Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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In a recent statement published on the annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life, Rev. Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, not only misrepresented and defamed Dr. King’s legacy, but he did so using some of the most vile antisemitic tropes singling out the Jewish people and Israel. In his statement, Dr. Nelson wrote of Dr. King’s legacy and overcoming societal inequities in the U.S. and all over the world. Listing a broad range of social problems, Dr. Nelson then seaml...
(JNS) — As far back as 2013, Pakistani Muslim terrorists plotted to take “foreign Jews” hostage to trade for “Lady Al-Qaeda.” In 2022, a Pakistani Muslim terrorist actually went out and did it. The hostage crisis at Congregation Beth Israel in Texas, ended with Faisal Akram of Blackburn — another post-industrial English town where Muslims make up a third of the population and Pakistanis account for more than 10 percent — dead and his Jewish hostages set free. Back home, the Blackburn Muslim Community page announced “Faisal Akram has sadly...
On Jan. 15, 2022, during Shabbat services, Congregation Beth Israel located in Colleyville, Texas, a suburb of Ft. Worth was attacked by an armed individual who barricaded himself in the synagogue, after taking four congregants hostage, including the synagogue’s rabbi. Fortunately, there were much fewer attendees on this Shabbat morning because of the continuing pandemic, as most congregants were participating at home through live streaming of religious services. The attack on this synagogue is the latest in a string of violent and lethal a...
I am writing this on Jan. 6, 2022. It could not wait until my usual deadline date. I was two years old in 1932. The only thing I knew about the burning down of the German Reichstag (their Parliament Building) was what I read and was taught in school. A group of disgruntled voters who had not won the election stormed Germany’s Capitol and burned down the Reichstag because their chosen leader, one Adolph Hitler had won only thirty two percent of the popular vote. They were told by the Nazi party and believed the vote had been rigged and that H...
(CAMERA via JNS) — In its coverage of Saturday’s hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, The Associated Press has advanced, intentionally or not, the absurdly false narrative that the terror attack was not connected to the Jewish community. The leading news agency has completely ignored statements by the Anti-Defamation League, the largest and most established American organization combating antisemitism, along with remarks by President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and other senior U.S. and British off...
(JTA) — In 1957, at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered words whose wisdom continue to resound today: “For the person who hates, the true becomes false and the false becomes true. That’s what hate does. You can’t see right. The symbol of objectivity is lost. Hate destroys the very structure of the personality of the hater.” When a weekend meant to commemorate Dr. King was shattered by the hostage-taking at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, we called upon each other as longtime friends a...
(JNS) — Millions of people around the world, including myself, spent much of our Saturday with our thoughts and prayers focused on Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. As the events were unfolding, my thoughts went toward the antisemitic mass shooting that took place on Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh. The perpetrator killed 11 Jewish worshippers and wounded six others, including several Holocaust survivors. It was the deadliest attack to date on the Jewish community in the United Sta...
(JNS) — At a time when antisemitism is on the rise around the globe, the office of the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy for Combating and Monitoring Antisemitism ought to be filled. Indeed, the Biden administration seemed to signal its interest in the subject when it decided to upgrade the post by expanding the office’s staff and conferring the title of ambassador on the envoy. President Joe Biden also named someone that was considered eminently qualified for the job in Emory University professor and historian Deborah Lipstadt, a widel...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz must have known that hosting Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas at his home in Rosh Ha’ayin would arouse the ire of the right. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have cloaked the outcome of his tête-à-tête last Tuesday night with the octogenarian honcho in Ramallah in typically euphemistic language. Following the meeting, Gantz tweeted that he and Abbas had “discussed the implementation of economic and civilian measures, and emphasized the importance of deepening security coordination and preventing...
(JNS) When COVID-19 struck the United States, I thought that it would become a unifying force. I naively reasoned that the coronavirus pandemic would bring people together. I believed that the bitter polarization that began with the crash of the stock market in 2007-08 would finally end. I was wrong. COVID has caused a greater rupture. It has brought health-care workers closer together, but few others. It has socially distanced society even further. The political divide that used to be a significant crack has become a huge chasm. It has also...
(JNS) — The Jewish communities of North Africa and the Middle East are often inaccurately represented in academia and the mainstream media. Their rich, complex history is purposely obscured to undermine Zionism. Indeed, professors, anti-Israel student organizations, and influential figures have denied the unique indigenity of Jews in the Middle East. Moreover, these groups have minimized the widespread historical subordination, persecution, and exile of Jews under Arab and Muslim rule. Unlike the harmonious depictions of an interreligious c...
This letter from ZOA was sent to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Deputy Prime Minister Benjamin Gantz, Justice Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, State of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel Re: URGENT Request to stop Minhal Ezrahi’s immoral and discriminatory planned destruction of terror victim Ezra Schwartz vineyard and Jewish families’ livelihoods at Arugot Farms Dear Prime Minister Bennett, Deputy Prime Minister Gantz and Justice Minister Sa’ar: The Zionist Organization of America urges you to use your good offices to stop th...
At the UN General Assembly last week, a large majority of member nations voted to lavishly fund a permanent inquisition against the Jewish state. The member states funded the operation of an “ongoing independent, international commission of inquiry,” against Israel. The commission, run by outspoken haters of Israel with long records of demonizing the State of Israel and its people, was formed by the UN Human Rights Council in a special session in May. Its purpose is to deny and reject Israel’s right to exist, its right to self-defense, its r...
