Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Speaking at the virtual J Street national conference on Monday, former Democratic presidential candidates Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) indicated that they were willing to place conditions on the aid Congress has promised Israel. “I strongly believe that we must also be willing to bring real pressure to bear, including restricting U.S. aid, in response to moves by either side that undermine the chances for peace,” Sanders said in his virtual speech. “The truth is that the United States gives an enormou...
Hundreds of Palestinians protest barriers in Jerusalem during Ramadan By Ben Sales (JTA) — Hundreds of Palestinians have been protesting barriers placed in the Old City of Jerusalem during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The protests have centered around the Damascus Gate, a landmark and meeting point in the eastern section of the city. Palestinians typically sit on and around the steps leading to the gate following nighttime prayers during Ramadan, a month of daylong fasts that end at sunset. This year, police placed barriers on the s...
(JNS) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that America's commitment to Israel is "ironclad," and that he, and the Biden administration, supports more normalization agreements. Blinken appeared as part of a virtual event hosted by Israel's embassy in Washington for Israeli Independence Day, which also featured U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and was viewed by more than 20,000 people online. "In your 73rd year of freedom,...
(JNS) — Legislation brought forth in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday would allow insurance beneficiaries to recover billions in unclaimed payments from World War II. The Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2021 was re-introduced by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), along with its original co-sponsors, who include Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Reps. John Garamendi (Calif.), David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Lee Zeldin (N.Y.). According to a statement announcing the legislation, 97 p...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Days after resuming U.S. funding for the troubled U.N. agency that administers to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, the Biden administration says it has the commitment of UNRWA to “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism, racism or discrimination. “UNWRA has made clear their rock-solid commitments to the United States on the issues of transparency, accountability, and neutrality in all its operations,” a senior U.S. official said in an interview this weekend, describing the process that led last week to the administr...
Julian Edelman announces retirement By Marc Brodsky (JTA) — Julian Edelman, the New England Patriots wide receiver who has shown his Jewish pride on a number of occasions, will retire following a stellar 11-year career in which he won Most Valuable Player in Super Bowl LIII. Edelman, who played in only six games last year due to a chronic knee injury, had his contract terminated Monday by the Patriots in a procedural move, ESPN reported. He announced his retirement in a video posted Monday to social media. Edelman was at his best in the big g...
(JTA) - Prince Philip, perhaps the closest member of the British royal family to Jews and Jewish causes, has died at 99. Buckingham Palace announced his death on Friday, April 9. Philip, who had been married to Queen Elizabeth II for 74 years, since five years before she ascended to the throne, had been in declining health for some time. Also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip's support for Jewish and pro-Israel causes ran deep. His mother, Princess Alice of Greece, sheltered a Jewish...
(JTA) — Iran and the United States will join talks in Vienna next week that aim to return all parties to the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. There will not be direct contact between Iran and the United States at the in-person meeting, according to a European Union statement issued after a virtual meeting Thursday of the countries left in the deal — China, Russia, Iran, Britain, Germany and France. Instead, a coordinator will make “separate contacts” with “all JCPOA participants and the United States.” The Trump administration pulled the Un...
UPenn refuses to reschedule commencement ceremony on Shavuot (JNS) — The University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia said it will not move the date of its commencement ceremony, which is set to take place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, despite a petition to reschedule the event to accommodate those who celebrate the Jewish holiday. According to the university’s student-run publication, The Daily Pennsylvanian, nearly 40 seniors who identify as Orthodox Jewish received an email about the decision on March 24. Vice president and uni...
(JTA) — PBS has decided to postpone airing the documentary “Til Kingdom Come,” which examines the close relationship between American evangelicals and Israel, in the light of accusations that the film misleadingly spliced together two separate parts of a speech by former President Donald Trump. The film, which was directed by the Russian-Israeli documentary filmmaker Maya Zinshtein, was released as a rental for in-home viewing in late February ahead of a planned broadcast premiere on March 29 as part of the “Independent Lens” series on PBS. I...
(JTA) — Political activists, including Rep. Madison Cawthorn and the ambassador to Germany under Donald Trump, are comparing the idea of “vaccine passports” to Nazi Germany, with many invoking the yellow Stars of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust. Other opponents of public health restrictions have suggested or implied that the idea of opening recreational spaces only to those who aren’t at risk of COVID is similar to the Nazis’ persecution of Europe’s Jews, which culminated in genocide. The trend is the latest inst...
(JTA) — Steven Spielberg is donating his Genesis Prize earnings to Jewish and non-Jewish groups working to promote racial and economic justice. The prize’s foundation on Thursday announced that the film director would double the $1 million prize with his own money and split it among 10 organizations, including Black Voters Matter and the Jews of Color Initiative. “Judaism and Jewish history begin with two narratives: Genesis and Exodus, stories about creation and liberation from oppression, about the discovery of the moral voice and of human...
Israeli cargo ship hit by missile near Yemen in suspected Iranian attack By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — An Israeli-owned cargo ship was struck by a missile in the Arabian Sea in a suspected Iranian attack, an Israeli security official said. The ship was sailing from Tanzania to India and continued its voyage after the attack Thursday, the official told Reuters. He was not named. The vessel, which is owned by the XT Management firm from Haifa, was flying a Liberian flag and did not sustain major damage, the report said. Since 2019, Israel has been a...
