Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 2052
(JNS)- Ayman Mohamad Ghazali, 41, of Dearborn Heights, drove a truck into the largest Reform temple in North America and opened fire on security guards, injuring one, in West Bloomfield, Mich., a suburb some 25 miles northwest of Detroit. The terrorist is confirmed dead, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office said. "At some point during the gunfight, Ghazali suffers a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," said Jennifer Runyan, FBI Detroit's special agent in charge. "He has no previous...
(JNS) — The Los Angeles Police Department said after an attack on a Detroit-area synagogue on Thursday that it was calling for unity against all forms of hate. The department “will continue working with our local, state, national and international partners to monitor developments and ensure the safety of all Angelenos,” it said. “Together, we stand united against hate and violence in all its forms.” The department identified the target as a “Jewish institution,” saying it was “deeply saddened” and stands “in solidarity with the Jewish communit...
(JNS) — In a moment that could have ended in tragedy, two rabbis from Temple Israel said preparation and training helped ensure that “everything went right” during a March 12 attack on the Reform congregation in suburban Detroit. The car-ramming and shooting attack at the synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., triggered lockdown procedures, a massive law-enforcement response and panic among parents rushing to their children. Authorities say Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, rammed a vehicle into the building and opened fire...
(JNS) — After a vehicle-ramming and shooting attack at a Michigan synagogue, Jewish advocacy groups are pressing Congress to resolve a funding impasse they say is delaying critical security support for vulnerable nonprofits. Authorities identified Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, as the suspect accused of driving a truck into Temple Israel, a large Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., before exchanging gunfire with armed security personnel. Ghazali was killed in the exchange, and the synagogue’s director of sec...
(JNS) — After a vehicle-ramming and shooting attack at a Michigan synagogue, Jewish advocacy groups are pressing Congress to resolve a funding impasse they say is delaying critical security support for vulnerable nonprofits. Authorities identified Mohamad Ghazali, 41, a U.S. citizen born in Lebanon, as the suspect accused of driving a truck into Temple Israel, a large Reform synagogue in West Bloomfield, Mich., before exchanging gunfire with armed security personnel. Ghazali was killed in the exchange, and the synagogue’s director of sec...
About one-third of $4,965,000 in security funding that Massachusetts gave to 167 nonprofits in the state went to Jewish organizations, including synagogues, according to a JNS analysis. Of the listed nonprofits, 55 (about 33%) were Jewish, and they received $1,606,876 (about 32%) of the funding, which came from the Commonwealth Nonprofit Security Grant Program and the Commonwealth Nonprofit Security Personnel Grant Program. In addition to the 55, Brandeis University, which states that it is “animated by a set of values that are rooted in Jewish...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump would have to end military action against Iran by the end of March unless Congress declares war or authorizes the use of force, according to a War Powers Resolution that a group of moderate House Democrats introduced. The resolution set a 30-day period that began on Feb. 28 for Trump to make the case to Congress and the American people to go to war. It would prevent the president from using ground troops without congressional approval, except for intelligence activities and search-and-rescue missions. It w...
Washington, D.C. — On March 4, Congressman Fine took to the House Floor to challenge Democrats after another Muslim terrorist killed innocent Americans in Texas over the weekend, as the Department of Homeland Security remains closed. The attack hit close to home. In the aftermath, Congressman Fine was alerted to a comment on his X page by investigative journalist Laura Loomer highlighting a message the Texas terrorist had sent to the congressman just months earlier. This direct communication from a terrorist should serve as a wake-up call to t...
(JNS) — More than 350 current and former University of California scholars signed a letter calling on the system’s regents to discuss a recent AMCHA Initiative report about antisemitism at their next meeting. Judea Pearl, a University of California, Los Angeles computer science professor and father of Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan in 2002, organized the letter with Ilan Benjamin, a distinguished professor emeritus of chemistry at UC Santa Cruz. At press time, 279 current and 89 for...
Ice hockey Team USA won the gold medal in a 2-1 overtime victory against Team Canada at the 2026 Winter Olympics over the weekend. The winning goal, scored in overtime, was made by Orlando-born, Jewish-American Jack Hughes, who plays center for the New Jersey Devils. This was the first Olympic gold for men's hockey since 1980. Making the winning goal made up for a tooth he lost in the third period when Florida Panthers and Team Canada forward Sam Bennett high-sticked him in the face, also...
(JNS) - Rev. Jesse Jackson, the American civil-rights leader, former aide to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a two-time Democratic Party presidential candidate, whose relationship with American Jews was marked by both cooperation and controversy, died on Feb. 17. He was 84 years old. Jackson rose to national prominence as a protégé of King during the civil-rights movement and later founded Operation PUSH in 1971 and the Rainbow Coalition during his first presidential campaign in 1984. The n...
Compiled by Christine DeSouza Early in January, International Space Station's Crew-11 were medically evacuated from the space station. Crew-12, comprised of a team of four, arrived on Feb. 14 to continue the months-long research mission. One of those Crew-12 members is Jewish American astronaut Jessica Meir, who serves as the crew's commander of Expedition 74/75. Meir and her crewmates - American Jack Hathaway, French astronaut Sophie Adenot and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev - blasted off...
