Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Dear Editor: As we approach the holiest period of the Jewish calendar, it becomes increasingly difficult to control one’s reaction to the noisy pronouncement of “progressive Jewish leaders.” As specifically named by Mr. Sales in his article in the Heritage (August 27) these anti-Zionists condemn AIPAC ads targeting the ‘squad” members of congress about their enthusiasm for Muslim terrorists and condemnation of Israel. These well-financed J-Street associates and “spiritual leaders” (i.e., rabbis) want to delegitimize the Jewish State just li...
(JNS) — The reviews at home were mixed for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s first meeting with President Joe Biden. Many of those who despise Bennett’s right-wing principles thought he did a good job, while most of those who share his views were appalled by his performance. The disconnect is understandable. The drumbeat of personal invective against Bennett from former allies and friends has been constant since he assumed the role of leader of the current coalition in June. For those who think Bennett “betrayed” the right by joining w...
As America licks its wounds and wrings its hands at the debacle of the last several weeks in the humiliating retreat and defeat at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan, let us pause to remember the brave and courageous men and women of our armed forces who returned to the battlefield in the waning days of our retreat from Kabul. They returned, not to battle a barbaric enemy, but to rescue and save American citizens, Afghan allies and citizens who embraced freedom, modernity and equality. These are the Afghans who rejected the inhumane,...
(JNS) The obvious lesson for Israel from America’s abandonment of Afghanistan to the Taliban is that it can’t count on the U.S. to protect it from the consequences of ceding more territory. This reality, however, is a disaster for those who have been banking on the idea of offering “American security guarantees” to facilitate additional Israeli withdrawals. It explains the recent flurry of statements from the think-tank crowd and Jewish former officials of the State Department trying to undercut the notion that the Afghanistan mess demonst...
(JTA) — We are, once again, in a season of reckoning with sexual abuse in the Jewish community and in the country. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned after a state attorney general investigation found that he sexually harassed at least 11 women, aided by networks of complicity. In the Jewish community, the Reform movement, which represents the largest and most diverse Jewish movement in North America, has initiated three separate investigations — one each for its rabbinical seminary, rabbinical association and synagogue network — to look...
(JTA) — Over the past year, I have led efforts to teach, guide and coach rabbis and other clergy of every Jewish denomination. We have worked with over 500 individual members of the clergy, serving hundreds of thousands of people since the COVID-19 pandemic began. So let me say this to my dear clergy colleagues: As we celebrate another High Holiday season under the shadow of the pandemic, I know that there is nothing you need more than support in making (or when prevented from making) impossible decisions about vaccinations, masks, social d...
(JNS) Three decades have passed since the Crown Heights pogrom, and any assessment of the memory of that tragic event must start with an acknowledgment that New York City is a very different place than it was in August 1991. It’s also true that the series of events that set in motion three days of violent rioting during which African-Americans targeted ultra-Orthodox Jews were complicated, as well as the result of a set of circumstances that were in some ways peculiar to that time and place. Distance from the trauma has also induced a fair amou...
This article originally appeared on Alma. A year ago, I was watching “Schitt’s Creek” with my wife. It was the last season, second to last episode, so things were already emotional. Then there was that scene. The one where David is sitting on the car with his best friend Stevie and looking at the house that his soon-to-be husband Patrick had wanted to buy for him before David had told him that they were moving to New York. Patrick, the hunky good boy that he is, had agreed to, and David was now looking at another reality he might live if he ch...
(JNS) Any notion that the worst days of Islamist terrorism are long behind us was brutally shattered at Kabul Airport on Thursday, as twin bombs ripped indiscriminately through Afghan civilians and U.S. and other foreign servicemen trying to complete the desperate evacuation of thousands of people for whom Taliban rule represents the most terrible fate. Gen. H.R. McMaster, a former U.S. national security advisor who served as deputy commander of the international force in Afghanistan, put it succinctly in the hours that followed the bloodshed...
(JNS) German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partner, the largely pro-Iranian regime Social Democratic Party, is polling even with her Christian Democratic Union ahead of the Sept. 26 federal election. A profound insight about left-wing Jew-hatred—namely, that “antisemitism is the socialism of fools”—is frequently attributed to the German Social Democrat August Bebel (1840-1913). It still rings true regarding great swaths of German left-wingers. Over the last four years of Merkel’s fourth and last term (she is not running for re-election...
(JNS) — For those old enough to remember the images of the last days of South Vietnam, recent events in Afghanistan are shockingly familiar. In each case, a flawed American ally facing a determined foe quickly collapsed once both sides to the conflict realized that the United States wouldn’t lift a finger to help its friends. Afghanistan was America’s longest war, and sadly, it must go down in history, like Vietnam, as one in which a superpower was defeated by a much weaker enemy. In both instances, there are good reasons to argue that defea...
(JNS) — Just as things were returning to normal, and rabbis across America were eagerly anticipating a full reopening for the High Holy Days, the Delta variant showed up. Oh no, not again. Need I remind you that nearly every synagogue and Jewish center in America pretty much shut down during last year’s High Holidays because of COVID-19? That the great American Jewish ritual of scoring High Holiday tickets succumbed to a deadly, global virus? That rabbis had to scramble for alternatives, from Zoom services to backyard and porch minyans? Those d...