(JNS) — Argentinian Jewish tennis player Diego Schwartzman won the Argentina Open on Sunday and claimed his first ATP Tour title in his home country. The 28-year-old from Buenos Aire beat fellow countryman Francisco Cerundolo with a 6-1, 6-2 victory in one hour and 21 minutes. The win is the fourth ATP Tour title for Schwartzman, who did not lose a single set last week in his four matches. Schwartzman is the first Argentine champion of the Argentina Open since 2008, when David Nalbandian won in another all-Argentine final against José Acasuso....
(JNS) - The World Council of Churches has gone full theological incitement against the State of Israel. In a recent Zoom webinar with more than 300 Christian activists to promote a film about the former Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and pro-Palestinian activism of Michel Sabbah, Rev. Frank Chikane, the moderator of the WCC's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, went much further than the usual falsehoods about Israel's "brutality" toward the Palestinians. "We need to begin to say...
(JNS) - As the World Council of Churches goes full throttle against Israel, Christians United for Israel, one of the most powerful voices for Israel in the United States, marked its 15th anniversary. "We could never have imagined CUFI would achieve so much, so quickly. But God has blessed us because we are fulfilling our biblical mandate to stand with Israel and His Chosen people," Pastor John Hagee, founder and chairman of CUFI, told JNS. "This said, I noted when we launched CUFI that there...
(JNS) — Often synonymous with Jewish life on campus, Hillel has been a gathering point for Jewish students across hundreds of campuses in the United States for decades. While being a “big tent” organization that seeks to accommodate a wide range of Jewish religious beliefs and political affiliations has long posed certain challenges, the coronavirus pandemic over the past year has likely been Hillel’s biggest test in recent memory. JNS had the opportunity to speak with both the new CEO of Hillel International—Adam Lehman, who took on his role...
International March of the Living will hold a Virtual March on Holocaust Remembrance Day led by Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, Holocaust survivors, Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion, Jewish Agency Chair Isaac Herzog, KKL Chair Avraham Duvdevani and Rabbi Israel Meir Lau. Among the Holocaust survivors participating are those who survived due to the selfless acts of medical professionals. Participants in the Virtual March from across the globe were filmed using innovative 3D technology so they appear...
On Feb. 23, the Zionist Organization of America sent a letter to Penguin Random House to complain about the anti-Israel bias in former President Barack Obama’s memoir “A Promised Land.” The organization has yet to hear back, says ZOA National President Morton Klein. “Having received complaints from our supporters and conducting our own review, we are deeply concerned about the factual inaccuracies, material omissions and outright falsehoods” contained in Obama’s book, the letter states, which was co-signed by Klein, ZOA Chairman Mark S. Lev...
Michigan imam calls to ‘join hands’ with Jews that wish Jerusalem to be retaken (MEMRI via JNS) — A Michigan imam said in a sermon earlier this month that Muslims should not be afraid to join hands with those who share the cause of recapturing Jerusalem, even if those individuals are Jews. Imam Mustapha Elturk, Ameer of the Islamic Organization of North America (IONA) Elturk, said that while most Jews are disobedient to Allah, some Jews and Christians were, in fact, “doing the work for us.” He made the remarks during a Friday sermon at the IO...
A new study by the Jerusalem-based watchdog group IMPACT-se shows that school textbooks in Turkey are becoming more Islamicized and now refer to Jews and Christians as “infidels,” JTA reported Thursday. Researchers at the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found a change in Turkish school textbooks that previously referred to Jews and Christians as “People of the Book.” New textbooks, however, such as “Fundamental Religious Knowledge,” a publication released after 2017 that is part of the mand...
Biden civil rights nominee, under fire from the right, gets some Jewish backing By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) — Vanita Gupta, President Joe Biden’s nominee for a top civil rights enforcement job, has been targeted in recent weeks as an extremist by a number of conservative groups and the conservative media. A couple of Jewish groups, the Anti-Defamation League and the National Council of Jewish Women, are expressing their support. Gupta, who was tapped for the post of associate attorney general, the No. 3 job at the Justice Department, fac...
(JTA) — About 200 academics from the United Kingdom and the United States have signed a petition defending a British university lecturer who had called Jewish students on his campus “pawns” of Israel, “a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.” Jewish groups and organizations have protested the remarks by David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, made during an online videoconference Feb. 13. Some have called for his ouster. The signatories of the letter published Friday supporting Mille...
Rep. Lee Zeldin considering run for New York governor By Ron Kampeas (JTA) — Rep. Lee Zeldin, one of two Jewish Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, is considering a run for New York governor in light of scandals engulfing incumbent Andrew Cuomo. “After a lot of people reached out to me in recent days and weeks, and after discussing it at length with my wife and daughters, I am now actively exploring a run for governor of New York against Andrew Cuomo in 2022,” Zeldin told Newsday on Tuesday. The newspaper quoted a number of Repub...
(JTA) — To many in the Jewish world, the Ruderman Family Foundation is synonymous with efforts to increase inclusion for Jews with disabilities. Based in Boston, but active across the United States and in Israel, the foundation has doled out some $75 million over the past 18 years to support inclusion. Just this month — Jewish Disability Awareness, Acceptance and Inclusion Month — the foundation is credited with sponsoring a virtual reading of a children’s book with Chabad and collaborating with Boston’s Jewish federation to make synagogues mor...
