Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Thomas, pioneering journalist who retired following anti-Israel gibes, dies (JTA)—Helen Thomas, who paved the way for female journalists in Washington and beyond and retired after saying Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine,” has died. Thomas, who reported on every U.S. president from John F. Kennedy to Barack Obama working mostly for United Press International, died Saturday at her home in Washington from what was described as a long illness. She was 92. She was known for ending many... Full story
Twitter [has] agreed to release data identifying users to French authorities in response to a January ruling by a French court regarding anti-Semitic tweets posted last October under the hashtag #unbonjuif (#agoodjew). Users had jumped on the chance to tweet phrases like “a good Jew is a dead Jew,” ultimately forcing the French Jewish students’ union (UEJF) to file a lawsuit against Twitter for allowing that content to appear. [The] decision by Twitter was “a great victory in the fight against... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—During Ramadan, Muslim communities around the world experience a month of fasting, devotion and increased consciousness of their faith. They also remember those who are suffering around the world and seek an end to the forces of hatred that lead to violence against people of all faiths. The spirit of Ramadan, which lasts this year through Aug. 7, can serve as a positive force to bring people together and a powerful reminder of the common humanity that all people share. Muslim communities collect donations to aid those in n... Full story
RAMALLAH—Palestinians are torn between being happy that many have received permits to visit Jerusalem and Israel during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan (July 8-Aug. 7), and being concerned for the West Bank shops which will lose a great deal of business to stores in Israel. Ramadan is considered the holiest month in the Islamic calendar. Religious Muslims all over the world fast from sunrise to sunset. At the end of the month, Muslims celebrate Eid Al Fitr where they visit relatives or take a few days off to travel. On a recent morning, d... Full story
THE HAGUE, Netherlands—The intensity with which Israel reacted last week to new European guidelines prohibiting support for projects based in disputed territories surprised not only EU diplomats, but also their Israeli counterparts. The guidelines, which preclude already nonexistent EU grants to Israeli entities in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem, prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to convene an emergency meeting and release a sardonic statement t... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—“I was with him when” Ron Dermer laced his address to the 2009 American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. Dermer used the phrase five times in the first five minutes of the speech—the “him” being Benjamin Netanyahu. “I can shed a little insight into the mind of the Israeli prime minister,” Dermer told the crowd, “because on that I’m something of an expert.” Two elements of the address, made just weeks after Netanyahu assumed office, explain Dermer’s ascension la... Full story
With his attention focused on a situation that is stable, relative to its immediate surroundings, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has left many in Israel wondering if the U.S. has its foreign policy priorities straight—particularly in the Middle East. Kerry has visited Israel and the Palestinian territories five times since he started his new post in February (with the sixth, scheduled for July 11, expected to be canceled because of his wife’s health) in an effort to restart peace neg... Full story
If you click on the Israeli army’s new Hezbollah website, you will see a red and black logo that reads, “Hezbollah, Army of Terror.” The site is a combination of graphics, text and videos, all focusing on the Lebanese-based, Iran-proxy terrorist organization and its leader, Sheikh Hassan Na’srallah. One link refers back to what Israelis call the Second Lebanon War of 2006, and in fact, the site was launched on the seventh anniversary of that 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel that was triggered by a cross-border raid by Hezbollah fighter... Full story
GAZIANTEP, Turkey—Dr. Waja Muharram studied the tibia bone closely. The Syrian internist’s eyes darted back and forth as an American cardiovascular surgeon inserted and removed needles at a rapid pace, explaining how to provide trauma patients with intravenous fluids by tapping into the bone marrow. “We see so many victims who suffer from trauma,” noted the 41-year old Dr. Muharram. “This technique will be of great use to us in the field.” As Syria’s civil war, now in its third year, grows deadlier by the week, the country’s understaffed an... Full story
(JTA)—Until 2009, right-wing Portuguese politician Jose Ribeiro e Castro didn’t have much interest in the expulsion of his country’s Jewish community in the 16th century. That changed once Ribeiro e Castro opened a Facebook account. Online, the 60-year-old lawmaker and journalist connected to several Sephardic Jews, descendants of a once robust Jewish community numbering in the hundreds of thousands, many of whom were forced into exile in 1536 during the Portuguese Inquisition. Eventually the encounters morphed into a commitment to recti... Full story
Presidential bid coming? Perry says he’ll visit Israel (JTA)—Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in what observers see as a move signaling a possible White House run, said he is planning to visit Israel in October. Perry, who has announced that he will not run for a fourth term as Texas governor, told the Washington Times in an interview last Friday, “We will be going to Israel to bring together Arabs, Christian and Jews in an educational forum.” Political analysts believe the trip to the Jewish state s... Full story
Ahmad Kamal took a moment to wipe the sweat from his forehead. The searing summer heat was taking its toll on the 31 year old’s stamina. The obligatory fast from dawn to dusk pious Muslims observe during the month of Ramadan further weighed him down. “Our president was legitimately elected,” the mechanical engineer exclaimed as his passion spurred on a momentary burst of strength. Around him at the Raba’a al-Adawiyya mosque a crowd of men nodded in agreement. Though the Egyptian military has deposed President Mohamed Morsi and key figures... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)—The first arrows Roxana and Rafael Gonzalez launch at the upcoming 19th Maccabiah Games will take flight from their fingertips, but also from Jeffrey Sudikoff’s imagination. Roxana, 25, and Rafael, 24, are part of the first Cuban delegation to participate in the Maccabiah, a quadrennial sports competition that dates back to 1932. The siblings arrived July 3 in Israel from their native Cienfuegos to continue their archery training in advance of the games, which opened July 18.... Full story
