Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Israel’s government has approved an historic maritime accord with Lebanon, as both countries are under pressure to get the agreement signed before October ends and their leaders may change. The Israeli and U.S. governments pushed back against claims that the deal ceded too much to Lebanon. The details of the deal are not yet in place, but Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid said Wednesday at a press conference, hours after his cabinet approved the deal, that Israel had declined two last-minute Lebanese demands. Lebanon had wanted to rem...
Palestinian terrorists have carried out attacks on an hourly basis, according to the data of the Judea and Samaria emergency center, which registered 23 terrorist incidents in the past day. These attacks included shootings, one of which killed Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch near Shavei Shomron, explosives, a lynching attempt at Nebi Salah, rock attacks, and arson. Israel’s security forces continued their counterterrorism operations throughout Judea and Samaria on Tuesday night, including in the villages of Beit Sira, Deir Abu Mashal, Esawiya, and H...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Thursday ordered IDF troops to prepare for “any scenario” on the northern border after a proposed maritime frontier demarcation accord with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon appeared to have hit a dead end. Gantz held a situation assessment attended by the IDF chief of staff and other security officials, and then instructed the military to increase its readiness for offensive and defensive actions should the enemy attack in the northern arena. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid rejected proposed chang...
(JNS) - The remains of two soldiers who fought in Israel's war of independence have been found, 74 years after their deaths. The Israeli Defence Forces announced on Friday that it had identified the remains of Privates Yitzhak Rubinstein and Binyamin Aryeh Eisenberg, who were members of the Palmach-the elite strike force of the pre-state Haganah militia-defending Kibbutz Yad Mordechai from an Egyptian attack in 1948, just days after Israel declared independence. The Egyptians captured the two...
(ISRAEL21c) - When a pregnant woman is worried about possible genetic defects in the child she is carrying, amniocentesis is the gold standard test. But amniocentesis is both invasive - a needle is inserted into the womb to extract amniotic fluid - and dangerous, resulting in miscarriage in as many as one out of every 200 tests performed. Furthermore, amniocentesis can only be done after week 15 of the pregnancy, yet many U.S. states and countries around the world ban abortion by that time,...
(JNS) — The Israeli global crowd-funding venture firm OurCrowd announced this week its launch of a $200 million Global Health Equity Fund. News of the collaboration with the WHO (World Health Organization) Foundation was shared at this year’s Clinton Global Initiative in New York City on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The fund will focus on healthcare solutions with a potentially global impact. “COVID-19 was a wake-up call for me as an investor,” said Jon Medved, founder and CEO of OurCrowd. “The pandemic opened my...
(JTA) - Israel's tourism minister has threatened a "diplomatic war" with travel site Booking.com over the company's decision this week to display a safety warning on any listings in Israeli-controlled territories in the West Bank. A Booking.com spokesperson told the Associated Press on Monday the company would implement the warning as a reaction to recent unrest in the region, which has included Palestinian attacks on Israeli citizens, attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli military raids in the territory that...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid took to Twitter to express condolences upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II, calling her “an extraordinary figure, a unique leader who symbolized devotion and love for her homeland.” “On behalf of the Government of Israel and the citizens of Israel, I send my condolences to the Royal Family and the citizens of the United Kingdom on the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” he wrote. Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called the Queen’s death “the end of an era.” “On behalf of the people of Israel, I...
(JTA) — An Israeli soldier very likely fired the gunshot that killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in May, an analysis released by the Israel Defense Forces Monday concluded. But no one present during the killing, including the soldier considered likely to have fired the fatal shot, will be punished, military officials said, and the army released a statement saying it was still possible that Abu Akleh had been killed by Palestinian gunfire. The official conclusion marked a shift from the Israeli government’s previous pos...
(JNS) — A team of researchers at Tel Aviv University has proven that antibodies isolated from the immune systems of recovered COVID-19 patients are effective in neutralizing known strains of the virus, including the Delta and the Omicron variants. Researchers have declared this a scientific breakthrough. The discovery could remove the need for frequent booster immunizations. Dr. Natalia Freund, along with doctoral students Michael Mor and Ruofan Lee from the Department of Clinical Microbiology and Immunology at the Sackler Faculty of M...
(JTA) — Israel’s government advanced a plan to build as many as 700 new apartment units in a suburb of Jerusalem that opponents say encroaches on a Palestinian village that straddles the country’s pre-1967 lines. The Jerusalem planning and building committee on Monday approved a plan for a new neighborhood called Givat Shaked, which would include high-rise buildings that come right up to the edge of Beit Safafa — a village that was split from 1948 until 1967, when Israel captured eastern...
(JNS) — Under pressure from Washington, Israel appears to be slowly withdrawing from its business relationship with China, while simultaneously building one with India. According to Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, over the last two years, the United States has been urging Israel to decouple from China. Sam Millner, a policy analyst for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, noted earlier this month that the U...
(JTA) — Israeli rock star Aviv Geffen, a symbol of the country’s left, announced during a recent concert in the West Bank that he regretted his past criticism of settlers living there — whom he had long denounced as obstacles to peace. “It’s very moving to be here. I went through a personal journey that was not simple and not short and I understand that me and my brothers — you — were made to separate for any number of reasons including my ignorance, which came from a desire to please part of my audience,” Geffen said during a concert Aug. 24...
