Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Part I (JNS) - In a pre-New Year's meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump demonstrated that when it comes to U.S.-Israel relations, there is little daylight and total admiration between the two allies. This holds particularly true regarding the nations' policies toward Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, in particular. Key differences remain. The meeting could not have come at a more important juncture for Israel. Phase 1 of a three-month-old ceas...
After his visit with President Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with approximately 30 Christian leaders in Orlando on Dec. 31 and followed with a visit to Jewish leaders in Miami. His visit with Christians was formal, almost like a board meeting - men in suits seated at tables. His later visit with the Jewish community was much more informal, like a family-gathering setting. Netanyahu's talk with Christians was warm and inspiring. "You are representatives of the...
(JNS) — At U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confronted what seemed to be an impossible mission. The international stage has shifted: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has exited the spotlight, while Netanyahu was invited to take part in the grand design of world peace envisioned by the American leader—a vision not without complications. From Israel’s point of view, Trump’s statement that he would “absolutely” support additional Israeli strikes on Iranian missile and nuclear facil...
(JNS) — Most foreign governments have allowed an unrestrained surge of overt antisemitism to fester in the public sphere, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on Sunday. He called on world Jewry to move to Israel. “Jews have a right to live safely everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening and we have a certain historical experience,” Sa’ar said during a Chanukah candle-lighting event in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Letzion. “Today, Jews are being hunted across the world.” He specifically called out the Jews of Engla...
(JNS) — More than 4,100 immigrants from North America made aliyah to Israel in 2025 with the support of Nefesh B’Nefesh, marking the highest annual figure in the past four years, the organization announced in a press release on Monday. According to the data, 4,150 North American Jews immigrated to Israel this year in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and Jewish National Fund–USA. The figure represents an increase of more than 12 percent compared to 2024, when 3,...
(JNS) — Israel’s Security Cabinet on Sunday approved the establishment and legalization of 19 Jewish communities across Judea and Samaria, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich noted on X. Among the 19 towns are Ganim and Kadim in northern Samaria. They were evacuated and destroyed by the Israeli government during the 2005 disengagement. In total, 11 new towns will be established, and eight existing neighborhoods will be officially recognized by the state. “We continue to make history in settling [the land] and in the State of Israel,” Smotric...
Israel’s Christian population is about 185,000, accounting for just under 2 percent of the country’s total population, according to data published Wednesday by the Central Bureau of Statistics on the eve of Christmas 2025. Nearly 80 percent of the Christians in Israel are Arab, comprising 6.8 percent of the nation’s overall Arab population. Most Arab Christians reside in the Northern District (68.3 percent) and Haifa District (14.7 percent). Non-Arab Christians are more concentrated in the Tel Aviv and Central Districts (42 percent) with 34 pe...
(JNS) — Ariel, Hebrew for “lion of God”, retained its title as the most popular name given to Jewish boys in Israel in 2025, the country’s Population and Immigration Authority announced on Tuesday. It was followed by Lavie, meaning “lion” in Hebrew, with the biblical figure David rounding out the top three. Muhammad, Yosef and Adam were the three most popular boys’ names among the general population. Arabs comprise about 20 percent of Israel’s population of roughly 10 million. Among girls, Avigail, who according to the Bible married the fut...
(JNS) - A Jewish ritual bath, or mikveh, dating back to the final days of the Second Temple period has been unearthed near the Western Wall, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Monday. The bath, which still bears ash remains that testify to the destruction of the Temple, was discovered recently beneath the Western Wall Plaza, the state-run archaeological body said. Hewn into the bedrock, the mikveh, which is rectangular in shape, measuring 3.05 meters in length, 1.35 meters in width...
A Jewish American fighter pilot shot down over China in World War II was finally laid to rest on American soil last week, with dirt from Israel placed over his coffin. Lt. Morton Sher, who flew with the famed Flying Tigers, was buried on Sunday in a cemetery in Greenville, S.C., where his headstone and an empty grave have awaited him for 80 years. The oldest son of David and Anna Sher, he was born in Baltimore before his family moved to the South. Active at Congregation Beth Israel in...
As Team Israel prepares to take on the world in the next World Baseball Classic, scheduled for March, it does so against the background of a worldwide spike in Jew-hatred in the aftermath of Israel's war against Hamas. The players are ready for that challenge. Two veterans of the 2023 team, which did well enough to secure an automatic bid for the 2026 event, told JNS that they are prouder than ever to wear the blue and white. "That means everything to me, and it gives me even more of a reason...
(JNS) — Former Israeli hostage Matan Zangauker and his girlfriend, former hostage Ilana Gritzewsky, have become engaged. Zangauker’s mother, Einav Zangauker, who was one of the most vocal voices among the families of the hostages held in Gaza, posted a photo on Sunday night of Matan, 26, and Ilana, 32, drinking champagne in front of a “Will you marry me” sign inside a flower-bedecked wreath in the form of a heart. “My picture of victory,” Einav wrote. “Ilana & Matan.” A large guitar-shaped building in the background placed the photo at the Se...
