Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 2213
Top Jewish children’s books include stories about a Yiddish culture rescuer and the Holocaust By Penny Schwartz (JTA)—A picture book about the founder of the National Yiddish Book Center and a debut graphic novel of a gripping Holocaust story are among the gold medal winners of this year’s Sydney Taylor Book Awards for Jewish children’s books. Leslea Newman, the author of 70 books, including many Jewish titles, was recognized with the body of work award. The top awards handed out by the Association of Jewish Libraries were announced Monday...
(JNS)-Barbara Birch, 45, of New York was tapped last month as the new president and chief executive officer of ORT America. She most recently served as vice president of development at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, managing strategic planning, fundraising and business development. Her work focused on managing relationships with lay leadership and connecting constituents to the organization's mission to create a culture of giving. Previously, she held leadership roles in...
(JNS)-Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday assured the mother of Naama Issachar, an Israeli-American woman imprisoned in Russia whose family has been anxious to secure her release, that "everything will be fine." At a press conference in Jerusalem shortly after a meeting at the Prime Minister's Residence with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to which Naama's mother Yaffa Issachar was also invited, Putin said, "I have met Naama's mother. It's clear to me that she is from a very...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Russian President Vladimir Putin's prime speaking slot at a Holocaust commemoration event here was generating controversy even before the longtime leader took the podium. His remarks Thursday at the event commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army has done little to quell it. Speaking at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, Putin claimed that 40 percent of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were citizens of the Soviet Union. Historians called...
(Jewish Journal via JNS)-Under the banner "Israel in Focus," this year's StandWithUs International Conference focused on educating students about anti-Semitism and how to fight it. The pro-Israel educational organization's conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles International Airport hotel over the weekend, and was sponsored by the Adam and Gila Milstein Foundation. Addressing the 550 college and high school students and community members in attendance, Israeli-American real estate...
(JTA)—One week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, dozens of European officials arrived in Poland for a large commemoration event at Auschwitz. The delegation from the Brussels-based European Jewish Association visited the former Nazi death camp, located about 20 miles from Krakow, on Tuesday. Few of the officials, however, took time from their busy agendas to meet with elderly Holocaust witnesses, whose numbers decrease every year. One exception was Jan Jambon, the prime minister of the Flemish state in Belgium. On Monday, J...
Orthodox-run soup kitchen brings together Jewish and black leaders for MLK Day By Ben Sales NEW YORK (JTA)—An Orthodox-run soup kitchen brought together a diverse group of local leaders to stock shelves for charity on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The event, run by Masbia, a soup kitchen network based in the largely Orthodox Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park, was meant as a display of solidarity following a rash of attacks on Jews in Brooklyn and other Hasidic areas near New York City. Masbia also announced a drive to donate goods via Amazon...
Russian veterans and survivors of infamous Nazi concentration camp will attend a historic event at U.N. headquarters in New York (Israel Hayom via JNS)—In recent months, Israel and Russia have been forging a unique partnership at the United Nations. Amid the backdrop of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon and his Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzya, decided to join forces and convene a historic event to mark the liberation of the notorious Nazi death camp, to be held next we...
Israeli intelligence helped US assassinate top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani By Marcy Oster (JTA)—Israeli intelligence reportedly helped the United States assassinate top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. NBC News reported Friday that Israeli intelligence helped the U.S. confirm a tip about when Soleimani’s plane from Damascus to Baghdad took off. Soleimani was killed by a U.S. drone airstrikes on Jan. 2 while he was riding in a vehicle near Baghdad International Airport. “Intelligence from Israel helped confirm the details,” NBC reporte...
(JNS)-The wave of Iranian ballistic missiles that struck two military bases in Iraq early on Wednesday that house U.S. personnel was a clear Iranian attempt to conclude the current phase of escalation with Washington. The missiles failed, intentionally or not, to cause any casualties, after days of warnings by Iranian officials saying that U.S. military targets would be hit-possibly an early warning designed to decrease the chance of victims when the strikes actually came. Still, they were an ex...
(JNS)-Faculty who support the academic boycott of Israel are actively promoting BDS directly to students in their classrooms, according to a report released on Wednesday by the campus watchdog AMCHA Initiative, providing the first empirical evidence of such activity. The study, which examined 50 syllabi at 40 public and private colleges and universities over an 11-year period, revealed that academic BDS-supporting instructors had an average of 78 percent of their course readings authored by BDS...
US embassy in Jerusalem issues security alert following Soleimani killing By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—The United States Embassy in Jerusalem issued a security alert on Monday for U.S. citizens in Israel after the assassination of top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani prompted Iran to promise “harsh revenge.” “Out of an abundance of caution, the Embassy strongly encourages U.S. citizens to remain vigilant and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness, as security incidents, including rocket fire, often take place without...
