Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Many people who have never heard of the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) might reasonably ask why this body has the name that it does, upon learning that one of its members, China, is currently engaged in genocide against its Uyghur Muslim minority. Other nuggets of truth about the council — that the majority of its member states are illiberal autocracies, that the only country to have its record scrutinized as a fixed agenda item is Israel — would surely provoke similar questions among those blissfully unaware of the UNHRC’s existen...
Dear Editor: I voted for Donald Trump. If he runs again in 2024 I will vote for him again. President Trump supported Jews and Israel more than any other president. The Abraham accords are historic. No one thought there would ever be good relations between Israel and Arab countries. Trump made that happen. I will also vote for Trump for the economy, for his love of country and setting up classes teaching patriotism and appreciation for our founding fathers. Building a wall and checking on immigrants to keep us safe is another reason to vote for...
(JNS) — The little blue box is no longer ubiquitous in Jewish households the way it once was. The symbolic pushke into which coins were collected in the homes of both the rich and the poor to help the Jewish National Fund redeem the land of Israel has been replaced by websites where you can pay to have trees planted in Israel and other conventional fundraisers. But the work of the JNF, which was founded in 1901 by Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl and his associates in order to start making their dream of a state for the Jews a reality, is o...
Today marks the one-year anniversary since my wife and I attended our last Jewish social or religious gathering. That event was attending services to hear the reading of Megillat,The Book of Esther, and to enjoy the festivities, food and beverages as we celebrated Purim 5780 at the Orlando Torah Center. Since that time our Jewish life has been observed and celebrated in marital “solitary confinement.” In fact, our initial isolation felt a little like imprisonment. I actually texted my children in the early days of the pandemic, somewhat ton...
When Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, the Jewish reaction was pretty well muted. We did not know a whole lot about the guy. Seemed pretty decent, had always been friendly to the Jewish Community. We should have looked under the rock. Two years before, Trump founded the “Birther Movement” questioning the legitimacy of Barak Obama as president. Trump said Obama was born in Kenya. There’s the first hint. A Black president could not be legitimate. While he never took more than 25 percent of the vote in the primaries, Trump w...
(JNS) — A month has passed, 30 days, since our beloved Sheldon — a husband, a father, a grandfather, brother and close friend — was laid to rest. A month ago we were crying by his side atop the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and today the family is forced to grieve and honor his memory from afar. A month ago we were in the midst of winter, and today we see the budding spring. A month ago, my children had a present father, and today they stand, reciting the Mourner’s Kaddish, shouldering the unshakable burden of having been orphaned. That is life....
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — When the top editor of the world’s newspaper of record flips and flops and flips again on a subject as sensitive as the use of the N-word, you know things are getting messy at The New York Times. And when a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist claims that the paper “spiked” his column on the subject, well, it just gets messier. This sad story started when longtime New York Times science reporter Donald McNeil was accused in 2019 of using a racial slur while on an overseas trip chaperoning high-school students. At the time...
(JNS) — Coronavirus promised a lackluster sophomore year of college until it presented an exciting opportunity. At a time when millions were stuck at home, including me, the pandemic unexpectedly enabled me to travel to Israel for a long-term experience with Masa Israel Journey, an organization founded by the Jewish Agency and government of Israel. I played lacrosse all through high school and now I play at Dartmouth College. This fall, I had been planning to rent a house in New Hampshire with eight of my friends and teammates, where I would do...
Dear Editor: I was interested in seeing how the Heritage would cover the second impeachment trial of Donald Trump. Would the stories on the week of the Senate hearings address all the incriminating evidence being presented? Would articles highlight the memorable job Rep. Jaimie Raskin, a Jew who had just lost his son to suicide, did in overseeing the trial? Would articles cover how the events on January 6, 2021, were repugnant without justifying them as the paper had in the previous issue? Would the Heritage opine that what happened on that...
Dear Editor: To feature a story regarding the nomination of Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize represents to me the epitome of journalistic political reporting. Especially, a few short weeks after that individual attempted, and is apparently still attempting, to start a civil war in his own country. Such pure hypocrisy to claim that this man has not started a war during his tenure as president of the USA. He may not have started an international war, but he surely is aiming to start a conflict in his own country. Even though he was...
(JNS) — Reading a biography about a friend is a mixed experience. On the one hand, the protagonist is familiar. On the other, he’s a complete stranger, whose story unfolds like that of a fictional character being introduced in a novel. This is the sense of duality that I had while curled up with “Lone Voice: The Wars of Isi Leibler,” a tome by renowned Australian-Jewish historian Suzanne D. Rutland. Before meeting Leibler in person 20 years ago, I knew about the human-rights activist from Australia and his long-standing fight on behalf of Sovi...
(JNS) — If any one thing has united Jews throughout the ages, it is anti-Semitism. Yet in this era of increased polarization and division, it seems that we cannot even agree anymore on what that constitutes. The 500-word International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition agreed upon by the State Department has been adopted by dozens of nations, organizations and universities. Despite the obvious need for such a document as a useful tool and its widespread acceptance, a number of Jewish groups recently came out with a statement opposing i...
Jewish tradition is to read the Torah, the first Five Books of the Bible, in an annual cycle so that every year we read and study it in its entirety. The weekly Torah portions, parsha, are divided into segments from Genesis through Deuteronomy, each with a different name according to a theme, action, or person that is prominent at the beginning of the parsha. Each year, I find a new insight reading the same text, not necessarily because I am smarter or wiser, but because I am in a different place in my life, and look at the Word through a diffe...
