Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Esteemed Shillman Journalism fellow Daniel Greenfield from Frontpage Maga-zine revealed that the ADL hired an activist named Tema Smith to serve as its director of Jewish outreach. Smith’s hire is newsworthy because Smith has a long record of anti-Israel, pro-terror and anti-Jewish postings on social media. In other words, she has a long record of antisemitic activism, which Greenfield documented. Consider a few examples of Smith’s publishing history: • During the Hamas war against Israel in 2014, Smith posted and endorsed an article that...
(JTA) – In early December, Judaism’s Conservative movement sent a disquieting message to dozens of synagogues looking for a new rabbi: Many of you won’t make a hire this year. At least 80 Conservative synagogues anticipated rabbi vacancies —approximately one of every seven affiliated with the movement, the email said. At most, 50 to 60 rabbis would be looking for new jobs. “We are not presenting this information to alarm, but rather to help you prepare for and navigate the challenges of this search season,” said the email, which was signed by t...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Chuck Schumer, the most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history, recited the Shema prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday. The New York Democrat added a reading from Leviticus that emphasized unity, echoing the message President Joe Biden emphasized in his remarks at the same event. Biden in his remarks referred to the recent synagogue hostage crisis in Texas as an example of courage in the face of divisiveness. Schumer, the majority leader in the Senate, appeared with Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., t...
Israel appoints first female attorney general (JNS) — The Israeli Cabinet on Monday approved the appointment of Gali Baharav-Miara as attorney general, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office. “This is one of the most important and sensitive appointments in the public service,” said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the start of the Cabinet meeting at which Baharav-Miara’s appointment was finalized. “At this time, given the erosion of public confidence in law enforcement, there is an important opportunity here to maintain wh...
(JNS) - An Israeli hospital has started recruiting volunteers for the world's largest known study for the detection of COVID-19 within the surface of the eye, announced Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer on Thursday. The hospital will be testing if the Tear Film Imager (TFI) developed by the Israeli company AdOM Advanced Optical Technologies, which takes a noninvasive measurement of the tear film, can effectively diagnose and determine if a person is infected with COVID. The tear film is a thi...
(JTA) - Despite the continuing COVID chaos and the mounting protests about China's human rights record, the 2022 Beijing Olympics are proceeding on schedule, just six months after the delayed Tokyo games - and we have your guide to the Jewish athletes who are on their way. In Tokyo, dozens of Jewish athletes competed, and many clinched medals. The Winter Olympics are typically a smaller affair, with fewer sports and fewer countries participating. Nevertheless, we're excited to cheer on these...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Stephen Breyer, the oldest justice on the Supreme Court and one of its minority of three liberal justices, is set to retire, multiple reports said Wednesday. The move would leave Elena Kagan as the only Jewish justice left on the court. Breyer, 83, has come under pressure to retire ever since President Joe Biden assumed office a year ago. Liberals and Democrats do not want to deny Biden the chance to replace a liberal justice with another liberal. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,...
Israeli government officials have begun laying the groundwork for the possible evacuation of Ukrainian Jews as fears of a Russian invasion continue to rise, Haaretz reported. According to the report, representatives from the Prime Minister’s Office, the foreign, defense, diaspora affairs and transportation ministries, the National Security Council and the Jewish Agency gathered on Sunday to discuss the threat level faced by Ukraine’s Jewish communities. They were also joined by officials from Nativ, an organization that maintains ties between I...
On Tuesday, Feb. 8th at 6:30 p.m., Eric Ross, senior associate director of the Anti Defamation League’s southern division will be speaking at the Rosen JCC, located at 11184 Apopka-Vineland Rd., Orlando. Today’s ADL is not like it was in the past. It suppresses information on Muslim antisemitism, convenes speakers who defame Israel, refuses to expose antisemites like Farrakhan, and is a proponent of Critical Race Theory. Most Jews today hold the ADL in high esteem as they rely on its good name earned in years passed. Since many Jews are una...
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando is proud to announce that the 2022 Kobrin Family Scholarship application is now available. This college scholarship is awarded to a qualified, full-time, graduating high school student in the Jewish communities of Orange, Osceola or Seminole County who will be attending the University of Central Florida. The scholarship is available in the amount of $2,500 per year for a maximum of four (4) years. To learn more and apply, visit www.jf...
(JNS) — Jewish groups in California took out a full-page ad in a local newspaper on Wednesday to voice their displeasure and concern with a school-board decision to engage an ethnic-studies curriculum for high school and middle-school students that they say will lead to hostility towards Israel and Jewish students. Appearing in the Castro Valley Forum, the ad reads, in part: “The Castro Valley Unified School District claims it is committed to ensuring the inclusion and belonging of all students and families with its tagline ‘All Means All....
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Ministry has announced plans to allocate approximately 10 million shekels ($3.2 million) to the preservation, rehabilitation, and rescue of heritage sites in Judea and Samaria. Dozens of heritage and archaeological sites in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley have been damaged in recent years by authorities in Ramallah as well as antiquities thieves in the Palestinian territories. Last month, Israel Hayom reported that thieves had caused significant damage to an ancient Roman a...
