Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The Biden administration is telling Israel that disagreements between them should remain private. Its double standard, like its hypocrisy, is astounding. Washington had no problem, for example, publicly criticizing Israel’s decision to proceed with its effective policy of demolishing the homes of Palestinian-Arab terrorists who murder Jews and Americans. Earlier this month, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said, “We attach a good deal of priority to this, knowing that the home of an entire family shouldn’t be demolis...
(JNS) — It may have been discouraging, but the dismal turnout for a national rally that was supposed to bring Jews together against antisemitism was also an appropriate reminder of the greatest challenge facing them. A week before Tisha B’Av — the annual day of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, in addition to other disasters that befell the Jews throughout history — a well-meaning attempt to mobilize and unite the community to confront antisemitism didn’t seem to resonate with most Jews. While lots of e...
(The Jewish Journal via JNS) — Whose job is it to define who I am? Is it an institution’s job or is it mine? In all the brouhaha over critical race theory, this question is rarely asked. That may be because much of the controversy over CRT has been about defining a nation and a system. CRT is a theoretical genre within the larger realm of critical theory that has become a mainstream movement. It teaches that the United States was founded on racism, oppression and white supremacy — and that these forces are still rooted in our society. What...
(JTA) — The Arizona Diamondbacks made baseball history Monday when they made Jacob Steinmetz, a 17-year-old right-handed pitcher from Woodmere, New York, their third round pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Steinmetz, who lists at 6-feet-5 and 220 pounds, is the first Orthodox Jewish player to be selected in baseball’s annual talent hunt, which dates back to 1965. The media made a big deal that he “keeps the Sabbath and eats only kosher food,” although the teen does play on Shabbat and holidays — he walks to the fields in those situation...
(JNS) — The first thing to be said about the “No Fear” rally against antisemitism held in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sunday was that it was a noble effort. The organizers and those who showed up deserve credit for trying to shine a spotlight on a surge in hate crimes against Jews. A new group called Alliance for Israel was the primary organizer of the effort; it was launched in the aftermath of the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in mid-May that led to a torrent of incidents of antisemitic incitement and violence acros...
(JTA) — Anyone teaching the past by skipping over the unpleasant parts isn’t teaching history. They are engaged in propaganda. Jewish tradition understands this: Refusing to sugarcoat their own people’s culpability, the Sages themselves teach that the destruction of the Temple by the Romans is a consequence of baseless hatred — among Jews. Yet in nearly two-dozen states, the movement to impose restrictions on the teaching of history is gaining momentum. Incited by a national hysteria over “critical race theory,” advocates of these educational f...
(JNS) — The decline of polling firms has been part and parcel of the general decline of institutional trustworthiness. There’s still a market for “internal polls” for political campaigns, but there’s also an abundance of “poll trolls” and highly dubious clickbait polls. The media is happy to pick up the clicks from the clickbait without reporting basic questions about the firms behind the numbers. Take this latest one loudly promoted by the JTA, with a bold headline: “Poll finds a quarter of US Jews think Israel is ‘apartheid state.’” The JTA d...
(JNS) — There is no more obvious sign that American education is in trouble than the fact that most state legislatures have become battlegrounds over how to teach history. The subject can be fraught with controversy under any circumstances. But in the last year, as efforts to put critical race theory into public-school curricula have increased, the entire question of how to think not just about the history of ourselves but the United States itself has become wrapped up in controversies about education. On the one hand, some Americans believe t...
One of the factors in the early formation of humans into social groups was a common belief in spiritual powers, mythical gods and superstitions. The consensus of so-called religious beliefs within these groups at the dawn of civilization was as much a driving force in the formation of tribal community life as was the need to collectively survive by delegating and cooperating in food gathering, hunting and protecting against other tribal communities. While unanimity of religious belief within the tribe was beneficial to its safety, well-being...
(JNS) — Over the last couple of months, everyone once again attempted to take sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Hamas, acting under insidious and aggressive tactics, used an emotionally charged court case as a reason to wage a large assault on Israel from the Gaza Strip. More than 4,000 rockets later, of which many misfired and ended up hurting Palestinians, we are seeing a lull in hostility. However, as Israelis and Palestinians are clearing the rubble from this horrifying violence, there is an age-old conflict arising in the United S...
(FLAME via JNS) — As the Palestinian Authority tightens its iron grip on dissent in the West Bank—and a dissident is brutally murdered while in P.A. custody—Western media virtually ignore the story. One Palestinian activist accuses the United States government itself of supporting the increased repression. Ironically, just last February, P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas seemed to have found a new love for the freedom of speech. Reversing more than a decade of strangling speech critical of his regime, he decreed a ban on “the detention, arrest,...
(JNS) — The Biden administration is determined to provide aid to the Palestinians in violation of the spirit, if not the letter of the Taylor Force Act, which bars U.S. aid from going to the Palestinian Authority (PA) so long as it continues its pay-to-slay policy. PA President Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly said he will not end the payments to terrorists and, in recent months, has tried to restructure the means of payments in hopes President Joe Biden will ignore the deception. Regardless, the Palestinians don’t need the money and should not...
(JNS) Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Massachusetts Boston put together a “March for Palestine” at the Massachusetts State House on June 24. The event began with a UMass Boston SJP member taking the microphone and telling the crowd that participants would be marching to the local offices of the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council. The choice of these locations seemed interesting, given that the Israeli Consulate is only a short walk away from the State House. “I’m so sorry; I’m still lea...
