Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The measures, announced by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh during a press conference in Gaza City, are seen as a direct result of the deep crisis facing Hamas in the aftermath of the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi. The Egyptian authorities have since tightened their blockade of the Gaza Strip, sealing the Rafah border crossing and destroying most of the smuggling tunnels along their shared border. The Egyptian authorities have also accused Hamas of involvement in terror attacks against Egyptians—a charge that has been s... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Until recently, the rule of thumb in the pro-Israel community was that the bigger the academic group, the less likely it was to consider a boycott of Israeli colleagues. But with the 30,000-member Modern Language Association set to host a panel on BDS at its convention this week in Chicago, the rule may have to be reconsidered. Supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement have scored some victories in recent months, mostly among smaller groups. The American Studies Association, which endorsed a boycott r... Full story
Jewish groups remember Sharon as a warrior and peacemaker (JTA)—Jewish organizations in the United States and around the world remembered the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a military leader and a fighter for peace. “His legacy is a more secure State of Israel, safe on its borders and resolved to put an end to the campaign of Palestinian terrorism once and for all,” Barry Curtiss-Lusher and Abraham Foxman, the national chair and the national director, respectively, of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement. “It is not only... Full story
A recently revealed Israeli State Comptroller's report that remains under a government gag order has ignited concern over the Muslim Waqf's attempts to erase Jewish ties on the Temple Mount-Judaism's holiest site-and Israeli authorities' neglect of those activities. The classified document, whose contents were published by the New York-based newspaper The Jewish Voice, details ongoing illegal excavations being carried out on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Waqf (trust) and places blame on those... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Growing up in the Urals, Pavel Polev was a precocious ice skater and a member of the Soviet Union's national youth figure-skating team. But in 1992, at age 15, Polev's life was upended when he joined the massive wave of Jews immigrating to Israel from the crumbling Soviet Union. After serving a mandatory three years in the Israel Defense Forces following high school, Polev took a job as a custodian. Two decades later, Polev is a successful small-business owner and rising... Full story
Upsurges in Palestinian terrorism have often accompanied progress-and eventual breakdowns-in Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations over the past 20 years. The latest round of talks, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, is proving to be no different. Palestinian attacks on Jewish military and civilian targets have been on the rise since a Lebanese sniper killed an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier in mid-December. A civilian hired by the IDF was murdered Dec. 24 while repairing... Full story
(JNS.org) The Taglit-Birthright Israel program broke its own record with 39 groups, totaling 1,600 Jewish young adults from across the globe, landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Monday. Israeli Tourism Minister Uzi Landau and Taglit-Birthright CEO Gidi Mark attended a ceremony for the trip participants, who came from Australia, Argentina, Russia, the United States, Germany, and Canada, Israel Hayom reported. The participants join the list of more than 350,000 young adults from 64... Full story
(JNS.org) Israel’s population grew in 2013 by 1.8 percent, or 147,000 people, bringing the country’s total population to 8.1 million, according to data from the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry. Some 19,200 Jews moved to Israel from other countries. The most significant rise was in the number of immigrants from France, with 3,120 French Jews moving to Israel in 2013, a 63-percent jump from the previous year (1,916). The largest group of immigrants, 7,520, came from the former Soviet Union. Some 2,680 imm... Full story
(JTA)—French Foreign Minister Manuel Valls instructed French mayors to ban performances by the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala. Valls sent the non-binding recommendation days before Dieudonne is scheduled to launch a nationwide tour, the French news agency AFP reported. “I have sent an instruction today to all mayors,” Valls said at a news conference near Paris. “It recalls that mayors and municipalities may prohibit a show if it risks creating a disturbance to public order.” The text stipulates that the the mayors may ban shows t... Full story
(Washington Free Beacon)—The Obama administration is pressuring Israeli generals to stop publicly voicing their concerns about the administration’s security proposals in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and instead endorse the administration’s plans, according to Israeli media reports. The administration is seeking a complete or partial IDF withdrawal from the Jordan Valley, where the border between Israel and Jordan lies at the eastern edge of Judea and Samaria, also called the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority has long sought contr... Full story
PARIS (JTA)—The Israeli government is wading into the burgeoning European debate over circumcision and receiving a mixed reception from the continent’s Jews. On Dec. 11, Israel initiated a motion in defense of circumcision at the Council of Europe, an intergovernmental organization devoted to enhancing cooperation among its 47 member states. Intended to offset a nonbinding October resolution approved by the council’s Parliamentary Assembly that condemned non-medical circumcision of boys, the Israeli initiative will be reviewed in January and p... Full story
Bus bomb in Israel called similar to Boston Marathon type JERUSALEM (JTA)—The bomb that exploded last month on an evacuated public bus in central Israel closely resembled the type used in the Boston Marathon attack. The explosive in Bat Yam was enclosed in a pressure cooker and was activated by a cell phone, according to the Shin Bet security service, the Times of Israel reported. Some 14 people have been arrested in the foiled Bat Yam attack, the Shin Bet announced after a gag order on the arrests was lifted on Jan. 2. Among them are four m... Full story
