Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The TV show “Sesame Street” featured Black and Jewish actress Kat Graham in its celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month, which began on May 1, drawing both support from Jews and antisemitic backlash on social media. “Happy Jewish American Heritage Month,” it wrote. “Join us this May as we honor and celebrate our Jewish American friends and neighbors in our communities.” “As a proud Jewish American, I am so excited to celebrate my community and heritage this month and every month,” said Graham, best known for her role in the teen...
(JNS) — The Iranian regime’s response to the latest U.S. proposal to end hostilities was “totally unacceptable,” U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘representatives.’ I don’t like it — totally unacceptable!” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform. Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported earlier on Sunday that Tehran’s response to Washington’s plan had been submitted to Pakistani mediators. According to the regime outlet, Iran’s response sought to end “the war in the re...
(JNS) - Growing up in Israel, Ofir Akunis remembers spending Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Days, dancing in Kings of Israel Square, which was renamed Rabin Square after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995. This year, it felt different to Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York. "It's a unique feeling - to be somewhere else in the world during Yom Ha'atzmaut," he told JNS. "It's totally different. This is an ordinary day here. It's a day off for the employees...
Shekel hits 33-year high against dollar By JNS Staff The Israeli shekel gained 1.1 percent, reaching its highest level against the dollar in 33 years, amid investor optimism over a possible end to hostilities between Iran and the United States. The shekel, which has appreciated 9 percent so far in 2026, strengthened to 2.90 per dollar on Wednesday, its strongest level since October 1993, Reuters reported. ADL report says 2025 one of most violent years for American Jews By Aaron Bandler (JNS) — Although incidents of Jew-hatred declined o...
(JNS) - The head of a state-funded university in Norway said on Tuesday he had no plans to discipline a professor who last month called the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, massacres "the most beautiful thing that has happened in our century." Following an uproar this week over comments made on April 21 by Professor Bassam Hussein of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Rector Tor Grande told broadcaster NRK that Hussein's views do not represent NTNU, the country's largest university. He...
(JNS) — The lower house of the Swiss parliament voted on Tuesday against recognizing Palestinian statehood, following the example of the upper house last year. In the vote at the National Council of Switzerland, 116 lawmakers out of 200 voted against recognition and 66 voted in favor, according to a bulletin by the Federal Assembly of Switzerland, the country’s bicameral parliament. Another 11 lawmakers abstained and the vote of the remaining seven lawmakers was not recorded. The vote was on a text submitted by the Geneva Canton and, in additio...
(JNS) - A jurist who reviews anti-terrorism legislation for the British government and the head of the opposition called last week for a ban on anti-Israel rallies in the near future following a series of serious antisemitic attacks. Jonathan Hall, the independent reviewer of terror legislation, said the government should consider a "moratorium" on the marches following the April 29 stabbing of two Jews in London's Golders Green neighborhood, allegedly by a Somalia-born British citizen named Ess...
A couple of hundred French Jewish doctors interested in moving to Israel gathered in Paris on Sunday in a major immigration fair for medical professionals. The event was held during a time of global turbulence in the Jewish Diaspora, which is especially noticeable in the 450,000-strong community in France that is also home to the largest Muslim population in Europe, and where a recent survey showed that nearly four of five French Jews feel unsafe. "It is becoming more and more difficult to live...
‘Miss Israel’ 2021 Noa Cochva cancels University of Oregon event due to safety concerns (JNS) — An event at the University of Oregon in the city of Eugene, featuring Noa Cochva, “Miss Israel” 2021, who served as a combat medic in the Israel Defense Forces, was disrupted by anti-Israel groups who blocked access to the reserved space and issued death threats toward Jewish students, according to the Oregon Hillel. The event, sponsored by the Oregon Hillel in partnership with StandWithUs and Ducks4Israel, was scheduled for April 22 on the Chapm...
When most people think of Israel, agriculture is not the first thing that comes to mind. Israel is small, much of it is arid, and water has always been scarce. The land in Israel has been farmed for thousands of years. What statehood changed was the scale, the conditions including rapid population growth and limited water, and the methods required to make agriculture work. That meant finding alternatives, moving water across the country, using it more efficiently, and eventually creating new sources through desalination. Out of those...
Iran says it executed a man accused of spying for Israel By JNS Staff (JNS) — Iran has executed a man convicted of spying for Israel and transmitting sensitive information, the Islamic Republic’s judiciary news outlet Mizan reported on Wednesday, according to Reuters. The Iranian outlet identified the man as Mehdi Farid, saying he held a position in a civil defense unit within what it described as a sensitive organization and used his access to gather intelligence for Israel’s Mossad. According to the report, Iran’s Supreme Court upheld...
(JNS) — The U.S. military has fully implemented a blockade of Iranian ports, halting maritime trade in and out of the country within 36 hours, the commander of U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday. Adm. Brad Cooper said U.S. forces “maintain maritime superiority in the Middle East” as part of the operation, which he said has stopped economic trade by sea that fuels about 90% of Iran’s economy. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that U.S. naval forces have intercepted eight oil tankers entering or leaving Iranian ports since t...
(JNS) — The House of Representatives narrowly defeated a measure to invoke the War Powers Resolution to end the conflict with Iran on Thursday in a mostly party-line vote. Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) was the lone Democrat to oppose the resolution, siding with Republicans to defeat the effort to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities by 213 to 214. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a libertarian who frequently opposes foreign policy measures, was the only Republican to vote in favor of the motion. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who previously joined M...