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (JTA)—The new HIAS is not your grandmother’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and it’s certainly not the one that brought her mother over from the Pale of Settlement. After decades as the Jewish community’s foremost voice on immigration—first in leading the resettlement of Jews who arrived here at the turn of the 20th century, then in absorbing hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews in the 1980s and ‘90s—HIAS is making formal its shift to refugee care and resettlement overseas. The vast majority of its work will not be with Jews, and... Full story
CAIRO—When Brian Dennison was considering where to study Arabic abroad, the 23-year old’s choices were limited. Yemen? It has an al-Qaida affiliate that feasts on foreigners. Syria? It is enmeshed in a civil war where dodging fighter jet bombings is the latest fad. Saudi Arabia was too conservative and Lebanon too Western. Egypt seemed the perfect fit—it was full of quality Arabic schools, Westerners with whom to socialize and ancient ruins at which to marvel. But the Virginia native’s dream took an unexpected turn two weeks ago when the cou... Full story
(JTA)—In their Krakow home, Anna Makowka Kwapisiewicz and her husband, Piotr, skim through an online article about Poland’s recent ban on kosher slaughter. What they find even more disturbing than the actual news are the comments posted by other readers. Hundreds of comments calling on Jews to leave Poland have appeared beneath news articles in the days since the country’s parliament defeated a bill that would have reversed a ban on kosher slaughter, or shechitah, first imposed in Janua... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—When it comes to foreign assistance, American law couldn’t be clearer: A coup d’etat suspends funding, period. But the directive, which has persisted for years in federal appropriations bills, is clashing with another congressional priority: the apparent desire to foster an alternative to Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s democratically elected Islamist president who was removed from power this week by the Egyptian military. In recent months, Congress has intimated that it would be happier if Morsi’s secular foes in the military... Full story
ISTANBUL—The decadeslong conflict between the Turkish government and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is closer to an end than it ever has been before thanks to the ongoing peace negotiations, despite setbacks on both sides. The Kurds have been demanding separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan, or, at a minimum, more political and cultural rights for Kurds within Turkey. The strife has continued for more than 30 years and left some 40,000 dead on both sides. The Gezi Park protests in Istanbul (which spread acr... Full story
Israel should do all it can to help the new secular government in Egypt beat the Muslim Brotherhood, even if that means amending the Military Annex of the Camp David peace accords to allow more Egyptian military assets into the Sinai Peninsula, the former director of Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office Brig. Gen. (Res.) Nitzan Nuriel said Sunday. Speaking to Army Radio, Nuriel said a defeat for the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters in the Sinai would reverberate across the Middle East, and would be of huge str... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—It’s almost boilerplate: The American Jewish community asks a foreign leader with whom it has cultivated a close relationship to kindly tell firebrands in the leader’s government to pipe down and fall in with an established policy that happens to be embraced by the U.S. government. Greece? Romania? Hungary? Russia? Try Israel. In a rare rebuke of a sitting Israeli minister, three major centrist Jewish groups in recent weeks have criticized Naftali Bennett, the economics chief... Full story
Far from Kotel, Women of the Wall pray with police protection JERUSALEM (JTA)—Women of the Wall conducted its monthly prayer service at the Western Wall plaza with an occasional disturbance from protesters, but the worshipers were kept far from the wall itself. The women, who came to the holy site Monday morning to mark the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av, were blocked with barricades in the southern part of the plaza. The Western Wall was not in sight, blocked by the Mughrabi Bridge to t... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The large white poster is topped by a screaming headline written in large black letters: “Hell.” Posted on a wall in Jerusalem’s haredi Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood, the sign describes a development that threatens the community with “extinction” and “makes all living hearts tremble.” Known as a pashkvil in Yiddish, the signs are common in Mea Shearim, most of them announcing upcoming funerals or opportunities for Torah study. But several now predict impending doom... Full story
It’s the first day of school for Chani Dickman, an ultra-Orthodox woman in her 40s. She is one of 20 ultra-Orthodox women participating in a training course for medical coding—reading patients charts and diagnoses and assigning the proper codes that are used for insurance reimbursement. If she passes her exams, she is guaranteed a full-time job with HRS, a Baltimore-based company that does medical coding. She’ll start out above minimum wage and her compensation will increase every year. Dickman will be coming to the Jerusalem Techn... Full story
Tal Shavit, 26, is studying political science at Hebrew University and was looking for a job in Jerusalem for after graduation. She hooked up with New Spirit, a nonprofit trying to encourage students to stay in the holy city after they graduate and they arranged an internship with Policy, a large lobbying organization. Even before her four-month internship ended, Policy offered her a job, and Shavit now plans to stay in Jerusalem. “I wanted to find a way to stay in Jerusalem because I don’t really feel at home anywhere else,” Shavit told The M... Full story
In critical condition with severe shrapnel injuries to their torso and limbs, bullet wounds from head to toe and open fractures—this is how Syrian patients arrive at Israeli hospitals in the north of the country. And they are all treated like any other patient. “It’s our duty as a regional hospital, where we are located along the Lebanese border on one side and the Syrian border on the other side,” Dr. Amram Hadary, director of the trauma unit at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, tells ISRAEL2... Full story
