Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Brussels as the headquarters of the European Union is the nominal “capital of Europe.” One would expect the city to be the center of enlightenment—the exemplification of political and social tolerance and freedom of speech, assembly and religion, not to mention an advocate of human rights. Disappointingly, recent events have shown that Brussels has increasingly become a place of lies, deliberate disinformation, political manipulation, anti-Semitism and attacks on Israel. Recent developments, particularly Islamist political as well as physi... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Twice in three days, Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace and fired on suspected weapons caches bound for Hezbollah—and nothing has happened in response. Some experts are predicting that will continue to be the case following airstrikes near Damascus last Friday and Sunday that are widely believed to be the work of the Israel Defense Forces. According to reports, the strikes targeted shipments of long-range, Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles capable of striking deep into Isr... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Following a court ruling in their favor, leaders of an organization pushing for women’s prayer rights at the Western Wall have withdrawn their endorsement of Natan Sharansky’s compromise proposal to expand the egalitarian section there. A Jerusalem District Court ruled two weeks ago that Women of the Wall members who pray together in the regular women’s section of the Western Wall are not contravening the law. That was teh ruling at the Heritage deadline. Members of the group have been routinely arrested or detained in recent... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—To get married in Israel, Dima Motel had to bring his family photo album and two of his ancestors’ birth certificates to a rabbinical court. Then an investigator quizzed his mother in Yiddish. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate often asks Russian immigrants like Motel to prove that they’re Jewish, sometimes requiring documentary evidence that can be hard to obtain. Those who won’t submit to the process or who can’t firmly establish their Jewish bona fides can’t get legally married in th... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—The museum dedicated to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin raises nearly half its money from labor leaders. It’s just not the labor you think. Members of U.S. labor unions raised $1.4 million for the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv last year, 45 percent of the center’s total 2012 fundraising. Since 2005, American unions have raised $12 million for the center. Labor leaders say programs at the center, which celebrates the slain Labor Party prime minister who signed the 1993 Oslo Accor... Full story
Iran calls for Arab countries to unite against Israel JERUSALEM (JTA)—Iran called on the countries of the Middle East to unite against Israel in the face of an attack on Syria. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the countries of the region should stand together against the “assault,” the Reuters news agency reported, citing the Iranian Fars news agency. Syrian state media accused Israel of the early Sunday morning attack on what it identified as the Jamraya milit... Full story
After the United States revealed that it now believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against rebel forces, the Israel Air Force reportedly struck a Syrian chemical weapons site near Damascus last weekend. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group posted a video of smoke rising from a chemical weapons site that it claims Israeli jets struck last Saturday, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported. FSA said the jets flew over the palace of Assad before the strike, and that a... Full story
JERUSALEM—Women praying at Judaism’s holiest site, the Western Wall, need not fear police threats of arrest if seen wearing traditional ceremonial attire associated with the religion’s males following a Jerusalem District Court ruling handed down April 25. The order, which says women may pray with prayer shawls and phylacteries, is seen as a major victory for a group called Women of the Wall, which has been struggling for almost 25 years against police and Orthodox Jewish authorities in charge of the site, for the right to defy tradi... Full story
For some, green is the color of money, but for others it’s the color of the environment. Those who favor the latter gathered in Jerusalem last week to experience everything from an “eco-cinema” (a solar-powered movie broadcast on the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City); to panel discussions; to environmentally-themed walking tours. An estimated 250 million people make pilgrimages each year according to Jerusalem deputy mayor, and conference organizer, Naomi Tsur. The conference hopes to highlight sustainable urban and economic development, eco-tou... Full story
Polish politician receives U.S. Holocaust museum’s highest honor (JTA)—Polish politician and historian Wladyslaw Bartoszewski was scheduled to receive the Elie Wiesel Award from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The award, given Sunday to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the museum, is the highest award given by the museum. Bartoszewski was a former Auschwitz concentration camp prisoner, the Polish minister of foreign affairs and an honorary citizen of Israel. He is currently the secretary of state in the Polish prime min... Full story
El Al Airlines and the Israeli Finance Ministry signed an agreement on last Monday afternoon that ended a one-and-a-half day strike by all three Israeli airlines and prevented a wider work stoppage that would have frozen all activity at Israel’s only international aerial gateway, Ben-Gurion Airport. According to the agreement, the details of which were hammered out by Finance Ministry employees and El Al representatives, the government will cover 97.5 percent of El Al’s security costs. It previously covered 80 percent of those costs. This amo... Full story
JERUSALEM—While Israel is fast becoming a leader in the biomedical and biotechnology fields, industry experts say the Israeli Health Ministry may be unduly hindering its growth. Famously called a “start-up nation,” a nickname coined by Dan Senor and Saul Singer in their 2009 book about the Jewish state’s economic miracle, today Israel proudly parades that title, proving to be a fertile ground for thousands of tech start-ups. But Steve Rhodes, CEO and chairman of the Trendlines Group, a company... Full story