Several weeks after Bedouin and global anti-Israel elements celebrated the apparent cancelation of a plan to resettle tens of thousands of Bedouin in Israel's southern Negev region, the fate of the plan remains unknown. In a dramatic press conference on Dec.12, former Israeli minister Benny Begin, placed in charge of the implementation of the "Prawer Plan," resigned his post and announced that the plan would be withdrawn. Just days later, however, Knesset members continued to meet to discuss... Full story
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was surprised by a forthright expression of support for the Jewish state from Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting last month in Moscow, Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported on Friday. Netanyahu had flown to meet the Russian leader in a last minute effort to prevent an interim nuclear deal between Iran and world powers from being signed. During the meeting, Netanyahu asked Putin to withhold support for the convening of a Nuclear Non Proliferation Conference the stated purpose of which would be... Full story
NEW YORK– Jewish National Fund (JNF) is denouncing the decision by the American Studies Association to boycott Israel’s academic and research institutions by encouraging people to take action. Items include a letter writing campaign to the president of the ASA and university deans and faculty members, tweets to the ASA (“End the @AmerStudiesAssn boycott of academic institutions in #Israel! #academicfreedom”), and spreading the Positively Israel message of Israel’s contributions to the world by bringing a Positively Israel event to campus, helpi... Full story
(JNS.org) Following the proposal of a new Iran sanctions bill in Congress, Mehdi Moussavinejad, a senior member of the Iranian parliament's energy committee, threatened that Iran would increase its uranium enrichment to 60 percent. In November's interim nuclear deal, Iran agreed to dilute its 20-percent-enriched uranium stockpiles down to 5 percent. "Given the method that the other negotiating side-the U.S. in particular-has adopted during the nuclear negotiations, the legislators are working... Full story
Some 250 women in Jerusalem set a Guinness World Record for donating the most hair to make wigs for cancer patients in a single drive. The record was broken in November at a hair salon in Jerusalem's Malcha Mall after five hours, when the Zichron Menachem Cancer Support Center collected 117 pounds of hair. The drive continued for three days at 200 salons throughout the country. The haircuts were free. Several of the women who donated their hair were cancer survivors and their family and... Full story
(JTA)—A county in Sweden is moving ahead with plans to ban the nonmedical circumcision of boys, its leading elected official said. Per-Ola Mattsson, the commissioner of Blekinge County, said he will bring up a ban on the practice with the county’s health board in February, according to an article published Thursday by the Sydostran Daily. According to the Dagens Medicin medical news site, Mattsson, who is also chairman of the Public Health Board of Blekinge, said he opposes the practice because minors “have no possibility to say no to the s... Full story
PARIS (JTA)-To outsiders, they seem like ordinary men striking macho poses for the camera. But there is a dark side to the photos that are appearing with growing frequency in the French media. The men-and less frequently women-are performing the "quenelle," a gesture vaguely similar to the Nazi salute that some believe was invented solely to express hatred of Jews without inviting prosecution. In France, displaying Nazi symbols is illegal if done to cause offense. But the quenelle, in which one... Full story
"We don't consider Iran as an enemy," Israeli President Shimon Peres told CNN's Richard Quest on Sunday at the Globes Israel Business Conference in Tel Aviv. Asked whether he would be willing to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Peres replied, "Why not? I don't have enemies." "It's not a matter of a person but of a policy," Peres said. "The [goal] is to convert enemies into friends." In August, Rouhani reportedly said of Israel, "After all, in our region there has been a wound for... Full story
(JNS.org) Brandeis University and Penn State Harrisburg on Wednesday announced they have withdrawn from the American Studies Association (ASA) following the ASA membership’s Dec. 15 vote to endorse a boycott of Israel. “We view the recent vote by the membership to affirm an academic boycott of Israel as a politicization of the discipline and a rebuke to the kind of open inquiry that a scholarly association should foster,” the Brandeis American Studies Department said in a statement. “We remain committed to the discipline of American Studies... Full story
U.S. immigration to Israel drops 13 percent JERUSALEM (JTA)—Immigration to Israel rose slightly in 2013 to 19,200, but that included a significant drop in immigrants from the United States. Last year Israel absorbed 18,940 new immigrants. The most dramatic increase in aliyah came from France, with 3,120 immigrants, a 63 percent increase over the previous year. The Jewish Agency for Israel credited its own programs to introduce French young people to Israel for the rise. Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and the Jewish Agency are... Full story
The security situation in Israel has grown increasingly tense of late, with a spike in terror attacks carried out on numerous fronts, and through various means, by both recognized terror groups and presumed “lone wolf” assailants. But such developments don’t rattle VADM (ret.) Yedidia Yaari. “I sleep well because I know we (Israelis) have the capability to outsmart our enemies in every respect,” says Yaari—president and CEO of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., Israel’s second-largest government owned defense company—in an interview with... Full story
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA)-On a busy street near the Dutch Parliament, three white musicians in blackface regale passersby with holiday tunes about the Dutch Santa Claus, Sinterklaas, and his slave, Black Pete. Many native Dutchmen view dressing up as Black Pete in December as a venerable tradition, but others consider it a racist affront to victims of slavery. With Holland marking the 150th anniversary of abolition this year, the controversy over Black Pete has reached new heights. Hundreds... Full story
(JNS.org) Canada has called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to dismiss its special investigator, Richard Falk, over a recent statement accusing Israel of having “genocidal intentions” against the Palestinians in an interview on the Russia Today (RT) television network. “When you target a group, an ethnic group and inflict this kind of punishment upon them, you are in effect nurturing a kind of criminal intention that is genocidal,” Falk told RT. Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird called on the U.N. to dismiss Falk immediate... Full story
