Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces on Aug. 10 eliminated Hamas terrorist Jihad Kamal Salem Najjar, who took part in the abduction of Yarden Bibas from Kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the military announced on Tuesday. Bibas was held in captivity for 484 days before being freed on Feb. 1, having lost 33 pounds. His wife, Shiri, and their two sons — Ariel, 4, and Kfir, 9 months — were kidnapped separately. Their captors later murdered Shiri and the children, afterward claiming they had been killed in an Israeli airstrike. On Fe...
Washington, D.C. — The Coalition for a Safer Web has identified a wave of pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protests being coordinated through both open and encrypted social media platforms, with events planned in major U.S. cities in the coming weeks. According to CSW, several of the groups behind the protests also organized antisemitic encampments and demonstrations on college campuses and in U.S. cities after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Among them, the Democratic Socialists of America, the China-backed Party for Socialism a...
(JNS) — Robin Westman, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot after killing two children at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minn., wrote of murdering “filthy Zionist Jews,” that “six million wasn’t enough” and “free Palestine,” the New York Post reported on Wednesday. The Post said that it translated writings in the Cyrillic alphabet by the shooter, 32, who was transgender. “If I will carry out a racially motivated attack, it would be most likely against filthy Zionist jews [sic],” the shooter reportedly wrote in a journal that the...
(JNS) — When the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform announced that it is investigating manipulation of information on Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, co-founder of the encyclopedia, welcomed the news. “I am glad that Congress is investigating the use of foreign and U.S. government funds to pay for biased editing on Wikipedia,” Sanger, who has criticized Wikipedia frequently in recent years, told JNS. Sanger told JNS that he asked U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who led the U.S. Department of Gover...
(JNS) - The train from Jerusalem to Herzliya hums steadily along the tracks. It's full, as usual, for this time of day in the middle of the week. Voices mingle with the whir of the wheels. A mixture of languages - Hebrew, English, Russian - meld with universal sighs of weary commuters wishing to reach their destination before sundown. Suddenly, a minyan (public prayer quorum) of 10 men rises, almost simultaneously. One stands, calling out the afternoon prayer, his Yemenite accent ringing clear...
(JNS) — On Aug. 25, Palestinian Authority deputy leader Hussein al-Sheikh issued a striking public rebuke of Hamas, calling on it to undertake a “comprehensive re-evaluation of its policies” and describing the war in Gaza as a catastrophe greater than the “Nakba” of 1948. Such statements are routinely hailed in some Western circles as a sign of moderation and a potential opening for a revitalized Palestinian Authority role in governing Gaza once the war ends. Yet this interpretation is deeply misleading. The rhetoric from Ramallah is disconnec...
(JNS) — Israeli forces have retrieved the bodies of two Israelis, that of Ilan Weiss and another, unnamed, individual, that Hamas terrorists had kept in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces said on Friday. Weiss, 56, was murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, while defending Kibbutz Be’eri, and his corpse was taken to Gaza, according to the statement. His daughter and wife, Noga and Shiri, were also abducted. They were released in November 2023 as part of a hostage deal. The name of the other Isr...
A Democratic National Committee panel blocked a resolution Tuesday that would have called for a suspension of military aid to Israel and recognition of Palestinian statehood, after a debate underscoring growing fissures within the party over its longstanding support of Israel. The resolution, which was proposed by Allison Minnerly, a new Gen Z member from Florida, would have joined the growing chorus of calls in the House and Senate in recent weeks to block weapons sales to Israel. Following debate over the resolution Tuesday morning at the...
(JNS) — Former Hamas hostage Keith Siegel told the Haredi radio station Kol Barama on Wednesday that his faith was strengthened during the almost 500 days he spent in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip. “As a boy, Judaism did not speak to me, but in captivity, I reconnected,” Siegel said in the interview, two days after he joined a special prayer service at the Western Wall late on Monday night for the release of the remaining 50 hostages still in Gaza after 690 days. “Every day, I said ‘Shema Yisrael’ and I recited a blessing over the food. S...
(JNS) - Israel's Ministry of Heritage has invested a million shekels (~$296,000) to locate the remains of the Altalena, the Irgun cargo ship that the newly created IDF shelled in a violent confrontation off the Tel Aviv beach in June 1948, public broadcaster Kan's Reshet Bet radio station reported on Monday. About a year after the battle, the Altalena, which had run aground at the foot of David Frischmann Street, was refloated, towed 15 miles out to sea, and sunk. The ministry hired the...
(Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs via JNS) As the French, the British, the Canadians and the Australians rush to recognize the “State of Palestine,” the question that must be asked is: What would this entity look like? Based on the experience to date and empty rhetoric aside, the “State of Palestine” would most likely be yet another dictatorship. In the Oslo Accords, the Palestine Liberation Organization committed to establishing a liberal democracy. Elections for the position of the Palestinian Authority chairman and parliam...
IDF targets Hamas terror financing in Ramallah The Israel Defense Forces conducted a large-scale counter-terror operation in the Samaria city of Ramallah on Tuesday targeting a money exchange business that transferred funds to Hamas terrorists. Five wanted terror suspects were arrested and hundreds of thousands of shekels identified as terror funds were seized during the morning raid, according to the military. The purpose of the cash laundered through this currency exchange establishment was “to advance terrorist activity against the State o...