(JNS) — As far as some of Israel’s most vicious critics were concerned, it was the sort of thing that gave their critiques of Zionism a bad name. It was difficult to pretend that the decision of organizers of a Philadelphia food festival to disinvite an Israeli-owned food truck from participating was rooted in anything other than prejudice against Israel and Jews. Those who run the “Taste of Home” event that had been scheduled to take place in the Kensington section of the City of Brotherly Love thought they were being prudent when they to...
Sometimes it takes time to get there, but as history shows, in the end, level heads prevail and justice is served. And so on that note, we say it’s wonderful that there is finally national recognition of the end of slavery in the U.S. with Juneteenth now a national holiday. But with over 62 million innocent human lives already having been brutally ended thanks to the most misguided and pernicious Supreme Court decision in American history, we will need a national holiday to commemorate the poor helpless unborn children who never got a chance t...
(JNS) — While the Jewish left keeps trying to convince us that most anti-Israel hatred is not antisemitism, a new poll has found that a large majority of American Jews see things such more clearly. The poll, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, asked Jews whether certain types of anti-Israel statements or actions are antisemitic: “Saying Israel should not exist as a Jewish state” — 75 percent say it’s antisemitic “Comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis” — 70 percent “Protesting Israeli actions outside an American synagogue” — 67 p...
(JNS) — According to the establishment media, critical race theory, or CRT, is a distraction. It is a right-wing smear. It is a conservative attempt to quash the dark side of American history. Most of all, according to the establishment media, you must never pay attention to the infusion of CRT into the nation’s institutions of power. According to MSNBC‘s Chuck Todd, controversy over CRT is a “creation … It keeps people watching or it keeps people clicking.” According to CNN‘s Bakari Sellers, CRT is just “America’s history.” Accordi...
I preface this piece by acknowledging that I do not pit one group’s injustice against another. This piece does not diminish the injustice and pain felt by other minorities. I want to open your eyes to the way I, and many others, feel right now. American Jews born in the 1990s grew up in a quiet time. We were born after the fall of the Soviet Union, the dawn of the internet was approaching, and lack of overt antisemitism. The first time I heard anything anti-Semitic was my freshman year of college. My World Religions teacher harshly critiqued J...
Dear Editor: As a Yankee from Pennsylvania moving to Ormond Beach, Fla., perhaps I did not experience the same culture shock as did Heritage columnist Jim Shipley’s move to Louisiana. Wherever I lived, with the exception of Israel for 12 years, I was always a minority and have witnessed anti-Jew incidents even decades before when I lived in NYC. They still haven’t changed and have gotten much worse today. Shipley states in his column (Shipley Speaks, June 25, 2021) that the Jewish community has fought all this type of racism or exclusion and...
As the AIPAC consensus — the norm for American Jewish political life for decades — recedes, the “American Jewish Left” is becoming increasingly visible and heterodox opinions on the left are proliferating. However, with that profusion comes the need for distinction and nuance about the spectrum and character of that new left, not least in terms of how its constituent camps relate to Israel’s statehood and the Israeli occupation. Etan Nechin’s recent piece (The American Jewish Left’s Untimely Abandonment of Israel’s Leftists), with which I la...
(JNS) — When discussing the history of the establishment of Israel, a commonly parroted trope within anti-Israel and anti-Semitic circles is that the nation was founded by Jewish people who “colonized” the land and displaced more than 1 million Palestinians in 1948. This is an absurd and historically inaccurate narrative. National Students for Justice in Palestine and its chapters across the country are infamous for spreading this libelous claim. For instance, the website for its New York chapter states, “We are unapologetically anti-Zi...
(JNS) — It was perhaps the most important meeting in Jewish history, but it was also simply a discussion between two old friends. Harry S. Truman was the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world. Across from him in the Oval Office sat Eddie Jacobson, his former business partner and army buddy. Chaim Weizmann, a Zionist leader, was in Washington and Truman refused to meet him; Jacobson had come to the White House to ask him to reconsider. The discussion did not begin well. Truman had not been in the best of moods, and J...
(FLAME on JNS) — With antisemitism at record highs in the United States and around the world, many prefer to focus purely on right-wing and neo-Nazi Jew-hatred, rather than on the larger problem: Hatred of Jews and the Jewish state in the Arab and Muslim world, home to a population of hundreds of millions. Unfortunately for the truth, the intersectionalist left is quick to oppose factual evidence of widespread Muslim antisemitism, using accusations of Islamophobia. Indeed, many on the left dismiss racism on the part of “oppressed people of col...
Yes, “all men are created equal”, but that doesn’t mean we are all identical. Champions of woke ideology have found a new enemy: special educational programs for the gifted. Last week another special ed curriculum for the gifted in mathematics in New York City has been canceled. It joins a movement spreading around the country to eliminate any special programming which supports the needs of academically advanced and diversely talented students. After first scrapping gifted entrance exams, the conclusion in woke thinking is to abolish gifte...
(JNS) — As a Jew residing in a suburban Jewish bubble, my congressman, Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), has been largely unseen where the mounting anti-Semitism from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is concerned—with one exception. He seems not to grasp fully the stark reality that the nation’s hallowed halls are bleeding pure, unadulterated racism. He and his 25 Jewish colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives remain compliantly huddled under the shadow of party boss, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi, calculating the neces...
