Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 2043
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...
(JNS) - Legendary Jewish film director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday afternoon, according to TMZ. The outlet cited law enforcement sources in reporting that the couple suffered lacerations consistent with a knife attack. A family member is being questioned by investigators, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press. Reports indicate that the suspect is the couple's son, Nick, who has a long history of drug...
(JNS) — Rosie the Riveter may get a spot on the National Mall in Washington. The House of Representatives, without dissent, approved legislation for a memorial on or near the Mall to honor the women who took up jobs traditionally held by men when the latter went off to fight World War II. Congress approved such a memorial in 2022, but Tuesday’s vote authorized its placement on the Mall, the grassy area between the U.S. Capitol and Lincoln Memorial and the site of numerous demonstrations in the nation’s capital. It would join the memor...
(JNS)— A gunman opened fire during a final exam review for the economics class of a Brown University professor, who also teaches Jewish studies courses, in Providence, R.I., on Saturday afternoon, killing two and wounding nine, according to law enforcement, officials and media reports. On Monday morning, law enforcement said a person of interest was in custody. Rachel Friedberg, teaching professor of economics and faculty associate of the Judaic studies program and of the population studies and training center at Brown, reportedly said that the...
(JNS) — The Redlands, Calif., Police Department, located some 60 miles east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino Valley, said that it is investigating both what it called an incident targeting a Jewish family and a “potential hate crime.” A Jewish family in Redlands had just returned home on Friday evening when “a vehicle drove past the victims’ residence, yelled an antisemitic slur and fired several shots,” the department stated at about 10:30 a.m. local time on Sunday. The department said that there were no injuries nor damage, and officers di...
(JNS) — The most powerful Jewish official in Washington introduced a resolution Monday that condemns white supremacy and antisemitism and specifically calls out far-right provocateurs Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. The resolution introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), which every other Senate Democrat co-sponsored, is a response to Carlson’s recent friendly interview with Holocaust denier Fuentes. “Antisemitism and white supremacy and, indeed, neo-Naziism—just saying the words send shudders down one’s spine—are...
(JNS) - The importance of the City of David, the capital of ancient Israel, and specifically its Pilgrimage Road, was the topic of discussion at an event featuring U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and former IDF Spokesman Maj. (res.) Doron Spielman at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem on Dec. 9. The ancient site's excavation has aroused worldwide opposition. The Pilgrimage Road, a Second Temple-era route, connects the Pool of Siloam to the Temple Mount. It is located just south...
Dr. Michael Lozman's dream of a permanent Holocaust Memorial in the Capital Region of New York became a reality on Dec. 1, 2025, when Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation establishing a New York State memorial to honor Holocaust victims and survivors. "With the first ever state-sponsored Holocaust Memorial, we are honoring the victims and survivors of the Holocaust while ensuring that all visitors have a place to remember and reflect on what the Jewish community has endured," Governor...
(JNS) — The popular TV series “Dancing With the Stars” ushered in Chanukah a little early as part of an inaugural show, “Dancing With the Holidays,” which aired on Dec. 2. Alan Bersten, a Jewish dancer and choreographer, led the several-minute-long routine that featured themes of the Jewish holiday. “Growing up Jewish, you don’t really see a lot of Chanukah representation, so tonight we’re doing a special performance to celebrate,” Bersten said on the Tuesday-night show. “Hopefully, Jewish kids are watching this, and they feel seen and they...
(JNS) — Fraudulent programs that claimed to feed needy children and to support kids with autism in Minnesota stole billions of dollars in recent years, with some of the funding going overseas to Somalia and helping fund the Al-Shabaab Islamist terror group, according to a new report from City Journal, a Manhattan Institute publication. According to the report, a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future received $250 million in state funding. “Using fake meal counts, doctored attendance records and fabricated invoices, the perpetrators of the fra...
