Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1067 - 1091 of 3759
(JNS) — When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When he’s a Palestinian Arab, of course. In any other part of the world, under any other circumstances, somebody who, for nationalistic reasons, fires a submachine gun into a crowd of civilians is recognized as a terrorist. But when Fadi Abu Shkhaydam opened fire with a submachine gun into a group of Jewish civilians in Jerusalem earlier last month, murdering tour guide Eliyahu (“Eli”) Kay and wounding four others, the word “terrorist” was nowhere to be found. The opening sentence of The New York Ti...
(JNS) — When Elmer Davis, director of FDR’s Office of War Information, observed that “ … you cannot do much with people who are convinced that they are the sole authorized custodians of Truth and that whoever differs from them is ipso facto wrong,” he may well have been speaking about those well-meaning but misguided college students who rail against a world in which their dreams of social justice for the oppressed and weak are not being realized, despite their best efforts. That same tendentious behavior now seems to be exploited by editors of...
“We recognize there are not two sides of the Holocaust.” So spoke Texas school superintendent Lane Ledbetter, apologizing for North Texas school administrator Gina Peddy’s remark, surreptitiously recorded by someone among a group of teachers, that they should “make sure that if you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing, that has other perspectives.” “How do you oppose the Holocaust?” an unidentified and understandably puzzled participant was heard to ask. Well, you don’t, of course. Which is what Ledbetter felt the n...
(JNS) — Chanukah is a joyous time, as it should be. But many Jews celebrate it superficially, merely by eating latkes and sufganiyot, spinning dreidels and exchanging gifts. While some light a menorah to commemorate the miracle of the last pure jar of oil that lasted eight days, most don’t appreciate the full story of the holiday or its modern-day implications. Though Jews like to quip about this holiday and others that “they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat,” the real Chanukah story is one of incredible bravery, commitment, determina...
(JTA) — Allegations of child sexual abuse against Chaim Walder, the author of children’s books beloved in the haredi Orthodox market, and the uncharacteristically swift and harsh community response, have left many wondering if this case could mark the turning point in how the community addresses sexual abuse. As an abuse survivor who supports and advocates for victims of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities, it’s a question I’ve been asked many times over the last week. That was when Mordy Getz, owner of Eichler’s of Boro Park, a Judaica s...
(JNS) — Ever since President Thomas Jefferson first coined the phrase in 1802, Americans have debated exactly how high the “wall of separation” should be between religion and state. The debate continues to this day. These discussions reflect a basic truth about the central role that faith has always played in the public square of the republic since it first came into existence. But if there is any point about the intersection between religion and state that is settled and not open to disputation, it is the one about whether the United State...
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof …” It is not just by chance that these profound words were chosen to be the very first words of the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The first colonists to escape to the New World were motivated by a desire to escape the rigid and mandated religious practices and domination of the Church of England. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century replaced rigid Catholic Church domination of the political and religious life in Europe in areas wher...
Up until about six months ago “CRT” was an abstract for me. I had been hearing about “CRT” for more than a year. I did not know what the letters “CRT” stood for. Now I know. They stand for “Critical Race Theory.” It professes to teach the role of race in our lives since the Civil War to high school students. I really finally found out this fall, during the run for governor of Virginia what effect CRT is having politically. It CANNOT have an effect on education because it is NOT being taught in ANY school district in the U.S. politically? In...
(JNS) — Many critics of Israel have joined Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in denouncing Israel because courts have determined that a group of Palestinian families are illegally living in homes owned by Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Rather than accept a compromise offered by the Supreme Court that would have allowed them to stay in their homes, the families turned it down and now face eviction (As of Wednesday, one of the families that did not appeal the eviction order reached a deal with the property owners that w...
(JTA) — I live in one of the most concentrated Jewish communities in the United States, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and I no longer have a daily morning minyan to attend in person. It seems that in my neighborhood, as well as many others, COVID-19 snuffed out the live morning minyan — the daily prayer service that needs a quorum of 10 Jews — in non-Orthodox settings. Pre-pandemic I had a choice of multiple minyans I could attend in a variety of egalitarian Jewish settings — synagogues and schools — but none of them is operating in-person...
(JNS) — Many of us know the themes of the Chanukah story: pride in being Jewish; the few against the many; the defeat of our enemy; and the rededication of the Jewish Temple. Or perhaps some have only learned of the miracle of the oil and how it burned continuously for eight days. While these are important themes, there is much more to the Chanukah story that is at the heart of why we celebrate the holiday and why it’s so relevant today. Looking at the story of Chanukah, which happened in the second century BCE, we know that many Jews of tha...
“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand cease to function. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem as my greatest joy!” (Psalm 137:5-6) There’s no place that’s more central to Jews and Christians than Jerusalem. It’s the city of the kings, prophets and where Jesus preached, worshipped, and was crucified. As central as Jerusalem is to our history and our faith, Jerusalem is facing a threat to be redivided today, a threat to Israel’s sovereignty. Sadly, the threat is not from on...
By (JNS) — The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, got himself into an unfortunate mess during the COP26 conference on climate change held in Glasgow, Scotland. After he claimed that politicians who failed to take the necessary action to halt climate change would be viewed in an even worse light than those who had ignored the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, he was asked whether that meant failure to act on climate change would be worse than allowing genocide to happen. He replied: “It will allow a genocide on an infinitely greater sca...
