Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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With most of the votes counted and no decisive outcome as far as who the next prime minister will be, or if Israel will be headed to an unprecedented fifth national election in less than three years, one thing is clear, the big winners in Israel’s national election this week were Israeli Arabs. One might have said that a year ago, after Israel’s third national election in (what was then) a year. Then, the “Joint Arab List,” a faction made up of four Arab political parties running together, won a striking 15 seats in Israel’s Knesset (parliame...
Israelis do not make islands in the shape of palm trees, nor towering skyscrapers, nor expensive hotels, nor do their leaders use cars with solid silver bodies (a clear allusion to Dubai and the United Arab Emirates). The pride of the State of Israel is that its technologies will soon be able to be used by all humanity: 1. The University of Tel Aviv is developing a nasal vaccine that will protect people from Alzheimer’s and stroke. 2. Technion, Institute of Technology (Haifa), developed a simple blood test capable of detecting different t...
(Israel Hayom) — Israel’s coronavirus reproduction rate continues to drop, according to Health Ministry data released on Wednesday, and now stands at 0.59. Of the 41,443 COVID-19 tests that the ministry conducted on Tuesday, 679 came back positive, placing the infection rate at 1.7 percent. There are currently 14,403 active cases in Israel. Some 762 Israelis are hospitalized; 500 are in serious condition; and 207 are on ventilators. Of those hospitalized: 74 percent are not vaccinated; 15 percent have received their first jab; and 11 per...
By Howard Blas (JNS) - As Deni Avdija and the Washington Wizards mark the halfway point of the season and celebrate his selection to the 2020-21 NBA Rising Stars World Team roster, 21-year-old Wizards super-fan Matan Karudo could not be happier. For Karudo, Avdija is a source of Jewish and Israeli pride; more than that, Avdija has even helped created special family bonding time in the Karudo household. The resident of Long Island, N.Y., first learned about the 20-year-old Israeli basketball...
The fourth attempt in two years to unseat embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to have failed once again, with Netanyahu securing his largest-ever electoral victory over his rivals. Exit polls show Netanyahu's Likud receiving a strong 30 to 31 mandates. The tally is at least 12 seats higher than the next largest party: the left-wing Yesh Atid led by Yair Lapid. While official vote totals will only be completed in the coming days-with the potential to alter Knesset...
(Israel Hayom) - Workers at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem on Tuesday conducted the site's customary biannual clearout of all the notes stuck between the stones over the course of the previous six months. The notes are traditionally collected before Passover, which this year begins after Shabbat on the evening of March 27, and on Rosh Hashanah. Mindful of public-health regulations, workers wore gloves, masks and used disposable wooden sticks to remove the notes. These will be buried on...
(JNS) — Two events of religious and historical significance that very nearly took place last week point to a deeper layer in Jordan and Saudi Arabia’s struggle for guardianship of Islamic holy places on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Israel has now been dragged into this struggle against its will. Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein, King Abdullah’s son, was about to enter the gates of the Temple Mount on March 10 to perpetuate Jordan’s formal status as the Muslim world’s guardian of the site. However, the visit was canceled at the last minute, supposedl...
On March 23, Israel will hold its fourth national election in two years. This is a result of political stalemate and politicking that's placed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against most other parties, with his Likud party showing one of its lowest polling projections in the past three elections. It is not the first election since the pandemic, but the pandemic will play a more significant role than the previous election a year ago. In addition to the pandemic, there are several other issues...
(JTA) — Israel must grant citizenship to Jews who converted to Judaism in Israel under non-Orthodox auspices, its Supreme Court ruled Monday, possibly igniting another round in the long-running government battle over who the state should recognize as Jewish. The decision, written by Chief Justice Esther Hayut, comes less than a month before national elections. Israel’s Law of Return offers automatic citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent. The state also generally recognizes those who converted to Judaism under Orthodox sta...
(JTA) — The Israeli government approved a plan Monday to provide compensation of up to $60,000 to some of the families of children who went missing while in state care in the 1950s. But advocacy groups and several of the families have already rejected the plan, calling it a cynical move designed to silence their larger demands for accountability. They are demanding an official apology, an expansion of the eligibility criteria, and further access to state records that might shed light on the fate of their relatives. The compensation plan — amo...
RAANANA, Israel (JTA) — Rio de Janeiro and Raanana are now sister cities, a longtime aspiration of Brazilian immigrants who have turned the upscale Tel Aviv suburb into their new home. “It’s the result of the great relationship between Israel and Brazil and the fact that Raanana is home to the largest population of Brazilian immigrants in our country,” the mayor of Raanana, Chaim Broyde, wrote on social media on Monday. “I intend to exploit the connections, promote economic, commercial and cultural issues between our cities.” The sister citi...
(JNS) — While Israelis are getting vaccinated against COVID-19, the stones of the Western Wall in Jerusalem’s Old City are receiving their own injections, with syringes surprisingly similar to those used in the medical world. Every six months, before Passover and the High Holidays, engineers from Western Wall Heritage Foundation and conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority inspect each stone at the prayer plaza to ensure visitor safety and the preservation of the stones themselves, which are continually subjected to natural weathering...
