Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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In 1994, I attended, along with a number of my colleagues from the Capital District Educational Opportunity Center, an Office of Special Programs conference in downstate New York. After the opening night’s dinner, I wandered over to the venders’ tables that had been set up in an adjoining room. The items included many that reflected the African-American population which OSP served: Kente cloths, African artwork, Maasai beaded bracelets. I stopped dead in my tracks, however, when I saw, among a group of books, including “The Autobiography of Ma...
(JNS) — It turns out The New York Times has lower standards when it comes to those who spread anti-Semitic canards than even Britain’s controversial Labour Party. Tweeting an anti-Semitic blood libel about Israel being responsible for teaching American cops the tactics that led to the killing of 46-year-old George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer led to the firing of a member of parliament from the opposition party’s leadership. Yet tweeting a similar lie about Israel training American cops to commit human-rights abuses was no bar to a...
(JNS) — More than 200 legal scholars have signed a letter on the prominent international law blog, Opinio Juris, condemning Israel’s prospective annexation of West Bank settlements. While this sentiment is backed by many United Nations resolutions, there’s a critical issue that like-minded jurists and institutions refuse to address: Their underlying reasoning leads to the curious conclusion that little, if any, Israeli territory actually belongs to Israel. We’ve been told numerous times that territory cannot be acquired by force. The West Bank,...
I don’t know how many times I’ve told my children (or tried to tell them) how their mom and dad met, how we sent each other signals from a distance for months until the opportunity arose for us to introduce ourselves to each other. I was working in the back of the original Border’s Book Store in Ann Arbor and saw her and thought she was really cute, but before I could make my way up to her she was gone, and then all the students left for winter break and I had to wait weeks before another sighti...
By Mike Leven ATLANTA (JTA) — My library has the popular book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” in which Yuval Harari — a Jew, an Israeli and an acclaimed author — states that the Jewish people don’t have a reason to exist anymore. They’ve finished what they had come here to do by contributing to a range of fields, from philosophy and ethics to science and the arts. Harari consistently downplays the role that Jews have had in shaping the world. “Jews may be a very interesting people,” he writes, “but when you look at the big picture, you must...
DALLAS (JTA) — Before COVID-19, when my community convened every Shabbat at our synagogue, two men stood at opposite ends of the property wearing Kevlar vests and holding makeshift nylon shields. These shields covered the men’s long automatic rifles so that our community’s children wouldn’t face heavy firearms every time they ambled into services. How should I feel about those police officers standing tall in the Texas heat, and the protection they afford me, when they wear the same badge as the officer who murdered Botham Jean in his apartme...
By Steve Riback Aish Hatorah Resources I will never stand for or justify racism, illegal acts, brutality, or excessive force by police officers. Those who operate in that fashion have no business working as police officers and deserve to be held accountable for their actions. We need to set the record straight. Change can be challenging. I know because it happened to me over 17 years ago. At the time, I was living my passion as a crime-fighting police officer, yet struggling internally to find purpose. One Shabbat, the realization of how...
(JNS) — Angry mobs of activists are roaming American streets pulling down or defacing statues of historical figures. In some cases, governments and private institutions are joining their efforts by agreeing to take down examples of public art that reflect worldviews that are either now considered offensive or long gone out of fashion. Some are doing so because they’ve been intimidated by the 21st-century Jacobins who march under the banner of the Black Lives Matter movement. Others are acting out of genuine conviction that they must join in the...
(JNS) — In the weeks since the brutal and unjustified killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, America has been undergoing what The New York Times approvingly called a “reckoning” that marks a fundamental shift in attitudes about race. But the onset of this surge of public soul-searching and consciousness-raising about race has brought with it a trend that is deeply troubling. The heightened sensitivity about racism has led not merely to an epidemic of insincere virtue signaling about racism. It’s also brought about a flood o...
Well, hello there! I suppose you’re wondering why I’m writing after all this time. Let’s do a Cliff Notes: Got sick in February of 2019. Three weeks in the hospital after a misdiagnosis. Lost 16 pounds. Recuperated at home. Rachel and I could not maintain the apartment while I healed. So, we moved. We spent two months with son Tom and daughter Pam in N.J. (Tip: Avoid living with relatives, even those you love with whom you really get along). So Rachel and I moved to New Orleans, home of son Adam and granddaughter Bar. NOLA is, well, diffe...
I know it is late in the game for a courageous national political leader to emerge and challenge Donald J. Trump and Joe Biden for the presidency. However, a survey of states with registration deadlines to be on the Nov. 3, 2020, ballot reveals that except for about three minor electoral-vote states the registration deadline has not passed, with most states having qualification dates in July, August and in one case September, to be on the printed ballot. Since January, the somewhat mercurial president has descended into increasing...
(JNS) — Donald Trump was elected four years ago because Americans wanted to save their country. Both in domestic and foreign policy, in the eighth year of Barack Obama’s presidency, America was going off the rails. At home, Obama’s identity politics were tearing the country apart. As is now graphically apparent, identity politics are not about expanding justice. They are geared toward tearing Americans away from one another and undermining the very idea of America. Abroad, America had become the laughingstock of its enemies and the worst night...
