Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Washington D.C. branch of a national climate action group turned down a role at a voting rights rally because a “number of Zionist organizations” will be taking part. “Given our commitment to racial justice, self-governance and indigenous sovereignty, we oppose Zionism and any state that enforces its ideology,” Sunrise DC said in a statement it posted Tuesday on Twitter. The group named the National Council of Jewish Women, the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs as...
(JNS) — The pro-Israel student group Maccabee Task Force organized its first three-day conference to help strengthen the relationship between Black and Jewish communities. Roughly 100 people from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) attended the Black Student Leaders Summit, which was held from Oct. 1-3 in Atlanta, where many of the student leaders were based. The goal of the summit was to help re-establish an alliance that has increasingly split in the last decade as a result of politics and various social movements in the U...
(JTA) — After more than a year and a half of largely closed doors, Israel just moved one step closer to allowing tourists back into the country — as long as they are vaccinated. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and the country’s health minister Nitzan Horowitz approved a plan Thursday that would allow foreign tourists back into the country beginning Nov. 1. The plan still has to be formally approved by the government. Since the beginning of the pandemic, tourists have only been allowed to enter the country with special approval and have be...
Michael A. Igel, chair of the Florida Commissioner's Task Force on Holocaust Education and Board Chair of The Florida Holocaust Museum, strongly denounces educators who claim there are two sides to the Holocaust. This comes on the heels of a Florida principal being reinstated despite refusing to acknowledge the Holocaust as a historical fact, and a Texas school administrator instructing teachers to balance Holocaust education with books denying the atrocities. Igel issued the following statement...
(JTA) — The statue of Thomas Jefferson that will be removed from the chambers of the New York City Council at the urging of Black lawmakers was a gift in 1834 from one of the first Jewish officers in the U.S. military. The city’s Public Design Commission decided to remove the statue following complaints from Assemblymen Charles Barron, Councilwoman Inez Barron and others that Jefferson was a slaveholder. The statue, which has stood in the city council’s chambers for over a century, was commissioned by Uriah Phillips Levy, a lifelong fan of Je...
(JNS) - Israel's Upper Galilee region is positioning itself to become a global leader in foodtech. Several food-tech and agritech accelerators and companies have established themselves in Israel's northern "periphery," where the Israeli government provides incentives for individuals and businesses to establish themselves there. The region boasts open and fertile land that brings forth some of Israel's top produce, as well as an ecosystem of budding infrastructure - public bodies and...
Alta Fixsler, a 2-year-old Jewish girl, taken off life support in UK despite parents’ wishes By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — A 2-year-old Jewish girl died in the United Kingdom Monday after she was taken off life support despite her parents’ objections. Alta Fixsler of Manchester, England, had serious natal complications that made her dependent on life support from birth. When medical authorities at the hospital where she was treated wanted to take her off life support, her parents, both haredi Orthodox Jews, took the medical authorities to court...
NEW YORK (JTA) — Three rabbis and six Jewish teenagers were among those arrested Monday at a climate protest at the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest investment management company in New York. The demonstration, organized by the Jewish Youth Climate Movement with support from the interfaith organization GreenFaith, demanded the firm stop its investments in and cut ties with companies that fund the fossil fuel industry, which include Enbridge, Inc., Formosa Plastics and Shell. Rabbis Rachel Timoner and Stephanie Kolin of Congregat...
(JTA) — A Jewish man who asked for a new trial on the grounds that the judge who sentenced him to death was antisemitic will be granted a new trial. Randy Halprin, 44, was originally set to be executed on Oct. 10, 2019 but won a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after he alleged that the judge who presided over his 2003 murder trial was biased against Jews and referred to him using antisemitic slurs, including “f—in’ Jew” and “k-ke.” The stay sent Halprin’s case back to Dallas County, where Judge Lela Lawrence Mays heard Halprin’s...
(Israel InSight via JNS) - The Northeast Alabama Cherokee held a ceremony on Sept. 25 in Guntersville, Ala., to establish a relationship with Israel. There, the tribe presented a resolution, unanimously passed by the Tribal Council, recognizing the "sovereign Jewish nation" of Israel, with Jerusalem as its "eternal undivided capital." "We vow our full support in the pursuit of the peace of Jerusalem and the Nation of Israel by whichever means may be necessary," it said. The event, centered...
(JNS) — Michael Oren says he has been “integrally linked to the Jewish Agency” for years. The former Israeli ambassador to the United States and former Knesset member is one of eight candidates to head the organization. He has a long history with the Jewish Agency for Israel, which he hopes will continue with him at its helm. According to Oren, 66, the Jewish Agency used to be viewed “as a sinecure for politicians.” “That practice seriously impaired [its] image and effectiveness,” he said. “It would be tragic if now, at this most critical t...
Israeli activists, philanthropists and aid workers have helped rescued 125 Afghans at risk from Taliban retribution in a complex and hush hush operation that happened earlier this month. The Afghans, which include judges, human rights activities, journalists, TV presenters, scientist, artists, diplomats, artists and even cyclists, arrived in Albania on October 2nd, after being evacuated from Afghanistan to a neighboring country. The operation took weeks to arrange and was a collaborative effort...
