Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(My Jewish Learning via JTA)—What is the essence of Passover? On the one hand, it seems obvious: Passover is about gathering together with loved ones to recall, through sumptuous home rituals, the exodus from Egypt. We gather round our seder tables and quickly become engulfed in the warmth of family and friends, the culinary delights of a delicious meal, and the comforting, vaguely familiar words and songs we recite year after year. Passover is, indeed, a beautiful opportunity for rejoicing and celebrating. But it also can be much, much more. L... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Literally within seconds of the news of the arrest in Israel of an Israeli-American teenager for the bulk of the JCC bomb threats, Twitter lit up with Jewish anxiety. “[I] fear the inevitable backlash from haters who we whipped [into] a frenzy for our own nefarious political aims” is how someone responded to the JTA story about the arrest. A colleague’s friend wrote, “And now people will have another excuse to not take anti-Semitism seriously.” The shock and anxiety inspired by news of the arrest were understandable. After all,... Full story
Diplomats never pretend to be experts on acting, yet for some reason actors constantly present themselves as experts on international affairs. Hollywood award ceremonies are now dominated by awardees delivering pretentious political diatribes. The latest presumed fount of wisdom is Richard Gere, who visited Israel last week to promote a film in which he plays a character modeled on the American Jewish businessman from whom Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accepted large bribes. In an interview with Haaretz, Gere rattled off all the shallow... Full story
You would think by this point in the 21st century we would have learned. But we delude ourselves into thinking it doesn’t exist. It does. Anti-Semitism is alive and well and growing—right here in the good old U.S. of A. There was a wave of positive enthusiasm when President Obama was elected—that we were entering a “post racial” era. The truth is the opposite. There is a wonderful song from the show “South Pacific” titled “You’ve Got to be Taught to Hate.” It’s true. We thought that racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular was “generat... Full story
Blame it on President Donald Trump and Fox News. Perhaps it’s the fault of the mainstream liberal media and its leading outlets like The New York Times, CNN and MSNBC. Or maybe the problem is Facebook. But no matter which scapegoat you pick, there’s little doubt that Americans are more deeply divided than they’ve been in living memory as traditional left-right debates have stopped being exchanges of ideas and become screaming matches in which neither side even bothers to pretend they’re listening to each other. Instead, we demonize those w... Full story
(JTA via the Forward)—Last week, Ohio State University Hillel was accused of being anti-LGBT because it was forced to disassociate with a Jewish LGBT campus group, B’nai Keshet, after the group decided to co-sponsor a fundraiser for queer refugees with Jewish Voice for Peace. I was shocked to hear this accusation and wanted to understand where it had come from and why. Being gay and Jewish, I’m fortunate to have a supportive community in my life at Ohio State University, which has allowed me to be active throughout campus as a university ambas... Full story
Which terrorist did the most damage to Israel’s security in the course of the “stabbing intifada” that began in the fall of 2015? About 40 Israelis were murdered during the spate of knife attacks, yet the most successful terrorist did not kill any of them. During this wave of violence, terrorists wielding knives charged at civilians and soldiers, drove vehicles into crowds full of innocent passersby, hurled rocks with the intent of shattering skulls and engaged in many other abominable acts. But the terrorist who inflicted the most damag... Full story
The prospect of all-out conflict between the U.S. and the North Korean regime has loomed large over the last fortnight, as a consequence of the latest round of provocations from Pyongyang. It’s always a competition between the world’s rogue states as to which one of them can pose the greatest threat to global peace and order at any given moment. Since 2011, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, backed by Russian and Iranian military power in the air and on the ground, has wreaked havoc in the Middle East, annihilating around 500,000 people and... Full story
The artificiality of a Palestinian identity is reflected in the attitudes and actions of neighboring Arab nations who never established a Palestinian state themselves. The rhetoric by Arab leaders on behalf of the Palestinians rings hollow. Arabs in neighboring states, who control 99.9 percent of the Middle East land, have never recognized a Palestinian entity. They have always considered Palestine and its inhabitant’s part of the great “Arab nation,” historically and politically as an integral part of Greater Syria - Suriyya al-Kubra - a des... Full story
For the past 15 years, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has been promoting the so-called “Saudi Initiative,” a plan he says proves that Saudi Arabia sincerely wants peace with Israel. But this week, a senior Palestinian leader revealed that at the very moment the Saudis were launching that plan, they were financing a major wave of terrorism against Israel. It’s time for Friedman to publicly admit he was wrong and apologize for the harm he caused to Israel. It all started Feb. 6, 2002, when Friedman devoted his New York Times colum... Full story
At a time when much of American Jewry is opposed to the immigration policies of the nascent administration of President Donald Trump, it was probably only to be expected that a growing number of synagogues would declare themselves “sanctuaries” where “undocumented” immigrants—a euphemism for those who crossed into the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas—can find both shelter and help in evading the authorities. These institutions and their supporters say their decision is grounded in justice, history and even Jewish liturgy. But in spite o... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)—When a friend, cause or institution we support has been hurt or under attack, it’s human nature—and admirable—for people to want to “do something” to be helpful. Unfortunately, onlookers’ idea of being helpful is not always what’s most useful to those who have been hurt. We’ve seen it recently at one Planned Parenthood medical office, where pro-choice protesters gathered to counter those protesting against abortion. The protest went on despite the organization’s preference for non-engagement at its clinic sites in deference... Full story
