Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Letter by families of terror victims calls for Pollard release JERUSALEM (JTA)—Family members of terror victims killed by Palestinian prisoners released in connection with the current Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations called on President Obama to free Jonathan Pollard. The letter, signed by 22 terror victim relatives, was delivered Sunday to U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro to be passed on to the U.S. president, according to the Times of Israel. The letter was circulated by the Almagor Terror Victims Association. “Mr. President, wit...
(The Algemeiner) Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter confused Israel's demand for the Palestinian Authority to recognize it as a 'Jewish state' for meaning that all Arabs living there would need to convert. In an interview with the Associated Press, Carter said, "Israel can claim `We are a Jewish state.' I don't think the Arab countries will contradict that Jewish statement. But to force the Arab people to say that all the Arab people that they have in Israel have to be Jews, I think that's...
LOD, Israel (JTA)-Sitting in his sister's living room in this town outside Tel Aviv, Yuriy Yukhatskov says he's glad to be far from his home city of Kiev. Yukhatskov, 44, says that what he sees as the pervasive anti-Semitism in Ukraine's capital would grow only worse with the country's recent unrest. He fears that last month's revolution could lead to a government unfriendly to Jews. Israel feels foreign to Yukhatskov, but he's grateful to be able to walk to synagogue wearing his kippah without...
HAIFA—Suffering from acute kidney failure, 7-year-old “Y” needed a new kidney to survive. When the Jordanian boy’s parents learned that Rambam Health Care Campus had begun performing pediatric transplants—a procedure not available in Jordan—they contacted the hospital: “Please help us by doing a kidney transplantation on our son,” they asked the Haifa-based hospital. That surgery took place just days ago. Rambam officials were surprised to receive the request. The first pediatric procedure at Rambam, which had pioneered adult kidney transpla...
N.J.’s Christie apologizes to Adelson over ‘occupied territories’ reference (JTA)—New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized to casino magnate Sheldon Adelson for referring to the “occupied territories” in a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition. Christie met with Adelson, a major GOP donor, privately on Saturday afternoon in Adelson’s Las Vegas office in the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino, which hosted the RJC meeting, Politico reported, citing an unnamed source. During his speech on Saturday, Christie spoke of his family’s trip to Israel...
(JTA)-Russia's annexation of Crimea, the strategically critical peninsula that dangles from Ukraine into the Black Sea, has drawn international condemnation. But for the leader of the All-Ukrainian Organization of Crimean Karaites-a group with an unusual heritage that draws from Jewish traditions-joining Russia is a welcome development. "In Crimea, the majority of Karaites support annexation to Russia, and voted for it," Vladimir Ormeli, the group's head, told JTA. "Culture and people connect...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower stretches 223 feet skyward, welcoming visitors in a bright, expansive lobby strung with banners celebrating both the State of Israel and its premier hospital, the Hadassah Medical Organization. Opened in late 2012 at a total cost of $363 million, the tower is the largest building project undertaken at Hadassah in 50 years and a symbol of the hospital’s ambitions for the future. Now that future is in peril as the hospital, saddled with nearly $370 million in debt and an annual def...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The battle between members of Congress and the State Department over tourist visas for Israelis features two competing archetypes of the young Israeli traveler. The lawmakers paint a picture of a world traveler, matured by service to country, who deserves a break from the stresses of the Middle East. U.S. consular officials, meanwhile, have warned of lawbreakers hawking dubious Dead Sea beauty products in malls and at rest stops. The debate surfaced publicly with a March 6 letter from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to Secretary o...
Obama administration not appeased by Yaalon clarification WASHINGTON (JTA)—A statement from Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon clarifying his attack on U.S. foreign policy did not appease the Obama administration. “We are disappointed with the lack of an apology from Defense Minister Yaalon’s comments,” Jen Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman, said last Friday. “His comments, as we’ve stated a couple times, don’t reflect the true nature of our relationship with Israel.” Psaki’s remarks to reporters came a day after Yaalon in a state...
While international attention continues to focus on the Iranian nuclear program and diplomatic efforts to address it, the Israeli Navy's March 5 interception of an Iranian ship full of Syrian-made missiles bound for Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza sheds new light on other dimensions of the Islamic Republic's strategy. "The nuclear program is the fast mover in international discussions, but the delivery capabilities are extremely important," Ilan Berman, vice president of the American...
(JTA)- When even Russian policemen had to pass security checks to enter the Sochi Winter Olympics, Rabbi Berel Lazar was waved in without ever showing his ID. Lazar, a Chabad-affiliated chief rabbi of Russia, was invited to the opening ceremony of the games last month by President Vladimir Putin's office. But since the event was on Shabbat, Lazar initially declined the invitation, explaining he was prevented from carrying documents, among other religious restrictions. So Putin ordered his staff...
Tel Aviv makes top 10 in ‘selfiest cities’ list TEL AVIV (JTA)—Tel Aviv has the sixth-most selfie-takers per capita of any major city, according to a ranking in Time magazine. Among Tel Aviv residents, 139 per 100,000 frequently take selfies, or self-portraits taken with a cellphone, according to the “top 100 selfiest cities in the world” survey published last week. Time calculated the results by surveying 400,000 selfies tagged according to location on Instagram, a popular photo-sharing online social network. The survey looked at selfies f...
