Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(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...
(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...
