Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 76 - 100 of 10890
‘A two-state solution means our end,’ says Israel’s FM (JNS) — Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told a visiting delegation of American journalists on Wednesday that the establishment of a Palestinian state would pose an existential threat to Israel. The delegation, led by Newsmax founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy, is visiting Israel as part of the Foreign Ministry’s public diplomacy initiative. “A two-state solution? A Palestinian state in the heart of Israel would indeed be a solution—for those who seek to eliminate us. We will not let...
(JNS) — Dramatic evidence was produced this week to illustrate the hijacking of the Western media by Hamas in its attempt to turn Israel into the pariah of the world and accelerate the destruction of the Jewish state. The German publications Bild and Süddeutsche Zeitung revealed that Western media outlets had been publishing images purporting to be of starving Gazans but which were in fact staged and manipulated by Hamas as part of its propaganda offensive to blacken Israel’s name. Bild show...
Teens entering grades 9-12 are encouraged to join their local Orlando chapter of HaZamir: The International Jewish Teen Choir, conducted by Eric Levine, for a rewarding combination of music, culture, leadership and friendship. Rehearsals for the 2025-2026 season begin in late August, culminating in a gala performance at the new David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in NYC next spring with hundreds of HaZamir singers from across the U.S. and Israel. For more information contact...
Heritage Florida Jewish News writers Stan Roberts, Ed Borowsky and Marilyn Shapiro were winners this year in the Florida Press Association’s annual Weekly Newspaper Contest. Marilyn Shapiro took the First-Place award in the Humorous column category for her delightful story “The saga of the Looney Tunes glasses,” July 5, 2024. With her lighthearted wit, Shapiro shared about her “dowry” — you know, “those assets of the wife which she of her own free will entrusts to her husband’s responsibility,...
Eric M. Robbins is Shalom Orlando's new temporary CEO. Robbins has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience and more than $200 million of proven fundraising success for JCCs, Federations, and other Jewish agencies. Robbins took his position on Aug. 11. Robbins comes to Orlando from Atlanta, where he served as president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. He was named a Most Admired CEO by the Atlanta Business Chronicle multiple times and was the 2019 Georgia State...
During the last school year, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center reached thousands of students and educators. Thousands of students visited the museum on field trips, with many calling the experience “moving,” eye-opening,” and “essential.” The Upstanders program reached over 3,200 middle schoolers, inspiring them to stand up against bullying and injustice in their daily lives. Nearly 250 students participated in the White Rose Essay Contest, digging deep into the stories of women during the Holocaust and sharing their reflectio...
On Sunday, Sept. 14, Temple Israel will present Osteostrong, an interactive in-person program designed to help improve bone strength, balance and overall health in a safe and simple way. Guest speaker Cheree Burgess, a small business owner, will introduce attendees to Osteostrong, a membership-based wellness center that focuses on musculoskeletal strengthening through a program called osteogenic loading. Attendees will learn about the special machines that use gentle, controlled movements to naturally trigger your body to build stronger bones...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated on Sunday that Israel does not seek to stay in Gaza, but to replace the Hamas regime with an expanded mialitary operation, and insisted that was the best way to bring the war to a speedy conclusion. “Our goal is not to occupy Gaza but to free Gaza,” Netanyahu said at a press conference for foreign media. “But no one is going to go in there unless we finish the job and finish Hamas.” He noted that Hamas still has thousands of armed terrorists after nearly two years of war in about a q...
(JNS) — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) urged Israel to achieve decisive victory over Hamas, saying the Jewish state should “annihilate” the terrorist group and rebuild Gaza like the United States did in the aftermath of World War II with Germany and Japan. “I can’t believe we’re having a discussion about how to fight a war against people who want to destroy you as a people, the Israeli people,” Graham told CBS News’ “Meet the Press” when asked who should run the Gaza Strip if Israel gains complete military control there. “So [Israel] will t...
(JNS) — In a world first, Israeli researchers have grown human kidney organoids — a synthetic 3D organ culture — from tissue stem cells in the laboratory mirroring human fetal kidney development, Tel Aviv University announced on Wednesday. The breakthrough allowing researchers to see the development of the organ in real time, isolate genes that lead to birth defects, develop new treatments in the field of regenerative medicine, and test the toxicity of drugs during pregnancy on fetal kidneys. The synthetic kidney grew and developed over six m...
(JNS) — Jewish sages in Late Antiquity were actively involved in the robust wine culture of the Roman-Byzantine world, according to an Israeli study released on Wednesday. The University of Haifa research reveals rabbinic familiarity with vine cultivation, and the integration of Jewish law into the broader agricultural traditions of the time. “The sages’ rulings were not detached from the realities in which they lived,” said Haifa University’s Shulamit Miller, a co-author of the study. “On the contrary, they reflect an intimate familiarity...
(JNS) — Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach for America, stated on Aug. 1 that the Jewish state is guilty of the “mass starvation of innocent civilians” and of inflicting “heartbreaking and inexcusable” trauma on children and families. The word “Hamas” appeared nowhere in her LinkedIn post, titled “Thoughts and updates: standing in solidarity with Palestine.” “As you all know, Teach for Palestine, our network partner operating in the West Bank, is continuing its vital work despite escalating violence, severe restrictions on fundamental freedom...
