Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Regular readers of my column know that I like to bring some historical perspective to current affairs that is missing from most reporting and analysis. I happened upon some interesting tidbits that may help us understand the recent fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, and the real reason peace is unlikely, if not impossible. Israel has been complaining since the signing of the Oslo Accords (and before) about Palestinian incitement to violence against Israeli Jews. The Israelis and various outside analysts have r...
Since I moved to the “Deep South” my cultural education gets a rough shock almost daily. From governors trying to undo a legal election to who is eligible to vote and where and when you can vote to the newest twist on an old subject to be taught in the coming school year called “Critical Race Theory.” Now, I haven’t seen the textbook or any discussion guides. All I have learned so far is that it deals with attitudes on race and will modify the treatment of African Americans in our history so that periods like Reconstruction will not be taught...
A friend of mine and faithful reader of my column (I hope!) asked me to share with him my perspectives on the new political situation in Israel and the impact it will have on future relations between Israel and the U.S. government, American Jewish communities, and the Arab world. I told him I would love to respond to his request, but in truth given the complexities of the Mideast and my lack of a crystal ball, the most accurate answer I could respond with is “I don’t know!” However, as a columnist I do have literary license to speculate on wh...
(JTA) — The COVID-19 epidemic proves you cannot just treat a plague’s symptoms — you must root it out. Yet as incidents of Jew-bullying in the U.S. more than doubled in May compared to the same time period in 2020, too many American Jews complained about the symptoms while obscuring the cause. In a polarized polity, too many in the overwhelmingly liberal American Jewish community either ignore or cover up left-wing complicity in the New Antisemitism, meaning anti-Zionist Jew-hatred. Call it Zio-washing: bleaching the anti-Zionism out of moder...
(JNS) — Standing up to hatred is hard. When those who take a moral stand against it act together, however, it can be confronted to an impressive degree. What started as four Jewish Democrats in Congress attacking the comments of Rep. Ilhan Omar and other colleagues, not by name, as anti-Semitic, grew to 12 members specifically criticizing Omar, who had posted a tweet comparing the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, accompanied by a video in which she is seen questioning Secretary of State Antony Blinken on America’s opp...
(JNS) — The Washington Post’s support of the currently popular trend to call Americans racists is well-known. Its readers, including me and many others who do not share the Post’s premise, read its stories and opinion pages warily but are seldom surprised. The Post’s issue of June 6 (June 3 online) was, however, shockingly obscene. Over three pages, it contained an “Opinions Essay” written by Michele L. Norris that bemoaned America’s failure to “face its horrible past” as Germany has done. America, says Norris, has a “criminal past” t...
(JNS) — Perhaps to non-Israeli followers of Israeli politics, soon-to-be-king Naftali Bennett is doing what is only natural for a politician: making the best deal possible, while extricating the country from a political quagmire that has lasted for more than two years. Indeed, Bennett campaigned to be Israel’s prime minister, and this is precisely what he’s achieving. So why are there protesters outside the homes of Knesset members Ayelet Shaked, Bennett’s No. 2, and Nir Orbach, sixth on Bennett’s “right-wing” Knesset list? Why do polls show...
It was exactly 20 years ago. My wife and I were attending a Shabbat dinner in Madrid on June 1st when someone gave us the news. A suicide bomber had struck a seaside discotheque, the Dolphinarium, in Tel Aviv. There were reportedly many casualties. The final death toll was 21 youngsters, ages 14-25. They were mostly Russian-speaking immigrants out for a night of fun. Another 100 people were wounded. The terrorist was armed and sent by Hamas. His aim was to kill as many Israelis, as many Jews, as possible. His father, upon hearing the news, prou...
(JNS) — According to a May 29 report in The Hill, U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.) is in the final stage of preparing a motion to censure Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) over concerns about her extremist views. Schneider said that the basis of his censure is “the failure of her party to call her out, to condemn her and to isolate her.” Multiple media outlets reported in February, however, that 11 Republicans voted with Democrats in favor of removing Greene from her committee seats. It would appear, then, that the heavy lifting has in fact...
(JNS) — In 1992, Israeli Labor Party leader Yitzhak Rabin came to power with an overwhelming 44 seats against the Likud’s 32. Then-Likud chairman Yitzhak Shamir suffered a major defeat and subsequently resigned. This was when Benjamin Netanyahu won the Likud leadership contest. Rabin built a coalition with the brand-new Meretz Party (12 seats), which was a merger of three parties (Ratz, Shinui and Mapam) and the religious Shas Party (six seats) to reach 62 in the 120-seat Knesset. “Oslo I” saw the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza St...
On March 28, 2021, three student organizations from the University of Miami Law School — the South/West Asian and North African Law Students Association, the Black Law Students Associations, and Miami Law National Lawyers Guild — welcomed Ahmad Abuznaid and Philip Agnew to speak about the Black social justice movement in the U.S. and Palestinians’ activism against “apartheid.” Abuznaid and Agnew are co-founders of the Dream Defenders, an organization founded after the killing of Trayvon Martin to promote “transformative justice,” socialist ide...
Whether you like Prime Minister Netanyahu or not, you cannot deny that during his 12 years in the premiership Israel has advanced technologically, financially, and influentially on the world stage. By all accounts, and obviously last month not withstanding, it was a time of relative security in Israel. You also cannot look at the coalition voted in and not see that his leadership was divisive and not supported by the vast majority of Israelis (if you’re concerned about my use of the word ‘vast’ I direct you to the latest voting results … or tho...
