Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Kanye West’s trips to Israel clearly left a mark on the rap superstar. In a wide ranging podcast interview released Friday, West — who recently changed his legal name to Ye — said he thinks Christians should form kibbutz communities, modeled off the Jewish versions, to help foster a sense of togetherness. “We need Christian kibbutz[im], we can have communities,” West said on the “Drink Champs” hip-hop podcast. He had to clarify the term to co-hosts N.O.R.E., a rapper, and DJ EFN, a record executive. “Jewish people have this type of circ...
(JNS) — The current Israeli government led by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is taking the issue of climate change more seriously than ever before. Israel has brought a delegation of 140 members to the 26th U.N. Climate Change Convention in Glasgow, Scotland. Bennett pledged this week that Israel will no longer burn coal for electricity by 2025, and committed Israel to be a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. While the pledges, particularly the latter, will be extremely difficult for a nation that currently relies on abundant sources of n...
(JTA) - Women of the Wall's monthly prayer service at the Western Wall in Jerusalem was disrupted yet again by more than 100 Orthodox protesters, a day after former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amplified the protesters' cause. The disruptions took place even though lawmakers who support and oppose the group agreed to stay away from the Western Wall, in a bid to calm tensions. Women of the Wall, a group that organizes a women's prayer service at the holy site on the first day of each Hebrew...
(Israel21c via JNS) — A team of Israeli experts has solved the mystery of which proteins in the SARS-CoV-2 virus are responsible for causing the severe vascular damage seen in coronavirus patients. The novel coronavirus is made up of 29 proteins. Five of those proteins were identified as damaging to blood vessels in a study led by Tel Aviv University researchers Ben Maoz (biomedical engineering and neuroscience), Professor Uri Ashery (life sciences and neuroscience) and Professor Roded Sharan (computer science). “We see a very high inc...
(JTA) — In what was seen as a crucial test in Israel’s longstanding governing crisis, the country’s lawmakers managed to approve a national budget for the first time in more than three years on Thursday. A failure to do so by a Nov. 14 deadline would have meant the collapse of Israel’s new government and a fifth national election since 2019. The approval of the fiscal framework marks a victory for the coalition led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett over his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, who sought to undermine parliamentary negotia...
(JNS) - Part of a 140-member Israeli delegation to Glasgow, Scotland, to attend the 26th U.N. Climate Change Convention, Environment Minister Tamar Zandberg tells JNS how she assesses the role that the Jewish state can play in the global effort, and the environmental and economic benefits it will bring to the country. Q: Israelis generally don't take environmental issues seriously. There is litter and illegal dumping. Water sources are dirty. Air quality is often poor. Why start addressing the...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Friday that six Palestinian NGOs will be listed as terror organizations for their close ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. “Those organizations were active under the cover of civil society organizations, but in practice belong and constitute an arm of the [PFLP] leadership, the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel,” he announced. “The security organizations will continue to act and intensify the strikes against terrori...
(Israel21C via JNS) - If there's proof that you can't go anywhere in Israel without stumbling on some kind of ancient artifact, it's got to be the news this morning that a scuba diver has discovered an ancient Crusader sword on the sea bed off the Carmel coast in the north of the country. Atlit resident Shlomi Katzin was diving off the coast at the beach in Carmel on Saturday when he spotted ancient artifacts lying on the sea bed, uncovered apparently by shifting sands. Katzin saw ancient stone...
(JTA) — After more than a year and a half of largely closed doors, Israel just moved one step closer to allowing tourists back into the country — as long as they are vaccinated. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and the country’s health minister Nitzan Horowitz approved a plan Thursday that would allow foreign tourists back into the country beginning Nov. 1. The plan still has to be formally approved by the government. Since the beginning of the pandemic, tourists have only been allowed to enter the country with special approval and have be...
(JNS) - Israel's Upper Galilee region is positioning itself to become a global leader in foodtech. Several food-tech and agritech accelerators and companies have established themselves in Israel's northern "periphery," where the Israeli government provides incentives for individuals and businesses to establish themselves there. The region boasts open and fertile land that brings forth some of Israel's top produce, as well as an ecosystem of budding infrastructure - public bodies and...
(JNS) — Michael Oren says he has been “integrally linked to the Jewish Agency” for years. The former Israeli ambassador to the United States and former Knesset member is one of eight candidates to head the organization. He has a long history with the Jewish Agency for Israel, which he hopes will continue with him at its helm. According to Oren, 66, the Jewish Agency used to be viewed “as a sinecure for politicians.” “That practice seriously impaired [its] image and effectiveness,” he said. “It would be tragic if now, at this most critical t...
Israeli activists, philanthropists and aid workers have helped rescued 125 Afghans at risk from Taliban retribution in a complex and hush hush operation that happened earlier this month. The Afghans, which include judges, human rights activities, journalists, TV presenters, scientist, artists, diplomats, artists and even cyclists, arrived in Albania on October 2nd, after being evacuated from Afghanistan to a neighboring country. The operation took weeks to arrange and was a collaborative effort...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Yair Lapid got what he wanted out of his Washington visit: the word “every,” instead of “other.” During Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s first meeting with President Biden in August, the American president, despite his desire to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, said that if Iran does not engage in good faith diplomacy with the nations involved in the deal, the U.S. would consider “other options” in getting Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions. It was a sign that Israel and U.S. Democrats, long far apart in their opinions o...