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the U.S. State Department’s worldview. To avoid past mistakes, an examination of this worldview and its track record is thus in order. In 1948, the State Department-led Washington’s opposition to the recognition of the newly established Jewish state, contending that Israel would be helpless against the expected Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet, would undermine U.S.-Arab relations, destabilize the Middle East, threaten the U.S. oil supply...
(JTA) — Many industries were harmed in 2020, perhaps none as deeply as the hospitality sector. Nearly one in six U.S. restaurants had closed as of December, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. Kosher establishments were not immune to the economic consequences of the pandemic: We saw iconic kosher restaurants permanently close this year, including Abigael’s in Manhattan, Casablanca in New Orleans, Wolf & Lamb in Brooklyn, Mama’s Vegetarian in Philadelphia and Bamboo Garden in Seattle, plus a few dozen more in the Unite...
(BESA Center via JNS) — The decision of the International Criminal Court in The Hague last week that it has jurisdiction to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and eastern Jerusalem is baseless but still dangerous, and must be thwarted. It is baseless because only sovereign states can file complaints to the court, and Palestine is not a sovereign state. Moreover, the ICC can investigate only countries that have signed the Rome Statute, which established the court. Israel, along with the United States a...
(JNS) — International Holocaust Remembrance Day is meant to serve two purposes: to memorialize the victims of the Nazi genocide and help prevent future genocides. Last week, on Jan. 27, the day designated by the U.N. General Assembly for this annual commemoration, both purposes were insufficiently served. I’ll give credit where it’s due. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres made an appropriate statement: “Today, we honor the memory of the 6 million Jews and millions of others who were systematically murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis and...
As the Biden administration takes shape it is becoming increasing clear, through the president’s appointments to the State Department, White House staff and other federal bodies dealing with Middle East policy formulation, that he sees U.S. re-engagement with the Palestinians as a high priority. The terms of that re-engagement could be beneficial in advancing the peace process by fostering a resumption of bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the basis of the new realty in the Arab/Israeli relationship. H...
(JNS) — For more than a-year-and-a-half, StandWithUs has worked tirelessly together with concerned citizens and partners to remove anti-Semitism, anti-Israel bias and other destructive ideas from California’s draft Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. At the same time, we have pushed for the inclusion of positive education about anti-Semitism and the Jewish people. The stakes are extremely high because California public schools serve 6 million students, and the ESMC is likely to be used as a model in many other states as well. As the ESMC rec...
(JNS) — It took less than a week for the Biden administration to return to the Obama-Biden policy of moral equivalency, or what I prefer to call immoral equivalency — the policy of viewing Israel and the Palestinian Authority, and their respective actions, as being on the same moral plane. On Jan. 26, just six days after the inauguration, President Joe Biden’s acting representative at the United Nations, Deputy Ambassador Richard Mills, announced that the administration supports creating a Palestinian state. In practical terms, that means...
(JNS) — The question now is not if the United States will return to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, but when. Notwithstanding reports that the Biden administration has too much on its plate right now to move up talks with Tehran as a priority, it certainly seems like that process is underway. That would send Washington back to the table for the first time since an agreement was concluded in 2015. The Trump administration withdrew from the pact in May 2018, citing inherent weaknesses and loopholes on such issues as Iran’s ballistic-mis...
For the last two decades, American Jewish Committee has been blowing the whistle on the rising tide of anti-Semitism worldwide. When asked the source, our answer has always been the same, depending on the specific circumstances: Look in one of three basic directions far left, far right, and jihadists. Too many in our hyper-partisan world, however, would prefer to shy away from this trifocal analysis. For them, it doesn’t necessarily sit well politically, the facts be damned. But, true to AJC’s mission, we don’t have a particular ax to grind...
Dear editor: In response to the article “New attacks on Israel and Zionism may fuel campus anti-Semitism,” (by Sean Savage, JNS, in the Jan. 29, 2021 issue), it is important that Tammi Benjamin [co-founder and director of the California-based Amcha Initiative] teaches the way she does. She should also educate herself about the “Logor Jasenovac,” which occurred during the World War II occupation by the Ustase regime in today’s Croatia. There were about *700,000 to 750,000 Serbs, Jews and Gypsies exterminated in this camp during this heinous crim...
(JTA) — On Jan. 6, a sea of heads bobbed and flags flew outside the U.S. Capitol. A closer look revealed a dark hoodie, skull, crossbones and large white letters: “Camp Auschwitz,” followed by “Work Brings Freedom.” That’s the phrase my 91-year-old grandfather, David Moskovic, saw every day in German — “Arbeit Macht Frei” — when he was a 14-year-old Nazi prisoner. For nights following the riots, my grandfather roused to recurring nightmares. The mob at the Capitol brought him back to Auschwitz, 1944. Upon arrival, soon-to-be prisoner...
(JNS) — I offered a relative a ride last week to and from Methodist Hospital in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, N.Y. I had the choice to wait in the area or drive home and head almost immediately back. I chose to drive home. In another era, I would have gladly stayed in Park Slope — a hip Brooklyn enclave of picturesque brownstones, quaint bookshops and organic-food markets. Over the years, I was happy to browse in Barnes & Noble, step into Starbucks or wander around Prospect Park. No longer. I have now reached my threshold for ove...