Dear Editor: My mother-in-law passed away in January. While she had been suffering from poor health, her death was unexpected and our family was in shock. In the early morning hours that followed, we started doing the activities that all Jewish families do at moments like this: Phone calls were made; travel arrangements were put in place. When should the funeral be? Who can attend? Are the Rabbi and Cantor available to officiate? What is the address of the cemetery? Scores of logistics, all of which require timely answers in order to have... Full story
French President François Hollande is disturbed that President Donald Trump criticized a U.S. ally, describing the terrorism that has plagued France in recent years as the product of an open border policy. Yet it is Hollande who should self-reflect on his own criticism of a French ally. “Take a look at what’s happening in Germany,” Trump said at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. “Take a look at what’s happened in France. Take a look at Nice and Paris. We fully understand that national security begins with border security.... Full story
(JTA)—Shots fired into a classroom window at an Indiana synagogue. Cemeteries desecrated in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and New York. Swastikas scrawled on Jewish buildings. More than 100 bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers. History doesn’t always repeat itself, but echoes of the darkest chapters serve as warnings. We study the past and preserve our tradition so that we’ll recognize the signs. For these troubled days, the observance of Purim—commemorating the defeat of a plot to massacre the Jews in ancient Persia—is a timely re... Full story
An extremist Arab Knesset member who endorses violence and has been condemned by the Likud and Labor parties alike was cheered at the recent J Street national conference. For an organization that supposedly promotes peaceful coexistence, they sure have some strange bedfellows! The object of J Street’s enthusiastic applause was Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh, leader of the parliamentary bloc known as the Joint Arab List. Odeh is well-known in Israel for his extremist rhetoric. Last year, for example, he claimed that Israel murdered Yasser Arafat.... Full story
American Jewry is under assault. A wave of bomb threats called into Jewish community centers and schools, cemetery desecrations and vandalism aimed at other identifiable targets such as synagogues has created an atmosphere of fear about anti-Semitism unmatched in recent memory. The incidents have caught the attention of the entire nation and brought home to a not insignificant percentage of the Jewish population the possibility that their gathering places have become a target for extremists. But like everything else in our hyper-partisan era... Full story
(JTA)—The “fear itself” thing? FDR was on to something. The rash of JCC bomb threats and cemetery desecrations, combined with a general sense that the country is becoming more intolerant, has Jews on edge in ways they haven’t been in years. The head of a major American Jewish organization wrote to me that the recent outbreak of anti-Semitic activity “is the worst America has seen since the 1930s.” (It’s not.) Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress has declared that “in recent weeks and months we have witnessed an unprecedented a... Full story
(JTA)—Almost daily accounts of vandalized cemeteries, spray-painted swastikas and bomb threats to JCCs and other Jewish agencies have naturally evoked considerable alarm. Clearly, we must never reconcile ourselves to an America where this is considered normal. Yet we must not succumb to the opposite tendency to see these recent incidents through a 2,000-year-old lens and draw comparisons to darker days, when Jews felt powerless and alone in the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no nation—other than Israel, of course—that has been more hospi... Full story
For those of us who spent much of 2016, based upon then-candidate Donald Trump’s own bombastic declarations, worrying about the thrust of the foreign policy of a future Trump administration, President Trump’s address to Congress Feb. 28 provided welcome relief. As ever, precise details were scarce and important shifts of direction went unacknowledged, but the underlying message was clear—and notably more centrist in orientation. Trump correctly identified “radical Islamic terror” as America’s prime enemy, but he also spoke of the importance... Full story
Dozens of bomb threats have been called into Jewish institutions since early January, and scores of headstones at two Jewish cemeteries—one near St. Louis, the other in Philadelphia—were desecrated in February. But is there actually a rising tide of anti-Semitism in America? Despite the threats and attacks, positive feelings between different American religious groups are on the rise, as measured in mid-to-late January by the well-respected and non-partisan Pew Foundation. Additionally, far more damaging anti-Semitic incidents took place thr... Full story
The most prominent problem currently facing Israel in international politics is one of our own making. Not the work of us all, but the work of some. It’s the so-called settlement law, which aspires to solve the problem of some 4,000 homes built on land that individual Palestinians are likely to convince Israeli courts that they are the owners of the land, and did not agree to the construction. The enactment makes an effort to be fair. It offers compensation to the Palestinians having a valid claim. Its supporters assert that no property c... Full story
A Palestinian terrorist who murdered two Hebrew University of Jerusalem students has found a new ally, the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) group. How mainstream Jewish liberal groups respond will be telling. The killer, Rasmea Odeh, is locked in a battle, initiated by the Obama administration, to deport her for lying about her terrorist past. It all began in February 1969, when the 20-year-old Odeh, together with a fellow member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), set off a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two... Full story
Speaking to his ministers on Sunday about his visit to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heralded a new era in U.S.-Israel relations. To a degree, he was correct. When U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump greeted Netanyahu and his wife Sara as they alighted from their car at the southern entrance to the White House, Trump demonstrated that the eight years of hostile treatment Israel suffered at the hands of his predecessor Barack Obama were no more. But unfortunately, Obama wasn’t the only thing that was wrong wi... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)—My mother swims at the JCC. These days, she packs a “go bag” with all of her stuff to bring to the pool in case she is evacuated in her bathing suit by a bomb threat. It doesn’t seem unlikely. This is not what America should be. “Well, what can I do?” people ask me. They feel powerless. Let me tell you this: You are not powerless. Here are five things you can do to stand up against hate today. 1. Join your local Jewish community center. Today, I am joining my local JCC. I am not a member, but I think it is time I became one... Full story