Dear Editor: Aside from the well-informed and intellectual analysis of relevant facts by Mel Pearlman, the Heritage reported the narrative-oriented nonsense of Mr. Shipley, the affinity of the BLM for Palestinian terrorism and the petition of 90 “Rabbinical” no-nothing students who want to kiss the lower anatomy of all critics of Israel and the Jewish people. Who pays the tuition for these future “spiritual leaders” of uninformed Jewish communities? J-Street billionaires? I do not really understand what Mr. Shipley wants Jews to do, but I d...
Unlike many Israelis, I am not spiking the ball or dancing in the end zone today. (Forgive the exclusive American cultural reference for those who don’t follow U.S. football.) Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi, is not public enemy No.1. But his time to step down has passed, and that’s why this week Israel announced a new “unity” government, after four elections in two years. It gives me no sense of pride that we’ve come to this point, particularly how this has transpired. As prime minister, there’s no question that Bibi deserves enormous cr...
(JNS) — Whenever I get asked about Israeli politics on the radio, the first thing I do is point out that Israeli politics isn’t American, it’s European. Israel was controlled by the British. More of its founders were European than American. That means the same messy coalition parliamentary politics without even the benefit of regional representation and direct elections. It’s a terrible system that serves all the wrong people. The last few years have been a grinding disaster of repeat elections because: 1. A huge chunk of Israel’s political...
Next Sunday, June 20, is Father’s Day. In the more than 30 years I have been writing this column I have never devoted an entire column to my dad. I have often thought about it, but my feelings of loss for him have always overwhelmed my ability to write about him. This year in November will be half a century since his passing when I was 27 years old. He had not quite reached his 61st birthday when cancer took him from me. He was the oldest of six sons of an immigrant father and mother. Himself an immigrant arriving in the U.S. at 16 years of a...
(JTA) — The cease-fire agreement announced last week between Israel and Hamas conjures up the wisdom often, if dubiously, attributed to Albert Einstein: “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Unfortunately, ever since the Israeli government withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005 with the naive expectation that it would achieve peace and quiet, the broad brush strokes of the smoldering conflict became all too familiar. Hamas launches large-scale rocket barrages targeting Israeli cities. Since Hamas embeds...
(JNS) — There is little point at this stage of the game in mentioning the depths of moral depravity and treachery into which Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked have descended. Now, as the two self-proclaimed “leaders” of the ideological right defect from the nationalist camp and form a leftist government supported by pro-Hamas Arab parties, the time has come to discuss the strategic and national consequences of their actions. The place to begin the discussion is by noting that ministers that support the Biden administration’s Middle East po...
(JTA) — “Rabbi Adar, is it dangerous to wear my Jewish star?” In 12 years of teaching “Introduction to the Jewish Experience” through HaMaqom | The Place in the San Francisco Bay Area, no student ever asked me that question in those words. This year three students have asked it of me. The first student who asked it was a young woman, a conversion candidate, and she made an appointment to talk to me outside of class. I answered with a question: “Why are you asking this right now?” She talked about reading about attacks on Jews in New York City...
Obviously these past few weeks have been difficult for so many people, mainly the Palestinians and Israelis who have been enmeshed in conflict and under fire. Thankfully there’s now a cease-fire that everyone hopes will hold — but the aftermath of the conflict lingers. I’m not Israeli and I’m not living in Israel. I’m a Jew, I live in the U.S., and these past few weeks have made me extremely uncomfortable in a way that will persist long after the smoke of the most recent destruction has cleared. Some would say it’s unseemly to talk about these...
It’s not the most talented who succeed. It’s those who never stop trying. Congratulations graduates! I remember being where you are today and looking out across the future, which seemed unlimited in its possibilities. I thought I knew so much about life back then. I thought my skills and my knowledge had prepared me for life. But my degree only taught me how to succeed. It didn’t teach me how to fail and learn from pain itself. We try to run from pain and wish it away. But it finds us no matter where or who we are. We’ve all had moments...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — Words have meaning. And in fraught times, in matters of life and death, it is critically important to use the right words. To resolve our disputes, to solve our problems, we must accurately describe what is happening, so that we can respond to facts, not to rhetoric. Which brings me to the recent fighting between Israel and Hamas. Rep. Rashida Tlaib has said that Israel “is practicing ethnic cleansing.” The foreign ministry of Qatar put out a statement urging Israel to end the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestini...
How bad is substance use in the Jewish community? Well, it is worse than many people think. And that’s probably because substance use — whether recreational or prescribed pain medication — is so commonplace. Not to mention, getting drunk or getting high on pot or other depressants or stimulants is considered (by many) as fun. What many do not realize is that some of these people are genetically programmed to take the “high” further. Prescription pain pills can go from “needed for the pain” to “needed.” B’ri’ut held an excellent meeting, sp...
(JNS) — “Operation Guardian of the Walls” may have been the most targeted and accurate precision-bombing campaign ever facilitated by any military, anywhere, in the history of conflict and war. In the 11 days before the ceasefire, more than 4,100 rockets and mortars were launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups. In response, the Israel Defense Forces targeted more than 1,000 sites across the Strip with complex surgical strikes that stunned militaries and defense establishments around the world...
Dear Editor: According to members of Congress Israel started the latest Gaza War and T’laib, Omar and Bernie Sanders are leading the charge to defund Israel just as the left wing governments of many of our cities and states are defunding the police. Much is made of the deaths of Palestinian children in Gaza. Nothing is made of the deaths of Israeli children in Israel. Fox News Geraldo Rivera decried the deaths of the little Palestinian children but didn’t utter one mention of the deaths of Israeli children who were the victims of an attack beg...
