Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1801 - 1825 of 3636
DEARBORN, Mich. (JTA)—On Jan. 31, we at the Dearborn Historical Commission adopted a resolution objecting to Mayor John O’Reilly’s refusal to allow the distribution of the new edition of The Dearborn Historian, which featured an article by Bill McGraw titled “Henry Ford and The International Jew.” The issue was set to be released upon the 100th anniversary of Henry Ford’s acquisition of The Dearborn Independent, a sad but important milestone in our city’s history. We believe that remembering and discussing the history of our city serves a vita... Full story
(JNS)—As part of the Palestinian Authority’s latest ploy to avoid direct negotiations with Israel, it is now absurdly claiming that United Nations Resolution 181, passed by the U.N. General Assembly in November 1947, gave Palestinian Arabs a “right” to a state and the “right” to U.N. membership. In fact, U.N. Resolution 181 merely recommended partitioning the remaining 22 percent of the Palestine Mandate into Jewish and Arab states. (The British previously wrongfully carved off 78 percent of the mandate, which Britain held in trust for reestab... Full story
(JNS)—Is the effort to combat the BDS movement much ado about nothing? Given the abject failure of the campaign to boycott, divest and sanction Israel to harm the economy of the Jewish state or even to get American universities to endorse their efforts, there are those who consider all the fuss made about the issue a mistake. Much of the organized Jewish community has been treating the battle against BDS as a priority. That includes an effort geared towards lobbying state legislatures and now the U.S. Congress to pass laws that prevent those c... Full story
(JNS)—More than three-fourths of American Jews want Israel to be reduced to just miles wide—narrower than Washington, D.C., or the Bronx. How can that be? The answer, of course, is that it can’t be. But J Street is now making that claim anyway, and some media outlets this week fell for it. J Street wants to see an independent Palestinian state established alongside the pre-1967 armistice lines, which means that Israel would be a mere nine miles wide. It would be very helpful to J Street’s efforts if it could claim that most Jews support... Full story
Dear Editor: Hadassah, The Women’s Zionist Organization of America, Inc. is deeply saddened to learn of the sudden and untimely passing of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein z”l, founder and director of the International Fellowship of Christians & Jews. Rabbi Eckstein was a true friend of Hadassah, an ardent supporter, and a generous donor to and champion of Hadassah Medical Organization, and our other projects in Israel. Just two nights ago, he was an honored guest at a Hadassah International event at HMO. On Jan. 2, Rabbi Eckstein (whose last name mea... Full story
This is part 3 in a four-part series. Unlike American two-party politics, Israel is more like a multi-dimensional chess game. People make moves in parallel planes that affect not only the game they are playing (their own political considerations) but other people and parties around them. In doing so, whether on purpose or by chance, they also impact issues and personalities in parallel where other players have no direct counter moves. For more than a generation, the Israeli left has been politically splintered. Its influence and impact has... Full story
(JNS)—Organized disruptors, both students and non-students, who shut down a pro-Israel gathering at University of California Los Angeles last May might not be prosecuted, according to information from LA City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office. Instead, they will be called to a confidential but mandatory proceeding called a “City Attorney Hearing,” an alternative to prosecution that can be described as a “warning” not to repeat the conduct. One legal expert compared it as a “deferred prosecution,” but stressed a full trial could still result. V... Full story
On July 19, 2018, the Knesset, Israel’s parliament passed what is known as a basic law, declaring that the State of Israel is the Nation State of the Jewish people. Why did a majority of the 120 members of the Knesset feel it necessary to memorialize in legislation that which was already declared more than 70 years earlier, when on May 14, 1948, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel as the sovereign nation of the Jewish people in their historic homeland? The answer lies in the fact that of all the nations in t... Full story
(JNS)—If there’s one concept in Western progressive circles that is deemed essential for a decent society, it’s “social inclusion.” The promotion of diversity is assumed to be morally unchallengeable. That’s also the prevalent attitude among Jews in both America and Britain. Many if not most support liberal immigration policies and equate anti-Semitism with “Islamophobia.” The belief is that those who are against immigration and diversity will be against the Jews too. In fact, the opposite is the case. The default narrative on the left is ven... Full story
(JNS)—The Palestinian Authority last week removed a photo from the website of one of its ministries because it showed a meeting of P.A. officials in which bottles of a popular Israeli juice were visible on the table. For friends of Israel, it was another in a long series of mildly amusing incidents in which P.A. officials have gone to absurd lengths to slight the Jewish state. It was all the more entertaining because it exposed the blatant hypocrisy of P.A. officials who call for boycotts of Israeli products while they are enjoying Israeli p... Full story
This is part 2 of a four-part series. There have been investigations of Prime Minister Netanyahu on possible legal charges relating to four different cases going on for years. The attorney general has not yet indicated which, if any, of the charges he might end up indicting the Prime Minister for. If indicted before the election, depending on what the charges are, there could be increased calls for his stepping down immediately, and stepping down as the Likud party’s candidate to be Prime Minister. It’s possible that recommendations for an ind... Full story
(JNS)—Like so many other Jewish women, I grappled over the decision to attend the Women’s March on Jan. 19. I missed the first march because I was recovering from childbirth, and was overcome with exhaustion and uncertainties about how I was going manage motherhood and my very full-time work at JIMENA. Since the initial march, I’ve yearned to be a part of a women’s movement that initially filled me with radical hope. This hope began to seriously wane for me last May when I happened to be working in Israel the same time Tamika Mallory came to to... Full story
Where are our friends protesting anti-Semitism? Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we marked this last week, spoke powerfully about the danger and potential damage of silence. He once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” On another occasion he said, “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Both of these insights, separately and the combination of the two together, resonate deeply for me these days, days in which the silence from too many is... Full story