MAITLAND — The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida announces the exhibit Uprooting Prejudice: Conversations for Change, a first-of-its-kind exhibit that examines the indelible link between antisemitism and racism as told through the unique perspective of award-winning blues musician Daryl Davis. The exhibit opened Oct. 15. Davis has dedicated his life to fighting white supremacy by getting to know and de-radicalizing former members of groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. He accomplishes these transformations through the power...
The men in this community are in for another year of a great prime rib dinner catered by Arthur's, top-shelf drinks and entertainment by the hilarious comedian Dennis Regan. "With the help of premium sponsors Alan Ginsburg an Aaron Gorovitz, as well as Platinum sponsor The Pargh Foundation, we are confident that this will be the best MNO year," said one of the organizers of the event. This one-of-a-kind event is organized by the Men's Clubs of Congregation Beth Am, Temple Israel, Congregation...
The Rosen JCC in Dr. Phillips is excited to partner in these two new events for the Orlando community. USA Memory Championship The USA Memory Championship is an annual competition that takes place this year on Saturday, Oct. 23, noon, at the Rosen JCC, as a Town Square offering for the community. Designed to test the limits of the human brain, the USA Memory Championship is an organized competition in which Memory Athletes attempt at memorizing as much information as possible from names and faces, to cards, to random numbers. The Rosen JCC is...
The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando is hosting a Zoom meeting on Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. about DNA and the surprises discovered through DNA testing. Put “DNA testing surprises” into your search engine, and you get almost 7 million results. A Pew Research Center survey in 2019 found that about 15 percent of U.S. adults have used a mail-in DNA testing service. Of those, about a quarter said they learned about close relatives they didn’t know they had — in other words, a DNA surprise. This program is about one of those surprises when a do...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Yair Lapid got what he wanted out of his Washington visit: the word “every,” instead of “other.” During Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s first meeting with President Biden in August, the American president, despite his desire to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, said that if Iran does not engage in good faith diplomacy with the nations involved in the deal, the U.S. would consider “other options” in getting Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. It was a sign that Israel and U.S. Democrats, long far apart in their opinions o...
By (JTA) — Teachers in a Texas school district were told last week that a new state law requiring them to present multiple perspectives about “widely debated and currently controversial” issues meant they needed to make “opposing” views on the Holocaust available to students. NBC News obtained an audio recording of the official, the Carroll Independent School District’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, speaking to the teachers about how to work under the constraints of the new law, known as House Bill 3979. The law was passed...
(JTA) — In an interview that aired on HBO, both of the founders of the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream brand reiterated that they stand behind the company’s decision to stop selling their products in Judea and Samaria. But for Jerry Greenfield, being accused of antisemitism is “painful.” For Ben Cohen, it’s “absurd.” “I think Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever are being characterized as boycotting Israel, which is not the case at all. It’s not boycotting Israel in any way,” Greenfield said in an interview with Axios that aired on its HBO show Sunday night. The...
(JTA) — After months of controversy and tens of thousands of public comments, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on legislation that eventually will require students to pass at least one course in ethnic studies in order to graduate from California high schools. Under the law, schools will have to offer at least one class in ethnic studies by 2025, and the graduation requirement will go into effect in 2029. Newsom’s signature on Friday caps an extended debate over the legislation, which was accompanied by a recommended curriculum tha...
The six finalists for the 2022 Genesis Prize have just been released. The Foundation is asking the global Jewish community to vote for their favorite. Last year, they engaged over 3 million people via social media and 200K from six continents voted. The Prize Committee then selected Steven Spielberg as our 2021 Laureate. The finalists for the 2022 Genesis Prize are: • Albert Bourla (Greece/US), Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, under whose leadership the company delivered a COVID vaccine in record time • Sacha Baron Cohen (UK), Award-winning act...
In Mel Pearlman’s Everywhere column titled “Live streaming during the holidays” in the Oct. 8 issue of Heritage, the word “pragmatic” in the last paragraph should have been “problematic.” The correct paragraph is: Although, I understand and respect that live-stream religious services may be problematic from a Halacha law perspective for the Orthodox community, its benefits to connect with unaffiliated Jews potentially make it an effective tool to discourage assimilation and increase support for Israel. Heritage received an email from Joseph P...
(JNS) — Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees have signed a public letter demanding that the tech giants cancel Project Nimbus, a billion-dollar contract to provide public cloud computing services to Israel. In the letter, published by The Guardian on Tuesday, the authors state that they were “morally obliged” to speak out against the project, calling on Amazon and Google to cancel the contract and sever all ties with the Israeli military. “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights...
(JNS) - On the first of a three-day visit to Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made his rounds in Congress on Tuesday, highlighting the Israeli government's push for bipartisan support for Israel in the United States. Lapid met with a bipartisan group of U.S. House of Representative members in the early afternoon and held a brief press conference in a Capitol hallway with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi began by saying that the U.S.-Israeli relationship has always bee...
Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s Jewish AG, declares candidacy for governor (JTA) — Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general who made national headlines last year pushing back against attempts to reverse Joe Biden’s win in the state, is running for governor of the state. Shapiro, a Democrat who has deep roots in the Jewish community, made the long-expected announcement on Monday, The Associated Press reported. The incumbent governor, Tom Wolf, who cannot run for a third term, said as long ago as 2019 that he favored Shapiro to succeed him....
