Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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As a child, I spent my summers at Camp Solomon Schechter, a Conservative Jewish camp in Tumwater, Wash., set on the shores of Lake Joshua Stampfer. My experiences at Camp Schechter were central to the development of my Jewish identity and eventual decision to immigrate to Israel. Each day began at “the flagpole.” Kicking off every morning, hundreds of sleepy-eyed campers and counselors from all around the Pacific Northwest strolled to the flagpoles, where we would circle up around the American, Canadian and Israeli flags. Just as everyone cir... Full story
It’s not yet clear that the commotions surrounding the Temple Mount and the incident in Amman are behind us. An optimist’s view is that two weeks of demonstrations, nastiness from the pinnacle of the Jordanian government as well as the Palestine National Authority, a few deaths and perhaps a couple of hundred injuries were nothing more than blips on a troubled history, now seemingly back to what’s been the normal range of manageable tensions. Those few days also invite some comparisons with minorities elsewhere, and especially African Ameri... Full story
When presidential adviser Jared Kushner said in a recent private discussion that “there may be no solution” to the conflict between the Palestinian Arabs and Israel, he was just stating the obvious. For nearly a century, self-appointed wise men have been claiming to have the solution, but every such proposal has proved to be a mirage. The British thought they had the solution in 1922, when they sectioned off the eastern part of Mandatory Palestine—78 percent of the original mandate territory—and set up an Arab kingdom there, which came to be k... Full story
PARIS—It took too long for the French people to recognize the Jewish victim of a brutal April 4 murder by name. After weeks of indifference by media outlets and politicians, French President Emmanuel Macron demanded publicly that the judiciary shed light on the nature of the crime. Significantly, Macron spoke of Sarah Halimi during the ceremony marking the 75th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv, the roundup of more than 13,000 French Jews during the Holocaust in 1942. “Despite the denials of the murderer, our judiciary must bring total clari... Full story
The last two weeks was not a good time to be prime minister of Israel. A series of unfortunate events led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make decisions that wound up being blasted from both the left and the right. Those decisions were, at best, debatable. But the resulting tsunami of disparagement that accused him of simultaneously being intransigent and a weakling may tell us more about the nature of the conflict between Israel and its enemies than it does about his shortcomings. Though he deserves criticism, the most important... Full story
The monthly salary of approximately $3,000 that the Palestinian Authority will pay to terrorist Omar al-Abed could be a powerful spur to a pending U.S. legislative bill that would slash aid to the PA over its “martyr payments” policy, a leading Middle East expert told The Algemeiner on Tuesday. “This is definitely going to put wind in the sails of the Taylor Force Act,” said Jonathan Schanzer, an expert on Palestinian politics at the Washington, DC-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) think tank. Named in memory of former... Full story
The pressure has begun. The State Department’s “evenhanded” statement regarding the Temple Mount. The U.S.-backed Middle East Quartet’s call for “restraint.” The announcement that President Donald Trump’s international negotiations representative is going to the region to “mediate” between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). It all adds up to one thing: American pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. The July 14 terror attack that killed two Israeli policemen at the Temple Mount is a clear-cut case of Palestinian ag... Full story
An article by a former Israeli Ambassador to Greece details the breakdown in peace talks meant to reunite the Island of Cyprus, and suggests a parallel to frustrations at brokering a peace between Israel and Palestinians. In both Cyprus and Israel, the status quo is neither war nor formal peace. There remain unresolved issues of property ownership, and families who left, and cannot return to what they used to call home. Movement between the two sections, whether on Cyprus or Israel-West Bank has at times been easier for foreign tourists than... Full story
Chaya Salomon was murdered at a Sabbath dinner with her family. The 46-year-old Jewish woman was stabbed to death alongside her 70-year-old father Yosef and her 36-year-old brother Elad. Photos show the kitchen of the Salomon house in the Israeli village of Neve Tsuf covered in blood. The youngest Salomon daughter had given birth to a new member of the family. The bottle of Glenfiddich on the table was never opened. Instead an Islamic terrorist burst in and stabbed the new grandfather. Tova, the new grandmother was badly wounded. Elad’s wife ru... Full story
He drew a circle that shut me out—Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout. But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in! —Edwin Markham According to the Bipartisanship Policy Center, our country’s history of working across the aisle can be traced back to as early as 1787. Our founding fathers, struggling with congressional representation regarding the populations of the colonies, reached what later was know as the Great Compromise. It was decided that our new government would exist with a proportional House of Repre... Full story
Dear Editor: Jewish identity is one of the most important qualities we can help our young to develop. Study after study shows that as Jewish identity slips because of intermarriage, the Jewish community in the United States suffers. So too does the connection between young Americans and the state of Israel. If we hope to see a continued Jewish future including continued support of Israel, we must take positive steps to assure it. Significant research on the American Jewish community shows that Jewish day schools, (in Orlando that would be the... Full story
To an objective observer, the crisis that erupted in the aftermath of a bloody terror attack near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount makes no sense. Three Arab terrorists used guns they had smuggled up to the compound July 14 to kill two Israeli policemen, both of whom happened to be Druze rather than Jewish. In response, Israeli authorities set up metal detectors to prevent a recurrence of the crime. The response to this from Palestinians was general outrage, violence and a promise of mass riots if the offending machines were not immediately removed. U... Full story