The six finalists for the 2022 Genesis Prize have just been released. The Foundation is asking the global Jewish community to vote for their favorite. Last year, they engaged over 3 million people via social media and 200K from six continents voted. The Prize Committee then selected Steven Spielberg as our 2021 Laureate. The finalists for the 2022 Genesis Prize are: • Albert Bourla (Greece/US), Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, under whose leadership the company delivered a COVID vaccine in record time • Sacha Baron Cohen (UK), Award-winning act...
(JNS) — Hundreds of Google and Amazon employees have signed a public letter demanding that the tech giants cancel Project Nimbus, a billion-dollar contract to provide public cloud computing services to Israel. In the letter, published by The Guardian on Tuesday, the authors state that they were “morally obliged” to speak out against the project, calling on Amazon and Google to cancel the contract and sever all ties with the Israeli military. “We cannot look the other way, as the products we build are used to deny Palestinians their basic rights...
(Israel21c via JNS) — The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine loses considerable effectiveness six months after the second dose, according to new Israeli research published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study echoes findings published by Pfizer and Kaiser Permanente in Lancet earlier in the week, showing the vaccine’s effectiveness drops from 88 to 47 percent after six months. This study also proved the vaccine 90 percent effective for at least six months at preventing hospitalization of infected people. The Israeli study inv...
More than Facebook crashing, news in Israel this week has been about the vague announcement and gripping story of efforts to locate Ron Arad, an Israeli Air Force officer who has been missing in action since October 1986. Ron Arad was a 28-year-old Lieutenant Colonel whose plane crashed during a mission over Lebanon. It is believed he is dead, though there are conflicting reports as to when and how he died. Arad and his pilot Yishai Aviram ejected from their plane, damaged when a bomb apparently exploded prematurely. Aviram was located and...
(JNS) — In his address to the U.N. General Assembly on Friday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas demanded that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders or face consequences. “If the Israeli occupation authorities continue to entrench the reality of one apartheid state as is happening today, our Palestinian people and the entire world will not tolerate such a situation,” he said in a pre-recorded video. “Circumstances on the ground will inevitably impose equal and full political rights for all on the land of historical Palestine, within...
(JTA) — Three Israelis have been arrested for an attack on Palestinian residents of the West Bank that sent a three-year-old to the hospital over the Jewish holiday of Shemini Atzeret. The attack came amid a week in which several Palestinian terror suspects have been killed in the West Bank and Jerusalem. A man in Gaza who Israeli troops said was carrying a “suspicious bag” was also shot dead Thursday, according to the Times of Israel. On Tuesday afternoon, dozens of Israeli settlers entered the Palestinian village of Khirbat al-Mufkara, throw...
(JTA) - Israel captured the remaining two Palestinian prisoners of the six who riveted the country with their escape from a maximum facility two weeks ago. Israeli police and army troops surrounded a building in Jenin in the West Bank on Saturday night. The two remaining prisoners emerged and surrendered. They were Iham Kamamji, 35, who was convicted in the 2006 murder of Eliyahu Asheri, an Israeli 18-year-old who had asked Kamamji for a ride near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, and Monadal...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and his Arab-Israeli coalition partner Mansour Abbas thinks he knows why. “It all comes down to courage,” Abbas, the leader of the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, writes in the accompanying blurb explaining why his political opposite was recognized on the list published Wednesday. “After four elections in two years, a bold act was needed to unite a country frayed by political stalemate and brought...
(JNS) "Israel is your home away from home," Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a message on Sept. 2, ahead of the Jewish New Year. His address was aimed at "the people of Israel and the Jewish people at large," which he referred to as his "extended family." Herzog was previously head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, where, as one of his stated objectives, he worked to provide a platform for all Jewish communities around the world. Today, the Jewish Agency's top position has yet to be...
(JNS) The dramatic escape of six Palestinian terrorists from Gilboa Prison in northern Israel last Monday carries the potential of a broader security escalation, a former defense official has cautioned. Col. (res.) David Hacham, a former Arab-affairs adviser to seven Israeli defense ministers and a senior research associate at the Miryam Institute, told JNS that the breakout could lead to a chain of incidents and an escalation dynamic, although this is not a certainty. He recalled a highly relevant precedent from the 1980s. In May 1987, six...
JERUSALEM (JTA) - Amit Zakoon's flower business started with a seed - literally - but it quickly grew into one of Jerusalem's premier purveyors of luxury sukkahs. "We work for all the rich and famous," Zakoon, the owner and CEO of Yarok Yarok Events Design, told JTA. Studio Ya Ya, as Zakoon's clients call the business, is known for executing weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and parties for Jerusalem's A-list, including visiting U.S. presidents (from Bush to Obama) to big-time philanthropists like the...
The Arava Desert in Israel's south is "abuzz" with activity - and it is all thanks to one important six-legged critter: the humble honeybee. In a world where scientists acknowledge the important role bees play in our ecosystem yet worry about their dwindling numbers, farmers in Israel's Arava Desert are working to grow bee colonies – and they are already achieving some very "sweet" results. You would not expect to find a bee colony in the middle of a desert, yet the bees at Porat Farm in Ein Yah...
