Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs via JNS) — When Palestinian elections were first discussed, the spotlight immediately turned to the struggle between Fatah and Hamas and the fear that under cover of the elections, Hamas would infiltrate the West Bank. But it soon became clear that the story was not Fatah against Hamas, but Fatah against Fatah. What is at the root of the Fatah problem? Actually, there are two competing Fatahs. The first consists of the PLO leadership of the “exile,” with its old roots in today’s Israel, for whom the formati...
By Ben Cohen (JNS) — There is a curious sentence that appears in the definition of anti-Semitism currently being tested by a group of progressive Jewish Americans. It reads as follows: “Even contentious, strident, or harsh criticism of Israel for its policies and actions, including those that led to the creation of Israel, is not per se illegitimate or antisemitic.” The definition of anti-Semitism in which this sentence appears is intended an alternative to the one formally adopted in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Allia...
(JNS) — The U.S. Senate is facing a decision about whether to approve or reject the nomination of Colin Kahl for undersecretary of defense. Kahl was a leading voice against the move of the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He inaccurately believed that it would lead to a violent blowup across the Middle East, when, in fact, it eventually led to the Abraham Accords. He was also a major advocate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, during his service in the administration of former U.S. P...
(JNS) — It has been suggested that the next prime minister of Israel will be forbidden to annex parts of Judea and Samaria for the next three years due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal commitment to former President Donald Trump on the issue. This ostensible commitment, however, was never ratified by Israel’s legislature. Does a personal commitment by an Israeli prime minister to a U.S. president tie the hands of succeeding prime ministers? Not according to the tradition of democratic societies, which aims to avoid execu...
Back in the day, Jews wanted to take care of their family first — mostly because if we didn’t nobody else would. Then we wanted to care for the Jewish people mostly because if we didn’t nobody else would. Governments in Europe from whence most of us came were not friends of the Jews. In the late 1800s came the longest period of immigration from Europe to the U.S. because Europe was in turmoil. The U.S.A. wanted immigration because of a need for low paid labor. However, once they were here, the government had little or no interest in takin...
As the sun sets tomorrow evening and the Sabbath wanes, Jewish people around the world will be welcoming in the holiday of Passover, with the holiday’s most notable event, the Passover Seder. The Passover Seder is a family and community gathering characterized by a festive and elaborate meal, complete with symbolic foods, inserted into the middle of the re-telling of the story of our Exodus from Egypt. The stage is set with the lighting of holiday candles accompanied by the prayer that reminds us of the Torah commandment that mandates our t...
(JNS) — Anti-Zionism, the rejection of self-determination for Jews in their ancestral homeland, has gained considerable ground in recent years, sparking debate about whether it is just another manifestation of anti-Semitism. Anti-Zionists contend that anti-Zionism is a political position rooted in progressive values and principled advocacy for Palestinians whom they consider the rightful heirs to the Holy Land. Charges of anti-Semitism, they say, are just cynical smears meant to muzzle legitimate criticism of Israel, while real anti-Semitism i...
(JNS) — The latest scandal surrounding the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo is noteworthy. This isn’t because of the ire that it’s been arousing, however; righteous indignation is literally and figuratively all the rage during these days of “woke.” No, the element that sets this brouhaha apart from its predecessors is the absence of mass murder. Yes, when the ink dries on the current pages of the Paris-based periodical and the Twittersphere moves on to the next hashtag, there won’t be any corpses to count. The current storm involves a...
(JNS) — As of this writing, South Africa’s Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng was on day seven of a 10-day deadline to publicly apologize for a speech he made last year in which he offered a full-throated defense of Israel, and still, he stood fast — no apology was forthcoming. Mogoeng’s uncompromising stance has enraged South Africa’s powerful pro-Palestinian lobby and reignited the charge that the modern-day State of Israel is a reincarnation of South Africa’s old apartheid regime when a white minority that constituted 10 percent of the population...
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team has talked a lot about re-emphasizing diplomacy and re-engaging with allies after what they claim was the trashing of old friends during the presidency of Donald Trump. But that doesn’t appear to include America’s two most important allies in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israelis have been reassured that Biden still regards their security as important and that any disputes between the two countries will be handled behind the scenes, rather than highlighted in an effort to achi...
(JNS) — In an effort to create a more culturally relevant curriculum that encourages students to feel “more personally empowered,” the State of California’s Department of Education has been mandated with adopting an Ethnic Studies Curriculum. However, despite two revisions in response to concerns that were articulated by Jewish organizations, the curriculum’s representation of Jews lacks authenticity and persists in inviting anti-Jewish sentiment. The curriculum includes a fact sheet on “Jewish American Diversity” that states, “Jewish Ameri...
(JNS) — When is a Palestinian terrorist not a Palestinian terrorist? When The New York Times covers up her past and hopes nobody will notice. I’m referring to a deeply troubling allegation contained in a major article in the Times on March 6, authored by its new Jerusalem bureau chief, Patrick Kingsley. The article focused on a Palestinian disc jockey, Sama Abdulhadi, who was recently arrested by the Palestinian Authority for performing a concert near a mosque. Incredibly, Kingsley quoted Abdulhadi and others blaming “the Israeli occup...
(JNS) — A row over anti-Semitism that has erupted in Britain illuminates the problem that bedevils so many in the West over their understanding of what Judaism actually is. The controversy started with a tweet by the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, congratulating the new head of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, on his appointment. Rayner described Sarwar, who is of Pakistani descent, as “the first-ever ethnic minority leader of a political party anywhere in the U.K.” Sarwar is certainly the first Muslim or Asian leader...
