Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

On our return to Warsaw we took some time to rest from our day’s touring, to prepare for Kabbalat (Evening) Shabbat services at a local synagogue and Shabbat dinner at our hotel. We were advised at the last minute that we would not be attending the l...

(JNS) — Earlier this week, ultra-Orthodox Jews parading through Jerusalem’s Old City passed a group of Christians bearing a large wooden cross. Some of the Jews spat on the ground in the Christians’ direction. Two days later, Jerusalem police arres...

(JNS) — Saturday’s Hamas assault is the 2023 version of the 1973 Yom Kippur war. The complete surprise—the governing paradigm, the collapse of the lines of defense—is very reminiscent of what happened here exactly 50 years ago. In a well-sy...

The Feast of Tabernacles is how many Christians refer to Sukkot, the biblical festival we celebrated this past week. It is also a multi-day event known in shorthand as “the Feast,” organized by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, arg...

(JNS) — On that day 50 years ago, I was in the parking lot of my synagogue in Keene, N.H., taking a break from Yom Kippur services. Someone had the car radio on and tuned to the news. I heard that Israel had been the victim of a surprise attack on ou...

(JNS) — Depending on the pundit, the Oslo Accords were at best a broken dream, at worst a deadly disaster. No one calls them a success. Thirty years ago this month, in 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the first of the O...

(JNS) — This Yom Kippur, one of my favorite songs came to mind, and it was not a happy occasion. Each year on the holiday, I take the opportunity to walk in a carless Tel Aviv. This time, I found myself returning home via Dizengoff Street. I knew t...

(JNS) — Palestinian Arab journalist Bassam Tawil recently described a “fierce crackdown” on Palestinian reporters by the Palestinian Authority, including arbitrary arrests and beatings. Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden, in his recent meeti...

(JNS) — It’s become a cliché to say that Jews are our own worst enemies. Nowhere is that truer than in academia, where Jewish professors, often from the field of Jewish and Middle East studies, have become some of Israel’s most vitriolic critic...

(Israel Hayom via JNS) — I stood next to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he said what he said about the protesters against him “joining forces” with Iran. He was simply trying to be cooperative and answer the journalists’ questions, which does...

It might be my age. It might be what our world has become. It might be weariness of the whole thing. This year’s High Holy Days had a whole different effect on me. I have written before that I was raised in a home that could be called “Not Jew...

(JNS) — In the wake of the devastating floods in Libya, the Palestinian Civil Defense Service, which operates under the auspices of the Palestinian Authority, announced that it was sending a 37-member team to assist with the humanitarian effort. T...

(JNS) — History is difficult to study because it is so often rewritten. As a result, it is difficult to separate myths from facts. Forgetting the unpleasant aspects of history demonstrates Hegel’s famous statement, “The only thing we learn from...

(JNS) — Once again (Sept. 5), New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has offered his wisdom for a solution to the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He claims that “far-right Jewish supremacists,” also known as the “righ...

By Jonathan Feldstein Outside of Iran’s remaining several thousand member Jewish community, few Iranians will be engaged in prayers this weekend beseeching God for a year of health, happiness, prosperity, much less freedom. According to the a...

(JNS) — Dear Mr. Friedman, Our paths have crossed many times over the years, and I have always been struck by your evident passion for Israel, a passion that resonates in your writings and columns on the Jewish state and the Middle East. However, a...

Following our visit to the Jewish Historical Society Museum in Warsaw we took a walking tour of the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery (Cm. Zydorfski), the largest Jewish Cemetery in Europe with an estimated 250,000 graves dating back to 1806, when the Jewish...

(JNS) — As today’s 30th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords approached, Palestinian Media Watch uncovered yet another statement by a Palestinian leader admitting, or more correctly bragging, that PLO leader Yasser Arafat successfully dec...

(JNS) — President Joe Biden has just nominated former President Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary Jack Lew as the next U.S. ambassador to Israel. Although Lew identifies as an observant Jew and is certainly a skilled public official, his failure in...

(JNS) — It is not the best of times. It may actually be the worst of times. While half of Israel continues to demonstrate in the streets against their own government, Iran is building an airport in Lebanon that is only 13 miles away from I...

(JNS) — “Understand that they want you all dead. You are the only threat to them. When you are gone, all the races will be under the great Jewish heel forever. Fight back white man!!!” This is an excerpt from one of several tweets promoting or incit...

(JNS) — Israel’s detractors accuse the Jewish state of intentionally killing Palestinian civilians. Moreover, they maintain that because in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict many more Palestinians have died than Israelis, Israel uses dis...

(JNS) — There are many measures by which the success of the Abraham Accords can be determined: Volume of trade, number of tourists, the extent of academic collaboration and so on. As the third year since the signing of the Accords winds down, i...

Preparing for Rosh Hashanah should not be a downer. It’s an auspicious, exciting time for clarity and closeness, grounded in positivity and love. The Hebrew month of Elul, a spiritually super-charged time leading up to Rosh Hashanah and Yom K...

(JNS) — Time always flies, but somehow during this time of year it seems to fly faster than ever. Can you believe it’s only 10 days until Rosh Hashanah? We are deep into the Hebrew month of Elul, which is traditionally dedicated to spiritual pre...