Rosh Hashanah is the time of year when we as individuals find ourselves at the center of the universe in direct communication with God. For a brief moment the present stops, the past does not recede and the future refuses to beckon us. The High Holy Days are rest stops on our journey through life; a brief respite to catch our breaths, to check our baggage and to recharge our human energy. To understand where we have been, where we are, and where we are going requires us, (utilizing “contemporary lingo”) to call up our spiritual Waze to see if...
(JNS) — The diplomatic crisis unfolding between Jerusalem and Warsaw is unfortunate. Eastern European countries have been staunch supporters of the United States and Israel in a way that their counterparts in the Western continent have long ceased to be. As a result, conservative columnist Amnon Lord is among those stressing that Israel needs to be smart, not just right, when it comes to its relations with Poland. Despite its nationalism, he recently wrote, Poland “is a type of ally. … The cooperation with it in terms of military aviat...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — If you’ve been following the ethnic studies controversy in California over the past few years and came away thinking the Jewish community had emerged relatively unscathed, think again. The Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum was unanimously adopted in March of this year by the California Board of Education. Some members of the Jewish community pushed for the inclusion of Jews in that curriculum, and once satisfied with various modifications, ultimately supported it. Others had grave concerns about the curriculum’s under...
Iran and Hamas on Monday effusively welcomed the final capitulation of the Afghan government to Taliban insurgents over the weekend, praising the hardline Islamist organization for its “brave leadership” in defeating the “American occupation.” As reports poured in from around the country of Taliban fighters seizing unmarried girls to serve as sex slaves and carrying out executions of members of the Afghan military, Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi gushed over the “defeat” of the U.S., claiming that the Taliban’s violent seizure of power reflec...
(JNS) — Next month, Americans will mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The trauma lingers in the memory of everyone who was then alive. But while that day of terror will never be forgotten, as an event that informs foreign and defense policy, it is fast becoming as irrelevant as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The last American troops are withdrawing from Afghanistan as Washington is reacting with indifference to the evidence that the Taliban — the group that hosted and enabled the 9/11 attackers — will soon be back in charg...
(JNS) — In July, the United Church of Christ’s General Synod passed a “peacemaking” resolution that declared Israel guilty of sins against the Palestinian people. The resolution repeats the narrative broadcast by Palestinian Christians in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, who have been demonizing Israel for decades. Predictably enough, the resolution, which was passed with 462 yeas, 78 nays and 18 abstentions in an online vote, made no mention of any sins perpetrated by the Palestinians or their leaders in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Fo...
(JNS) — In the aftermath of the recent uproar over the Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream company announcing it would boycott the “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” it is worthwhile to take a closer look at that term. In 1964, Ahmad el-Shukairy convened a conference at which he created a terrorist movement called the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO undertook to perpetrate terrorist acts against Israeli civilians to “liberate Palestine.” At the time, Jordan occupied Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”) and Egypt-occupied Gaza. Yet, the PLO’s...
(JTA) — Jewish culture is deeply rooted in traditional core values, structures and norms often held by our American Jewish organizations. At the same time, today’s American Jewish community is more diverse and represents more backgrounds than ever. Yet this diversity is not equitably reflected in our communal spaces. Based on national and local population studies, my organization found in 2018 that one in seven Jews in the United States identifies as a person of color. Other recent estimates have varied, but one thing is clear: Jews of col...
(JTA) — Ten years ago, I sat shocked watching a new music video from one of my creative Jewish heroes, Matisyahu. Newly married and studying in yeshiva, my husband and I were trying to figure out how to uplift the art world in alignment with our Orthodox Torah ideals. Yet here was my icon, Matisyahu — who rose to fame singing about his faith and wearing the black hat and modest suit of a Hasidic Jew — dancing around in a Santa suit for his “Miracles” video with a shot of an immodestly dressed woman and a guy dressed up as Antiochus using the...
One of the great ironies revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic is the action of many Americans who profess to be lovers of freedom and of their fellow Americans, but who have ignored common sense and betrayed that love, in their irresponsible exercise of freedom during these trying days of pandemic. Not only have they endangered their own health, they have acted in a manner that expresses an abandonment of their concern for the health of their fellow citizens. Abraham Lincoln warned of the threat to the Nation of the irresponsible exercise of...
(JNS) — The United States transferred $135 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees on Saturday. This was in addition to the nearly $33 million that it gave to the organization in May to help the Gaza Strip, ravaged by Hamas rockets and Israel’s response to them during “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” The latest cash bonanza also came three months after Washington provided an initial gift of $150 million to “restore” the aid that was cut in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump. It’s not necessary to...
(Jewish Journal, JNS) — Five months ago, with his back to the wall and facing calls from his own allies to resign, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a ready answer to the accusations of sexual misconduct that were engulfing him: Let’s wait for the investigation. “I ask the people of this state to wait for the facts from the attorney general’s report before forming an opinion,” he pleaded. It almost sounded reasonable. It bought him precious time. So, New York Attorney General Letitia James promptly called Cuomo’s bluff by initiating the investi...
(JNS) — The plot was audacious: Agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran would kidnap an American citizen on American soil. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist and human rights activist, was to be grabbed, spirited out of Brooklyn to Venezuela, and then on to Tehran where she would have been imprisoned, tortured, and, almost certainly, executed. Earlier this month, the FBI, to its enormous credit, foiled the plot. “Not on our watch,” FBI assistant director William Sweeney told reporters. Spokesmen for the Islamic Republic dismissed the cha...