(JNS) — A new House caucus focused on opposing Sharia law in the United States has expanded to 36 members from 18 states, according to Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), one of its co-founders. The Sharia Free America Caucus was founded by Self and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) following a conversation with Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) at the White House Christmas Party, according to Self. He told JNS that the caucus has three primary goals. “We think our missions and our goals are to, one, alert our colleagues in Congress to the dangers of the exp...
(JNS) — The Pulitzer Prize Board is facing scrutiny following the election of Vijay Iyer, a composer, pianist and professor at Harvard University with a documented history of anti-Israel bias and activism. A Jan. 25 announcement from the Pulitzer Prize Administrator’s Office, which also included the election of Julie Pace, senior vice president and executive editor of the Associated Press, stated that Iyer, a tenured professor of the arts at the Ivy League school with joint appointments in music and African and African American studies, and...
(JNS) - Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro says he has become more open about his Jewish faith following the massacre at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pa., and the Hamas attack against Israel and subsequent rising Jew-hatred. "As people have approached me and expressed to me the fear that they have to live openly about who they are in this country, I have felt the responsibility to be more open about my faith, to offer some comfort to them," Shapiro told a group of reporters at an event sponsored by th...
(JNS) — A year into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, experts are divided on how to grade the administration’s efforts to protect Jews on campus—an area that the White House and the U.S. Justice and Education Departments, among other agencies, have made a priority. In 2025, Columbia University, Northwestern University and Cornell University agreed to pay $221 million, $75 million and $60 millionrespectively to settle federal probes over alleged Jew-hatred, and the Trump administration has sought $500 million from Harvard Univers...
On Jan. 30, 2026, President Donald J. Trump announced his nomination of Kevin Maxwell Warsh to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve, succeeding Jerome Powell when Powell’s term concludes in May. Warsh was born in Albany, New York,[13] to a Jewish family, the youngest of three children of Judith and Robert Warsh. Warsh, 55, brings to the nomination a rare depth of experience in both public service and financial markets. A former Federal Reserve governor (2006–2011), he was the youngest member — confirmed at age 35 — ever appoint...
(JNS) — The city council of Burlington, Vt., rejected a resolution that would have put a nonbinding advisory question on the March ballot asking voters whether the mayor and city council should declare Burlington an “apartheid-free community.” The question would have also asked voters to urge the city to “join others in working to end all support to Israel’s apartheid regime, settler colonialism and military occupation.” The vote failed 57, marking the third consecutive year the council has blocked the measure. Opponents of the resolution,...
(JNS) — The Jewish community in Pasadena, Calif., is experiencing a “mix of emotion” as the one-year anniversary approaches of the Eaton Fire, which broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, and killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures, including the more than 100-year-old Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. Melissa Levy, executive director of the Conservative synagogue, told JNS that the community is feeling “resilient and hopeful but also still in a period of mourning.” “It’s a mix of emotion,” she said. “We’re mourning the loss of this re...
A Jewish American fighter pilot shot down over China in World War II was finally laid to rest on American soil last week, with dirt from Israel placed over his coffin. Lt. Morton Sher, who flew with the famed Flying Tigers, was buried on Sunday in a cemetery in Greenville, S.C., where his headstone and an empty grave have awaited him for 80 years. The oldest son of David and Anna Sher, he was born in Baltimore before his family moved to the South. Active at Congregation Beth Israel in...
Ken Paxton, attorney general for the state of Texas, has filed a legal response defending the state’s designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, after local CAIR chapters sued to block the move, according to a press release from Paxton’s office. The dispute stems from a Nov. 18 proclamation by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, declaring the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to be “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations” under Texas law. The...
(JNS) - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Thursday that disarming Hamas is "absolutely going to happen" and that he expects to see other countries in the region join the Abraham Accords next year. He spoke as U.S. President's Donald Trump's Gaza ceasefire plan is expected to move to its second stage next month following the president's anticipated meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida after Christmas. "The challenge of getting Hamas disarmed is not a goal...
(JNS) — Puka Nacua, a wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams, apologized on Thursday for performing an antisemitic touchdown dance online earlier in the week. Nacua appeared on a Dec. 16 livestream with Adin Ross, who is Jewish and has a history of controversial actions criticized for enabling antisemitism and racism, and a streamer who goes by the name “N3on.” Toward the end of the stream, Ross told Nacua that for his touchdown celebration dance, he should mirror Ross’s “iconic Jewish dance,” involving throwing the football down and spinnin...
(JNS) - Former U.S. senator Ben Sasse, who was president of University of Florida and of Midland University in Fremont, Neb., said on Tuesday that he has stage-four pancreatic cancer and is going to die. "Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff. It's a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too-we all do," he said in a lengthy statement. "I'm blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, 'Sure, you're on the...
(JNS) — House lawmakers responded to the attack on a Chanukah celebration in Sydney with new proposals to combat antisemitism in the United States and a measure condemning the shooting. On Wednesday, the chair and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee introduced a bipartisan resolution calling on the Australian government to protect its Jewish community and affirming the support of the House to combat antisemitism domestically. “As a Christian, I stand in solidarity with Australia’s Jewish community and the families of those...
