Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan reflected on 2020 and how “Israel’s future looks brighter than ever” in his address on Sunday night at the Zionist Organization of America’s Virtual Superstar Gala. Erdan, also Israel’s incoming ambassador to the United States, received the ZOA’s Woo Kai–Sheng Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Diplomacy. In his acceptance speech, he said that while this past year “supplied a fair amount of hate, it also delivered a fair amount of peace.” He noted that the signing of the Ab...
MYSORE, India (JTA) - From the flashing outdoor lights that deck out Park Street, to the bustling pop-up Christmas market at the central rotunda of the sprawling New Market, Christmas has always been a celebratory affair in Kolkata. While this year celebrations are toned down due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the damaging after-effects of Cyclone Amphan that hit the city in May, Isaac Nahoum, a Jewish baker who has seen business tumble from more than 300 customers a day to a mere...
Pakistani court orders release of 4 men acquitted of Daniel Pearl murder By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — A court in Pakistan on Thursday ordered the immediate release of four men who had been jailed there since 2002 for the murder of the Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl. The Sindh High Court in Karachi ordered the release of the men, who had been acquitted of the murder, calling their detainment “illegal,” the Dawn newspaper reported. They had been involved in Pearl’s kidnapping, the court found, but not in his murder. The court did not ide...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Tuesday, Dec. 22, Christians United for Israel, the nation’s largest pro-Israel organization, announced that the group had crossed the 10-million-member threshold. “When we set out to create this organization, I could never have predicted we would see such success. But our members don’t just stop at joining the organization, they reach out to their friends and church families, they make their voices heard in our nation’s capital and they are having a tangible positive impact in support of Israel,” said CUFI founder and...
Palestinians urge Biden and Israel to return to the negotiating table By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — In a stark contrast from the last few years of the Trump administration, the Palestinian foreign minister said Saturday that the Palestinian Authority is ready to restart the process of negotiating a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Israel and the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. “We are ready for cooperation and dealing with the new U.S. administration, and we are expecting that it would re-draw its...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Trailblazing change, Morocco on Sunday announced that its schools will soon begin teaching Jewish history and culture as part of the official curriculum—a first in the region and in the North African country, where Islam is the state religion. It follows King Mohammed VI of Morocco’s decision to normalize relations with the Jewish state in yet another historic peace deal brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and announced last week. The move has had “the impact of a tsunami,” Serge Berdugo, se...
(MEMRI via JNS) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said last week that by exiting the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018, the United States gave up its rights but not its obligations. In an interview with Iranian journalist Mehdi Nasiri that was uploaded to the Arman Media YouTube channel on Dec. 9, Zarif said, "America is still obligated to lift its sanctions, and to refrain from creating obstacles because it has remained a member of the United Nations since leaving the...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) - After Gal Graber and Tal Goldman had a disappointing experience with a store-bought jachnun, the two Israelis living in Amsterdam set out to make the slow-cooked Yemenite bread on their own. "As with many Israelis, jachnun is connected in our minds with Saturday mornings, with quality time," Graber told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "But the frozen ones for sale here are not great. So we decided to make our own." It turned out to be a prescient undertaking. Earlier this year,...
(ISRAEL21c via JNS) - The Dec. 10 announcement of the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel marked the fourth time in the past four months that a Muslim-majority nation officially "friended" Israel. But this was different from September's historic Abraham Accords, linking Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in the Persian Gulf, and October's normalization agreement with Sudan. "Morocco and Israel have been on the same side geopolitically for decades,"...
(JNS) — Media representatives from 30 countries joined online last week to discuss the right of Jews throughout the world to intervene in what’s going on in Israel, as well as Israel’s new diplomatic ties and the influence of social networks on the hatred of Jews amid the coronavirus. The Government Press Office, in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, hosted the fourth International Jewish Media Summit on Dec. 7, held virtually due to the ongoing pandemic. Minister of Diaspora Affairs Omer Yankelevitch of the Blue and Whi...
Assault reported at Chabad of the Bluegrass menorah-lighting in Lexington, Kentucky By Philissa Cramer (JTA) — A Chabad center in Lexington, Kentucky, will see increased police presence for the rest of Chanukah after an assault during one of the community’s public menorah lightings. A driver directed anti-Semitic language at people lighting the menorah outside Chabad of the Bluegrass, police told the local TV station. When someone from the community tried to urge the driver away, the driver accelerated, dragging the community member and run...
(JNS) — In a ground-breaking move and in response to the lack of change in the Palestinian Authority school curriculum and the continued insertion of anti-Semitism, hate and incitement to violence and martyrdom in its textbooks, the Norwegian parliament endorsed a cut last week in aid to the P.A. In 2018, the United Kingdom commissioned a report on Palestinian textbooks from the Germany-based Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research, which then published a report that was found to be riddled with mistakes. The European Union t...
(JNS) — Israel’s National Security Council has issued a warning to the country’s citizens abroad to take special security precautions. “In light of the threats that have been made recently by Iranian elements, and given the past involvement of Iranian elements in terrorist attacks in various countries, there is concern that Iran will try to act in this manner against Israeli targets,” the NSC’s Counter-Terrorism Division said in a statement on Thursday. “Possible arenas for this action are both countries close to Iran (such as Georgia, Azer...
