Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Now here’s an episode for Breaking Bad. In an “Only-in-Israel” moment, border police recently delayed hauling in a suspected drug dealer until he fulfilled the ancient Jewish ritual of seeing to his son’s brit mila (circumcision). When a team of officers first arrived at the suspect’s residence in southern Israel, they were met at the front door by a 60-year-old woman and four children, who tried to stall the raid. But police pulled out their search warrant, and busted down the door in order to search the premises, according to Israel’s Channel...
The Palestinian Authority’s (PA) new partner, Hamas, praised an overnight shooting attack against soldiers at a checkpoint in northern Samaria, Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported. The Gaza-based group lauded what it called “the shooting attack that took place at the Tapuach Junction in eastern Shechem that led to the death of Alaa Mahmoud Odeh and the wounding of a Zionist soldier,” Ma’ariv said. Israeli troops shot and killed Odeh, 31, of the village of Awartaa when he pulled out a pistol and opened fire on them, near midnight. But while Ham...
(JTA)-It was the threat that European authorities dreaded-and Europe's Jews suffered the first blow. The suspect arrested in the attack last month at the Jewish museum in Brussels that left four dead was a French-born jihadist who had returned home from fighting in Syria. Now European Jewish institutions are left to reckon with the danger of European jihadists coming home from Syria with deadly new skills, extremist fervor and malicious intentions. "There has been a change and it requires us to...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Sol Lapidus earned the Order of Lenin, the Soviet Union's highest medal, for his role as a partisan fighter in the Belarussian forest during World War II. Lapidus proudly wore the bronze-and-red medal pinned to his suit jacket last Wednesday at the United Nations, where he joined approximately 150 mostly white-haired Jewish Red Army veterans, their lapels festooned with similar decorations. The small army of aged veterans had gathered to make history again, to announce what was...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Which way will Presbyterians go this time? That’s a question Jewish groups and their Presbyterian allies are nervously asking as they work to head off divestment efforts within the church targeting Israel. The fear is the efforts could pass this time after a narrow defeat two years ago. A successful divestment vote at the biennial Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly this month could precipitate a rupture between the mainline Protestant denomination and the Jewish community, they warn. Jewish-Presbyterian rel...
By June Glazer Most people who donate to Jewish National Fund (JNF) for tree planting in Israel do so in honor or in memory of loved ones. So, too, with Ron Werner, board president of JNF's Mountain States region, who, on his own and with his family, has planted more than 1,500 trees. However, his most recent donation of an additional 1,000 trees, together with his partner, Jim Hering, may be a rare instance when those loved ones are canine. In late May, Werner and Hering donated a grove in...
Complaints about Hitler video led to firing, Jewish banker claims (JTA)—A former executive at BNP Paribas North America Inc. filed a federal lawsuit alleging that he was fired by the bank after complaining about a training video that featured Nazi imagery. Jean-Marc Orlando said in the suit filed Friday in Manhattan U.S. District Court that he was terminated as managing director in the bank’s fixed-income division in New York after complaining about the video portraying the head of a competing bank as Hitler, Reuters reported. Orlando, who was...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA)-The new Palestinian unity government brought together rivals Hamas and Fatah, but it has opened a divide between allies Israel and the United States. "I'm deeply troubled by the announcement that the United States will work with the Palestinian government backed by Hamas," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. The Obama administration's announcement this week that it would continue working with and funding the Pa...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Its leaders call it a “historic development,” a “paradigm shift” and a “change in the relationship” between Israel and Diaspora Jewry. But when it comes to the details of the Joint Initiative of the Government of Israel and World Jewry, key questions have yet to be answered, including what it will do and who will fund it. Conceived last year as a partnership between the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency for Israel and major Diaspora Jewish bodies, the initiative aims to strengthen Diaspora Jewish identity and connections b...
ALGEMEINER-A day after Pope Francis was pictured praying at Israel's security barrier on Sunday, beneath a slogan that compared Palestinians with Jews under the Nazi regime, Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu explained to him in no uncertain terms why the wall was erected in the first place. At a Jerusalem memorial for terror victims, Netanyahu told the pope, "When my son was 10 years old, his best friend was a girl, a beautiful Ethiopian girl, who sat next to him in class. One day she didn't...
An Israeli team hopes to send a Torah scroll to the moon’s surface in an effort to preserve a part of Jewish culture in case of an apocalypse, Britain’s Daily Mail reported on Friday. The scroll would travel outside Earth’s atmosphere with other Earth artifacts as part of the Google Lunar XPrize mission, a competition among private companies to send vehicles to the moon with the goal of maintaining Earth’s relics beyond a world-ending event, such as a nuclear war. The sacred text would be transported in a capsule enabling it to survive on the...
After two intense days of religious ceremonies in Bethlehem and Jerusalem, meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, unscheduled photo opportunities, and debilitating traffic arrangements, Israelis and interfaith relations experts are trying to attach the appropriate symbolism to Pope Francis’s visit to the region. Nearly every stop made by the pontiff was subjected to simultaneous scrutiny and praise. While long-term tensions between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church were made apparent by the trip, some experts are a...