NEW YORK (JTA) — As a biracial Jew, there is an expectation that I must have something to say in this historic moment. Unlike at any other time in my life, people are treating my opinion as though it deserves a stage, or a glass case for passersby to take in as they walk through a new exhibition on the lives of various “Jews of Color.” When I tell people that I do not have much to say about my experience as a “Jew of Color,” I see faces drop just a smidge. I sense that people want to hear about the time I was rejected because of the color of...
Dear Editor: Two writers who obviously represent the 71 percent of the “Jewish” voters who, like them, are totally oblivious to the actions of President Trump because they merely reflect the biased narratives recited by the biased media, which led to prolonged, expensive persecution of this elected president for non-existing crimes. Despite the exhaustive preoccupation with reversing the will of the people by Democrats who will never recover from their frustration over the lost election, President Trump has devoted his unlimited energy to ful...
(JNS) — Scattered among the thousands of cellphone videos depicting looting and destruction in the streets of America’s greatest cities are clips of a different sort. In these short videos, we see throngs of white people on their knees, bowing before black people and asking for forgiveness for their “white privilege” and the “structural racism” in the deplorable, irredeemable United States of America. Earlier this week, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden symbolically embraced these genuflectin...
(JNS) — Americans are united in their outrage about the death of George Floyd, an African-American man who was wrongfully killed by a Minneapolis policeman. However, a commendable desire to oppose hate has quickly morphed into something beyond advocacy for a cause that all decent people support. Along with the opposition to police misconduct and racism has come the push to attack, shame and silence anyone who dissents not just from the main message of anti-racism, but of slogans, groups and gestures associated with it. To violate these new rule...
(JNS) — Two weeks after Israel gradually reopened its education system, students and teachers around the country came down with the coronavirus, forcing thousands of their peers and family members into quarantine. The main hotspot has been the Jerusalem high school, Hagymnasia Haivrit, in the capital’s Rechavia neighborhood, which had to shut down due to the more than 130 adults and teenagers who tested positive to COVID-19. More than 17 additional schools also closed, some by ministerial order, and a few by parental decree. If the trend con...
MINNETONKA, Minn. (JTA) — When I received a phone call last Saturday morning from the governor and lieutenant governor’s office, I sensed it would be a Shabbat and Shavuot unlike any other. They were organizing a press conference with a small group of clergy and other community leaders that afternoon. “Rabbi, would you attend?” It was minutes before our Zoom service, a phrase that would have felt odd typing three months ago. As an observant Jew, a rabbi leading community in prayer, and co-chair of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association, I felt...
Dear Editor: I disagree strongly with what Mel Pearlman wrote on May 8 (The Hobson’s choice for president). I don’t believe American Jews have a “Hobson’s choice for president.” There are “shades of gray” about the domestic issues he mentioned. Mr. Pearlman acknowledged that “President Trump has been a strong ally and friend of Israel” and gave examples.” I agree wholeheartedly. He went on to say “many of his (President Trump’s) domestic policies have not found favor with a significant majority in the American Jewish community,” mentioning...
Dear Editor: I am responding to the two letters in the Heritage on June 5 (“Why I detest Donald Trump” by Art Friedman and “We need a congress that works be-partisan” by Bill Kahn), which referenced my letter on May 22 concerning my appreciation of what President Trump has done for Israel. It is apparent that both writers were influenced by the liberal press. The positions taken in these letters do not foster unity but rather are divisive in their hatred of the president. It is important to remember that approximately half of the country are co...
By David Bornstein It’s been a long time since the last Good Word column, but I find myself driven — compelled — to write something during these painful, difficult days. I don’t want this to be another “jump on the bandwagon” proof of conscience statement, or another in the long litany of “we are not racist but can do better” epiphanies of the moment. And the truth is, I wouldn’t be writing were it not for a confluence of incidents that swirled around me recently that provoked me and forced me...
On May 5, 2020, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, the body that governs the lives of more than 95 percent of the Arab population living In Judea and Samaria, made a speech in Arabic before an Arab audience. That speech was made in the presence of the international media and was posted to the Facebook page of Palestinian TV. Memri TV provided the English translation. While a significant part of the speech was devoted to the pandemic and other issues, Mr. Abbas did use the opportunity to condemn the United States for...
By Daniel Greenfield After the end of Shavuot, the holiday in which Jewish people joyfully commemorate the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, the Jewish community of Los Angeles concluded it by the new ritual of going to clean off the hateful graffiti from their houses of worship while picking up the broken glass from the black nationalist and radical leftist night of broken glass in Los Angeles. One small business owner described a “late Saturday night with people driving down the Fairfax district streets screaming, ‘effing Jew...
ATLANTA (JTA) — I’m a black reverend whose grandfather marched with King and Heschel. A lot of my Jewish friends are asking me how they can help and what needs to be done regarding the killing and lynching of individuals and families in the black community, most recently George Floyd. To put yourselves in our shoes for a moment, imagine what the response of the Jewish community would be if George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery or Breonna Taylor were Jewish? No doubt it would reach biblical proportions. One of the main challenges to interfaith col...
By JFGO We at the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and its Jewish Community Relations Council are heartbroken and outraged over the death of George Floyd, an African American man, at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer. Floyd’s pleas for his life as he lay handcuffed and helpless on the ground were met with silence by the police officer. This death is yet another in a disturbingly long list of inexcusable injustices that have been perpetrated against African Americans across the United States. We call on people of all races, e...