(JNS) — Ahead of the three-year anniversary of U.S. President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, more than three-dozen Republican members of Congress have called for language in an upcoming must-pass appropriations bill that would prohibit American funding from being used to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Jerusalem. In a Dec. 4 letter, a group of 43 Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives called on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chu...
(JNS) — A key body of the European Union adopted a declaration on Wednesday to combat anti-Semitism. The Council of the European Union is comprised of government ministers from the 27 E.U. member-states, who meet to make laws and coordinate policies. The ministers have the authority to commit their governments to the actions agreed upon by the council, its main decision-making body. The declaration makes the fight against anti-Semitism a priority of Europe’s executive branch. The declaration calls anti-Semitism “an attack on European value...
(JNS) — The U.S. Supreme Court heard two cases on Dec. 7 related to the issue of Holocaust restitution. The court will decide if the United States has the jurisdiction, in accordance with the 1976 Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, to rule about crimes that happened abroad where there was no American involvement. Although foreign governments usually cannot be sued in U.S. courts, exceptions for acts of terrorism or acts of property confiscation violating international law have been made in the past. The plaintiffs in both cases, Federal R...
A new Jewish streaming service, launched in London, aims to connect Jews and make them proud By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — A Jewish group based in London has launched Europe’s first Jewish streaming service, with the goal of “connecting all sorts of Jews to their culture and history.” JEWZY.tv, which is currently available only in the United States — or to a computer connecting via a US-based server — on Friday announced its launch as “chicken soup for the eyes,” The Jewish Chronicle reported. The new service follows the launch of two other Jewis...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Following years of diplomatic strife, Turkey over the weekend signaled to Israel yet again its desire for rapprochement. On Monday, former admiral Cihat Yayci, a close confidant of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is expected to publish a first-of-its-kind proposal for an agreement on the countries’ shared exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea. The article will appear in the Israeli academic journal Turkeyscope — published by the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv Un...
(JNS) — Former First Minister of Northern Ireland Lord David Trimble has nominated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office. Lord Trimble won the prize himself in 1998 for his efforts to find a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland. As a Nobel laureate, his nomination of Netanyahu and Prince bin Zayed will lead the Norwegian Nobel Committee to discuss the issue. The announcement comes less than a mon...
(JTA) — The Council of the European Union, which is a key driver of EU policy, “invited” all the bloc’s 27 members to adopt a definition of anti-Semitism that includes anti-Israel vitriol. The invitation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition came in a declaration published Wednesday by the Council, which is made up of cabinet ministers from all the bloc’s member states. “Member States that have not yet done so are invited to join the other Member States and endorse the IHRA working definition as soon as possi...
(JNS) - A free trade agreement between Israel and Ukraine will take effect beginning Jan. 1, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky posted on his Twitter account. "Relations between our countries are rising to a new level," he wrote. "This gives a 'green light' to Ukraine's export growth, and creates closer cooperation in the fields of high-tech, engineering and investment." Originally signed in January 2019, the agreement promotes the development of bilateral trade and economic cooperation...
(JTA) - As of Wednesday afternoon, one of the first results in a Facebook search for "Holohoax" - a term popular with Holocaust deniers - was a post decrying "Zionist White Jewish Supremacist Child murdering Apartheid State, Talmudic Satanic Holohoax promoters." Right below it was a video, posted by a group with more than 6,000 followers, captioned "Research: Holohoax and Jew world order." These results showed up six weeks after Facebook announced that it was banning Holocaust denial and...
Dead pig found outside rabbi’s door in heavily Orthodox New Jersey township By Ben Sales (JTA) — A dead pig’s body was found outside the door of a rabbi in the heavily Orthodox township of Lakewood, New Jersey. The body was found on Shabbat, according to The Lakewood Scoop, and the local police department is treating the incident as a bias crime. Pigs are seen as the quintessentially unkosher animal and have long been used as an anti-Semitic symbol. “We will not tolerate such acts in our town,” Lakewood Police Chief Greg Meyer told The Scoop, a...
(JNS)— The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded its prestigious €9.7 million ($11.5 million) Synergy Grant jointly to researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Charité–Universitätsmedizin Berlin, according to a statement from the spokesperson’s department at TAU. Research groups led by Professor Judith Berman, head of the Fungal Drug Response lab at TAU’s Shmunis School of Biomedical and Cancer Research, and Professor Markus Ralser, director of Charité’s Institute of Biochemistry, will now investigate the biological mechanisms tha...
(JTA) — Jewish groups in Quebec are expressing dismay after the province announced a plan to allow small gatherings at Christmas but said gatherings during Chanukah would remain prohibited. The plan would permit Quebecers to have gatherings of up to 10 people per day for four days in late December, in a concession to the fact that families would likely gather even as COVID-19 cases surge. Gatherings were not permitted during Canadian Thanksgiving last month, but people got together nonetheless and cases soon surged throughout the country. Premi...
