Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1901 - 1925 of 3854
(JNS)—His death, like much of his life, was in service to the Islamist cause he championed. By dropping dead in a courtroom where he was caged and silenced, Mohamed Morsi served to bring attention to the dictatorial nature of the Egypt’s military government. The man who sought to make the world’s most populous Arab country into line with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood was lionized in his New York Times obituary as “Egypt’s First Democratically Elected President.” That accurate, but still misleading, headline also should remind us t... Full story
By Mel Pearlman The latest legislative assault on a woman’s reproductive rights is a dangerous and threatening assault on the U.S. Constitution itself. Supporters of these newly introduced state laws prohibiting abortion in every instance believe the act of aborting a pregnancy, even in its earliest phases of development, to be the murder of a human being. The danger to our constitution arises because that belief is not based on science or a societal consensus of a well-defined social harm, but is based on a religious conviction that human l... Full story
June has been a month of reflection on life, death, our values, and the greater good. We commemorated the 75th anniversary of the 1944 Normandy invasion (D-Day), which began the liberation of France from German occupation and turned the tide of World War II. In what must have been a decision fraught with soul searching, generals sent young soldiers into what could be certain death on the shores of Normandy. Their bravery was an act of unquestionable honor. Contrast that with a law school ethics class scenario. The leader of an invading horde... Full story
(JNS)—Given the nationwide response to the brutal rape of a 7-year-old Israeli girl by the Palestinian janitor at her elementary school, while two other accomplices egged him on, it’s no wonder that her parents waited weeks before complaining to authorities. Indeed, since the story was reported on Monday, it has become the subject of a political debate. As painful as this must be for the child’s traumatized family, it is not surprising. With three months to go before the “do-over” Knesset elections, no issue is off-limits in the fray. And... Full story
(JNS)—The Israel-bashing problem so prevalent on North American college campuses has now reached into high schools. Under the guise of teaching history, social studies, conflict resolution or “peace studies,” curriculum mills hostile to the Jewish state are spreading anti-Israel “lessons” throughout the nation’s public high schools. The biased curricula are designed to be easy to use with formats familiar to teachers, many of whom, we now know, have themselves imbibed anti-Israel lessons in the politicized education departments of American un... Full story
Dear Editor: As a People, we Jews are not unified. Politically we are divided into two camps, with roughly 70 percent Liberal and 30 percent Conservative. In general, Liberals detest President Trump and Conservatives admire him. These differences broadly follow along the lines of religious observance, with Reform or Secular Jews more liberal and Orthodox Jews more conservative. Both sides have lost respect for each other and rarely engage in meaningful dialogue. This has led to a fractured Jewish community in which we are more like rivals than... Full story
(JNS)—A few days ago, Britain’s Daily Telegraph revealed that in 2015 the British authorities had uncovered a Hezbollah terrorist plot. The key point was that this had been kept secret until now. In a bomb factory on the outskirts of London, a total of three metric tons of ammonium nitrate was discovered—more than was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people—stashed in ice packs. This was apparently no rogue plot, but part of an international Hezbollah operation laying the groundwork for future attacks. The London cell wa... Full story
(BESA Center via JNS)—The Jewish diaspora in the United States is becoming increasingly estranged from Israel. American Jewish youth are being pushed away from affiliation with the Jewish state, and some Jewish students are even forced to hide their religious identity or their support for Israel to stay safe on campus. A central issue hindering a solution to this problem is the continued, uncompromising political support of American Jewry for the Democratic Party, which is increasingly vocal in its disdain for Israel. Though Israel urgently n... Full story
(JNS)—At a time when violence against Jews is on the rise around the world, should the United States provide advanced weapons to a government that actively promotes anti-Semitism? That’s the question we need to consider as the Senate debates Senate Joint Resolution 26, which would block the administration’s plan to provide Qatar with 24 attack helicopters, 2,500 Hellfire missiles and other sophisticated military hardware. Qatar is the world’s leading financer of the Hamas terrorists. Qatari money pays for the missiles that Hamas fires at kind... Full story
By Howard Lefkowitz Last weekend, I had a heated discussion with my son-in-law, a political science professor at Virginia Tech, as to America’s right to demand change in Israel’s internal and external political directions. He asserted that Israel’s regional activities, as well as internal political structure, could become detrimental to the U.S.’s best interest. He argued that the US provides $4B a year in foreign aid to Israel. Therefore, the U.S. is entitled to demand certain actions that it deems appropriate. My son-in-law has a point r... Full story
As a youngster said to her mother, “Why am I called a dirty Jew? I shower everyday.” I am a Jew who has helped many children. Let me introduce myself. I am Elaine. I was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Jewish parents. My background is all Jewish. All my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents were Jewish. I went to an all-girl public high school. The town fathers tried to decrease teen pregnancy by having an all-girls high school and all-boys high school. Mine was a glorious same-sex high school. We were everything: a class pre... Full story
(JNS)—Palestinian and leftist Jewish leaders called for America’s Israel ambassador to be fired for telling The New York Times in a recent interview that the Jewish state has, “under certain circumstances, the right to retain some, but unlikely all, of the West Bank.” Yes, for daring to suggest that Israel has the right even to “some” of its land, David Friedman was called a “settler” by Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas, who had previously dubbed him a “son of a dog.” And the P.A. Foreign Ministry announced that it would weigh fili... Full story
Dear Editor: Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said in a speech this week: “If Prime Minister Netanyahu makes good on his threat to annex West Bank settlements, he should know that a President Buttigieg would take steps to ensure that American taxpayers won’t help foot the bill.” By invoking assistance to Israel, Mayor Buttigieg used one of the most long-standing bipartisan issues as a political instrument in his fight for the 2020 Democratic nomination. In doing so, Buttigieg is feeding the growing and alarming debate within the Democ... Full story
