Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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People who suffer from diabetes frequently require insulin shots, causing pain, inconvenience, and visible scars that do not heal. To address this pressing healthcare issue, a company based in Israel developed the first oral insulin capsule, called ORMD-0801, providing diabetes treatment without the need for shots. The pill passed previous rounds of testing with impressive results, placing it on the fast-track for commercial availability, Oramed announced last spring. Nearly half a billion people worldwide suffer from diabetes. On Monday,...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The personal information of thousands of Israelis was compromised on Tuesday, following a massive hack into the database of a major local insurance company. The Capital Markets Authority and the National Cyber Directorate confirmed that there had been a cyberattack on the Shirbit insurance company and that its clients’ information had been leaked in the breach. Founded in 2000, the Netanya-based Shirbit has upwards of 200 employees and is one of the largest insurance firms in Israel. Several years ago, it won a sta...
(JTA) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday that his party will back a bill crafted by the opposition in parliament to dissolve the government, likely sending Israel to its fourth election in two years. The votes from Gantz’s Blue and White would provide the needed votes for the measure to pass in the Knesset. Gantz and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, formed a unity government earlier this year by agreeing to rotate the premiership after 18 months, but the two have been at odds from the outset of the partnership. Their lat...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman detailed the negotiation process that led to the signing of the Abraham Accords, as well as talked about the future of other Arab countries expected to normalize relations with the Jewish state, in a virtual event on Tuesday. The agreements signed by Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on Sept. 15, as well as the normalization agreement between Israel and Sudan signed on Oct. 23, are “all working beautifully,” the ambassador said during a Zoom event hosted by the Friends of the Israe...
(JNS) - Israel moved ahead on Sunday with plans laid out in February to build 1,257 housing units in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Givat Hamatos. The Israel Lands Authority opened construction tenders for contractors, Reuters reported on Monday, in a move that has elicited criticism from the Palestinian Authority, the European Union and the United Nations. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas, said in a statement that settlements were illegal under international...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his optimism on Monday that the country's coronavirus crisis could soon be over after drug-maker Moderna announced that testing had shown its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine to be highly effective. "This is great news for Israel," said Netanyahu shortly after the announcement. "Already in June I, along with Health Minister Yuli Edelstein, instructed that an agreement be signed with Moderna for the supply of vaccines. Today, Moderna...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Israel’s Energy Ministry announced on Monday that the country plans to reduce carbon emissions by 7.5 percent within the next 10 years. The ministry also recommended an interim goal of an 11 percent improvement in energy efficiency by 2025, compared to 2015 (which would work out to an average 1.2 percent improvement per year) and an 18 percent improvement by 2030. “The new goal links energy consumption to the amount of products and services in the country,” the ministry said in a statement. “It is appropriate for Israe...
(JTA) — Israel’s government has signed an agreement with the Pfizer pharmaceutical company to acquire 8 million doses of its vaccine. “This is a great day for the State of Israel and a great day on the way to our victory over the coronavirus,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday, adding that he is working “to ensure that we will receive the vaccine together with the leading countries around the world and that we will not get pushed back in line.” The announcement came days after Netanyahu said in a video address tha...
(JNS) - Hebron's Jewish residential section may finally witness new construction underway for more housing units. Pending a decision by the Jerusalem District Court, two areas of Hebron - the Hizkiyahu neighborhood on the site of the old central bus station and the site of the marketplace - are slated to undergo a facelift to make room for young couples. Predictably, there are those who don't want to see a growing Jewish presence in Hebron and have made an effort to prevent the project from prog...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - "Valley of Tears," a 10-part Israeli TV series on the Yom Kippur War has generated renewed interest in the 1973 national trauma. HBO Max acquired world rights for the series, which focuses on the stories of four soldiers, was created by the Israel network Kan, and began airing on Oct. 19. Despite the buzz, some viewers have lamented that the show, titled "Sha'at Ne'ila" in Hebrew, all but ignores the role of women during the war. One such woman was Niva Shaul, who was am...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - A small pottery jar containing four pure gold coins dating back to the Early Islamic period, more than 1,000 years ago, was unearthed during archaeological excavations in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said on Monday. The work was performed as part of the Jewish Quarter Development Corporation's plan to build an elevator designed and make the Western Wall Plaza more accessible to visitors. The juglet was found by IAA inspector Yevgenia Kapil during...
(JNS) - Khartoum, Sudan, was the setting for the infamous Arab League summit in 1967 that produced the Khartoum Resolution known as "The Three Nos": no negotiations with Israel, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel. Now, 53 years later, Sudan has agreed to change these negatives into positives, meaning three yeses. According to Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, the Sudan-Israel agreement "is a significant development because it provides added momentum...
(JNS) - A 1,700-year-old boundary stone bearing the Greek inscription "Kfar Nafah" (Nafah village) was discovered during an archaeological excavation in the Golan Heights last month, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. When the inscription was deciphered, by Danny Syon of the IAA and Professor Haim Ben-David of the Kinneret Academic College, it aroused great excitement, as the location bears the same name today, despite a lack of settlement continuity at the site. Nafah was...