(JTA)- They left after Venezuelan secret police raided a Jewish club in 2007, and after the local synagogue was ransacked by unidentified thugs two years later. They left after President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel's ambassador to Caracas, and when he called on Venezuela's Jews to condemn Israel for its actions in Gaza in 2009. They left when Caracas claimed the ignoble title of most dangerous city in the world-and when inflation hit double digits, food shortages took hold and the country's murd...
Israeli naval commandos intercepted an Iranian ship in the Red Sea weighed down with missiles that was en route to the Gaza Strip, the IDF said in a statement. The boat, named KLOSC, was stopped by the elite naval commando unit Shayetet 13 as it was heading to Sudan, 1,500 miles from Israel. Once on board the KLOSC Israeli soldiers found cement bags, behind which were hidden dozens of M-302 missiles, which, the IDF said, were loaded onto the boat in Iran. Had the boat reached the Port of Sudan,...
Close to half a million members of Israel's haredi public rallied in Jerusalem on Sunday, shutting down roads in and around the city, to protest a proposed bill that would mandate them to participate in the Israel Defense Forces and would criminalize those that refuse conscription. Some political parties-led notably by Finance Minister Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid-have made the issue of religious enlistment a focal point of their agendas, while religious leaders, who are conspicuously absent from the...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C., that the "greatest challenge" facing their two countries is stopping Iran from gaining the capability to produce a nuclear weapon. "The greatest challenge, undoubtedly, is to prevent Iran from acquiring the capacity to make nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said, according to a transcript of his remarks released by his communications office. "I think that goal can be achieved if Iran is prevented from...
While visiting New York last week, Miss Israel, Yityish Aynaw, proved that not all Israelis love the country’s national chickpea spread, hummus. “In Israel, I don’t eat hummus,” she explained to a New York Daily News reporter during an interview at Hummus Place in the East Village, a popular stop for Israelis. “Now I come to New York and I’m supposed to eat hummus? It’s not tasty for me. I don’t like it.” During the discussion, Aynaw, 22, shared her dating preferences and admitted that she likes American men, as long as they don’t want to be...
(JNS.org) Following comments by President Barack Obama that challenged him to “articulate an alternative approach” to a peace deal with the Palestinians if he does not believe a deal “is the right thing to do for Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel’s “vital interests” must be upheld in such an agreement. “The tango in the Middle East needs at least three,” Netanyahu said March 3 upon landing in the U.S. for a six-day visit. “For years there have been two—Israel and the U.S. Now it needs to be seen if the Palestinians are also...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Two years ago, Israeli supermarket mogul Rami Levy invited Palestinian gas and oil magnate Munib al-Masri to one of his grocery stores. A working-class boy who had become the West Bank’s wealthiest man, al-Masri already had turned his attention to a new challenge: encouraging a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the partnership was not to be. Levy, the owner of the supermarket chain Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing, has three stores in Israeli West Bank settlements, and al-Masri decided he could not work wit...
While Pink Floyd's Roger Waters has in recent years acted as a de facto frontman for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, urging fellow artists against performing in Israel, Shuki Weiss Promotion and Production Ltd. for nearly 35 years has brought the biggest names in entertainment to the Jewish state for historic live shows. Musical guests attracted to Israel by the company have included Metallica, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Madonna, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton. Th...
Ex-security guard gets federal sentence for defacing Torah scroll (JTA)—A former hotel security guard was sentenced to one year in prison for civil rights violations for defacing a Memphis Jewish school’s Torah scroll and prayer books. Last Friday’s sentence of Justin Baker, 25, of Jackson, Tenn., comes on top of a four-year term in state prison levied in December. He will serve his two sentences concurrently. U.S. District Judge J. Daniel Breen also ordered Baker to pay $9,999.99 in restitution to the school. Baker had pleaded guilty to the f...
(JTA)-Shortly after Russian soldiers occupied the Crimean city of Sevastopol last week, Leah Cyrlikova took her two children out for an afternoon stroll in a city park. When they passed a group of soldiers, they stopped to have a friendly chat and pose with them for photos. While many Ukrainian Jews have strongly condemned the Russian military incursion into Crimea, others see the intervention as restoring order in the wake of a violent revolution that overthrew the pro-Russian government of Pre...
(JTA)-The turmoil in Ukraine has left one of Europe's largest Jewish communities on edge. After an outbreak of violence in Kiev last week that left dozens of protesters and policemen dead, President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capital and parliament installed an interim leader to take the still-contested reins of power. Like their compatriots, Ukraine's Jews are waiting to see what the future holds for their country, but with the added fear that they could become targets amid the chaos. There...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Just how open should Jewish institutions be when it comes to talking about Israel? That's the question at the center of a flurry of controversies over the last few days involving Jewish museums, an Orthodox high school and Hillel chapters on college campuses. For years, Jewish institutions have been grappling with where to draw red lines when it comes to criticism of Israel. Should they open their doors to groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, which is allied with the BDS movement...
(JNS.org) Jewish organizations have set up emergency assistance for Ukraine’s roughly 200,000-member Jewish community amid ongoing political unrest there. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) said that it is providing immediate assistance in areas of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, to ensure that elderly Jews and people with disabilities receive essential supplies at home. JDC staff and volunteers have been providing food packages and medical supplies to these homebound individuals. “Even as we mourn the loss of life in Ukrai...