(JNS) — Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was scheduled to arrive in Israel on Monday to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials. One ostensible purpose of the visit — slated to coincide with the completion of the delivery of 10 million doses of BioNTech — was to examine the possibility of Pfizer building a vaccine-production plant and R&D center in Israel. On Thursday, however, Pfizer announced that it was postponing the trip. According to the pharmaceutical giant, Bourla and the members of his team who were part of his entou...
The idea of a Holocaust Haggadah is fabulous; we have a Tu’B’ Shevat Seder Haggadah, why not one on the Holocaust — especially since Yom HaShoah occurs within a week after Passover ends? Historically, the Passover Haggadah provided a practical template how to convey the meaning of Passover; Rabbi Rosenberg’s Holocaust Haggadah aims to create a practical syllabus on how to make the Holocaust relevant to the themes of Passover and redemption. For the children of Holocaust survivors (like myself), we must find new and creative ways to preserv...
Dylan Williams of J Street, in a recent op-ed, called on the Biden administration to “rebuild the U.S. relationship with moderate Palestinian leaders.” Since presumably J Street would not claim that the leaders of the genocidal Hamas gang are “moderate,” then the “moderate Palestinian leaders” Williams and J Street have in mind must be Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and those around him. Less than three years ago, on April 30, 2018, Abbas stood before the opening session of the Palestine National Council and delivered a blatantly...
Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Dozens of terrorists who murdered American citizens are walking free in Palestinian Authority-controlled territories. The Biden administration is preparing to send hundreds of millions of dollars to the unreformed, terror-sponsoring PA regime. PA bulldozers are damaging Jewish historical and religious sites in Judea-Samaria and building homes in areas under Israeli control. And the number one issue on the agenda of prominent American Jewish and Zionist organizations is an unkind joke about Israel on ...
In the past few weeks we have witnessed a Black comic on SNL (who should know better) taking a cheap shot at Israel, explicitly and falsely accusing the Israeli government of discriminating against its Arab citizens by intentionally withholding vaccine inoculations in favor of its Jewish citizens. This incident reminds me of the saying, “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” On Feb. 9, 2021, NBC broadcasted on its digital platform a Canadian-produced episode of “Nurses,” which according to numerous newspaper and other I...
I was outraged when I read Jim Shipley’s rambling column “Unleashing the Hounds of Hell” in the Feb. 26 Heritage. Mr. Shipley seems intent to continue to stoke the fires of Trump hatred, even though he is out of office. He makes undue assumptions about President Trump’s mindset and intentions and perpetuates lies and inaccuracies. I was first struck by Shipley’s statement that when President Trump was elected in 2016 “We did not know a whole lot about the guy.” Donald Trump had been in the public eye in New York City for most of his adult lif...
(JNS) — Exactly one year ago, Israel was poised to realize the dream of applying sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria with U.S. support and the tacit consent of a few Arab states. Israel, however, chose not to take this path, preferring the immediate achievements of the signing of the Abraham Accords to a possible confrontation with the Palestinians and the international community. The realization of the sovereignty dream was postponed and, as Israel Hayom’s Ariel Kahana argued earlier this week, may have been missed entirely. Wit...
Dear Editor: Unlike your latest correspondents, I am not at all ashamed by the impartial publication of opinion articles in the Heritage Florida Jewish News. I realize that the “76 percent” of Jewish voters who helped elect Joe Biden are imbued by the narratives promulgated by the Democrat Party and parroted by the media designed, since Mr. Trump’s election, to lead to his impeachment. They would silence anyone who lauds any of the accomplishments of this most effective president of this country in at least 20 years. Donald Trump did not commit...
(JTA) — During this time of Purim, I am busy writing jokes that poke fun at the stuff we do and obsess about as Jews without offending too many people. Not always easy, and that’s when I am writing for an audience that I know extremely well. Now imagine writing Jewish jokes outside the bubble. “Saturday Night Live” found out the hard way after a joke about Israel went viral for the wrong reasons. Here’s the joke Michael Che told on the Feb. 20 show: “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m going to guess...
(JNS) — The critics of Israel are so predictable, it’s almost funny. Over the past two weeks, as if on cue, The New York Times published an op-ed urging steps to facilitate the creation of a Palestinian state; the RAND Corporation released a new study pushing for the creation of a Palestinian state; and the news media manufactured a mini-crisis between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in order to put more pressure on Israel to—you guessed it—agree to the creation of a Palestinian state I say “as if on cue” and...
(JTA) — One year ago, in the days leading up to Purim, my co-workers and I were understandably tense. The novel coronavirus, still quite novel to the United States, had prompted a slew of difficult questions. Was it wise to hold our planned holiday gathering at a nightclub in Brooklyn? Would our staff and congregation feel safe? Would this holiday, arguably the most jubilant of our calendar, feel joyous at all or just nerve-wracking? We made the choice to go forward with our Purim party, knowing — on some level — that it would be our last...
(JNS) — The self-proclaimed Jewish-American “progressive” organization IfNotNow hosted a discussion on Jan. 27 about “how the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism has been destroying the progressive movement.” The word “discussion,” may, in fact, be too generous a term for what was, in reality, a diatribe of misinformation. An address by Taher Herzallah, associate director of outreach and grassroots organizing for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), took up much of the event. It should be noted right away that AMP’s platforms disseminate ant...
