Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1326 - 1350 of 3636
(JNS) — The Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations started livestreaming a series of events on Aug. 16 under the title “EXPOSED” — described as “a compelling series of interviews with former political prisoners and their family members” to “expose real cases of government overreach and injustice.” According to CAIR, those featured in the series are “high-profile cases” whose plights are “critical to the life of […] any person of conscience.” In reality, CAIR-Florida seems determined to present an associate of the designat...
One by one, countries are scrambling to sign billion dollar contracts to buy nonexistent vaccines to Covid-19. At the moment, the development of an effective vaccine is highly questionable, at least according to WHO Secretary General António Guterres and White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, who both stated that an effective vaccine is unlikely in the foreseeable future, if ever. But even if a vaccine is developed, it will not end our troubles. In fact, it will only exacerbate them, and for a good reason. We need to understand that...
(JNS) — The police aren’t policing and the teachers aren’t teaching. While many vital services aren’t functioning, the useless machinery of the bureaucracy grinds on with no one to pay for it. Locked-down businesses don’t generate revenues and the unemployed aren’t a tax base. Tax revenues in New York City fell 46 percent in June. A third of small businesses in the city are likely to shut down for good and sales tax collections are down by a quarter, amounting to $1.2 billion. Statewide, there’s a 37 percent drop, and Rep. Alexandria Oc...
The truth is, I saw something coming this week, but not this. I never expected that “it” would be peace with another Arab country. “It” was the subject of speculation on a webinar I hosted this week about what was going on. But I thought “it” was something military that would involve Israeli F35s and Iranian targets. Perhaps we live in resignation that not having peace with most of our neighbors is the norm, expectations are low, and “it” caught most Israelis by surprise. Because it’s not every day that peace breaks out, even with the public s...
(JNS) — Last Tuesday, two notable events occurred in the Democratic Party. Joe Biden announced that he had selected California Senator Kamala Harris to serve as his running mate in November; and Rep. Ilhan Omar won her primary, all but guaranteeing her return to Congress for a second term. On the face of things, Harris’s selection seems like the more significant of the two events. But actually, Omar’s primary victory was far more momentous. Traditionally, presidential candidates have selected their running mates based on electoral consi...
The last few weeks have witnessed a landmark development in Arab-Israeli relations upon which all fair-minded Jews can finally agree. I am of course referring to the agreement reached on Aug. 13, 2020, between the government of Israel and the government of the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic normalization with and recognition of the Jewish state. The anticipated peace treaty and ancillary agreements covering cooperation and collaboration in the fields of medicine, security, transportation and trade are not yet formalized as of...
Let’s go back in time. The 1960s. Hippies. The March on Washington. George Wallace. Viet Nam. The Edmond Pettis Bridge. Remember? Well, I guess that those of us of a “certain age” do. We remember the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. We remember that time. The last time that the racial divide and the struggle for equality and voting rights were in the headlines on a daily basis. Those of us who were there and lived it saw many similarities to this past year. But, there is one significant difference this time: Where are the Jews? There...
President Donald Trump’s accomplishments establish him as an effective social justice president. He speaks proudly and joyfully of results — not platitudes: improving the lives of minority communities through increased employment, reducing income disparity by bringing highly paid manufacturing jobs back to the USA, giving offenders a second chance at life through criminal justice reform, securing ongoing funding for historically Black colleges and universities, and supporting parents in their efforts to get a good education for their chi...
Rabbi Steinsaltz, who passed away Aug. 7 in Jerusalem at the age of 83, was a rabbi in the most authentic meaning of the word: He was an educator. And the world was Rabbi Steinsaltz’s student body. He spent decades teaching, writing, publishing, lecturing, mentoring, and organizing, and all of this work was focused on bringing Jews closer to Judaism and Jewish sources. But, I think what Rabbi Steinsaltz really was at his essence was a dreamer. Rabbi Steinsaltz dreamed of a world where Jews cared more about each other, where ancient Jewish w...
Dear Editor: Kudos for publishing “Shame on Nancy Pelosi for endorsing Ilhan Omar,” in your July 31st issue. Pelosi has moved from the Light to the Darkness. In the Light she is the “Lioness,” supporting bills that will make a difference for those who desperately need help during these stressful times. However, with her endorsement of Ilhan Omar and now Rashida Tlaib, who have often openly expressed anti-Semitic views, she has moved into the Shadows. Why would Pelosi, a seasoned politician, choose to stand on the side of “Squad” members who...
On Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in a premeditated attack, two shooters opened fire inside a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey, and murdered four people. The killers included a former member of a notoriously anti-Semitic group and, reportedly, a follower of Louis Farrakhan. It’s becoming obvious to most Jews that we are living in a state of siege. Practically every Jewish institution in America now needs significant security. College campuses have become hostile territory for Jewish students. Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jerse...
Earlier this month, the Jewish people celebrated the joyous holiday of Tu B’Av, the date on the Jewish calendar that focuses on love and commitment. Little did we know, but at the time, U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan were putting the finishing touches on an agreement formalizing the bond between Israel and the UAE. This agreement is a match made in heaven, wedding the technology of Israel with the economic powerhouse of the UAE. Only t...
(JNS) — Israel is set to sign a historic agreement with the United Arab Emirates that would see the two Middle Eastern nations officially strike diplomatic relations and exchange embassies. The move represents a major validation of the Netanyahu inside-out regional peace doctrine. For years, Israel’s senior statesman has argued that it would not be a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians that would be the key to peace in the greater region, but rather that peace with the greater Arab world will increase the chances of an agr...