(JNS) - The first Israeli SARS-CoV-2 vaccine was administered at Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer in Ramat Gan on Sunday to the first volunteer in a clinical trial. The vaccine, called "BriLife," was developed by the Israel Institute of Biological Research, which has prepared 25,000 doses ahead of the 80-person trial. Half of the volunteers will be given the vaccine (or a placebo) at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem and half at Sheba Medical Center. In the first stage of the...
(JNS) - Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Omer Yankelevitch announced on Thursday that she is introducing a Knesset bill that would require government ministries to consult with world Jewry on matters directly related to the Jewish people, such as Jewish informal and formal education, engagement and anti-Semitism. "Creating an official forum that ensures mutual dialogue between Israel and world Jewry is the first step towards ensuring the relationship between Israel and the greater Jewish...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Sudan will become the third Arab country in the past two months to normalize ties with Israel, continuing the trend of Arab states' willingness to advance ties with the Jewish state even without a peace agreement with the Palestinians. President Donald Trump announced the agreement on Friday. According to a joint statement released by Israel, Sudan and the U.S., the two countries will "end the state of belligerence between their nations." The statement also noted that the...
(JNS) — The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the creation of a regional support office for UNOOSA’s UN-SPIDER program, the United Nations announced in a statement on Monday. The program, the full name of which is “United Nations Platform for Space-Based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response,” is, as its name suggests, geared towards leveraging space for disaster management and risk reduction. Regional support...
(JNS) - An ancient two-shekel weight has been unearthed beneath Wilson's Arch, adjacent to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. The limestone weight, dating back to the Iron Age/First Temple period, was discovered during an archaeological dig conducted by the IAA in conjunction with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. It was revealed during the sifting of earthen fills at the site, which is soon to be included in the tour of the Western Wall...
(JNS) — The percentage of Israelis testing positive for COVID-19 has decreased for the third day in a row, according to Israeli Health Ministry figures released on Sunday. In an interview with Channel 12 on Sunday morning, Weizmann Institute scientist Eran Segal expressed “cautious optimism” regarding the trend, saying “it’s possible that the spike in morbidity in the general population has been halted [or is] on the decline.” He added that morbidity is also declining in the Arab sector, at the same rate as during the first lockdown, b...
I'm sitting in my sukkah, fighting off the heat. This week we all have an extra room outside. We eat all our meals in the sukkah, despite the heat of the day. We are obligated by the Torah to do this, to remember our exodus from Egypt, and we take it seriously. It's simply the way of life here. To NOT have a sukkah would be strange, an embarrassment. We would stand out and people would talk. All around Israel this is happening. Our medics, always standing by, have sukkahs, too. Growing up in...
Doron Almog, a former head of the Israeli Defense Forces' Southern Command, was one of the heroes of Israel's 1976 hostage rescue operation in Entebbe, Uganda, and winner of the 2016 Israel Prize for lifetime achievement. But the thing he says he's most proud of is ALEH Negev-Nahalat Eran, a rehabilitation village he founded in southern Israel for 160 physically and mentally disabled children and young adults. It's named after Almog's son, Eran, who was born with severe autism and died in 2007,...
(JNS) - As the Israeli cabinet weighs increasingly stringent steps to deal with the growing numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases, the Israel Defense Forces' Home Front Command is playing an increasingly essential part in the state's fight against the pandemic. The Home Front Command is the military's main interface with the civilian population, and it is tasked with helping the civilian domain prepare and respond to a range of emergencies. Currently, its headquarters south of Tel Aviv is...
(JNS) — In the wake of a reported U.S.-UAE deal in the works for the sale of F-35 fighter jets, Israel’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz departed for the United States on a brief 24-hour visit on Monday night, where he is scheduled to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and other senior members of the Trump administration. According to a Reuters report, the United States and the UAE “hope to have an initial agreement on the sale of F-35 stealth fighter jets to the Gulf state in place by December, as the Trump administration studi...
A government-ordered nationwide lockdown was set to go into effect Friday as Health Ministry statistics showed that Israel’s coronavirus numbers had reached record levels. The education system and most non-essential businesses will be closed for at least two weeks with Israelis restricted to remaining within one kilometer (0.6 miles) of their homes except to get food and medical care. Health Ministry statistics released Friday showed 7,755 Israelis tested positive for coronavirus in the past day, bringing the total number of confirmed active in...
(Israel Hayom and JNS staff via JNS) — Hamas deputy political chief Saleh al-Arouri said on Monday that due to recent events in the region, the terrorist organization and its political rival, Fatah, had agreed to join forces. In an interview with Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen TV, Arouri said the Palestinian people had been stabbed in the back three times in recent months. The first betrayal, he said, was the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan, the second was the Israeli sovereignty initiative and the third was the normali...
