Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — American and British forces shot down 21 Houthi drones and missiles over the southern Red Sea on Tuesday night, according to U.S. Central Command. Two U.S. security officials told CNN that the number of Houthi drones and missiles intercepted by naval forces was actually 24 and that it was “one of the largest Houthi attacks that occurred in the Red Sea in recent months.” CENTCOM tweeted early on Wednesday that a “complex attack of Iranian designed one-way attack UAVs (OWA UAVs), anti-ship cruise missiles, and an anti-ship ballist...
(JNS) - Israeli forces have completed the destruction of Hamas's military capabilities in the northern Gaza Strip, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a press briefing on Saturday night, three months into Israel's war with the terrorist group. "We have completed the dismantling of Hamas' frameworks in the north of the Gaza Strip, and we will continue to deepen the achievement and strengthen the barrier and the defense elements at the border," Hagari said. He added...
Palestinians captured by the IDF in the Gaza Strip are angry about the way Hamas used civilians to protect themselves and would prefer Israeli rule as the soldiers have treated them better, according to recordings of interrogations released by the IDF. “I felt that we are human shields,” said Muhammad Darwish Amara, a terrorist from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization. “Why would we protect them? We also want to be saved.” The man, who looked to be in his 20s, said that Hamas forces had forced him and others to go with them instead...
(JNS) — U.S. spy agencies verified Israeli claims that Hamas and another Palestinian terrorist group used Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as a command center and to hold hostages, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. In late November, the Israel Defense Forces released extensive video evidence of terror tunnels under Shifa Hospital—the Gaza Strip’s largest medical facility—saying it “unequivocally” proves the modus operandi of Hamas, “which systematically operates from hospitals.” The terrorist group held at least three of the estimated 240 h...
(JNS) — At least 100 Iranians were killed and scores of others were wounded on Wednesday in two reported explosions at a commemoration ceremony for slain Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in the city of Kerman, some 600 miles southeast of Tehran, emergency services said. Local media cited officials as claiming the blasts were the result of “terrorist attacks.” Several gas canisters exploded at the entrance to the cemetery, according to Nournews, a news outlet with close ties to the regime. The explosions took place 10 minutes apart, accor...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration condemned calls by two Israeli government ministers for Palestinians to be removed from the Gaza Strip. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, also condemned the call. The criticism comes as gaps remain between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over who will govern Gaza on the day after Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas, the terror group that controlled the territory prior to its Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. While Biden has pushed for the Wes...
(JNS) — Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Wednesday reiterated his support for the voluntary resettlement of Gazans, a day after being condemned by the U.S. for taking this stance. “More than 70 percent of the Israeli public today supports a humanitarian solution of encouraging the voluntary immigration of Gaza Arabs and their absorption in other countries, understanding that a small country like ours cannot afford a reality where four minutes away from our communities there is a hotbed of hatred and terrorism where two milli...
Rock star Alanis Morissette uncovers her family’s Holocaust history on PBS’ ‘Finding Your Roots’ By Jacob Gurvis (JTA) — Seven-time Grammy Award winner Alanis Morissette explores her family’s Jewish past, which she said was kept a secret from her for most of her life, on Tuesday night’s season premiere of the PBS celebrity genealogy series “Finding Your Roots.” “I think I found out that I was Jewish in my late 20s. I didn’t know,” Morissette tells host and Harvard University history professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in the episode, a snippet...
DENVER - Orlando community members recently joined 2,500 Zionists in Denver, Colorado, for Jewish National Fund-USA's Global Conference for Israel. Emotions ran high as attendees embraced the dozens of Israelis in attendance who experienced the horror and aftermath of the attacks. These same Israelis have been working around the clock with Jewish National Fund-USA to address the immediate needs of those affected while also planning for the region's future. "After so much tragedy, it was...
(JNS) — The United States has delivered more than 10,000 tons of military weapons and equipment to Israel since the start of the war on Oct. 7, Channel 12 reported on Monday. These shipments have arrived in 244 cargo planes and 20 ships. The Hamas terror group invaded the northwestern Negev on Oct. 7, murdering 1,200 people, mostly civilians, precipitating the launch of “Operation Swords of Iron” with support from Washington. According to the report, Israel’s Defense Ministry has acquired nearly $2.8 billion in additional purchases from th...
Leader of Lebanon’s tiny Jewish community dies at 80 By Andrew Silow-Carroll (JTA) — Isaac Arazi, who as former president of Lebanon’s tiny Jewish community led the rehabilitation of Beirut’s abandoned Magen Avraham synagogue, died Tuesday. He was 80. A lawyer for the community, which numbers less than 30, confirmed his death to Agence France-Presse. Arazi headed the Lebanese Jewish Community Council, which represented the remnant of the estimated 22,000 Jews who lived in Lebanon before the civil war that lasted from 1975-1989. Terrori...
(JNS) - Israeli forces were involved in a heavy exchange of fire with Hezbollah on Tuesday after anti-tank missiles fired from Lebanon struck a church in the village of Iqrit in the Western Galilee, wounding at least 10 Israelis, including a soldier reportedly in "serious" condition. The wounded included an Israeli civilian in his 80s and nine Israel Defense Forces soldiers, per local media. The troops were reportedly hurt while evacuating the wounded civilian under missile fire. IDF and Magen...
(JTA) — Birthright Israel on Tuesday announced that it would resume its free, 10-day educational trips to Israel in January after suspending them amid the ongoing war with Hamas. Around 350 participants, students and young adults primarily from the United States, are expected to travel to Israel beginning the week of Jan. 5, 2024, the organization said in a statement. The 350 participants are a small fraction of the 23,000 Birthright had planned to send to Israel this year. Still, the resumption of the programs is a powerful symbol of a p...
