Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1301 - 1325 of 3636
(JNS) — Conventional wisdom took one on the chin last week when the Trump administration did what the establishment said couldn’t be done. No chin took a harder hit than former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s, when one clever social media user unearthed and isolated 44 seconds of him assuring the world that no Middle East peace deal will be possible without the Palestinians. “There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world. I want to make that very clear to all of you,” he stated. The clip was from Dec. 4, 2016, whe...
(JNS) — Progressives claim to represent the forces of change, reform and social justice. They say they care for the well-being of the voters. They allege that those who believe in the Constitution and Bill of Rights are cruel, and call them dangerous racists. Yet they forget some of the most important words in the Declaration of Independence that framed our national mission: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Lif...
(JNS) — Following the signing of the peace deals between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, American Jewish leaders from prominent organizations such as the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress have come forward to discuss how they have played a quiet, behind-the-scenes role over the past 25 years to encourage the Gulf nations to seek peaceful relations with Israel. Now that Israel has established a “warm peace” with Bahrain and the UAE, perhaps it is th...
(JTA) — Less than 100 years after Israel’s founding as the homeland for the Jewish people in 1948, the “Arab-Israeli conflict” appears to be winding down. The Sept. 15 White House ceremony celebrating a peace treaty between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and a peace declaration between Israel and Bahrain, marks another advance in Israel’s regional integration. It also delinks resolution of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and the creation of an independent Palestinian state from the broader question of its acceptance by the rest of...
I will never forget where I was when I heard of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s passing. Within hours of the announcement of her death Friday night, an outpouring of affection for the first Jewish woman appointed to the country’s highest court had already begun. People spontaneously gathered on the front steps of the Supreme Court building, where she had served as a judge for 27 years, bearing candles and singing Amazing Grace. In other places in the country, crowds gathered to say Kaddish, to remember. As Jews and non-Jews cel...
There’s a whole long list anyone can come up with that marks, for them, the clock of their lives ticking away. Leaves change color in the fall (at least some do further north). Crow’s feet appear at the corner of eyes. A step somehow gets lost, and we notice it when we play tennis or basketball or simply walk around the block, even though we have no idea where it went. An accounting begins of all the things that have come and gone, all the people of blessed memory, all the friends with whom we...
The strength and survivability of the Jewish people has always been their ability to simultaneously exist in three time “dimensions.” Not un-coincidently, the Torah’s narrative also speaks to us in the past, the present and the future. The Torah begins with a history of the evolutionary creation of the universe and our planet Earth (time frame of six biblical days); including the creation of primitive humans. God “rested” on the seventh day, which suggests creation is a work still in progress. These early humans evolved into curious, intellige...
So, I was in the gym at my Sports Club one day, getting dressed next to my locker mate, nice guy named Jay. Jay is head of technology at a large hospital chain in our town. I know he’s got two boys just entering middle teens. I know this because he talks about them on a regular basis. Jay happens to be African-American although his family goes back over a hundred years in America. My family has not been in this country for more than three generations. We came in the late 1890s. We came from what is now the Ukraine. I was born in Brooklyn, N...
Attending the White House signing ceremony on Tuesday of the Abraham Accords – which normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – was both moving and jarring. Standing at the South Lawn, just meters from the Rose Garden where the Oslo Accord were signed 27 years ago on Sept. 13, 1993, the comparison between the two agreements was inescapable. That ceremony was an act of political theater unsurpassed in the history of Israel. Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO, and architect of modern terrorism, grinned ear to...
(JTA) — As my calendar announced the approach of September, I began to relive an event that took place exactly 50 years ago. On Sept. 6, 1970, my mother, my four siblings and I were on a plane that was hijacked by terrorists. TWA flight 741 was one of three planes successfully hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that day — the hijacking of an El Al plane was foiled by the onboard sky marshals. At the time, I was a 14-year-old kid living in Trenton, New Jersey, whose only care was how the Baltimore Orioles were doi...
Israel-haters must not be very happy these days. All of a sudden, the big lie that nourished their anti-Zionist venom for so long is slipping away. For more than 50 years, diplomatic geniuses kept telling the world that “the key to peace in the Middle East is to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The convenient corollary was that the solution was all in Israel’s hands, which kept the Jewish state constantly on the receiving end of global condemnation. This brilliant maneuver sought to camouflage the plain truth that the deepest ills...
Dear Editor: I am amazed that some Jewish people do not appreciate all that our President has done for us. I attribute that to several entities that malign the President constantly. These entities are NYTimes, MSNBC, and CNN. Whatever the President says they take out of context and distort his words. They have such hate for our President even before he took office. These entities never write or talk about Biden’s misdeeds, his sexual harassment, the enrichment of his family, his 48 years as a politician when he has accomplished nothing of n...
(The Jewish Advocate) — The relentless, previously failed attempts of extremist groups J Street and New Israel Fund to demonize, silence, and “cancel” strong defenders of Israel and the Jewish people, is now being repeated by JCRC (“JCRC pushed to oust ZOA,” The Jewish Advocate, Sept. 4, 2020), who always prided itself on dialogue and having a “ big tent.” Yet I was never contacted about these false allegations. Shamefully, J Street, NIF, Women of Reform Judaism, The Workers Circle — previously Workmen’s Circle — etc. filed a baseless, ludicro...