(JNS) — Heading into the 2020 presidential campaign, centrist Democrats as well as those who are supporters of Israel had good reason to be worried about the future of their party. After Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, Bernie Sanders’s wing of the party was still nursing a grudge about being supposedly robbed of the presidential nomination by the establishment. They were confident that the rise of a new generation of radical politicians marked a changing of the guard, and that they were poised to take over. That seemed likely earlier this...
Israel’s celebrated songstress and unofficial poet laureate, who authored the classic melody “Jerusalem of Gold,” the late Naomi Shemer, subsequently wrote a far more melancholy tune called “The Honey and the Thorn.” It describes the heartbreak of the Jewish settlers in the Israeli town of Yamit, on the Egyptian border, who (in 1982) were forcibly dragged from their homes by the Israel Defense Force, as part of the “land for peace” deal that brought about the formal recognition of the Jewish state by Anwar Sadat’s Egypt back in 1979. The homes...
Dear Editor: In the July 31, 2020, edition of the Heritage Florida Jewish News, there was a letter to the editor by David G. Danziger titled “Using common sense to solve world problems.” There are many aspects of this letter that I strongly disagree with, however in this short communication I would like to address just one. Could Mr. Danziger please explain what “thousands of unmarried female rabbis” have to do with this issue? First of all there are not thousands of female rabbis, let alone thousands of unmarried female rabbis. Does this imply...
Dear Editor: My name is William J. Levy and I live in Ormond Beach and read your newspaper every week. Sadly there is only one group of people in America who think of themselves as guests: not the Irish, not the Blacks, not the Lithuanians, no one but the Jews. Jews are the most hated group in America. Blacks attack them and kill them in the streets of Brooklyn or in their homes in Moncey, N.Y., or in their supermarkets in Union City, N.J., and whites kill them in their synagogues in Pittsburgh, Pa., or Poway, Ca. Jewish children broke breakfas...
(JNS) — I have a Jerry Seinfeld question. Why do Jewish celebrities keep whining about their parents? Popular actor-comedian-director Seth Rogen ignited an Internet firestorm with his recent complaint that his parents “fed [him] a huge amount of lies about Israel.” They “never told him” that “Oh, by the way, there were people [Arabs] there.” But Rogen says he now knows the truth and realizes that having a Jewish state “makes no sense.” What actually makes no sense is the notion that his parents said there were no Arabs in pre-Israel Palestine....
(JNS) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is now the most popular and dangerous anti-Semite in America. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are surely a problem for Jews, but polite society rejects them. Their best effort to date — a “national rally” in Charlottesville, Va. — drew a few hundred people, whereas Farrakhan’s rants excite adoring crowds many times that size. His online influence is growing. Unlike alt-right rallies, a Farrakhan event will never be shut down by toughs throwing fists. Unlike the white anti-Semites, Farrakhan has op...
The pandemic has brought about extreme modifications to our everyday living and how we relate to family, friends and community. Government at every level is scampering, and for the most part failing to find effective policy initiatives and to implement programs in order to blunt the disastrous health, economic and social effects brought about by the complete disruption of our normal way of life. The pandemic has also exposed and laid bare the fact that what once was a resilient, respectful, resourceful and thoughtful American population has...
(JNS) — After days of anti-Semitic rants on social media, the “Grime” rapper Wiley has finally been barred from Twitter and Facebook following outrage by Jews and others that he was allowed to use these platforms for his vicious incitement. This episode was particularly chilling. It involved a sustained onslaught of anti-Jewish invective by a prominent public figure who described Jews as “cowards and snakes,” likened them to the Ku Klux Klan and suggested they should be shot. He could do this with impunity because no one saw fit to stop him...
(JNS) — Maybe everything would be better if we could all go for walks in the woods with people who say or tweet hateful and deeply offensive things. Then again, maybe the Jewish community would be better off if those who represent it weren’t quite so eager to ingratiate themselves with those who do not have the best interests of the Jews at heart. There are people who think a simple formula is the path to resolving all conflicts. It was the conceit of a Broadway play about nuclear arms talk called “A Walk in the Woods,” as well as the theory...
(JNS) — We Americans seem quite capable of separating ourselves into fractious groups without the help of our enemies, but that hasn’t stopped many, especially the Islamists of the world, from using the death of George Floyd to fuel our divides. U.S. Attorney General William Barr warned on June 4, that “hackers … associated with foreign governments” have been using Floyd’s death, “playing all sides to exacerbate the violence.” Later that day, something alarmed the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security enough for it to tweet a warning about ...
We can either choose to divide or connect. Dividers spew hate, connectors share love. People can be divided into two categories: connectors and dividers. Connectors look for commonalities, dividers focus on differences. Connectors give the benefit of the doubt, dividers look to find fault. Connectors let things go, dividers bear grudges. Connectors look to compliment, dividers look to criticize. Connectors feel good through (not surprisingly) connecting, and dividers thrive by fostering division. Dividers spew hate, bully, call names, and...
Let me put the disclaimer out first: I am no biblical scholar — I am no expert on ancient Jewish history. So, this column is really in the form of a few questions about belief and my own life. I have stated before that I was raised in a totally non-religious environment. God, in my house, was an afterthought. Outside of having fist fights on a daily basis when he was growing up because he was a Jew, my father had no other relationship with Faith. As I have written, his father, my grandfather Abraham Shiplacoff was an ardent Socialist. Then, i...