(JTA)—I’ll admit it: At first I didn’t think it was a big deal. Someone alerted me to a tweet from Politico touting their cover story about Bernie Sanders’ wealth. “The Secret of Bernie’s Millions” is illustrated by a montage of the Jewish senator, one of his homes—and a tree sprouting $100 bills. You know: Benjamins. The text of the original tweet touting the piece, since deleted, read “Bernie Sanders might still be cheap, but he’s sure not poor.” A Jew, banknotes, that word “cheap”—how is that not anti-Semitic? That’s what critics wanted... Full story
The U.S. is in a worldwide battle for making trade among the nations fairer and more balanced than it has been for several decades. This is a bipartisan issue and enjoys support by members of Congress from both sides of the congressional aisle. The motivation for trying to bring our trade imbalances down and ultimately to eliminate them altogether has far reaching consequences for the economic health of our nation. Prior administrations have recognized this problem and have diplomatically tried but failed to correct these trade imbalances. Inte... Full story
(JNS)—In a puff piece on Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, published on the occasion of his 80th birthday last year, the broadcaster France 24 headlined its profile, “The Great Survivor of Lebanese Politics.” This wording suggested that Berri is a successful politician in the sense that this image is understood in the Western democracies; someone who negotiates, navigates, cajoles and compromises his way through his country’s legislature and invariably comes out on top. But if Berri has been the “great survivor,” this is due... Full story
(JNS)—In what crazy, upside-down world does a Palestinian Arab randomly stab Jews in Jerusalem, get shot dead by Israeli policeman and then become the focus of an Associated Press article with a headline about Israelis killing Palestinians? In our crazy, upside-down world, that’s where. The latest craziness began when the terrorist was strolling through the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday morning when he happened to see a Jewish man. So, the Arab stabbed the Jew. The stabber then went a little further along, until he spotted a Jewish child wal... Full story
(JNS)—Israelis are rightly infuriated that their politicians couldn’t get their act together and form a government after national elections held on April 9. A rerun scheduled for Sept. 17 will be an enormous waste of time and money. But almost as infuriating as the new election is the way this turn of events will serve as an excuse for months of bloviating from Israeli and international pundits about the crisis in Israeli democracy. That means we’re about to be subjected to nearly 100 more days of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan... Full story
(Israel Hayom)—Yisrael Beiteinu chief Avigdor Lieberman’s post-election ploy will go down in history as one man’s attempt to distort Israeli democracy. As a result of this move, Lieberman has lent a hand to the few individuals at the State Attorney’s Office who, in order to bring down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, are willing to break with precedent to redefine various felonies to suit their agenda. This type of legal “trial balloon” is a serious infringement on democracy and the will of the voters. The results of the election for state c... Full story
(JTA)—In terms of popularity, Shavuot is the National Hockey League of Jewish holidays. Passover, the High Holidays and Chanukah are the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball, while Shavuot has a much smaller, albeit intense, following. I don’t know if Shavuot is more popular in Canada. For the sake of the analogy, let’s presume yes. Rabbis and Jewish educators lament that Shavuot isn’t more widely known or celebrated. It is, after all, a festival linked to the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai, which not only transformed an oppressed band of... Full story
(JTA)—Israel held a national election seven weeks ago. It will hold another one in September. If that sounds weird to you, you’re right: Israel has a famously raucous political system, but it’s never held national elections twice in one year. Until now. Just to be clear, no one really wanted this to happen, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; his main rival, Benny Gantz; or the president, Reuven Rivlin. Nor do Israeli political journalists, who just finished covering a vicious campaign. So why is it happening? It’s a result of Israel... Full story
(JNS—Israel Hayom)—The fissures are already visible. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two important, influential Persian Gulf countries, announced they will attend the U.S.-led economic conference in Bahrain scheduled for June 25-26. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have already said separately that they will boycott the summit. Egypt and Jordan are still undecided. The rest of the Arab world is licking its wounds. Iran, for its part, is looking on, grinning from ear to ear. Jordan’s King Abdullah was able to weather the Arab... Full story
(JYA)—A few months ago, when two of my kids and I boarded the London Underground, all eyes seemed to rest on us. My son’s small black kippah, which he always wears, seemed to be drawing dozens of staring faces—and also a few glares and frowns. It was an uncomfortable moment. “Maybe you should take off your kippah,” my daughter, 15, whispered to her brother, 17. “No!” he whispered back. “The day I’m afraid to wear my kippah in public is the day I wear it for that reason!” Wearing a kippah is a traditional symbol of piety, signifying that we... Full story
(JNS)—Who could really be surprised by the story that grabbed the attention of the Jewish world this past weekend? When Felix Klein, Germany’s first Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism (yes, that’s his full title) warned Jews about the danger of wearing a kipah in public, it was hardly a shock that this would be the case in the country responsible for the Holocaust. Yet the alarming frankness of his admission has made it impossible to ignore the truth about the threat to Jews in Europe any longer. Some of... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—As in all life matters, when it comes to abortion, Judaism doesn’t speak of rights but of responsibilities and obligations. Seeing things through that lens can be a real eye opener. The concept of “rights” is deeply ingrained in our Western minds. We rarely stop to question it. But the idea, as wonderful as it is and as helpful as it has been to humanity, doesn’t coexist very cozily with a fundamental Jewish truth: Everything benefiting us isn’t due us, but is rather a gift that we are charged to use responsibly in the service... Full story