There are bad people in this world who do bad things. Sometimes they’ll blow up buildings or shoot people in schools or burn down a police precinct or even violently riot at the U.S. Capitol. When these horrible crimes are committed, some of the questions we ask, especially with assaults on public buildings, are: How could we have prevented it? Was our security sufficient? Did we take the proper precautions? And yet, no one seems to be mentioning any of these crucial concerns as we review and analyze the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the Capitol by T...
News of prominent NYC business woman and Jewish philanthropist, Helene Fortunoff’s death brought back memories of working in the Fortunoff family business during my college years in the 1960s. Helene was the last of the second generation of matriarchs of a very successful family of retailers who created a mini-retail empire, a model and forerunner for the Walmart and Target stores, which today dominate the big box retail business Soon after graduation from high school in June 1960, I landed a summer job in a warehouse and housewares store o...
David Leonhardt wrote an opinion article in the New York Times Morning Newsletter on Tuesday titled “No Way to Grow Up” in which he posited that “Americans have accepted more harm to children in exchange for less harm to adults.” This ‘sacrifice’ is precisely the attitude that the Israelites had when sacrificing their children to the Canaanite diety Molloch an Israeli rabbi charges. “American children are starting 2022 in crisis,” Leonhardt wrote. “I have long been aware that the pandemic was upending children’s lives. But until I spent time pu...
By now, Dr. Fauci’s Covid “fearspeak” has become background noise. Yes, the new “Omicron” variant is making its way around the world. Fortunately, reports from South Africa as well as other studies indicate that Omicron’s illness is milder than Delta. Even Fauci-friendly public health physicians have cautioned that there is “absolutely no reason to panic.” In 2022, we should panic because opioid overdoses took the lives of 100,000 fellow Americans from April 2020 to April 2021—an increase of 28 percent from the same period the year before....
(JNS) — The campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel has recently moved into a higher gear with the increased use of one particularly vicious falsehood. This is the claim that Israel is an apartheid state. The claim is as fatuous as it is pernicious. Apartheid was the name given to South Africa’s systematic oppression of its black inhabitants, who were denied political, civic and human rights. By contrast, Arab Israeli citizens have fully equal rights. They study in Israel’s universities; enjoy Israel’s beaches and parks; receive equal trea...
(JNS) — First, some background: Israel’s current government is a leftist-Islamist coalition that includes some former conservatives “out front” as stalking horses. One of those is serving as the current prime minister. Another was Gideon Sa’ar’s New Hope party. Dani Dayan, a former consul general and Yesha council leader, ran on the New Hope party list. The only purpose of New Hope was to tear away enough conservative votes to create this leftist hybrid government. Now it’s expected to be wiped out in any future elections. Former Israeli Prime...
(JNS) — This past Shabbat, we read the Torah portion of Shemot, where Moses is asked by God to go to Pharaoh and demand that he “let my people go.” It is Pharaoh who recognizes that the Jews are a nation. He is the first to call us Am Bnei Yisrael. He recognizes the unity and destiny that the people of Israel share, and he is afraid of our strength. Today, we see the reverse situation happening in Israel. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many restrictive regulations and the latest Omicron variant has seen the skies of Israel once again closed t...
Last week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul blocked what would have otherwise been unanimous passage of the Iron Dome funding bill, HR5323, providing Israel with $1 billion to replenish its Iron Dome system following the war Israel endured with Palestinian Arab terrorists in Gaza this past May During the 11-day barrage, Hamas and other Palestinian Arab terror groups fired over 4000 rockets at Israeli cities. The Iron Dome is a defensive system that shoots down short-range rockets with a 90 percent success rate, saving both the lives of countless...
(JNS) — Jerusalem’s security outlook, which goes back to the days of Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, is focused first and foremost on responding to existential threats. In the past, this meant regular Arab armies that threatened to invade its territory. Today, the country is investing great effort in thwarting the Iranian nuclear threat. The arsenal of missiles at the disposal of Hezbollah and Hamas may not constitute an existential threat but could result in loss of life and material damage, disrupt the lives of Israeli citiz...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — While tens of millions of poor souls are dying and starving under brutal regimes in places like Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, Congo and Somalia, among others, the United Nations decided last Thursday that only one country merits an open-ended investigation. If you haven’t been living on Mars the past few decades, you’ve already guessed the name of that country — Israel — the recipient of more U.N. condemnations than all other countries combined. So, what did the world’s only Jewish state do this time to deserve...
(JNS) — Looking back at 2021 in the hope of having something sensible to say about the past year, I found myself musing on a perennial question. Is history a story of progress, in which greater numbers of human beings become healthier, happier, more affluent, more tolerant and more educated with each year? Is it a story in which we learn from our past errors and those of our predecessors in order to not repeat them? Or is history a series of random cycles, in which health, happiness and wealth are at best fleeting experiences in a world w...
As the holiday season concludes with this evening’s New Year’s celebrations and tomorrow’s recovery, the same old problem of 2021 confronting the Jewish people is carried over into 2022, namely global antisemitism. As we move into the new year, virulent antisemitism continues to grow unabated here in America and throughout the world. How long must we deal with the endless and meaningless apologies for the use of antisemitic tropes, for physical attacks on Jewish citizens and for attacks against Israel based on knowingly false accusations that...