(JNS) This week’s Torah portion is Deuteronomy 29:20-30:9, which calls upon Israel to be faithful to the covenant in the land God has given them. God promises that even if Israel is scattered among the nations and the land lies desolate, He will restore Israel from captivity, gathering the Jewish people even from the ends of the earth back to their land. In the 72 years since Israel’s rebirth as a modern nation, we have seen this promise fulfilled. The haftarah portion accompanying this week’s Torah portion is Isaiah 61:10-63:9, an exube...
Just before Donald Trump was sworn in as our 45th president, outgoing president Barack Obama told him his biggest problem would be North Korea. Obama was wrong! North Korea, though problematic, proved less troublesome than expected, due to President Trump’s skillful handling of its volatile leader, Kim Jung Un. President Trump’s biggest problem, more than Russian collusion investigations and the Democrats’ impeachment effort, all intended to destroy his presidency, was instead a virus from China for which our Centers for Disease Control and H...
This article is in response to “Donald Trump: Social Justice President” (Rabbi Sanford Olshansky, Heritage, Aug. 28, 2020). The High Holy Days will be very different this year for all of us. Rather than meeting fellow congregants in our synagogues, we will be Zooming. As the first day falls on Shabbos, Reform Jews will have to wait until the closing moments of Yom Kippur to hear the sound of the shofar over the Internet. Holiday meals will be lonely affairs as most families are practicing social distancing. Fasting on the holiest day of the...
The shofar sounds that we blow on the High Holidays take on a new meaning this year as we enter the holiday. Traditionally, the notes tekiah, shevarim, and teruah represent different notes of cries. This idea of crying is meant to stir our conscience during the time of Rosh Hashanah to confront our past errors and return to God who is ready to accept our contrition. However, due to Covid-19, the shofar sounds can be seen as a comforting sound. It represents the comforting sounds of community, although incredibly smaller this year, will mark an...
Dear Editor: There is a hypocrisy of the highest order when major media giant Facebook and its “I’m no longer a Jew” founder Mark Zuckerberg can allow Holocaust deniers open access to Facebook and not remove them. Tell that to the 7 million Jews murdered by the Nazis (not the 6 million murdered Jews we hear all the time, that last figure by the British government decades ago is deemed more accurate). If it was only one Jew it would still be a Holocaust. And now Jews throughout the world have to suffer insult after insult by these Holoc...
Perhaps it’s inappropriate for an Orthodox Jew to write about issues related to, and a consequence of, the recent inappropriate social media post by Jerry Falwell Jr. that suggested other inappropriate behaviors, and his taking a leave of absence as president of Liberty University. Perhaps, you wonder, why would an Orthodox Jew even care. For someone whose life is centered on building bridges between Jews and Christians, I am aware of the tremendous importance that Liberty University has in general, and specifically in educating young C...
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, of which the United States is a member, adopted a non-legally binding “working definition of antisemitism” at its plenary on May 26, 2016, in Bucharest, Romania. Since then IHRA’s 42 member and observer states and many nonmember countries throughout the world, as well as non-governmental international organizations, have adopted the definition; and have used it in legislating hate crimes and in formulating public policy dealing with antisemitism. As a member of IHRA, the U.S. State Depar...
(JNS) — Partners for Progressive Israel, a left-of-center group that is part of the American Zionist Movement, is in the midst of a 12-session “digital excursion to Israel and Palestine.” Session No. 3, which was held this past week, consisted of virtual meetings with officials of the Palestinian Authority. The Partners’ official program booklet, describing the contents of the sessions, includes a photo or illustration for each one. For the session with the P.A. meetings, the booklet reprinted the official logo of the Palestine Liberat...
(JNS) — To read the statement signed by more than 600 Jewish groups, in which they identified their denominations, synagogues and organizations with the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s clear that they believe they are on the right side of history. The letter, which was published as a full-page ad in The New York Times on Aug. 28, is forthright in its claim that “the Black Lives Matter movement is the current day Civil Rights movement in this country, and it is our best chance at equity and justice. By supporting this movement, we can build...
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Only 6 percent of voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama in 2008 voted for Donald Trump in 2016. I’m one of them. Political affiliation played no role in my decision. I’m a registered Democrat who often votes Republican. I was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in North Jersey. We cried when Richard Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and exulted when Ronald Reagan routed Jimmy Carter in 1980. This year poses a fresh dilemma. President Trump has proven himself as a consistent supporter of Israel. We feel an affin...
Dear Editor: In my letter noting the effectiveness of President Trump in dealing with world affairs, I made a brief reference to professional spiritual leaders who actively engage in political appeals that represent, in their opinion, the views of the Jewish majority (79 percent). Included was a reference to unmarried female rabbis (“Using common sense to solve world problems,” July 31, 2020, issue). My concern was prompted by information I received that a significant number of these ladies head well-funded organizations that publicly join the...
(JNS) — Three years later we’re still quoting, discussing and debating it. If there is a defining moment of the presidency of Donald Trump, it took place at a press conference on Aug. 15, 2017, when he allegedly called the neo-Nazis who conducted a frightening torchlight parade days earlier in Charlottesville, Va., “very fine people.” According to the narrative about Trump that is believed by most of his critics, that signaled a green light to extremists to attack Jews in their synagogues, as well as African-Americans and Hispanics. It allowed...