(JTA)—Iran will no longer honor the nuclear deal it signed with world powers. The announcement came Sunday following a meeting of the Islamic Republic’s National Security Council to discuss the country’s nuclear policy following the assassination on Friday of Qassem Soleimani by the United States, The New York Times reported. Soleimani was the head of the Iranian Quds Force, which operates a number of regional militias and is allied with terrorist groups targeting Israel, including Hezbollah and Hamas. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will en...
By Jackson Richman (JNS)-The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2020, announced the U.S. Department of Defense. "At the direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization," the Pent...
(JNS)—The American airstrike assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad early on Friday follows a major miscalculation on the part of Tehran in the decision to up the ante against the United States. While the extent of Iran’s response is not yet clear, military planners in the region, including in Israel, will need to prepare for the most severe scenarios. Even though Iran may seek to launch a calculated retaliation, which would exact a price without going to war, no...
(JNS)—For the most part, Jewish and pro-Israel groups reacted positively to the U.S. elimination of the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, Maj. Gen, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on Thursday. B’nai B’rith International CEO and executive vice president Dan Mariaschin told JNS, “The American strike today was a major step in the war against terror. Soleimani was the chief agent for Iran’s export of terror throughout the region and beyond. Hopefully, this will serve as a strong deterrent to those who wou...
(JTA)-Pianist Igor Levit says he has received death threats and is warning about an increase in hate crimes in Germany. The Russian-born musician, 32, whose family immigrated to Germany in 1995, said he received an email in mid-November threatening an assassination attempt against him at a concert in southern Germany. His spokeswoman told the German media that Levit informed the police and then played the concert under tight security. In an essay for the Sunday edition of the Tagesspiegel newspa...
(JNS)—The year 2019 consisted of ups and downs for the Jewish and pro-Israel community. Below is a listing of the top six events or themes that shaped news coverage throughout the year (in no particular order). Anti-Semitic attacks From Southern California to Jersey City, Jews were under attack as, in the former, one woman was killed and three people injured during Shabbat-morning services at Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover on April 27. In the latter, two Chassidic Jews, a store employee and a police officer were shot and killed a...
Graffiti featuring Star of David and ‘9 11’ painted on buildings in North London By Marcy Oster (JTA)—Graffiti featuring a Star of David and “9 11” was painted on buildings on several streets in North London. The graffiti, discovered on a synagogue and store windows in Hampstead and Belsize Park on Sunday morning, seems to refer to a conspiracy theory that Jewish people were responsible for the attack on the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. The neighborhoods in which the graffiti was painted are home to large Jewish po...
(JNS)—Part of the $1.37 trillion spending bill that U.S. President Donald Trump signed on Friday included $150 million split evenly between assistance for security services, and humanitarian and civilian purposes for the Palestinians. The legislation included a bipartisan agreement on the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act that will allow the U.S. Agency for International Development to resume its operations in the West Bank and Gaza. USAID ceased projects in those areas earlier this year in accordance with ATCA, which provides protections for A...
(JNS)-On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Manger Square in Bethlehem was filled with people, but local Christians were few and far between. The majority of those milling around in the sunshine appeared to be local Muslims, along with a smattering of tourists. In previous years, visitors waiting to step into the tiny opening of the Church of the Nativity could expect to stand in line for up to an hour. This year, despite the completion of a four-year, $18 million restoration project at the...
Yeshiva University dorm set on fire by man using matches meant for Chanukah candles By Marcy Oster (JTA)—A man broke into a Yeshiva University dormitory and set three separate fires using matches intended to light Chanukah candles. Students were asleep in the building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side when the incident occurred after 3 a.m. Friday, New York City Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro announced on Friday. Peter Weyand, 33, who works as a software engineer, was arrested the same day for breaking into the university’s Schottenstein Resid...
(JTA)—A major German industry family will donate tens of millions of dollars to support Holocaust survivors and former forced laborers in the Nazi era. In addition to one-time donations to the Claims Conference and individual laborers, the Reimann family’s JAB firm has created a foundation designed to distribute 25 million euros ($27.8 million) annually to programs teaching about the Holocaust and democratic values. The announcement comes months after the Reimann family, which is worth at least 20 billion euros (about $22.27 billion), said his...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Turkish government has allowed Hamas members to use the country as a safe haven from which to plan attacks against Israelis. The Daily Telegraph cited transcripts of Israeli interrogations of suspected Palestinian terrorists in its report Tuesday. Not only do Hamas members have free rein to travel around the territory of the NATO member and ostensible U.S. ally, the British newspaper said, but that they are in regular contact with representatives of the Turkish intelligence community. According to the report, Ankara has a...
‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ renewed for 4th season By Ron Kampeas (JTA)—“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” the Emmy Award-winning series about a 1950s protofeminist Jewish stand-up comic, will return for a fourth season, its creators said just after the third season started streaming on Amazon. “We were thrilled to hear that for the fourth time, we do not have to pack up and vacate the premises,” Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino said Thursday, according to Deadline Hollywood. “We’d like to thank Amazon for all their faith and support, thei...