(JNS)—What the Jewish world needs most these days is inclusion. Yet the only sensible course of action open to Jewish community relations councils and other outreach groups is to set firm limits on who can or cannot enter the proverbial big Jewish tent. That sounds like a contradiction in terms, and in many ways it is. But the fact remains that at the very moment when institutions need to keep the gates wide open to attract as many Jews as possible, it’s just as important to send a loud message that there are some lines that cannot be cro... Full story
(JNS)—Opponents of an academic boycott of Israel owe John Cheney-Lippold and Daniel Segal a debt of gratitude. Cheney-Lippold is the University of Michigan professor who agreed to write a letter of recommendation for one of his students last fall and then reneged after realizing it was for study in Israel. Segal, a professor at Pitzer College and a major proponent of the academic boycott of Israel, convinced his fellow Pitzer faculty members to shut down the school’s study-abroad program at the University of Haifa only months later. These profe... Full story
(JNS)—Over the past several weeks, much discussion has been made about the events last spring on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Many have equivocated the actions of violent rioters inspired by Hamas (a terrorist organization) and those of Israel’s soldiers charged with defending the sovereignty of a liberal democracy. This abhorrent argument demonstrates a false moral equivalence and, above all, misses the context of the events. Last spring, Hamas-inspired rioters gathered on the Gazan side of the border fence with Israel in wha... Full story
As I mentioned in my column two weeks ago, whenever my wife and I travel overseas we always listen for the sounds of Jewish. In that column I described how, upon boarding our cruise ship on the Friday afternoon before Christmas, I was hoping to have Shabbat services that evening aboard ship. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many co-religionists appear despite their long journeys to the ship and enduring the hassles of the boarding process. What followed was a beautiful pluralistic service led by a very knowledgable self-appointed female... Full story
Civility. It was something basic to our society. We were taught at home to be respectful of other people, specifically those older than ourselves. We were taught to listen to other peoples’ opinions, not interrupt and then offer our own take on the subject—with respect. Recently, times have changed. When it comes to matters Jewish, or the subject of Israel, Jews can tend to be more dogmatic than even the loudest of the chatterers filling the 24-hour news cycle. In the beginning, it was simple. The Jews were a people who had been cast out of... Full story
(JNS)—It may be that supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump and those who back the Israeli government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are now so closely aligned that the latter have no qualms about the Jewish state being dragged into one of the most contentious American political debates in living memory. But as much as Trump is popular in Israel for his support of the Jewish state, it’s likely that most of its citizens would be just as happy if their border-security policies were left out of the epic struggle over whe... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—My dad, who grew up in a time and place where his Judaism only marked him as an outsider, never really got my professional fascination with all things Jewish. That all changed when nearly 20 years ago I got a job with the Forward, the English-language offspring of the venerable Yiddish daily. He recalled how the Forverts would arrive at his family’s home in New York state’s rural Orange County, one of his parents’ few links to the bustling Jewish community downstate and a window into a wider world. “My father learned to be Americ... Full story
(JTA)—Filmmaker Steven Spielberg told NBC News he thinks society must take the possibility of genocide more seriously now than it has in the past generation. In an interview marking the 25th anniversary of “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg referred to the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue and warned that “hate leading to genocide is as possible today as it was during the Holocaust.” He was behind the curve. The era of “never again” is ending in Western Europe, fading in North America and never penetrated the Middle East. Relentless de... Full story
Dear Editor: In the Dec. 28th edition, Jim Shipley states in his column that “So far, no Jew has run for president.” Anyone who is not living under a rock would immediately recognize the error of that statement. Several Jews have run for U.S. president—two in just the last presidential election. How could anyone forget Bernie Sanders, who just ran in 2016? Also, Jill Stein was the Green Party nominee in 2016, as well as 2012. In previous elections, Milton Schapp ran in 1976, Arlen Specter in 1996 and Joe Lieberman in 2004. How someone who w... Full story
By Kenneth Hanson Not long ago I was privileged to take part in a panel discussion on the history of anti-Semitism. The shared comments of the panelists, I felt, yielded a considerable wealth of insight, until the notion was advanced that anti-Semitism is at its core a product of the political right. To this assertion I felt compelled to take exception. I had just been reading an article regarding various fallacies connected with anti-Semitism, one fallacy in particular being that it derives exclusively from the political right wing. I instantl... Full story
(JNS)—Ever since President Donald Trump astounded the world by announcing the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria, commentators have been trying to work out the significance of this decision. Among those conservatives who believe America should make alliances against the enemies of the West and then stand by those allies, there has been shock and consternation. A number of Israeli analysts have expressed similar dismay. The cause of the concern is obvious. By withdrawing the 2,000 or so U.S. troops stationed in the border area between Iraq, Sy... Full story
(Research Institute for European and American Studies via JNS)—In the course of almost 40 years, Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and has a long and bloody history of terror attacks. Since 2017 the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities appear to be on the rise on European soil. Thanks to good intelligence the Iranian latest terrorist plots has not resulted in heavy casualties, but these plots are just the tip of the iceberg. The latest Iranian terror plots in Europe are a warning and a wake-up call to governments in Europ... Full story