(JNS) — The multinational firm Unilever, which owns Ben & Jerry’s, announced on Tuesday that in the wake of severe losses, it will fire 1,500 workers around the world and split off its ice-cream division from its food division. The move follows Ben & Jerry’s decision to break its contract with its Israeli licensee, who refused to stop selling the company’s ice-cream in Judea and Samaria. The U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Florida, Texas, Illinois, Colorado and Arizona have decided to remove investments from their pension funds in Unileve...
(JTA) — Whoopi Goldberg apologized for upsetting people by starting a debate on Monday over whether the Holocaust was “about race,” writing that she is “sorry for the hurt I have caused.” But in an appearance that aired that same night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” she elaborated on some of her views on the Holocaust. On “The View,” a show that Goldberg co-hosts, she said “the Holocaust isn’t about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.” As she explained in an apology that she tweeted that evening, and on Colbert’s sho...
(JNS) - At a crucial moment for U.S. President Joe Biden's foreign policy, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken held a virtual policy session with an Atlanta synagogue on Monday night, where tensions regarding a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine's borders were front and center. China was also discussed as another threat to America's interests. The lecture, titled "21st Century Global Challenges Facing the U.S.", was moderated by Stuart Eizenstat, the U.S. Special Adviser on Holocaust Issues, who...
(JTA) - A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic memoir about his father's Holocaust experience, from its curriculum after board members raised objections about curse words, nude drawings and "not wise or healthy" content within it. Spiegelman, who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for the book, told CNBC that the decision was "Orwellian" and said he doubted that the McMinn County school board's decision to stop teaching his book had only to do with his choic...
(JNS) -Three pendants inscribed with the "Shema Yisrael" prayer and depictions of Moses and the Ten Commandments have been discovered in archaeological excavations in the Sobibor extermination camp over the past decade, the Israel Antiquities Authority revealed on Thursday. The findings, made by Wojciech Mazurek from Poland, Yoram Haimi from the IAA and Ivar Schute from Holland, with the assistance of local residents, were made public on Thursday to coincide with International Holocaust...
(JTA) - The New York City rabbi who spoke twice to the man who held Jews hostage in their Texas synagogue last week detailed the experience in a sermon Friday night. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue also outlined her anxiety as an American Jew and exhorted her congregants to heed a prayer that the Reform movement has made part of its liturgy on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day mourning the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and other traumatic events in Jewish history: "Blessed...
(JTA) — Ambo Anthos, the Amsterdam-based publishing house that printed the Dutch-language translation of a controversial book alleging that a Jew had betrayed Anne Frank, has apologized for not reviewing the material more critically and ceased printing new copies of it on Monday. The book “The Betrayal of Anne Frank,” published earlier this month by the Canadian author Rosemary Sullivan, hypothesizes that the teenage diarist and her family were turned over to the Nazis by Arnold van den Bergh, a notary and a member of the Jewish Council, which...
(JTA) — In Orlando, neo-Nazis yelled antisemitic slurs from a highway overpass. In Chicago, a Jewish school and a synagogue were vandalized. In Washington, D.C., a man was arrested and charged with spray painting swastikas on a train station. The turbulent weekend — which also included a rally in Ottawa against COVID-19 vaccine mandates that featured swastikas — comes just a few weeks after the hostage situation at a Texas synagogue left American Jews feeling vulnerable in their synagogues. A video of the Orlando rally that spread on socia...
(JNS) — Pro-Israel groups working on campus agree that the situation for Jewish students is growing steadily worse. Just this fall, antisemitic incidents erupted at campuses across the country — from vandals desecrating a Torah scroll at George Washington University to a student at the University of New Mexico hospitalized after being attacked by a group shouting antisemitic slurs. “Recently at USC, we saw a member of student government threaten to ‘kill Zionists’ without repercussion while a Jewish member of student government was harassed int...
(JTA) - A full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Saturday paid for by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity urged athletes and corporate sponsors to "walk away" from the Olympic Games, set to begin next month in Beijing, to protest China's persecution of the Uighurs. "We urge the athletes and the sponsoring corporations to walk away from these games unless Beijing takes steps to reunite Uyghur families. And we urge the world's citizens to embrace the cause of this persecuted...
Antisemitic incidents in France increased by 75 percent in 2021 By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — Reports of antisemitic incidents in France increased by 75 percent in 2021, according to the French Jewish community’s main watchdog group. SPCJ recorded 589 hate crimes against Jews last year, including a 36 percent increase in physical assaults over 2020. The group released its annual report Wednesday. Incidents targeting people – as opposed to communal buildings and institutions – accounted for 45 percent of all incidents in 2021. Of those, 10 percent...
(JTA) — A rural Tennessee school board’s decision earlier this month to remove “Maus,” the celebrated graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum has attracted fierce backlash from other pockets of the state and beyond. A nearby comic-book store is pledging to give away the book for free to every student in the county, an area church plans to hold a discussion on its themes and a college professor intends to offer free classes on the book to students in the county. Nirvana Comics, a comic-book store in Knoxville, announced Thursda...
BERLIN (JTA) - A new survey of youth in Germany shows growing interest in Nazi-era history, but it also suggests that their attention span is shrinking. According to the study conducted by the Cologne-based Rheingold Institute, Germany's 16-25 year olds are much more interested in the Nazi era than their parents were. They tend to draw analogies from the time period to racism and discrimination today, and are eager to examine the motives of perpetrators. But they also want more "snackable conten...
