Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — On Sunday afternoon, Ben Shapiro, the editor emeritus of The Daily Wire, ascended to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to pray with his parents and a group of followers. Shapiro’s first visit to the Temple Mount was during the holiday of Sukkot back in October 2019. That visit was cut short after someone in his group was found to be carrying a willow branch in his pocket as a mitzvah for the last day of Sukkot, leading to the group’s removal from the holy site. While waiting for security to clear the group to enter the complex this time...
JERUSALEM (JTA) - Joe Biden became the first U.S. president to attend the Maccabiah Games on Thursday. The audience at the opening ceremony of the 21st Maccabiah games showered Biden with affection as thousands cheered "Joe" repeatedly and shouted things like "we love you Mr. President" at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem. Biden, flanked by Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, waved a baseball cap emblazoned with the letters USA for several minutes as the crowd...
JERUSALEM (JTA) - After releasing a joint statement that demonstrates unity on the need to counter the Iranian nuclear threat, U.S. president Joe Biden and Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid gave statements that demonstrate radical differences in their approach to doing so. The document released on Thursday, the second day of Biden's visit to Israel, is a 1,500-word statement titled "The Jerusalem Declaration on the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership." It states that the United States is...
(JNS) - Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday evening welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden at the President's Residence in Jerusalem. Referring to Herzog by his nickname, Biden wrote in the President's Residence guestbook, "Bougie, my friend, thank you for all you and your family have done to deepen the ironclad bond between our two great countries." "From our shared Irish roots to our shared love of Israel, we are united in heart and spirit. May our friendship endure and continue to grow!...
JERUSALEM (JTA) - Joe Biden dispensed with both social distancing and the chair arranged for him Wednesday as he embraced two Holocaust survivors, then knelt to speak with them during his first trip to Israel as U.S. president. "I'm very excited about the meeting and also a little scared of it," Rene Quint, 86, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency ahead of the scheduled encounter - a brief conversation that she and another survivor, Giselle Cycowicz, 95, were scheduled to have with Biden at Yad...
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Joe Biden kicked off his 10th trip to Israel — and first as U.S. president — on Wednesday by declaring that the relationship between the two countries is “bone-deep.” Biden told Israeli President Isaac Herzog “I am home,” according to Herzog’s office, and he attempted to prove it right away. Speaking at Ben Gurion Airport, Biden recounted his extensive personal history with Israel, including a 1973 meeting with then-prime minister Golda Meir that is a favorite — if sometimes embroidered — anecdote. “Now as president, I’m pro...
A major American Jewish organization objected Monday to Israel presenting U.S. President Joe Biden its Presidential Medal of Honor during his visit to the country Wednesday, saying that he does not deserve it. The stated reason for giving the award is to thank Biden for being “a true friend of Israel,” his “decades-long commitment to Israel’s security,” deepening the U.S.-Israel alliance, and “his struggle against anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hatred around the world.” “This award makes no sense,” Zionist Organization of America National...
(JNS) - Thirty-five mothers of lone soldiers currently in Israel on a special trip with the Momentum organization thought they were attending an educational seminar at the new Nefesh B'Nefesh Campus in Jerusalem on June 8 when they were surprised by their children serving in the Israel Defense Forces. The mothers, many of whom hadn't seen their sons or daughters since last year, arrived in Israel on July 4 from all over the world, including the United States, Canada, Argentina, Australia,...
(JNS) - Broadcasting the Summer Olympic Games is a massive operation, with more than 7,000 personnel covering 28 sports utilizing 1,000-plus cameras, taking the games global. For the first time, the so-called Jewish Olympics will be broadcast around the world from July 12-26 with slightly more humble resources, though still requiring a herculean effort. The legendary former TV broadcaster for the NBA's Philadelphia 76ers, Marc Zumoff, is taking 14 hand-selected college and high school...
(JTA) — Yair Lapid might only be Israel’s interim prime minister, but he appears to be determined to maximize the position in the four months he is guaranteed to occupy it. In a speech delivered Saturday night, Lapid laid out a set of beliefs that he said bind Israelis of all ideologies, as well as his diagnosis for why widespread agreement on fundamental ideas hasn’t translated into political harmony. “The answer is politics,” he said in the speech, published in English by the Times of Israel and in adapted form in Hebrew by Lapid on Twitte...
(JTA) — Ben & Jerry’s has come out against its own parent company’s decision to sell the ice cream maker’s brand in Israel to an Israeli company that pledges to continue selling the products in both Israel and the West Bank. “While our parent company has taken this decision, we do not agree with it,” the Vermont-based frozen treat makers said on social media, hours after Unilever announced it would sell its Israel business interests in Ben & Jerry’s to the Israeli company American Quality Products Ltd. The Ben & Jerry’s statement also...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett won’t run in his country’s upcoming elections this fall, his office announced Wednesday, after he served as head of a fragile, now collapsing Knesset coalition for a little over a year. The announcement caught many in Israel by surprise given that Bennett had led the country for just a year and, as the leader of the right-wing Yamina party might well have won a role in any future government coalition. He indicated in his final speech to the Knesset that he would continue to support Yair Lapid...
