate on selected days of the week to accommodate the Jewish High Holidays through October. In addition to this year’s seasonal service, year-round Tel Aviv service to and fro...
In November 1940, days after the Nazis sealed 450,000 Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, a secret band of journalists, scholars, and community leaders decided to fight back. Led by historian Emanuel Ringelblum and known by the code name Oyneg Shabes, this clandestine group vowed to defeat Nazi lies and propaganda not with guns or fists but with pen and paper. They detailed life in the Ghetto from the Jewish perspective. They commissioned diaries, essays, jokes, poems, and songs. They documented Nazi...
On June 21, 2023, a potluck luncheon was held at the home of Jeff and Marci Gaeser in Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach. Thirty women, members of the Chavurah of the Chood, a Jewish friends group, attended and brought non-perishable foods for the food bank of the Jewish Federation of Volusia and Flagler Counties. The Federation is headed by Executive Director Rabbi Dr. Robert Lennick and President Marvin Miller. The women enjoyed fellowship and discussed future charitable efforts. All the wo...
(JNS) — JNS reported last April that Morningstar and its subsidiary Sustainalytics had flagged 26 companies for doing business beyond the so-called Green Line in Israel. Its “controversy ratings” could dissuade socially-conscious investors from placing funds in those companies. Under pressure from a growing list of state-level investigations for potential anti-Israel BDS practices, Morningstar and Sustainalytics, an environmental, social and corporate governance rater, have trimmed the list down substantially. Multiple sources told JNS that...
(JNS) — A day after the Israel Defense Forces completed its extensive security operation, it appears the goal of squashing Jenin’s image as a terrorist safe haven has been accomplished, with some caveats. The IDF, backed by Shin Bet intelligence and Border Police officers, seized more than a thousand pieces of armament in Jenin camp and surrounding areas, including bombs, ammunition and guns. Security forces questioned over 300 suspects; some 120 of them were detained. Fourteen command posts and hideouts used to coordinate terrorist activity we...
(JTA) — The BBC has apologized for an on-air interview in which one of its anchors told former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that “Israeli forces are happy to kill children.” The journalist, Anjana Gadgil, was interviewing Bennett on Tuesday about the Israel Defense Forces’ incursion this week into the Palestinian city of Jenin. Twelve Palestinians, including a number of children, and one Israeli were killed in the operation, which lasted two days. Israel conducted the operation to root out terror cells in the city and maintai...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a case that drew support from a broad array of Jewish groups, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that employers had to show a “substantial” burden to deny workers religious accommodation. In a decision released Thursday, the court sided with Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian mail carrier who asked not to work on Sundays, his Sabbath. Jewish groups that do not often line up on the same side of church-state issues before the court were of a single voice in this case. Justice Samuel Alito, writing the opinion, sought to...
(JNS) — A spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, which advises U.S. President Joe Biden, released a statement on Monday in support of the Israel Defense Forces’ ongoing counterterrorism operation in Jenin. “We support Israel’s security and right to defend its people against Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups,” it states. The council added that it is monitoring the situation closely. Sources said on Tuesday afternoon that the operation was getting close to winding down. But Israeli officials said it would pro...
K2 Medical, a prominent healthcare organization, recently hosted a special breakfast event for sponsors of the Jewish Pavilion in Maitland. The primary objective of the occasion was to facilitate networking among healthcare professionals who actively support the Jewish Pavilion's endeavors. Members of the Jewish Pavilion's board were also in attendance, lending their support and fostering a sense of community within the healthcare industry. The event was a resounding success, bringing together a...
(JNS) - Residents of the Jenin refugee camp are blaming the Palestinian Authority and Hamas for this week's two-day Israeli military incursion, laying bare divisions within the Palestinian terrorist groups. Significant numbers of Hamas operatives feel betrayed by their leaders in Gaza and have quit in anger. The aftermath also exposes a widening rift in the Strip between Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. On Wednesday morning, after Israeli soldiers left the camp, the enormous extent of the...
(JNS) - It has been nearly ten years since General Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi came to power as president of Egypt following a military coup. July 3, 2013, began as a regular day in Cairo, with demonstrations held against then-President Mohamed Morsi, but ended in his dramatic ouster. The Egyptians had taken to the streets for seven long months. Some due to Morsi's attempt to reinstate an Islamist-led parliament, others due to the energy crisis. Following the coup, there were suspicions that the...
(JTA) - A Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli soldier when security forces stopped the gunman while he was driving near the Kedumim settlement in northern Samaria. The gunman was killed after the attack. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Thursday, noting that Kedumim is where Bezalel Smotrich, the minister responsible for Judea and Samaria, lives. "Tell the criminal Zionist Minister Smotrich that al-Qassam almost knocked on your door," the Jerusalem Post quoted Qassam Brigades, a...
Deborah Project files another lawsuit against a California school district (JNS) — It was déjà vu for the public-interest law firm the Deborah Project, which has sued two California public-school districts in as many months. In both instances, the districts refused to turn over record requests, despite state law requiring that they do so. Earlier this month, the firm, which focuses in particular on the civil rights of Jews in education, asked a court in Santa Clara County, Calif., to ensure that the Mountain View-Los Altos Union School Dis...
(JTA) — The request for rainbow-frosted cupcakes came from a repeat customer — a local synagogue that had relied on the West Orange Bake Shop to make kosher desserts for its special events. But this year, bakery co-owner Yitzy Mittel decided to decline the order. He couldn’t bring himself to produce the Pride-themed goods. Mittel, an Orthodox Jew, had made a similar cake for an order the year before. But the experience unnerved him, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, because his understanding of Jewish law holds that LGBTQ symbols are “anti...
In a proud and longstanding partnership and in the continuing celebration of Israel’s 75th anniversary, JCC Association of North America and Maccabi World Union are bringing athletes from around the globe together in Israel at the world’s largest Jewish youth sporting event, beginning on July 6. More than a thousand Jewish teens from 10 countries will kick off the weeklong JCC Maccabi Games®, an Olympic-style sports event that includes opening and closing ceremonies; community service; and soci...
(JNS) — While the Biden administration is denying it, the fact is that in recent weeks the United States and Iran have been holding indirect talks regarding Tehran’s nuclear program. According to U.S. officials and Western diplomats, in the weeks and months after the unofficial death of attempts to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement, the Biden administration conducted several “what’s next” meetings. What emerged from these meetings was the idea of a new kind...
(FORT LAUDERDALE) — A recently appointed member of the District Advisory Council for the Broward County Florida School Board, Laurie Cardoza Moore, a nationally recognized pro-Israel advocate, was among the first to commend the Fort Lauderdale based Board for their removal of local educator Naima Khan-Ghany from her recently re-appointed positions on both the county’s School Board Diversity Committee and the Human Relations Committees. Earlier this month, Cardoza Moore was in urgent communication with the office of Dr. Jeff Holness of the Bro...
When Molly Resnick was in her 30s, she was quite successful in her field of journalism. As a producer for NBC News, she had interviewed the likes of Henry Kissinger, Menachem Begin, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Sean Connery. Born in Bulgaria and raised in Israel, she grew up in a secular family and came to America with dreams of making it big. "In 1972, I left the land of milk and honey to go to the land of gold and money," she said. Resnick worked her way up from PBS to NBC. She was living her...
