Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1966 - 1990 of 2213
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s peace talks with the Palestinians remain mostly shrouded in secrecy, but one thing is certain: The Palestinian prisoner release that paved the way for their resumption is increasing tensions in Israel’s governing coalition. Israel completed the second stage of the four-part release on Tuesday, setting free 26 prisoners who had committed crimes—mostly murders—before the Israeli-Palestinian peace process began in 1993. The first stage of the prisoner release occurred in August. The government approved the release i... Full story
Former U.S. President George W. Bush made a surprise appearance at the 50th anniversary tribute gala of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York, saying Iran cannot be trusted when it says its nuclear program has peaceful intentions. One attendee of the event, speaking anonymously because Bush’s comments were off the record, said Bush quoted from his May 2008 speech to the Israeli Knesset. In that speech—one that he called a highlight of his pre... Full story
NEW YORK—Birthright Israel Foundation has elected Joshua Nash, a leader in the New York Jewish and philanthropic community and member of its board of directors, as the next board chairman succeeding Dan Och, who has served as chairman since 2008. The Foundation is the U.S.-based fundraising arm of the highly successful Taglit- Birthright Israel program, which has sent more than 400,000 young Jewish adults on free, 10-day educational trips to Israel since 2000. “We are honored to have som... Full story
(JNS.org)—Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan will lead more than 30,000 Christian pilgrims on an upcoming trip to Israel. While in Israel, President Jonathan, who is the first sitting Nigerian Christian president to visit Israel, is expected to sign a Bilateral Air Services Agreement between Nigeria and Israel, making it easier for Christian pilgrims to visit, AllAfrica.com reported. According to Nigeria state media, the first round of 2,000 Christian pilgrims began arriving Oct. 19, while P... Full story
(JNS.org) Facebook announced the acquisition of the Israeli mobile analytics startup, Onavo, as part of a larger plan to reduce the number of people without Internet access. Facebook will also turn Onavo’s Tel Aviv office into the company’s first Israeli headquarters. Founded in 2010, Onavo focused on intelligence concerning mobile application data. According to the tech site AllThingsD, the services of Onavo are in line with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Internet.org initiative, which aims... Full story
(JNS.org) Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was quoted in the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar as saying that he could “shut Israel up” with or without chemical weapons. Assad—whose country has seen more than 100,000 deaths in the Syrian civil war, including more than 1,400 in what the U.S. said was a chemical attack on civilians—also expressed frustration over not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his agreement on the removal of his chemical weapons stockpile. Instead, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won the prize f... Full story
(JNS.org)—A new survey shows that many European Jews hide their faith due to fear of anti-Semitism. The online poll by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights reveals that 27 percent of all respondents blamed rising anti-Semitism across the European continent on Muslims. About the same percentage of respondents blamed anti-Semitism on individuals with left-wing political convictions, and 19 percent blamed those with right-wing beliefs. “Preliminary findings already show that three-quarters of respondents feel that anti-Semitism has... Full story
(JNS.org) Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on the topic of a future Palestinian state that there will be “no peace without Jerusalem as its capital.” “I will not compromise on the 1967 borders as the border for our Palestinian state; there is no peace without Jerusalem as its capital,” Abbas said on Palestinian TV, reported WAFA, the official Palestinian Authority news agency. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has maintained that Jerusalem, which was divided by Jordani... Full story
An apparent antidote to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is coming from a once unlikely source. Chinese magnate Li Ka-Shing, among Asia’s richest businessmen, recently donated $130 million to Israel’s Technion University, as part of a joint venture with Shantou University that will establish the Technion Guangdong Institute of Technology (TGIT). The gift, one of the largest ever to an Israeli university, is indicative of a pervasive deepening in the con... Full story
JERUSALEM—Ometz Lev, a new movement in Israel launched and headed by current Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur, is a political initiative led by the women of Jerusalem. The party will participate in the upcoming Jerusalem municipal elections on Oct. 22, vying for seats on the city council. According to recent estimates, Ometz Lev is geared to win four mandates on the 31-seat city council. Tsur and her fellow party members are leading a revolutionary movement for the championing of female leadership in a city that has gained a reputation for the e...
BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA)—It was only when her sons came at her with knives that she realized keeping quiet was not going to work. For nine years, her rabbis had told her not to speak up about her husband’s verbal, physical and sexual attacks. They assured her that the abuse would pass, that if she obeyed his every wish—folding his napkin just so or letting him do as he liked in bed—the attacks would end and he would stop telling their grown sons she was a bad mother. But when her sons began t... Full story
ANTWERP, Belgium (JTA)—With the confidence befitting a septuagenarian grandmother, Ellen Bledsoe-Rodriguez briskly leads her family past the beer stalls and DJs that dot the Flemish capital’s historic port on sunny autumn days. Bledsoe-Rodriguez is uninterested in such diversions. She and nine of her relatives had traveled 5,600 miles from California for last week’s opening of a museum devoted to the Red Star Line, the maritime travel company that nearly a century ago transported her mothe... Full story
(JTA)—Battered and bruised by decades of separatist governments, restrictive language laws and a modern-day exodus, the Jewish community of Quebec may finally have something to celebrate. A new analysis of figures culled from the 2011 Canadian census, known as the National Household Survey, found that Quebec’s Jewish population had not dipped below the 90,000 threshold, as had previously been believed. Montreal’s Federation CJA had projected a Jewish population in the province of 88,500. The new analysis, which combined the 83,200 Montrealers w... Full story
Karnit Flug to be first female Bank of Israel chief JERUSALEM (JTA)—Karnit Flug, the deputy governor of the Bank of Israel, was picked to move up to the top spot and if confirmed will be the first woman to be the central bank’s governor. Flug’s appointment was announced Sunday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yair Lapid. The deputy governor since July 2011, Flug has been serving as acting governor since Stanley Fischer stepped down on June 30. Fischer recommended Flug to be his replacement. Her appointment comes after t... Full story
Rabin’s grandson at memorial makes plea for peace JERUSALEM (JTA)—The grandson of Yitzchak Rabin at a memorial for the slain prime minister implored Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring peace to Israel. “My grandfather was murdered over peace and you owe this peace to us, to all of us,” Yonatan Ben Artzi said before a crowd of some 35,000 Israelis gathered Saturday night in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. The memorial marked the 18th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir on Nov. 4, 1995, more than two years... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—I didn’t need to ask directions. Stepping out of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, I saw them, men in hats and coats walking together slowly, a steady stream moving east along one of Jerusalem’s central thoroughfares to the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. At 5 p.m., an hour before the funeral, the streets were already closed to cars, the capital’s rush-hour rigmarole giving way to foot traffic that was softer but no less intense. From a distance it looked homogenous. Aerial... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The “credible military threat” against Iran that Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to hear while he was in the United States this week eventually emerged—from his own lips. The Israeli prime minister, in a blunt speech to the United Nations General Assembly, warned that Israel was ready to go it alone against Iran should it come close to obtaining a nuclear weapon. “I want there to be no confusion on this point,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will not allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. If I... Full story
(JTA)—When Rina Attias phoned to say that she was trapped with terrorists inside Nairobi’s Westgate mall, her husband Albert replied with a short instruction: Hang up right now. Albert Attias, the head of the Jewish community in the Kenyan capital and an Israeli military veteran, wanted to communicate with his wife by text message so she wouldn’t be overheard speaking Hebrew. Their Israeli connections were not something the couple was eager to advertise, even in normal circumstances. “I was grav... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, has died. Yosef died Monday at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93. He served as Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi from 1973 to 1983, and extended his influence over the ensuing decades as the spiritual leader of Shas, which politically galvanized hundreds of thousands of Sephardic Israelis, though Yosef himself never served in Knes... Full story
Report: Dayan asked Golda Meir to prepare nuclear option in ’73 (JTA)—Moshe Dayan urged Golda Meir to prepare to launch a nuclear strike during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, according to a former Israeli official’s longtime aide and confidant. Arnon Azaryahu, who was an aide to Israel Galili, a Cabinet minister during the war, said in an interview that Dayan, the defense minister at the time, suggested that Meir, then the prime minister, order to begin preparations to enable a nuclear option on Oct. 8, 1973—the second day of the war. The Yom Kippur... Full story
(JNS.org) In a speech at the conference of the self-labeled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby J Street, Vice President Joe Biden said last Monday that the Palestinians are the “least ideological and sectarian” Arabs in the Middle East. Biden’s comments on the Palestinians were an attempt to address questions concerning the Obama administration’s brokering of Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations during a time of upheaval elsewhere in the region, including in Syria and in Egypt. “In light o... Full story
Salome Worch was born in Iran, grew up and spent most of her adult life there. The daughter of a Jewish mother and a Muslim father, she was registered as a Muslim in Iran’s records. Gradually, she grew more interested in her Jewish heritage, and in 2005 eventually immigrated to Israel, where she works in catering. “Don’t use my maiden name because my brother is still in Iran and I wouldn’t want to put him in any danger,” she warned The Media Line. Worch said she is deeply skeptical that the election of new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani h... Full story
JNS.org—In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly last Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama named Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and advancing Arab-Israeli peace as two of his top foreign policy issues. “In the near term, America’s diplomatic efforts will focus on two particular issues: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Obama said. Obama said these two issues “have been a major source of instability for far too long, and resolving them can help... Full story
I have devoted numerous columns of late to the tsunami of anti-Semitism sweeping throughout Western Europe, noting that aside from the frenziedly anti-Semitic Islamic extremists, the principal perpetrators are left wing activists frequently led by those purportedly promoting human rights. Manfred Gerstenfeld’s most recent book “Demonizing Israel and the Jews” documents evidence of the depressingly high levels of European anti-Semitism, highlighting the frequent employment of Holocaust inver... Full story
JERICHO, West Bank (JTA)—The Intercontinental Hotel Jericho’s towering brick palazzo, flanked by a row of palm trees leading to an ornate archway entrance, seems the very epitome of desert luxury. But inside, the hotel lobby—replete with marble floors and plush armchairs—stands empty on a recent weekday morning, save for a lone tourist rushing through wrapped in a towel. General manager Hisham Nammari said the hotel’s 181 rooms are sometimes full during the summer and that business is generally... Full story