(JTA) — Ahead of his first presidential visit to Israel, Joe Biden congratulated Yair Lapid on becoming prime minister on Thursday, following the resignation of his predecessor Naftali Bennett. “Congratulations to @YairLapid, Israel’s new Prime Minister, and thank you to Alternate Prime Minister @NaftaliBennett for your friendship over the past year. I look forward to seeing you both in July to celebrate the unbreakable U.S.-Israel partnership,” Biden wrote on Twitter shortly after Lapid assumed the premiership. Biden is scheduled to visit I...
(JTA) - Ian Kinsler is trading in his bat for a lineup card. The former All-Star second baseman will manage Team Israel in the upcoming 2023 World Baseball Classic. He currently has no plans to play for the team as well. The Jewish 14-year MLB veteran played for Team Israel in the 2020 Olympics that were held last year, telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time that his goal was to raise the sport's profile in Israel. "Medaling for Team Israel would create that buzz," he said, and "obvio...
(JNS) - Israel appears set to head back to the polls after a "change coalition" has failed to hold its razor-thin majority, barely a year after its formation. Elections are likely to be held on Oct. 25, just after the conclusion of the Jewish High Holidays. The elections would be the fifth in just three-and-a-half years. Meanwhile, according to the coalition's complicated rotation agreement, Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid will tentatively become a caretaker "transitional" prime minister wit...
(JNS) — With the dramatic announcement on June 20 by coalition leaders Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid of their intention to dissolve Israel’s government, the nation began bracing itself for its fifth round of elections in three years. A proposed date of Oct. 25 has already been set. However, elections could still be avoided if opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu succeeds in forming a government before the Knesset is dissolved. Can he do it? Netanyahu currently controls 55 Knesset seats. He needs 61, a bare minimum majority in Israel’s 120-s...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid have agreed to disband the current Knesset and head to new elections. A preliminary bill will tentatively be brought during the upcoming parliamentary session on June 27. If the motion to disband passes, it will be brought into the parliamentary committee and get sent back to the Knesset, where it will need to pass three formal readings. If the Knesset officially votes to disband, Lapid, who currently serves as foreign minister, will become a transitional p...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — After returning to full operations in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is having difficulty coping with heavy passenger traffic as the summer travel season gets underway. Even though the airport has reopened Terminal 1 and airport director Shmuel Zakai is on the floor himself helping conduct security checks, the lines remain long. Zakai has said that the airport is having difficulty recruiting new staff and is facing a shortage of some 1,000 workers. Zakai said he expects it...
(JNS) — Researchers at Tel Aviv University have published encouraging test results of a procedure that could lead to a one-time treatment for patients with HIV. The study was led by Adi Barzel, Ph.D., and Ph.D. student Alessio Nehmad of the school of neurobiology, biochemistry and biophysics at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and the Dotan Center for Advanced Therapies, in collaboration with Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, and additional researchers in Israel and the United States. The treatment involves the use of the CRI...
(JNS) - As European and American negotiating teams continue to convene in Vienna in an attempt to sign a new nuclear deal with Iran, the Iranian people have taken to the streets to protest the rising cost of living. Food and gasoline prices have risen, and clean water is scarce. Unemployment is high, and prices of goods have skyrocketed. Western media outlets will have readers believe that Iran's economy is tanking due to United States-led sanctions only, but there is more to the story; in...
(JNS) — A Knesset vote to renew a law, set to expire on June 30, that applies Israel’s legal system to citizens in Judea and Samaria, and has been in force as “emergency regulations” since the Six-Day War of 1967, went down in defeat on Monday night. Although these regulations have been extended without fanfare every five years, this time the government failed to muster the required votes and the bill failed to pass, 58 to 52. The law failed despite the opposition party led by former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supporting it in princip...
At least 70,000 Israeli from all over the country proudly participated in the Flag Parade celebrating Jerusalem’s Day on Sunday night, ignoring Hamas’ threat to attack Israel. The Jerusalem Day celebrations, marking the victory during the 1967 Six-Day War and the reunification of Israel’s capital, include a parade in which tens of thousands of Israelis march with flags through the city’s center and then through the Old City while entering it through the Damascus Gate. In one of the most joyful and memorable marches in recent years, familie...
(JTA) — Jewish extremists shouted racist slogans and clashed with Palestinians during a heavily policed Jerusalem Day march, but there were no major injuries at an event that last year was among the spurs to a deadly conflict. Police said 50,000 Jews marched through the Old City on Sunday, Jerusalem Day, the Hebrew calendar anniversary of Israel’s capture of the area in the 1967 Six-Day War. A record 2,600 Jews visited the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism, which is also the sight of a mosque enclave among the holiest in Islam. A num...
(JNS) — Israel has boosted the deployment of its air-defense systems due to concerns that Iran could retaliate for the May 22 assassination of a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officer in Tehran, Kan News reported on Monday. The move comes after the National Security Council took the unusual step on Monday of updating a travel advisory to Turkey, citing a tangible threat of Iranian attack on Israeli nationals there. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told a weekly government meeting that “the era of immunity for Ira...
(JNS) — The Jewish presence in the Galilee is shrinking — in part, critics say, because of government policies that effectively discriminate against Jews in favor of Arabs, who constitute the vast majority of the area’s inhabitants. The stakes are high, say those warning of the danger, noting that a large ethnic minority controlling a significant bloc of territory can lead to irredentist movements. “The issue also exists in the Negev with the Bedouin, but the problem in the Galilee is much more serious,” Bentzi Lieberman, chairman of the Shilo...
