Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 2015
(JNS) - U.S. President Donald Trump warmly welcomed a delegation of former hostages and family members to the White House on Thursday. In a message shared by the White House, he told them: "You're not a hostage anymore ... today you're heroes." The delegation consisted of 26 former hostages, including 17 of the 20 living captives who were released in the Gaza ceasefire deal that Trump brokered in October. Trump handed each member of the delegation a special presidential coin. In his remarks to a...
(JTA) - A silver Tiffany & Co. menorah from the year 2000. A bronze, 23-inch tall Statue of Liberty menorah made in 1986 in New Jersey by German-born artist Manfred Anson. A silver Chanukah lamp, inlaid with carnelian stones, that was made in the early 20th century at the Bezalel school in Jerusalem. These are just a few of the 35 unique and historic menorahs that famed auction house Christie's is selling ahead of the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, which this year begins on Dec. 14. The menorahs,...
(JNS) — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department task force to combat Jew-hatred, were among the honorees awarded for speaking out on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday. Speaking at the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” gala, Fetterman said that the more people “back away from Israel,” the more he would “lean in stronger.” “What Hamas has started was a full-on war against civilization and trying to destroy Israel,...
(JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League released a report on Friday detailing how prompts can produce antisemitism, extremism and violence in text-to-video artificial intelligence tools despite safeguards that companies have put in place. Text-to-video AI tools generate videos from written prompts. The ADL says that misleading and disturbing materials produced with that technology have been “leveraged to sow confusion and division following newsworthy events or tragedies.” The companies that created and run the tools are supposed to have safeg...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office alongside Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City, that the two had “a great meeting.” “A really good, a very productive meeting,” Trump said. “We have one thing in common. We want this city of ours, which we love, to do really well.” Trump said of Mamdani, a socialist who has said that he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested in New York City, that “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.” “I met with a man who really wants to see N...
(JNS) — A new watchdog report alleges that the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “the largest and most financially significant branch of the national CAIR network,” paid $1,000 to anti-Israel campus activists disciplined by their universities. The report—conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Intelligent Advocacy Network—states that CAIR-CA “started an education fund to ‘help students targeted for their pro-Palestine advocacy on college campuses’ and solicited over $64,000 in donations....
The U.S. House of Representatives voted 400 to 15 on Monday to pass a bill that aims to stop what its author, Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.), calls the growing terror threat of “vehicle-based attacks.” H.R. 1608 cites the Jan. 1 attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, in which the attacker drove into a crowd and then shot at police officers. The attacker killed 14 people and injured dozens of others. The bill calls on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to submit a classified report to Congress within 180 days assessing “the current and em...
Historically, unflavored beers have been generally assumed to be kosher, but the stout and bitter truth is that craft brewing has introduced recipes that extend beyond water, hops, barley and yeast, per a Nov. 17 letter from the Orthodox Union certification service that spread on social media. There is now a “proliferation of flavored beers, diverse additives and shared equipment that can compromise the kosher status of even seemingly straightforward brews,” per the letter attributed to the OU. (JNS sought comment from the kosher cer...
(JNS) - Starship Bagel of Dallas won the Best Bagel award at this year's New York BagelFest, a competition that brought bakeries from across the globe to Citi Field in Flushing, N.Y., on Nov. 16. In addition to taking home the top prize in the festival's blind-tasting category, the Dallas bagel shop also earned wins in multiple subcategories, including Best New York Style Bagel and Best Showmanship, as well as placements in Most Creative and Schmear of the Year. New York BagelFest 2025, sponsore...
(JNS) - When David Letterman took the stage at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Nov. 8 in Los Angeles, he wasn't just paying tribute to a friend and frequent guest on his late-night talk show. He was paying forward a piece of Jewish-American rock history. During his final appearance on Letterman's Late Show in 2002, Warren Zevon, who was terminally ill, performed "Keep Me in Your Heart." He later gifted his guitar to the comedian. Letterman brought that guitar to the Nov. 8 cer...
(JNS) — Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) lashed out at conservative firebrand and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson Saturday, calling him “the most dangerous antisemite in America.” Fine didn’t mince words on the third day of the four-day Republican Jewish Coalition annual legislative conference, taking place this weekend in Las Vegas. “Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous antisemite in America,” Fine told the 1,000 participants, making this year’s conference one of the more well-attended. “He has chosen to take on the mantle of leader of moder...
Zohran Mamdani has been elected mayor of New York City, delivering a decisive win in a three-way race that divided and in many cases distressed the city's Jews. Mamdani received a significant enough majority of votes that major news agencies declared the election less than 40 minutes after polls closed in the city, following the highest turnout in more than half a century. The results mean that Mamdani, a 34-year-old democratic socialist who ran on a platform of affordability, will now have a...
(JNS) — On the first day of the Jewish National Fund-USA’s annual Global Conference, held in the heart of South Florida’s extensive Jewish community from Oct. 23-26, CEO Russell Robinson met with representatives from cities not particularly known as bastions of American Judaism. It’s part of a basic business strategy, Robinson told those in attendance. “If you’re not forecasting where your customer acquisition is going to be, if you’re not looking at your customer base and examining those pieces, you won’t be in business long,” he said....
(JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League and the law firm Gibson Dunn announced a partnership earlier this week to launch a nationwide legal network providing free legal services to victims of antisemitism. The new Legal Action Network, which the ADL said comes in response to “a sustained surge of violence and hate toward Jews and Jewish institutions across the United States,” brings together 39,000 lawyers across 35 states, with 40 law firms agreeing to take client referrals or serve as co-counsel. “For decades, victims of antisemitism have come to...
He was elected to represent Astoria, Queens, in New York’s state Assembly and is running to helm New York City. But Zohran Mamdani has called the Palestinian cause “central to my identity,” both in and out of politics. Mamdani consistently and proudly associates with the pro-Palestinian movement in high-profile settings across New York City. Shortly after delivering a stunning upset in the mayoral primary, for instance, he took the stage with Mahmoud Khalil, the pro-Palestinian protest leader who was detained by the Trump administration, at co...
(JNS) — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who used an appearance before the Heritage Foundation last month to attack Tucker Carlson over the former Fox News host’s anti-Israel rhetoric, blasted him again Thursday after the head of the conservative think tank refused to disavow the right-wing firebrand. Cruz didn’t mention Carlson by name as he kicked off the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual legislative conference in Las Vegas with a call to action to stop the spread of anti-Israel talk among young Christians. But he left no doubt to whom he was ref...
(JNS) — A prominent American evangelical leader said Thursday that the faith-based Christian community needs to take a more verbal stand against antisemitism, and “shut down” people like the right-wing political commentators Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson who feed hatred of Jews and Israel. The unequivocal remarks come at a time when polls show a drop in support for Israel among young evangelicals due to the fallout from the two-year war in Gaza and follow last month’s assassination of the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was...
(JNS) — Four in 10 Jewish Americans say they try to hide their religious identity, according to a new Washington Post poll that also reported almost one in three respondents saying they don’t feel safe as a Jew in the United States. In the survey, 42 percent of respondents said they do not wear, carry or display anything in public that could identify them as Jewish, with 58 percent saying they do. In an American Jewish Committee poll taken in November 2023, a month after Oct. 7, just 26 percent said they hid their Jewish identity, while 73 perc...
(JNS) — Jewish families have been banned from living in Saudi Arabia for dec-ades. Is this the model that Democratic House leaders now support for Judea and Samaria? When 178 House Democrats signed a letter on Sept. 25 to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposing any Israeli move to annex territory in the West Bank, they weren’t just making a policy statement but endorsing a future where no Jews would live in Judea and Samaria. Do they believe that Jews should be barred from living in their ancestral homeland—the biblical heart...
Washington, D.C. — Today, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law distributed a letter to major U.S. film industry organizations caution-ing that the recent “Film Workers Pledge to End Complicity” (aka “The Holly-wood Blacklist”) violates federal and state civil rights laws and marginalizes Jewish and Israeli voices in entertainment. In a clear display of illegal anti-Semitic discrimination, the pledge, circulated by Film Workers for Palestine, commits signatories not to screen, appear at, or work with Israeli film institu-tions...
(JNS) — The FBI is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, Kash Patel, director of the federal U.S. law enforcement agency, stated in a pair of social media posts last week. Patel blamed the ADL partnership on his predecessor, James Comey, who the U.S. Justice Department indicted last month for allegedly making false statements and obstruction of justice. Those allegations relate to Senate testimony he gave about the 2016 investigation into potential links between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia....
(JNS) - Edan Alexander, the last living American hostage who was freed in May after 584 days in Hamas captivity, was honored with a street named for him in the borough in which he grew up. "To have a road named here in the place I call home is something I never would have imagined," Alexander said during a ceremony before the street sign was unveiled. "Every time I see this road, I will remember not just the struggle but the love and unity that brought me back home." Alexander, who was...
On too many college campuses today, Jewish students aren’t asking for special treatment — they’re asking to be able to study in peace. Recently, that basic expectation has been shattered. Into that breach stepped Mothers Against College Antisemitism — a parent-led network that rocketed from a Facebook group to a national force almost overnight, now with more than 63,000 members. Their premise is simple: If universities won’t protect Jewish students from harassment and open calls for their eradication, parents will. Elizabeth Rand, attorney...
(JNS) — The U.S. Justice Department announced on Monday that it filed a civil complaint against those who “engaged in a coordinated effort to intimidate and disrupt Jewish worshipers” on Nov. 13, 2024. The department filed the suit under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which former President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994 to protect those seeking abortions and attending religious services and abortion clinics and houses of worship. The federal complaint alleges that the defendants—including Party for Sociali...
(JNS) — The U.S. Postal Service dedicated a new, two-ounce stamp honoring Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, during a first-day-of-issue ceremony on Tuesday at the 92nd Street Y on New York City’s Upper East Side. The 18th which the Postal Service has issued in its distinguished Americans series, the stamp features a black-and-white portrait of Wiesel. It will serve as a permanent rate stamp for two-ounce mail. The half-hour ceremony drew about 100 people, inc...