(JNS) - A total of 225 new immigrants from North America landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Wednesday as part of the 63rd Nefesh B'Nefesh chartered aliyah flight through El Al Airlines. The flight was coordinated in partnership with Israel's Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, Jewish National Fund-USA and Tzofim-Garin Tzabar. Participants come from a variety of backgrounds, culturally and demographically - hailing from 19 U.S. sta...
(JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing “Holocausts” at a press conference after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, and Scholz’s muted initial response is spurring criticism. Abbas used the term in response on Tuesday to a reporter who asked if the Palestinian leader would apologize for the murder 50 years ago of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. An arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization carried out the attack, and the PLO and the Palestinian Authori...
Eight people were injured, among them U.S. citizens after a Palestinian gunman open fired on civilians at a bus and a parking lot near Jerusalem's Old City. Following an intensive manhunt by Israel's security forces and several arrests, the suspected terrorist identified as east Jerusalem resident Amir Sidawi turned himself in to the Israeli police. "This was a lone assailant, a resident of the city with a criminal background," Prime Minister Yair Lapid stated. "Whoever harms Israeli citizens ha...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - A 16-dunam (four-acre) noncontiguous parcel of land on a green hilltop in eastern Jerusalem, which lies between the security barrier and the eastern border of the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, could soon become the most volatile in the city. The Israeli Justice Ministry has completed the process, conducted secretly, of transferring ownership of the land to the state, on a temporary basis. Civil researchers hired by the ministry's Custodian of Absentee Properties...
(JNS) — Newfound technology enables the use of nanoparticles to assist the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. The technology, developed by a research team at Bar-Ilan University, uses nanoparticles to eliminate obstacles in the malignant tumor’s environment that impede the normal activity of natural killer cells (a special sub-type of white blood cells called lymphocytes). The research was published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. Natural killer cells are a potent defense weapon of the body that assists the immune system in it...
(JNS) - A total of 700 Jewish teens from 32 communities in seven countries completed a life-changing seminar in Israel as part of a year-long Diller Teen Fellowship, an immersive leadership program for teenagers from across the world. The three-week program included a Shabbaton retreat, a "Community Week" and a "Global Congress" with all 700 teens (including 350 international Fellows gathering with 350 Israeli Fellows) for a period of cultural exchange, exploration of Jewish peoplehood and...
The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday was preparing for a "week of fighting" against Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, as terrorists in the enclave fired over 1000 rockets at the Jewish state within 48 hours. The IDF said that the Iron Dome missile defense system had successfully intercepted 95 percent of the projectiles fired by PIJ that were headed for populated regions. One projectile struck a family home in Sderot, whose inhabitants had secured themselves in a shelter and were...
Terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Sunday night fired heavy barrages of rockets at southern and central Israel, including at Tel Aviv, ahead of an Egypt-mediated ceasefire between the sides that was slated to come into effect at 11:30 p.m. local time. Just eight minutes after the ceasefire took effect, Islamic Jihad terrorists fired more rockets at southern Israeli communities. Since then, the ceasefire seems to be holding as Israelis are experiencing much needed quiet. According to several media reports, the Israeli government had agreed to an...
(JNS) - "If you could change anything in this world, what would it be?" asked NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom, while seated among 30 Jewish, Christian and Muslim, children during a break in the action at a youth basketball camp he was helping to run this week at the YMCA in Jerusalem. To Freedom's delight, the most popular answer given by the children was: "We would want peace!" The 11-year NBA veteran, who currently is a free agent and a well-known human rights activist, was in Israel to lead...
(JTA) – Israel’s top immigration official says the country will not award citizenship to Baruch Lanner, a rabbi and convicted sex offender from the United States. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked’s announcement, made Tuesday to the Jerusalem Post, came a day after nearly 200 American rabbis and Jewish scholars sent a letter to Israel’s prime minister, Yair Lapid, urging him to reject Lanner’s citizenship application. Lanner, an American rabbi and former official of the Orthodox Union’s NCSY youth group, served a three-year prison sentence fo...
(Israel21c via JNS) — In the year 326, the Roman Emperor Constantine began construction of a church in Jerusalem on top of the remains of his predecessor Hadrian’s temple dedicated to the pagan god Jupiter. Constantine’s project became the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, traditionally identified as the place where Jesus was crucified and entombed. During repairs and restorations at the church, archeologists from the University of Rome La Sapienza discovered rock layers of the stone quarry used for its original construction. These layers, accor...
(JNS) — Bringing more than 10,000 Jewish athletes from 80 countries to compete in 42 sporting events all around Israel for the Maccabiah games is an impressive feat. Returning these athletes to their home countries as ambassadors and spokespeople for the State of Israel is a process that takes planning, coordination and a person like Hillel Akotonas. The 21st Maccabiah — the biggest sporting event in Israel and reportedly the second-largest in the world (“The Jewish Olympics”) — opened on July 12 and will conclude on July 26. When the athle...
