Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo reduces restrictions on Brooklyn Jewish neighborhoods as COVID rates drop By Shira Hanau (JTA) — Parts of Brooklyn that had high COVID test positivity rates in early October, including some with large Orthodox Jewish communities, will face fewer restrictions after seeing the rates fall. The neighborhoods labeled “red zones” last month have been reduced to “orange,” the middle level for restrictions. One of the neighborhoods is Midwood, which has a sizable Orthodox population. “Brooklyn has made great progress and we reduced...
(JNS) - Anyone who still believes that ignorance is bliss hasn't seen how easily it can be turned into hate. Nov. 9 marked 82 years since Kristallnacht, "the Night of Broken Glass." A night when authorities looked away or even aided the anti-Semitic mobs fanning out across Germany and Austria. Twenty-four hours later, hundreds of Jews were dead, thousands more had been beaten and tens of thousands arrested. And thousands of Jewish schools, hospitals and businesses had been destroyed and 267...
(JTA) - Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom whose extensive writings and frequent media appearances commanded a global following among Jews and non-Jews alike, has died. Sacks died Saturday morning at age 72, his Twitter account announced. He was in the midst of a third bout of cancer, which he had announced in October. Sacks was among the world's leading exponents of Orthodox Judaism for a global audience. In his 22 years as chief rabbi, he emerged as the most...
(JNS) - An astonishing level of criticism from Arab commentators, intellectuals and journalists has been leveled at the Palestinian leadership in recent weeks in response to its condemnations against countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, which have just signed normalization agreements with Israel. Five years ago, it seemed that the Palestinians could never fall out of grace with Americans, the Arab world or even the Europeans. These days, all this seems to have changed....
(JNS) — Cyber attackers around the world—ranging from criminals to state actors—are taking advantage of the massive global shift to working from home in the age of the coronavirus pandemic and escalating cyber attacks, senior former American and Israeli defense officials have warned. The comments were made the online Cyber Tech USA conference, held on Oct. 27. Nadav Zafrir, former commander of the Israel Defense Forces 8200 signals intelligence unit and managing partner of the Team8 company, which builds and invests in companies, spoke with...
(JNS) - Israelis are, of course, just getting used to the idea of having friendly relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain after signing normalization deals with each country in recent days. Even more intriguing to many Israelis is the fact that these Gulf states have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Palestinians' behavior in vetoing every peace overture in the last 20 years. The Kohelet Policy Forum, Shiloh Forum and the Israel Hayom Israeli daily newspaper teamed up to host...
(JTA) - As the French government rolls out a controversial plan that amounts to its most robust crackdown on religious activity in decades, it is enjoying broad support from at least one of the country's faith communities: French Jews. Jewish community leaders have applauded President Emmanuel Macron's effort to counter what he calls "Islamist separatism" with a plan that would require children to attend state-recognized schools from the age of three, effectively barring the practice of Muslim...
(JTA) — Following a suspected terrorist attack that left four dead in Vienna by a shooter who reportedly shouted “Allah,” European rabbis made an unusual appeal for more “control and transparency” over what goes on at mosques across the continent. “It is important to know what is being preached in mosques and other places of worship over here, by whom they are financed, what foreign influences are promoting such terrible deeds and how social media serve as a vehicle for this,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of...
Book calling Holocausts a hoax to hit book stores in Iceland in time for Christmas By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — An Icelandic company has plunged the country’s publishing industry into a debate about censorship with its plan to publish a 1976 book that argues the Holocaust is a hoax. The book, an Icelandic-language translation of “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry” by Arthur Butz, is being advertised online ahead of its launch in the coming weeks, in time for the Christmas shoppin...
Unlike most teenagers, Olivia Seltzer doesn’t like to sleep in. She wakes up most days at 5 a.m. to scan the internet and write The Cramm, a newsletter with the latest national and international news that reaches middle school, high school and university student readers in over 100 countries. With some 2.5 million monthly pageviews, Seltzer calls it “the cheat sheet to the world.” Written in a fun and relatable style and transmitted via email and text, The Cramm includes the day’s major politic...
(JNS) — U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem will be allowed to list Israel as their place of birth on their U.S. passport, alluded the Trump administration on Wednesday. Politico first reported the development, citing a U.S. official, adding that the announcement could be made as soon as Thursday. Despite the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and relocating its embassy to there from Tel Aviv months later, Americans born in Jerusalem have still been unable to list Israel as their place of birth on their U.S...
(JTA) — Islamists have declared war on France, a senior leader of French Jews said following multiple assaults, including the murder of three people at a church in Nice. Gil Taieb, the vice president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, made the comments Thursday in reference to the beheading of one woman and the fatal stabbing of two others outside the Notre Dame church of the Mediterranean coastal city. The perpetrator was shouting “Allah hu akbar” — Arabic for Allah is the greatest — before he was shot and rushed to...
(JNS) -President Donald Trump completed its reversal of a legacy U.S. policy prejudiced against Israeli settlements. The United States and Israel signed new bilateral agreements on Oct. 28 that further enhance the cooperation between the close allies in the areas of science, industrial research and agricultural. Yet perhaps more noteworthy is that legacy "geographic restrictions" have now been removed from existing agreements. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman noted at the ceremony that t...