(ISRAEL21c via JNS) - A catastrophic tar spill washing up along Israel's entire Mediterranean coast may be the worst environmental disaster in Israeli history. While government authorities investigate the source of the offshore leak of at least 1,000 tons of sticky, toxic tar, many Israeli civilians and soldiers are helping with cleanup efforts that will likely take months. "Over the weekend I, together with thousands of volunteers, was at the beaches cleaning sticky, black tar oil off of dead...
(JNS) — Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center said on Thursday that it was “deeply disturbed” by the implications of a Polish court’s recent ruling in a libel case involving the alleged wartime actions of Edward Malinowski, the former mayor of Malinowo, Poland. On Tuesday, the court ordered professors Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, the editors of “Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland,” to issue a retraction of their work and apologize to Malinowski’s niece, who initiated the libel suit. The...
Earlier this week, the Israeli Air Force carried out a three-day exercise simulating a large-scale war against Hezbollah, the terrorist group that controls much of Lebanon, and which reportedly has as many as 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel. Included in the exercise were simulated strikes on some 3,000 Hezbollah targets in a single day. This number of targets in one day is unprecedented, particularly compared to the fact that during the entire 2006 Lebanon War, it’s been reported that Israel reportedly attacked some 5000 targets. The I...
(JNS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Monday at his office in Jerusalem with the head of the research project at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), where an anti-coronavirus drug is being developed and has shown promising results. "If this succeeds, it will be huge, simply huge," Netanyahu said to professor Nadir Arber about the new drug, called EXO-CD24, according to the Prime Minister's Office. "This is of global significance. This is amazing. I wish...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pleaded not guilty in his ongoing trial for corruption charges, then left the courtroom while the hearing was still underway. Later on Monday he dismissed the charges, as he has in the past, as “fabricated.” Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust — the first time a sitting prime minister has stood trial in Israeli history. The investigations of allegedly illicit payments and favors stretch back years. Netanyahu was officially indicted about a year ago, and his trial b...
Thanks to the astute eye of Burt Chasnov for bringing to Heritage's attention that the photo of the U.S. Embassy in Israel in last week's issue was the embassy in Tel Aviv, not the one in Jerusalem, which is shown here....
(ISRAEL21c) - Even with Israel's world-leading rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations, drugs to treat Covid patients are in desperate need across the world. Two such drugs developed in Israel show great promise in clinical trials: EXO-CD24 and Allocetra. EXO-CD24 EXO-CD24, an experimental inhaled medication developed at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, cured all 30 moderate-to-severe cases in a Phase I clinical trial. Developed over the past six months at the hospital, EXOCD24 stops the "cytokine...
(JNS) - The Psagot Winery sits on the peaks of the Binyamin region mountains in Judea and Samaria, north of Jerusalem and just east of Ramallah. Though Psagot and many Israeli-owned businesses operating over the 1967 armistice lines have historically experienced boycotts in Europe and throughout the Arab world, many say that in the context of the Abraham Accords, this may be changing. When Yaakov Berg and his wife, Naama, established the Psagot Winery in 2002, they made fewer than 3,000...
(JNS) - A rare coin bearing the head of the Roman Emperor Antonius Pius and dating from 158–159 C.E. was found during a training exercise by an Israel Defense Forces soldier on the southern end of Mount Carmel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) reported on Tuesday. The well-preserved coin, found by Ido Gardi, is one of very few such objects that have been discovered in Israel, according to the IAA. "This coin joins only 11 such coins from known locations in the National Treasures Department...
(JNS) - Legendary singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder was awarded Israel's prestigious Wolf Prize on Tuesday along with a group of laureates in the arts and sciences. The "Superstition" singer received the award for "his tremendous contribution to music and society enriching the lives of entire generations of music lovers," according to a statement from Israeli President Reuven Rivlin's office. Wonder, 70, is only the second black recipient to receive the Wolf Prize in the music field, following...
By Charles Lipson (JNS) — No country has been more successful in getting the coronavirus vaccine to its citizens than Israel. Why? Three reasons stand out, and the third one is likely to help people around the world. Israel can vaccinate the population quickly because it has a very competent, comprehensive national health system, based on several Health Maintenance Organizations, all supervised by the Ministry of Health. The system includes digitized medical records for everyone in the country. Israel bought enough vaccine. Earlier in the p...
(JNS) - The latest edition of the "West Bank Jewish Population Stats Report," commissioned annually by former Member of Knesset and National Union Party head Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz, shows a 2.62 percent growth in 2020, and a 17 percent in growth in the past five years, in the number of Jews who live in Judea and Samaria, more commonly known as the West Bank. According to the report, some 475,481 Jews currently call these regions home. The statistics do not take into account the more than 325,000...
Researchers at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital have discovered that a new cancer drug has been successfully used to treat patients seriously ill with the coronavirus, Kan News reported Friday. The drug EXO-CD24 is based on a biological protein normally associated with cancer research that is known to calm the body’s immune system, which in the second stage of coronavirus attacks itself and causes severe breathing problems. The treatment developed by Professor Nadir Arber of the Integrated Cancer Prevention Center at the hospital was tested on 30...