(JNS) — It is frustrating to realize that even after two successive administrations (those of former U.S. President Donald Trump and his successor, Joe Biden) have recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — and the latter confirmed that the U.S. embassy, which the former moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, would remain there — the State Department is still flirting with the concept of locating what amounts to a symbolic consulate to the Palestinian Authority in Jerusalem. This misguided effort is being pursued despite all the progress made...
As far as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are concerned, this week has brought a perfect storm of circumstances that threaten to complicate their hopes for a better relationship with the United States. Both men, each for their own reasons, see establishing a good rapport with President Joe Biden and his administration as one of the main goals of their coalition government that took office in June. But blistering criticism was issued by the U.S. State Department on two issues: its renewed commitment to...
Lebanon is the little Arab brother that reluctantly got into its big brothers’ fight with Israel. Lebanon won its formal independence in 1943 with the termination of the French Mandate established by the League of Nations. It became truly independent with the withdrawal of the French army in 1946. During WWII Lebanon was under the control of the French Vichy regime. Post WWII Lebanon became quite prosperous as Beirut soon became the banking center for the oil-rich Gulf States including Saudi Arabia. It was considered the Switzerland of the Midd...
(JNS) — In the wake of a CAMERA exposé, the Target Corporation has taken swift action to remove two dozen Holocaust-denial and antisemitic conspiracy books being sold on the company website. On discovering the publications, CAMERA contacted Target executives and alerted its membership to the egregious problem. Commendably, the company acted immediately in addition to apologizing for its “error in having these books available on Target.com.” But, as it turns out, this was only one chapter in an ongoing story whose conclusion is not yet obviou...
Over 1.7 million illegal alien invaders were caught on the border in the last fiscal year and detentions hit their highest level since the 1986 illegal alien amnesty. During the election, Biden warned that he couldn’t shut down President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies right away. “The last thing we need is to say we’re going to stop immediately … and then end up with 2 million people on our border.” Biden stopped them anyway and we’re less than 300,000 illegal aliens away from 2 million. And when illegals don’t succeed the first time,...
Dear Editor, I’ve never lived under a dictatorship before so I have no experience in describing what it was like or what we could expect. I don’t believe a benign dictatorship exists and the only ones I’m familiar with are: China, Russia, N. Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Pakistan possibly, PLA under Abbas, Syria, Somalia, Turkey, and Afghanistan. There was a time in modern history that Germany, Italy, Hungary, and several Eastern European nations turned into fascist dictatorships. Other than meeting several people with tattoos on their arms...
(JNS) — It’s never a good sign when George Soros’s name is back in the headlines. The Hungarian-born hedge-fund billionaire has become a touchstone of controversy. Both Republicans and Democrats in Virginian are taking his name in vain this week as the off-year election for governor, as well as various other state and local positions, has become a battleground in an unexpectedly tight race. Each side in the tribal culture war that characterizes contemporary American political discourse views him as a symbol that can help rally support to them....
(JNS) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom just announced the formation in his state, and allocation of millions of dollars, towards the Governor’s Council on Holocaust and Genocide Education. This seems commendable on its face, but it’s not that simple. If Newsom wants to be on the right side of history, he has to pick a side. He can’t simultaneously advocate for both Holocaust education and antisemitic ethnic-studies curricula. Nor should he advocate for lessons that bundle the Shoah with other genocides. Newsom should learn from the challen...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz has designated six major Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. This means that their bank trades and the movements of their leaders and affiliates are now monitored and barred from operating in the country. The evidence supporting Gantz’s move is astounding. The organizations in question — Addameer, al-Haq, Defense for Children Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bisan Center for Research and Development, and the Union of Palestinian Women Committees — serve as the civilia...
(FLAME via JNS) What seemed a few months ago like just another whim of the overzealous “New Guard” now running the U.S. State Department seems today like a determined effort to take Israel down a peg. Since day one, the new administration has talked about reestablishing warm relations with the Palestinian Authority by reopening its Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem. Ha, ha, very funny, thought many of us: There’s no state of Palestine, Jerusalem is the U.S.-recognized capital of Israel, the Palestinians are still paying terrorists to kill...
(JNS) — When Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that he is listing six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups, all hell broke loose on the left. The outcry, which emanated not only from Washington and Brussels, but from the halls of the Knesset in Jerusalem and Muqata in Ramallah, could have been anticipated. There’s no sacred cow as holy as a self-described “humanitarian organization,” especially when it’s associated with and financed by equally untouchable foundations. Thus, though the impetus behind Gantz’s move was perfe...
Growing up with one foot in Mexico and one foot in the United States, I am no stranger to the idea of straddling two cultures. In religious studies, we call this idea liminality. Vampires, centaurs and even Jesus Christ (as both divine and human) are all liminal beings. To be liminal is to be half and half — not quite one, not quite the other. Though born in Mexico, I grew up in the Northeastern United States with my mother. The changing of the seasons from summer to fall was marked by a kaleidoscope of changing leaves, the smell of apple c...
