Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

(JNS)—The U.S. State Department has changed its official description of Palestinians living in eastern Jerusalem from “Palestinian residents” to “Arab residents” or “non-Israeli citizens” in the department’s annual global human-rights re...

Netanyahu plans to mobilize students to disinfect public areas By Ben Harris (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he plans to enlist schoolchildren to help disinfect public areas from the coronavirus. “This virus is sen...

NEW YORK (JTA)—The spread of COVID-19, a new coronavirus, is reshaping Jewish communities. We’re collecting the news flowing in from across the globe here. (If you want to skip the minute-by-minute updates and just understand the broad ways that Jewi...

(JTA)—Aboud Dandachi isn’t Jewish. Or Israeli. Or Italian. Or sick with coronavirus. He’s a Muslim from Syria living in Canada. But when he read the Jewish Telegraphic Agency story about an Italian boy whose bar mitzvah was curtailed because of th...

(JNS)—A member of the advisory council for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei died of coronavirus on Monday, reported Iranian state radio. Iranian Expediency Council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi is the first top official in the Islamic Republic t...

‘Judge Judy’ to end after 25th season, but Judy will be on a new bench By Marcy Oster (JTA)—“Judge Judy” will stop banging her gavel after 25 years on the TV bench—but she won’t stop meting out justice. Judy Sheindlin, the Jewish judge on the popula...

The first ‘Harry Potter’ book is now available in Yiddish By Gabe Friedman (JTA)—As of today, the first book in the Harry Potter series is available in Yiddish. “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”—or “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Ston...

NEW YORK (JTA)—A delegation of members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations visited Saudi Arabia last week, a first for the umbrella body for U.S. Jews, and a move believed to be the first official visit to the k...

The Jewish Braille Institute Library provides individuals who are blind, visually impaired, physically handicapped or reading disabled with books, magazines and special publications of Jewish and general interest in audio, large print and Braille...

AMHERST, MA—The Yiddish Book Center announced that it has been shortlisted for The London Book Fair International Excellence Awards 2020 for The Literary Translation Initiative Award. The awards, held in partnership with the UK Publishers A...

Hundreds of Israeli soldiers taken in by Hamas social media scheme featuring fake young women By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—The cellphones of hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been compromised in a Hamas intelligence-gathering scheme that featured f...

The United Nations Human Rights Council has released a list of more than 100 companies it says are operating in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. In a report issued on Wednesday, the council said that the activities of these companies “raised...

(JNS)—The first full review of the Saudi curriculum in more than a decade shows that while improvements have been made, extremist content still exists. For example, Jews are blamed as assassins, described as monkeys, and will be fought and killed in...

Independent Jewish day school in Connecticut to close, cites finances and enrollment By Marcy Oster (JTA)—Carmel Academy, an independent Jewish day school in Greenwich, Connecticut, will close at the end of this school term, citing the “current rea...

Yad Vashem apologizes for ‘unfortunate errors’ in films screened at Auschwitz commemoration By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA)—Yad Vashem apologized for what it said were inaccuracies in some Holocaust films shown at a ceremony it hosted last month. The apolo...

JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Trump administration’s peace plan is an attempt to destroy the Palestinian cause and could lead to violence on the part of the Palestinian public, Palestinian Authority officials warned. In addition, a senior aide to Pal...