WARSAW, Poland (JTA)—In Warsaw, sirens wailed and church bells rang to mark the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a valiant but failed revolt by Jewish fighters against the Nazi occupiers who already had deported hundreds of thousands of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. An official commemoration, held April 19 in a plaza between the monument honoring the ghetto heroes and the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, was attended by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski an... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Natan Sharansky’s proposal last week to expand the space for non-Orthodox prayer at the Western Wall could be historic. But for most Israelis, changes at the Western Wall are of only trivial interest. Far more pressing are state restrictions on marriage and conversion, Sabbath bans on public transit, and haredi Orthodox exemptions from Israel’s mandatory draft. The haredi draft exemption was a central issue in January’s elections for the Knesset, and it has been a hot topic o... Full story
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu opened his most recent copy of Time magazine, with its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, to find that his name, which had been on the list for the past few years, was gone. Instead, the name of his new finance minister, Yair Lapid, appeared. Lapid, a political newbie who led his Yesh Atid [There is a Future] party to an impressive showing in the recent elections—19 out of 120 possible seats in the unicameral body—is keen to show that he has what it takes to be Israel’s next prime minis... Full story
CAIRO – Against the backdrop of accusations of religious intolerance being leveled at the Morsi government, the scene in Cairo last week as Muslims participated at the funeral of former Jewish community leader Carmen Weinstein was both incongruous and encouraging. To some, it was an example of growing Egyptian Muslim interest in the dwindling Jewish population, especially since the Egyptian Revolution in 2011. “This is the first time I have seen this number of visitors and journalists come to the synagogue,” marveled Magda Haroun, Weins... Full story
(JTA)—Having grown up in a devoutly Christian home, Irene Lopez would probably not be raising her daughter Jewish if not for David Lazar, the charismatic rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Lopez and her Jewish husband, Samuel Sjoblom, are among the Swedes who were drawn to the Great Synagogue in recent years by the magnetic, if occasionally prickly, personality of Lazar, the energetic Israeli-American who has held the position since 2010. “My decision to convert my daughter was very muc... Full story
Get out your squeegees and glass cleaner. In Berlin, Jews are being put on display in a transparent box, and you might want a clear view. Called “Jews in a Showcase,” the exhibit, which runs through August, invites a Jew to sit and answer questions. It’s part of an exhibition called “The Whole Truth … everything you always wanted to know about Jews” that opened at the Jewish Museum Berlin last month. “At selected times, a Jewish guest will take a seat in a showcase and will—if desired—react to visitors’ questions and comments,” says the... Full story
While the Israeli economy has managed to steadily weather the global financial crisis of recent years, a growing budget deficit now threatens to disturb the relative economic stability of the past several years. Freshman Knesset Member and newly minted Finance Minister Yair Lapid must now attempt to raise government revenues by increasing taxes and slashing expenditures in order to close sizeable gaps in the 2013 budget. The uncomfortable measures, and remaining budget shortfalls, leave many... Full story
Hundreds of Jewish markings catalogued in Portuguese town (JTA)—Portuguese researchers have catalogued hundreds of secret markings that Jews left on structures in Seia in the 16th century following their forced conversion to Christianity. A three-member team said it found 500 markings in Seia, a north Portugal municipality, including coded Hebrew letters and words carved into walls of homes where converted Jews used to live. Alberto Martinho, Jose Levy Domingos and Luiza Metzker Lyra, the research team, said they also found distinctive i... Full story
AMMAN, Jordan—The death of a Jordanian tourism policeman killed while guarding visiting Israelis have evoked threats by members of the victim’s tribe to abduct or kill Israeli tourists unless the government opens an independent probe into the incident. “Any Israeli could find himself the target of a kidnapping or other measures,” Mohammed Jarah, brother of Sgt. Ibrahim Jarah, told The Media Line by telephone from his home in the town of Mazar, 110 miles south of Amman. “We want to know what happened to my brother. The government must open an i... Full story
Ma’arat Numan, Syria—When the jihadist organization Jabhat al-Nusra announced it was joining Al-Qa’ida last week, Syrians in rebel-held territories cringed. “Now everyone will think our revolution is nothing but a jihadist power grab,” complained 28-year-old Muhammad Ansari to The Media Line. “Who will support us now?” With the Syrian revolution faltering and secular rebel groups disintegrating amidst infighting and civilian abuses, it is the jihadists who have benefitted most. But the attention they have received from foreigners has angered S... Full story
Id Khamis Jahalin sits in his sparsely furnished, illegally-built shack, and worries about his future. A father of seven, he was born in this community of tents and shacks about 10 miles east of Jerusalem. Sitting on a thin mattress that substitutes for a couch during the day and a bed at night, Id Khamis told The Media Line that a new Israeli plan to relocate the Jahalin Bedouin community, “is the worst one yet. It is not appropriate for us at all. The place they want to move us to is surrounded on all four sides and it is very crowded. I a... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Natan Sharansky said the implementation of his plan to expand the non-Orthodox prayer site at the Western Wall could begin in as little as one month. In an interview April 11 with JTA, Sharansky sounded cautiously optimistic about his proposal to create an egalitarian space equal in size to the current men’s and women’s sections combined. The Jewish Agency for Israel chairman was charged last year with finding a solution to mounting tensions over women’s prayer at the Western... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Here are some stories out of Israel that you may have missed: A better bomb shelter app An app that helps Israelis locate the nearest bomb shelter was updated in response to the civil war in Syria. The Merkhav Mugan app had been launched six months ago for southern Israelis being bombarded by rockets from the Gaza Strip. Now, with the Syrian unrest spilling over the border into northern Israel, the app will include all secure bomb shelters and areas throughout Israel, the T... Full story