(JTA) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Europe's most prominent nationalist and anti-immigrant leaders, has often faced accusations that he is too soft on far-right anti-Semitism. But now, in an unusual reversal, Orban is trying to level that same accusation at the country's largest Jewish group, Mazsihisz. Orban recently criticized Mazsihisz, a nonpartisan federation of Jewish communities and groups, for not speaking out loudly enough against the candidacy of Laszlo Biro, a...
House bill introduced to counter worldwide money-laundering by Hezbollah (JNS) — A bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to counter money laundering by the U.S.-designated terrorist group Hezbollah. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) introduced “The Hezbollah Money Laundering Prevention Act of 2020” on Sept. 30, based upon recommendations made by the Republican Study Committee’s National Security Strategy. If enacted, it would put a stop to Hezbollah’s money-laundering activities throughout the world, especially in Lebanon a...
(JTA) — A coalition of Jewish groups including the likes of Hadassah and B’nai B’rith International has temporarily blocked a plan by Orthodox and right-wing parties to take over top positions throughout the World Zionist Congress, the Jewish National Fund and other crucial groups that spend $1 billion annually on international Jewish causes. Under the plan reported this week in Israeli media, the Likud and Orthodox parties of the World Zionist Congress would have reserved for themselves top positions at these groups, including the Jewis...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - A Bahraini institute has signed an agreement with the U.S. State Department to combat anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and delegitimization of Israel. The memorandum of understanding, signed Thursday in Washington, D.C., marks the first time an Arab country has embraced a key Trump administration agenda item, to get countries to include anti-Zionism and some forms of harsh criticism of Israel in their definitions of anti-Semitism. It comes as the Trump administration has in recent...
(JTA) — French Jewish groups have called on their supporters to join a rally Sunday in memory of the schoolteacher murdered Friday after facing criticism for showing caricatures of the Islamic prophet Muhammad to his students. The rally in memory of Samuel Paty, who was decapitated outside the school where he worked by an 18-year-old refugee from Chechnya who appeared to have been motivated by videos on social media, is focused on safeguarding freedom of expression. But the Jewish groups say it should also call attention to the threat of I...
(JTA) - On my trips to Bahrain, almost nobody knew I was Jewish. I was a strange enough creature as it was: young, female and civilian, traveling with a mostly male, mostly military delegation; low ranking, but representing the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the top-ranked organization in the delegation. Its ranking was so far above the people in the field that one of my friends at the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain said that getting a call from me was like getting a call from Mt. Olympus. I was...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) Arab states have stopped giving money to the Palestinian Authority due to U.S. pressure, Deputy Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri said on Friday. Arouri’s comments were aired by Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV as a rocket, fired from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, landed in an open field in Israel. “There are Arab countries that froze their commitments to the Palestinian people, whether via the P.A. or PLO, because of an American decision. To be clear, an American decision. They came to our brothers in the P.A. and told them: ‘We...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Jews’ share of the population of Europe is as low now as it was 1,000 years ago and is declining even further, according to a landmark new demographic study. The study published Wednesday by the London-based Institute for Jewish Policy Research found 1.3 million people who describe themselves as Jewish in continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Russia. That figure has declined by nearly 60 percent since 1970, when there were 3.2 million Jews in the same area, wrote the report’s authors, Daniel Staetsky and Sergi...
Jewish Journal of Los Angeles ceases print edition By Tom Tugend LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, the largest American Jewish weekly west of New York, has ceased print production as of its Oct. 16 issue and become an online-only publication. In an announcement to staff, readers and advertisers, publisher and editor-in-chief David Suissa said he hopes the print version of the paper will return once synagogues open again. As a free community paper, the Journal has been distributed primarily through the area’s network of far...
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — The Jewish owner of a large Argentine hypermarket chain has started selling kosher meat for far less than competitors this month, claiming that the country’s kosher supervision industry has artificially driven up costs for consumers. Roberto Goldfarb, the founder and CEO of Diarco, first announced his intentions in a call in May with El Lazo, a Jewish youth center associated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement. On the call he called the kosher supervision industry a “mafia” that cons buyers and charges more than necessary “w...
(Israel21c via JNS) Food security is emerging as a key area in which the United Arab Emirates is eager for Israeli expertise, investors in each country tell ISRAEL21c. The Gulf states import more than 90 percent of their food. This has long been a concern, but the issue intensified when pandemic-related transportation stoppages disrupted supply for several months. The UAE now has a food security minister and Food Security Council. The Abraham Accords announced between Israel and the UAE on Aug....
(JTA) — Facebook announced that it will now ban any posts that deny or distort the Holocaust, a landmark change from its previous policy. For years, Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had defended Holocaust denial as a misguided but legitimate form of expression. In 2018, regarding Holocaust denial, he said, “I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong.” That approach garnered widespread outcry from scholars and anti-Semitism watchdogs. On Monday, Zuckerberg wrote...