There is an interesting documentary on YouTube about a recent archeological expedition in Iraq and Iran—what was ancient Persia and before that Babylonia. In ancient texts and evidence in excavations there are stories about Sodom, Gomorrah and the big flood. That area of Persia/Iran was and is susceptible to flooding. They use round bottom boats of the type described in Torah in the story of Noah. But, there is no history of a great flood—plenty of floods, but not one big enough to bring penguins from Antarctica and giraffes from Africa. A lot... Full story
It was best not to write about this right away. Need to see how it would percolate. It could have been massive or a momentary blip testing the level of accommodation between Israel, the Palestinians, and other Muslims. Truth is, that it is still tense, with Friday prayers posing a challenge to all sides. The initial story made the international news, and monopolized what Israelis were hearing for a day. Three Israeli Arabs, from the Galilee city of Um al Fahm, exited the Old City from the area of the Temple Mount and shot three policemen. They... Full story
Journalists and pro-Israel activists often share a tendency to see current events as the beginning of history. I’ve been reminded of this lately by apocalyptic stories regarding anti-Semitism in the United States, the situation on college campuses and American public opinion. I’ve been perusing my archives of articles that I and others have written in the past and thought I’d share some historical observations in the next few columns to put present concerns in context. I hear people claiming the situation on campus today is worse than ever, but... Full story
(JNS.org, and Aish Hatorah Resources)—President Macron equated anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and said Jew-hatred wasn’t born with the Vichy regime, nor did it die after the liberation of France. French President Emmanuel Macron is not the first French president to give a speech at the annual memorial ceremony commemorating the Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup in July 1942, when some 13,000 Parisian Jews—a third of them children—were rounded up and taken to a local stadium and subsequently expelled to Nazi concentration and death camps. This operation w... Full story
(JTA)—Dear Jewish community, So you wanna understand Israel-Palestine debates on campus? The first thing you have to do is stop talking about BDS. Shocking, right? We try. But really, the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment campaign against Israel isn’t what Israel conversations on campus are all about these days. Campaigns to pass BDS measures on major campuses are actually in decline, yet somehow they still make up the bulk of Jewish news about students. The truth is, divestment proposals happen perennially, people freak out for two to thr... Full story
(JTA)—Last year, I wrote an opinion piece for JTA about a term and a trend few Jews over the age of 30 had ever heard of: intersectionality. Coined in the late 1980s, intersectionality posits that various forms of oppression—racism, sexism, classism, ableism and homophobia—are all interconnected. According to the theory, a black female is doubly marginalized by racism and sexism, for example. As a result, it is necessary for activists to connect these multiple forms of oppression in their advocacy. Rising in popularity in the wake of the prote... Full story
The U.S. consul general in Jerusalem recently set off on the first leg of a 200-mile hike that will simultaneously promote one pro-Palestinian myth while inadvertently exploding another. That’s quite a “twofer!” Consul General Donald Blome is an avid hiker. For some reason, he has decided to ignore Israeli hiking trails in Judea and Samaria, and instead is making his way across the “Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil,” or the Ibrahim Path, which runs from northern Samaria to southern Judea. The website of the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem quotes Bl... Full story
Malcolm Gladwell’s “Saigon 1965,” a chapter in his podcast Revisionist History, brought me back to the University of Wisconsin 1968-75. I participated in campus discussions on Vietnam, and smelled the tear gas used against mass protests. Gladwell’s message is that a mass of information about the Vietcong lent itself to widely different conclusions by intelligence personnel influenced by their own experiences, with their political superiors screening assessments through their own self-interests. Some saw the U.S. as winning, while others... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Over the weekend, JTA and others reported on a “blacklist of rabbis” maintained by Israel’s chief rabbinate. The list contains the names of more than 160 rabbis whom the rabbinate does not trust to confirm the Jewish identity of immigrants to Israel. The list, obtained by Itim from the rabbinate after a protracted legal battle, has sparked an uproar in Israel and around the Jewish world. I have been contacted by rabbis, politicians, Israeli and American consuls general and ambassadors, asking one question: Who is respons... Full story
Donald Trump made an important speech on May 21at the Arab Islamic Summit in Saudi Arabia that was quickly forgotten in the cacophony of tweets, accusations and other news surrounding the president. It is worth looking at that address more closely, however, because he laid out in the starkest terms yet the truth about what amounts to a world war that few people want to acknowledge. The speech also clearly distinguishes Trump’s policies from those of his predecessor by explicitly identifying Islamic extremism as a global threat, acknowledging J... Full story
Dear Editor: As a member of the Jewish community, I would like to bring exposure to Kids of Courage because I feel this organization is essential and so many people can benefit from their services. Kids of Courage is a Jewish innovative volunteer-based organization, dedicated to improving the lives of children and young adults with serious medical diagnoses. One of our many events that we sponsor will take place in the summer. This upcoming Aug. 3-10 we will be taking 130 sick children and young adults with all their required medical supervisio... Full story
If you haven’t encountered the term “Shi’a corridor” yet, chances are that you will in the coming weeks, particularly if the ongoing confrontation between the U.S. and Iran in Syria intensifies. What was initially a sideshow to the main battle against Islamic State in Syria is fast becoming the main focus of attention. In recent weeks, the U.S. has shot down at least two Iranian armed drones over Syria. A Syrian regime bomber jet supposedly attacking Islamic State positions near Raqqa was also downed, after it ventured too close to positions he... Full story
Before we were disturbed by a dust-up among Jews about the Western Wall and conversion, we were befuddled by another delegation of ranking Americans prodding Israelis and Palestinians to sit around a table and make peace. What these worthies do not grasp is that there already is peace. It ain’t perfect, but it’s close to the best that’s possible. Alongside the well-known constraints in both Palestinian and Israeli politics in the way of agreement on all the issues that would allow a celebration of formal peace, there are ample signs that both... Full story
