Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Prominent figures on Israel’s right are furious with Defense Minister Benny Gantz for telling London-based Saudi news outlet Asharq Al-Awsat in a recent interview that he does not envision full regional peace without the Palestinians, and that Jerusalem had enough room to include a future Palestinian capital. When asked about the status of Jerusalem, Gantz was quoted as saying, “Jerusalem must remain united, but it will include a place for a Palestinian capital. It is a very big city and full of places sacred to us al...
(JTA & JNS) - Israel's Knesset, or parliament, dissolved Tuesday night after failing to pass the 2020 budget, triggering the need for a new election. The exact date could change through a government vote. However, since a new election must take place three months after the collapse of the Knesset, the next round is scheduled for March 23. The election will be Israel's fourth in two years. The move came after weeks of infighting and paralysis amid the so-called unity government that was formed la...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - The peace deal with Morocco is the fourth accord between Israel and an Arab state to sideline the Palestinian issue. While the leaders of Abu Dhabi, Manama and Khartoum had all pledged their continued commitment to the Palestinians' statehood aspirations, at the end of the day, none of them opted to place Ramallah's interests ahead of their own. As with the peace deals with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, here, too, the United States, which brokered the accords, hi...
(Israel21C via JNS) - Immigrants from the Jewish "lost tribe" of Bnei Menashe landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport this week to build a new life in Israel. Hailing from Northeast India, the Bnei Menashe community is said to be descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel - specifically, the tribe of Menashe - that scattered across the globe after being exiled at the end of the First Temple period in the eighth century BCE. The 252 new immigrants, who made their way to Israel this week with...
Israel on Monday decided to ban the entry of all non-citizens into the country for the next 10 days in a bid to keep a new mutated version of the coronavirus from reaching the country. It also decided to send citizens to coronavirus hotels to quarantine. “We have, at the moment, a new pandemic that is spreading, with a virus which we do not yet know about. This mutation could also be coronavirus 2,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “Therefore, I decided last night — and we implemented today — to close the skies of the State of Israel. F...
(ISRAEL21c ) - Pink, green, orange and blue plastic chairs permeate the intersection between HaShuk and Levinsky streets. Dozens of 20-somethings recline into them, nestled into this corner of Florentin, a southern Tel Aviv neighborhood that remains a cradle for conversations and socializing deep into the autumn months. Wine bottles, many at least half-empty, are littered around the legs of the colorful chairs and the people who have claimed them. A melody from a live trumpet player drifts into...
(Israel21C via JNS) - Moringa and turmeric aren't well-known crops in Israel. But when the ones being cultivated at Kibbutz Shluchot in the north of the country reach the market, you can rest assured that they grew in the most supportive and caring atmosphere. For the past nine months, they've been grown by adults with special needs as part of their work at an NGO called Shai Asher that provides them with a meaningful employment experience, constituting a stepping stone toward a more...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — With Israel poised to begin rolling out COVID-19 vaccinations, a new poll indicates that a little more than a third of Israelis say they won’t take the shots. According to an Israel Hayom poll, 37 percent of respondents said they will not take the vaccine, while 19 percent would neither confirm nor deny they planned to get vaccinated. Forty-four percent of respondents said they planned to get the vaccine. The older the respondent, the more likely they were to say they planned to be inoculated. Among respondents 65 and...
Ten years ago, two Palestinian Arabs lay in prey on a pristine hiking trail on the slopes of the Judean mountains outside Jerusalem. Unlike terrorists who blow up buses, cafes, or attack civilians on the street, these men waited for their victims to come to them, knowing that on the beautiful sunny Shabbat day, people would flock to this well-known area. Two women, good friends, happened upon the terrorists in hiding, and became their victims. They were bound and gagged. The terrorists plotted...
(JTA) — Over 50,000 Israelis have visited the United Arab Emirates since the recent normalization pact between Israel and the UAE, according to a report this week in The Washington Post. That number is the result of only two weeks of open commercial flights between the countries, which agreed to open the diplomatic and tourism floodgates in a historic agreement signed in August. Tens of thousands more were expected to visit during the Hanukkah holiday, according to the Post. The report also said that the Jewish community center in Dubai, the UA...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a candle-holder from the Hasmonean period in the City of David in Jerusalem. The 2,000-year-old lantern, which has been preserved in its entirety, was discovered during excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, led by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Ir David Foundation. Archaeologists were excavating the road that was used for pilgrimages in the days of the Second Temple about 2,000 years ago. The road is nearly 600 meters...
Former Orlando Jewish community resident and daughter of Arnold Stein, Lori Erlich, has sent Heritage an update about the progress of Kehilat Yonatan, the Reform/Progressive synagogue and cultural/education center in Hod Hasharon, Israel. Kehilat Yonatan was founded in 2001 and is named in the memory of Rabbi Michael Boyden's son, Israel Defense Forces paratrooper Yonatan Boyden, who was killed in action in Lebanon in 1993. In 2014, Erlich and her husband, Moshe, visited the Heritage office to...
(JTA) - As Israel received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Twitter that he aimed to be the first person in the country to receive the inoculation. "We brought the vaccines to Israel! I intend to be the first in Israel to get vaccinated, to set an example for all Israeli citizens," Netanyahu tweeted. Recent surveys of Israelis found that a majority are fearful of the vaccines and would not want to be included in the first set of...
(ISRAEL21c via JNS) - In preparation for the flu season and the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines needing special refrigeration, three mobile vaccination caravans were commissioned by Magen David Adom, Israel's national organization responsible for emergency pre-hospital medical care and blood services. Stationed at the National Operations Center in Kiryat Ono, near Tel Aviv, the six-meter (19.6-foot) caravans can offer flu vaccinations and coronavirus testing around the country until the COVID-19...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The Knesset still has not dispersed, and a date for the next election has not been set. But the turmoil in the anti-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu camp continued unabated and even intensified over the weekend. Blue and White leader Benny Gantz is fighting Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid; Moshe Ya’alon is squabbling with both of them; and the names Gadi Eizenkot and Ron Huldai are being bandied about in an ultimate effort to replace Netanyahu as premier. The former political allies, Gantz and Lapid, visited the tel...
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...