(JNS) — Hamas should be removed from power when the conflict in Gaza ends, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a year-in-review press briefing at the State Department on Wednesday. “Everyone would like to see this conflict end as quickly as possible, but if it ends with Hamas remaining in place and having the capacity and the stated intent to repeat Oct. 7 again and again and again, that’s not in the interest of Israel,” Blinken said. “It’s not in the interest of the region,” he added. “It’s not in the interest of the world.” It...
(JNS) — Since Oct. 7, the International Red Cross has been helping imprisoned Palestinian terrorists receive controversial stipends from the Palestinian Authority, according to Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch. According to PMW, incarcerated Palestinians fill out forms to receive the stipends, and the Red Cross delivers the paperwork to Ramallah. “The role of the International Red Cross in this process is central,” explained PMW director Itamar Marcus. “The international health organization is involved in this because as they visit prisone...
(MEMRI via JNS) — The Jews “who came to Palestine” are pagan Khazar converts, not the Children of Israel, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a Dec. 18 speech posted online by the official Syrian Arab News Agency and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. The Syrian dictator went on to state there is “no evidence” that six million Jews died in the Holocaust, and that the Nazis did not employ any special methods of torture or killing for Jews, who he said were killed just like other victims of World War II. The Holocaust...
IDF drills for Oct. 7-type attack in Judea and Samaria (JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces this week carried out a drill simulating an Oct. 7-style attack in Judea and Samaria and northern border communities, according to Israeli media reports. The exercise was one of various scenarios the IDF is preparing for in Judea and Samaria following the invasion by Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip, in which 1,200 mostly civilians were murdered, thousands more wounded and 240 people kidnapped. IDF released report on capture of Nahal Oz base (JNS) ...
(JNS) — Several Hamas leaders recently left Qatar together with their entourages, cutting off communications including cellphones. The leaders left for Algeria, Lebanon, Iran and other countries, according to sources cited by Kan News’s Arabic channel. Among Hamas leaders living in Qatar are Ismail Haniyeh, head of the terrorist group’s political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook and Khaled Mashal. They live a life of luxury in the Gulf state even as most Palestinians in Gaza live in abject poverty. Officially a major non-NATO ally of the U.S., Qatar...
(JNS) - More than 130 gatherings on Dec. 8 and Dec. 9 through BBYO's "Global Shabbat" initiative drew more than 16,000 teens from 30 countries. "This historic teen-led movement-wide initiative has been anchored in BBYO culture since it first launched in 1928," per the nonprofit, which was formerly called the B'nai B'rith Youth Organization and which split from B'nai B'rith International more than 20 years ago. The recent event had two themes-"forever young" to mark BBYO's centennial year and "re...
BERLIN (JTA) — Recognizing Israel’s right to exist is now mandatory for those who want to become German citizens in the former East German state of Saxony-Anhalt. Applicants living in the state will have to confirm in writing “that they recognize Israel’s right to exist and condemn any efforts directed against the existence of the State of Israel.” Saxony-Anhalt’s interior minister, Tamara Zieschang, a member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union party, said Tuesday that the rule went into effect at the end of November. The new sta...
Maccabi World Union unveils memorial to victims of Oct. 7 By Rolene Marks (JNS) — Maccabi World Union unveiled a memorial to the 1,200 victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre at the Kfar Maccabiah hotel and sports club complex in Ramat Gan on Wednesday. Since the onset of Israel’s war against Hamas, MWU has been active in helping tens of thousands of residents from the south who evacuated their towns and kibbutzim on the border with Gaza. MWU turned Kfar Maccabiah into a small village to accommodate evacuees from Sderot, a city on the Gaza bor...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Following last month’s historic March for Israel that brought nearly 300,000 people to the National Mall, the nation’s most prominent American Jewish organizations have today joined forces to launch The 10/7 Project — a new centralized communications operation. The 10/7 Project is designed to promote continued U.S. bipartisan support for Israel by working to ensure more complete and accurate information about the Israel-Hamas war in real time for policymakers and the American public. The 10/7 Project is led by the America...
(JNS) — Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani on Tuesday accused Israel of the “systematic and deliberate” killing of Palestinian civilians. At the same time, he claimed to be working to restore the collapsed hostages-for-ceasefire deal between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. “It is shameful for the international community to allow this heinous crime to continue for nearly two months, during which the systematic and deliberate killing of innocent civilians continues, including women and children,” Qatar’s ruler told Gu...
(JNS) — Chabad’s CTeen International conducted a conference in Barcelona, Spain, that brought together Jewish youth from across Europe. Some 300 Jewish teenagers gathered from Nov. 24-26 for “Shabbat Across Europe,” which Chabad described as “a weekend of togetherness, belonging and Jewish pride.” Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, chairman of CTeen International and vice chairman of Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch—the educational arm of the Chabad-Lubatich movement—said the event “gave teens a space where it’s safe to express your Judaism fully.” And he remind...
(JTA) — Police estimated that 50,000 people showed up for a march against antisemitism on Sunday in what reports are calling the largest such gathering in London since before World War II. Organizers estimated that 60,000 attended the march, which was planned in reaction to the spike in antisemitism around the world that has accompanied the Israel-Hamas war that began on Oct. 7. Speaking at the march, British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said Jews “will not be intimidated.” “We must teach our children that the superheroes of our society are tho...