TEL AVIV—Miriam and Emmanuel Riva were “the cream of the crop,” grieving family and friends said of the 50-year-old couple, slain in May 24’s shooting attack at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium. Two employees of the center were also killed, Israel Radio said. The couple, who lived in Tel Aviv and leave behind a 15- and a 17-year-old daughter, were Israeli Foreign Ministry employees for the last four years, and were due to return to Israel on May 29, friends said. “Up until two years ago, Emmanuel was the vice-consul in Berlin; they were...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—One small step by Israelis could become a giant leap for the State of Israel. At a Tel Aviv University laboratory, a team of 20 Israelis is building a spacecraft they believe will make Israel only the fourth country—after the United States, Russia and China—to touch down on the moon. The project, known as SpaceIL, looks like a long shot. The three-legged hexagonal craft appears too puny for interstellar travel, measuring just 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide. Of the initiative’s three founders, only one holds an academic degree...
After 52 years, the “World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band” tuned up for a fervently anticipated June 4 gig in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park. And the impetus for the Rolling Stones’ historic arrival during their 14 On Fire European tour came from none other than Bob Dylan, according to Israel’s Channel 2 news. “Bob Dylan was coming off stage,” guitarist Ronnie Wood replied in a video interview to reporters’ questions, “and I asked him, ‘where you going?’ and he said, ‘Israel! We’re going to Tel Aviv!’ “He had a big smile on his face, because he l...
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA)—At an empty Chabad school near the banks of the Dnieper River here in Ukraine’s capital city, six uniformed Jews with handguns and bulletproof vests are practicing urban warfare. Leading the training last week is a brawny man who at irregular intervals barks Hebrew-language commands at the men to test their drilled responses to different scenarios, including “ma’atzor” (firearm malfunction) and “mekhabel” (terrorist). The men, who belong to Kiev’s newly formed Jewish Self-Defense Force, all have some combat skills from the...
Washington Jewish Week The killing of a major pro-Israel bill in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week has ignited another round of finger pointing between Democratic and Republican legislators, with both sides accusing the other of playing politics. Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) pulled the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013 (S. 462) from the committee's agenda May 19, after ranking member Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) proposed an amendment requiring the...
Israel’s Security Cabinet: No negotiations with gov’t that includes Hamas JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s Security Cabinet unanimously decided not to negotiate with a Palestinian government that includes the terrorist organization Hamas. The Security Cabinet met Monday following the swearing-in of the Palestinian unity government. “Today, Abu Mazen said yes to terrorism and no to peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement, referring to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “This is the direct continuation of Abu Maz...
JERUSALEM -A group of six olim (immigrants) from the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine landed in Israel Tuesday, May 27, following a fast-paced operation put into action by The Jewish Agency for Israel due to the battles surrounding the city's airport. Battles between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels in and around the civilian airport of Donetsk broke out Monday, May 26, following the country's presidential election. Due to the escalation, the airport was shut down, all outgoing and...
BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY, SAMARIA—Aya Al Hindy’s red veil matches perfectly with her long red dress. A third-year student majoring in ethics and nutrition, she says women on campus feel more and more at home. “When you look at the past and where we are today, we have grown. But we are still in the growth stage,” Al Hindy told The Media Line. “We have not yet achieved our goals—that is, we have yet to be like developed states.” Birzeit University is just a 10-minute drive from Ramallah, the Palestinians’ financial and political capital. Some 70 percen...
BRUSSELS (JTA)-Hunched over a small island of memorial candles for the victims of the attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium, Paul Ambach is lost in thought. "Once again, Jewish blood in Belgium, which is no longer Belgium," said Ambach, a well-known Jewish musician from Antwerp, as he stared at the candles Sunday from a vigil for the four people killed by the unidentified gunman who opened fire at the museum the previous day. Ambach said he was also thinking about past attacks on Belgian Jews,...
An Israeli news station has reported on a poll conducted by Professor Sammy Smooha of Haifa University showing that the acceptance of Israel by Israeli Arabs increased markedly between 2012 and 2013. Channel 10/Nana reported that the poll’s surprising results bucked conventional wisdom: The research shows that between 2012 and 2013 there was an increase in the percentage of Israeli Arabs recognizing Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state, and Israel’s right to maintain a Jewish majority. Similarly, the percentage of Arabs...
(JNS.org) A group of Israeli runners taking part in a "peace run" was forced to drop out after Palestinian objections. The six Israelis were asked to drop out of Australian ultra-marathon runner Pat Farmer's 900-mile "peace run" from Lebanon to Jerusalem during a stretch through Judea and Samaria due to objections by the Palestinian Olympic Committee. Farmer said he was "not happy" about the move because it went against the spirit of the run. The Israeli runners, whose participation was...
ROME (JTA)-With a rabbi and a Muslim sheik as his travel companions, Pope Francis headed to the Middle East with what he hoped to be a powerful message of interfaith respect. It was the first time that leaders of other faiths were part of an official papal delegation. The aim was to send "an extremely strong and explicit signal" about interfaith dialogue and the "normality" of having friends of other religions, chief Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi told reporters. Starting last...
Far-right parties gain in European elections (JTA)—Far-right parties across Europe won an increased share of the vote in elections for the European Parliament. Centrist, pro-European Union parties won a majority of Sunday’s vote led by the conservative European People’s Party. Far-right parties made significant gains, however, in France, the United Kingdom and Greece, among other nations. In Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party finished third despite a government crackdown on its leadership and will send three representatives to the Europ...