(JNS) - During his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., U.S. President Donald Trump was told that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize. Created in 1953, the award is the "most important and prestigious prize awarded by the State of Israel," and has "been awarded annually at the close of Independence Day, in an official state ceremony held in Jerusalem in the presence of the president of the state, the prime minister, the speaker of the...
Ken Paxton, attorney general for the state of Texas, has filed a legal response defending the state’s designation of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, after local CAIR chapters sued to block the move, according to a press release from Paxton’s office. The dispute stems from a Nov. 18 proclamation by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, declaring the Muslim Brotherhood and CAIR to be “foreign terrorist organizations” and “transnational criminal organizations” under Texas law. The...
The United States remains open to nuclear pact talks with Iran, which again rejected Washington’s advances during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Tuesday. The session focused on implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, of 2015 which outlined Iran’s commitments to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. The permanent Security Council members—United States, United Kingdom, France, China and Russia—signed the agreement, as did Germany and the European Union. Tuesday marked the first council...
Maduro capture ‘act of war,’ says Mamdani, who calls for Netanyahu’s arrest By JNS Staff (JNS) — Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor who has said that he would have Benjamin Netanyahu arrested if the Israeli prime minister visits the Big Apple, said on Saturday that he had been briefed on the U.S. military action in Venezuela, in which forces captured dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and on “their planned imprisonment in federal custody here in New York City.” “Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violatio...
(JNS) — 18.4 million passengers travelled through Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport this year, an increase of 33 percent compared to the previous year, the Israel Airports Authority announced on Tuesday. The figures highlight both the resurgence of the Israeli aviation sector and the postwar re-emergence of Tel Aviv as an international travel hub. Some 60 foreign carriers are now flying to Tel Aviv compared to 80 two years ago, before the war, with the Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air expected to open a hub in Israel in the spring. The...
(JNS) - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Thursday that disarming Hamas is "absolutely going to happen" and that he expects to see other countries in the region join the Abraham Accords next year. He spoke as U.S. President's Donald Trump's Gaza ceasefire plan is expected to move to its second stage next month following the president's anticipated meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida after Christmas. "The challenge of getting Hamas disarmed is not a goal...
(JNS) - Many American Jews assume that it's easy to be Jewish in Israel given the ubiquity of Hebrew and history in the Jewish state, where one needn't pay tens of thousands of dollars annually for day school or thousands for synagogue membership to raise children who are knowledgeable about Judaism. But senior Israeli educators told JNS that is not the case. Several Israeli education officials, who spent a week visiting New York schools and synagogues, told JNS that Israeli students aren't...
(JNS) — As the Trump administration intensifies pressure to transition to “Phase 2” of the Gaza ceasefire agreement, potentially as early as January, observers in Israel see no sign of Hamas disarming as the terror organization reestablishes its fundamentalist, murderous regime over the 47 percent of Gaza that it controls. Despite multiple reports of international stabilization force preparations and Palestinian technocratic governments, the reality inside the Gaza Strip could not be more starkly different. Hamas is actively rebuilding its r...
(JNS) - Researchers at Israel's Hebrew University have identified the world's earliest systematic botanical art, dating back more than 8,000 years, that demonstrates sophisticated mathematical reasoning. Professor Yosef Garfinkel and Sarah Krulwich analyzed pottery from the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia (circa 6200-5500 BCE) across 29 archaeological sites. Their study, published in the Journal of World Prehistory, found that flowers, shrubs and trees painted on vessels displayed precise numerical patterns-particularly petal counts...
(JNS) — Puka Nacua, a wide receiver for the Los Angeles Rams, apologized on Thursday for performing an antisemitic touchdown dance online earlier in the week. Nacua appeared on a Dec. 16 livestream with Adin Ross, who is Jewish and has a history of controversial actions criticized for enabling antisemitism and racism, and a streamer who goes by the name “N3on.” Toward the end of the stream, Ross told Nacua that for his touchdown celebration dance, he should mirror Ross’s “iconic Jewish dance,” involving throwing the football down and spinnin...
(JNS) — An Israeli official on Friday participated in a meeting in Naqoura, Lebanon, aimed at ensuring the disarmament of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem confirmed. “During the meeting, ways to promote economic projects were discussed in order to underscore the mutual interest in removing the Hezbollah threat and ensuring sustainable security for residents on both sides of the border,” according to the statement. “The meeting is a continuation of the security dialogue aimed at ensuring...
(JNS) — Israel arrested a Russian citizen working in the country who allegedly photographed infrastructure and ships at ports under the direction of Iranian intelligence, security officials said on Friday Vitaly Zvyagnitsev, 30, was detained in early December after allegedly carrying out surveillance tasks for an Iranian handler who identified himself as “Roman,” said the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and the Erez Unit of the Defense Ministry’s security directorate, known by its Hebrew acronym MALMAB. The suspect continued the mission...
(JNS) — Police opened an investigation on Friday after security camera footage showed a woman in Muslim religious garb blowing out Chanukah menorah candles at a Tel Aviv shopping mall. If the woman is identified, police are expected to charge her under Article 170 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes the desecration or damage of places of worship or sacred objects with the intent or awareness. The offense carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison. In video taken at the Weizmann City Mall, an indoor mall located next to Tel Aviv S...