(JNS) — A German government spokesperson declared on Friday that Berlin has no immediate plans to recognize a Palestinian state, calling such a move at this stage “counterproductive” to the pursuit of a negotiated two-state solution with Israel. “A negotiated two-state solution remains our goal, even if it seems a long way off today,” the spokesperson told a press briefing. “Recognition of Palestine is more likely to come at the end of such a process. Right now, it would undermine efforts toward peace.” Berlin’s statement stands in sharp...
(JNS) — Israel is set to carry out the world’s first ever implant of a lab-grown spinal cord using a patient’s own cells, in a medical breakthrough offering a potential cure for paralysis, Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday. The groundbreaking surgery, which is expected to be carried out in the coming months, marks a milestone in regenerative science, with the goal of enabling the patient to walk again within a year. The university said that the Israeli Ministry of Health has given...
(JNS) — Revital Gorodeski Baskin and her husband, Joseph Baskin, both doctors from Cleveland, landed in Israel on a Nefesh B’Nefesh group aliyah charter flight on Aug. 20. They are moving to Zichron Ya’akov, in the Haifa district in northern Israel, with three teenage children (their fourth is studying at a college in the United States) and their dog. “Making aliyah has been our lifelong dream, and the war [against Hamas in Gaza] was an encouraging factor as we want to contribute our expertise in this time of need,” Revital told JNS. “We’ve al...
The United States Postal Service announced a new series of stamps honoring Nobel Peace Prize winner and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Wiesel, who died in 2016 at the age of 87, is the 18th person to be honored in the USPS' Distinguished Americans stamp series. "The 18th stamp in the Distinguished Americans series honors humanitarian Elie Wiesel (1928-2016), a survivor of Nazi concentration camps whose dozens of works bore witness to the Holocaust and whose resilience and compassion continue...
(JNS) - A gold coin dating back about 2,200 years has been uncovered just outside the walled Old City of Jerusalem, shedding new light on the development of the city after the destruction of the first ancient Jewish Temple, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday. The small denomination quarter-drachma, made of pure gold (99.3 percent), and dated to 246–241 BCE, was minted for Queen Berenice II during the reign of her husband, Ptolemy III, the state-run archaeological body s...
(JNS) — White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Aug. 19 that the Trump administration was continuing to discuss a ceasefire proposal for Gaza, and confirmed that Hamas had accepted it. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Hamas accepted this proposal after the president of the United States posted a very strong statement about this conflict on Truth Social,” Leavitt said at a press briefing at the White House. The talks coincide with IDF preparations for the seizure of Gaza City, seemingly with the support of U.S. Presi...
The Reform movement’s Washington-based advocacy arm is urging Attorney General Pam Bondi not to seek the death penalty for the man accused of killing two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., in May. Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, called on Bondi to forgo the death penalty in the trial of Elias Rodriguez in a letter sent Wednesday. “Despite the pain of Sarah and Yaron’s murders and despite the hateful motivation behind their deaths, we believe that the death penalty is a stain...
(JNS) — A German government spokesperson declared on Friday that Berlin has no immediate plans to recognize a Palestinian state, calling such a move at this stage “counterproductive” to the pursuit of a negotiated two-state solution with Israel. “A negotiated two-state solution remains our goal, even if it seems a long way off today,” the spokesperson told a press briefing. “Recognition of Palestine is more likely to come at the end of such a process. Right now, it would undermine efforts toward peace.” Berlin’s statement stands in sharp...
President Donald Trump said Monday morning that the remaining hostages in Gaza will only be returned when Hamas is “confronted and destroyed.” “We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” wrote Trump in a post on Truth Social. Trump’s latest comments appeared to support a recent plan approved by Israel’s security cabinet to take over Gaza City, a move reportedly opposed by the IDF over concerns it could endanger the remai...
Israel has approved a long-delayed settlement project that would build 3,400 housing units for Jews in Judea and Samaria, in a move that both its backers and its many critics say would undercut Palestinian ambitions to control the region. The E1 project would expand Jewish settlements on a stretch of land east of Jerusalem, effectively bisecting Judea and Samaria and limiting Palestinian neighborhoods of Jerusalem from growing, Proposed decades ago, but never finalized, the plan was abruptly moved forward this month by Israel’s far-right f...
(JNS) — Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Monday evening issuing a presidential decree establishing a committee to draft an interim constitution, the Ramallah-run Wafa news agency reported. The move comes against the backdrop of France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia declaring their intentions to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations meeting next month. “President Abbas took this step in the context of preparations for holding general elections following the cessation of Israeli genocidal aggression on the...
(JNS) - Ilan Gordon seemed calm, cool and collected the day before he changed his life. Or, at least, his location. The 22-year-old, who graduated from the University of Pittsburgh this spring with a degree in exercise science, headed to Israel on the Nefesh B'Nefesh group aliyah charter flight that left New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on Tuesday, Aug. 19, afternoon, along with 225 other North Americans. He is scheduled to be in Tel Aviv until Sept. 4, when he will officially join the Garin...
(JNS) — The Pentagon is seeking more than $3.5 billion to restock weapons and cover related costs following U.S. military operations tied to Israel’s defense, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. According to budget documents prepared through mid-May, the requested funds would be used to replace munitions expended during recent operations—including at least $1 billion for Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptors produced by Arlington, Virginia-based RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon Technologies)—and to finance routine tasks such as radar mainten...