(JNS) — Against the twin backdrops of Israel at war and rising Jew-hatred around the world, some 7,000 people from around the world marked Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, by marching the two miles between the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps in Poland. Known as the International March of the Living, the annual event is designed to create a new generation of witnesses to the murder of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis. The task is taking greater importance as the n...
Reform movement warns anti-AIPAC rhetoric among Democrats risks crossing into Jew-hatred (JNS) — The Union for Reform Judaism warned on Monday that Democratic criticism of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee singles out the pro-Israel organization and, in some cases, crosses over into antisemitism. The Reform movement stated that it is “deeply concerned” by efforts to portray AIPAC as uniquely malign in campaign finance debates, as political rhetoric around Israel intensifies. “Every candidate has the right to accept or reject funding...
(JNS) - KRAKOW, Poland-For eight decades, Holocaust survivor Hannah Yakin, 93, wondered what happened to the baby boy who turned up outside a neighbor's home in suburban Amsterdam during World War II with some clothes, blankets, a hot water bottle and buttermilk powder. "I never forgot him because I loved him so much," Yakin told JNS this week during the annual March of the Living Holocaust commemoration in Poland. The little girl of nine who had played with the baby for two years in the garden...
(JNS) - KRAKOW, Poland-Scores of elderly Holocaust survivors from around the world, including a dozen from war-ravaged Israel, are in Poland this week for the annual March of the Living Holocaust memorial event, even as the war against Iran forced the cancellation of the official Israeli delegation. The annual event, expected to draw some 7,000 participants in one of the world's largest Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations, takes place on Tuesday amid a surge in global antisemitism...
(JNS) - Israel's Foreign Ministry on Thursday accused European countries of standing on the sidelines during the war with Iran while benefiting from the weakening of the Islamic Republic's military capabilities. In an X post, the ministry shared a CNN segment with NATO chief Mark Rutte, who praised U.S. President Donald Trump for degrading Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, which he said was "really very important for your and my safety, here in the U.S., in Europe, in the Middle East." "This is how it always is in Europe: they...
(JNS) — Thousands of individuals across the United States, Canada, Israel and around the world will unite at private residences, synagogues and community centers on April 24 for “Shabbat for Israel,” a coordinated series of intimate Shabbat dinners hosted in honor of Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s Independence Day. Spearheaded by Jewish National Fund-USA and chaired by philanthropists Sara Cannon, David Peskin and Alyssa Russo, what began in 2025 as a nationwide effort to unite Zionists through a...
By Joshua Marks U.S. Central Command said on Sunday that its forces will begin blockading all maritime traffic entering or leaving Iranian ports on Monday, in line with a presidential directive. “The United States to Blockade Ships Entering or Exiting Iranian Ports on April 13 at 10:00 A.M. ET. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DJT,” U.S. President Donald Trump posted to his Truth Social platform on Monday, reaffirming CENTCOM’s earlier X post and his announcement on Sunday that the U.S. Navy would immediately begin block...
(JNS) — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reinstated a $655.5 million judgement against the Palestine Liberation Organization and Palestinian Authority for supporting terrorist attacks and making payments to the perpetrators. In a March 30 decision, the three-judge panel reversed its previous decision to throw out the case following a 2025 Supreme Court decision in a similar suit and the passage of a 2019 federal law designed to enable the victims of terrorism to pursue civil court cases against the perpetrators. The plaintif...
(JNS) — A recently-launched E.U.-backed digital archive documenting the history of Greek Jews is offering free public access to more than 212,000 documents and over two million digital records, the European Jewish Congress said this week. The Iossipos (“Josephus”) project, named after the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, has been implemented by the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki with roughly €4 million ($4.3 million) in funding from Brussels’ National Strategic Reference Framework 2021–2027 program. Described by its developers...
JPMorgan Chase CEO warns of New York corporate ‘exodus’ over high taxes (JNS) — Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., is warning of an “exodus of people and jobs” from New York City due to high city and state corporate taxes, and individual income and state taxes. In his annual letter to shareholders released on Monday, Dimon, 70, wrote that JPMorgan Chase, which was formed in December 2000 with roots traced back to the Manhattan Company founded in 1799, has “shrunk our headcount in the city, from 30,000 a decade ago to 24,000 today, and...
El Al to launch direct flights to Argentina, starting this fall By Etgar Lefkovits (JNS) — Israel’s flag carrier El Al plans to launch direct flights from Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires this fall, marking a renewed push into the South American market. The nonstop service, which comes amid growing relations between the two countries, is expected to begin by November, JNS has learned. “Today, a dream I have pursued with all my effort since taking office as Ambassador begins to become a reality,” Argentinian Ambassador to Israel Axel Wahnish posted...
(JNS) — At the 14th annual commemoration ceremony on Thursday for the murder of four French Jews at a Jewish school in Toulouse, participants booed representatives of the far-left France Unbowed (LFI) party, forcing them to leave. The incident occurred at the city’s Capitole square, where hundreds had gathered for speeches and a wreath-laying tribute, Sud Radio reported. When LFI lawmakers François Piquemal and Hadrien Clouet laid their wreath, dozens of people began booing them, calling them “far-left fascists” and “antisemites,” and shouting...