(JNS) - A night of speeches ended in dance. By design, nearly 2,000 teenage Jewish athletes at the JCC Maccabi Campus Games fulfilled the promise of former hostage Mia Schem, who, upon release from Hamas captivity, declared: "We will dance again." Those words, which Schem inked on her arm with the date Oct. 7, 2023, were referenced by social-media influencer Montana Tucker during her address to attendees of the Opening Ceremonies of the JCC Maccabi Campus Games. "From the Maccabees who fought...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want Israel to govern Gaza permanently, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) told JNS, amid reports that Netanyahu is considering a wider military operation in the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave. Gottheimer, who was part of a bipartisan congressional delegation to the Jewish state that met with Netanyahu on Wednesday, said that Israel is focused on defeating the terrorist group. “We talked about it as the ultimate goal of ensuring that we crush Hamas, and we can’t have leadership and governa...
(JNS) — Israel’s Security Cabinet was slated to meet Thursday night to decide on the continuation of the war on Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, with one option being a full-fledged occupation of the enclave. The ministers were set to gather at 6 p.m. at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem for the pivotal meeting and a subsequent vote. The session is scheduled to last until 11 p.m. but expected to last longer. A senior official told Ynet on Wednesday afternoon that while the Cabinet was expected to support the proposal to occupy Gaza...
Teacher showed video promoting ‘bias toward Jewish students,’ Bay Area district probe finds (JNS) — The Santa Clara Unified School District determined that one of its teachers violated district policy by showing a video to her class in March 2024 that compared Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza to the Holocaust, according to a document that JNS viewed. The district, which educates about 15,300 students in the San Francisco area, wrote in a July 25 letter to the Bay Area Jewish Coalition Education and Advocacy that the video featured a Holocau...
The 22-nation Arab League has signed onto a declaration that condemns Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and calls on Hamas to disarm. The league includes Qatar and Egypt, which have served as mediators in talks between Israel and Hamas during the subsequent war in Gaza. It also includes Turkey, which has adopted a stance of overt hostility toward Israel during the war. The league joined the entire European Union and 17 other countries in backing the declaration at a United Nations meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia and France. The m...
ORLANDO, Fla. — The Orlando Torah Center, located in Southwest Orlando, filed a federal lawsuit July 31 against Orange County and its Board of County Commissioners after they unfairly denied the synagogue’s application to expand. Early in July, Rabbi Menachem Zev Kramer of OTC addressed the Orange County commissioners asking for special consideration and a waiver of zoning rules to build a 9,300-square-foot expansion plan for its worship center. “This is not just a request about bricks and mortar, this is about space,” Kramer said during the 2...
(JNS) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening accused Palestinian terrorists of starving the hostages they have held in the Gaza Strip for 668 days "like the Nazis starved the Jews. "I too was horrified yesterday," Netanyahu said in a statement issued by his office. "I saw the horrific videos of Rom and Evyatar, our dear sons. I called their families and embraced them on behalf of me and my wife, but also on your behalf. You see them languishing in a dungeon." Lat week, Hamas...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz declared on Tuesday evening that Israel is “at the closest point to achieving the war’s objectives,” emphasizing the need for victory in both Gaza and Yemen. Katz made the statement during a high-level security assessment with top defense officials, including IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and intelligence representatives. The meeting addressed evolving threats across the Middle East, with Katz stressing the importance of continuing operations to return all hostages and defeat Hamas. He also...
(JNS) — One of the last Jews in Yemen immigrated to Israel after her husband died a little over a year ago, Hebrew media reported on Wednesday. Badra Yousef lived in Yemen for years with her partner, Yahya, in the Arhab District north of the capital of Sanaa. “Badra and her husband were Yemeni Jews who loved their homeland and lived there through both good times and bitter ones,” independent Yemeni journalist Ali Ibrahim Al Moshki wrote on his Facebook page, according to Israel’s public broadcaster Kan News. In June, Al Moshki said that th...
\(JTA) — Canada, too, will recognize a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly in September as long as certain conditions are met, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Wednesday. “The deepening suffering of civilians leaves no room for delaying coordinated international action to support peace, security and the dignity of human life,” Carney, a liberal elected in April, said at a press conference, referring to a hunger crisis in Gaza that has grown acute. The move adds Canada to the United Kingdom and France as major world power...
(JNS) — Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders visited the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Sunday alongside her father, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, at the start of her working tour of the Jewish state. The Huckabees’ visit to the Western Wall, Judaism’s second-holiest site after the Temple Mount, fell on Tisha b’Av, the Jewish national day of mourning for the destruction of both Temples and other tragedies. They were welcomed by Shmuel Rabinowitz, the Western Wall’s rabbi, who shared with them “an overview of the site’s spiritual and...
(JNS) — A group of 60 French Jewish immigrants arrived in Israel on Tuesday on a flight sponsored by a Jerusalem-based evangelical Christian organization. The move, which comes amid a rise in global antisemitism triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel, highlights the burgeoning ties between the evangelical Christian community around the world and the Jewish state. “This is more than just a flight, it’s prophecy in motion,” said Peter Fast, International CEO of Bridges for Peace. “When Christians from around th...
(JNS) — Hundreds of pro-Israel students met in Washington last week for the Israel Campus Coalition’s national summit. Jacob Baime, the group’s CEO, told JNS that the 21 months since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent rise of anti-Israel and antisemitic protests on campus marked a “new moment” for students who support the Jewish state. “As horrible as everything has been, as horrific as it’s all been since Oct. 7, there’s the silver lining of a huge surge in Jewish pride and interest in the issue,” Baime said. “This is a...
