Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2431 - 2455 of 3712
Eli Lake from Bloomberg set off a firestorm in the U.S. this week with his revelation that in the last six months of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, former president Barack Obama’s national security adviser, requested that the U.S. intelligence community enable her to use foreign intelligence collection as a means of gathering information about Donald Trump’s advisers. According to Lake’s story, during the course of the U.S. presidential campaign, and with steadily rising intensity after President Donald Trump won the November 2016 elect... Full story
When Mark Rosenblatt touched down at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv April 5 and powered on his cell phone, he got the surprise of his mobile technology life. Rosenblatt received a text message from his cell phone carrier, Verizon, reading, “Welcome to Palestine.” “I did a double take,” said Rosenblatt, a high-tech consultant from Edgemont, N.Y. He had traveled to Israel to see his daughter, who is studying in a master’s degree program at Bar-Ilan University. “I was shocked that an American company was falling into some BDS rhetoric,... Full story
Dear Editor: The international law which has permitted the United States (without UNSC approval) to carry out a missile attack in Syria against the crime of chemical attack on citizens by Pres. Assad and his government, can, as a logical conclusion, permit the U.S. (without UNSC approval) to arrest Pres. Assad and his government and produce them before an International Court for the war crime of using chemical weapons, and simultaneously to fill the vacuum by installing another government in Syria through elections. The U.S. military strike in... Full story
There was an illuminating report from Paris in The Wall Street Journal this week that related how Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, has been consulting a group of French bankers and captains of industry in a bid to continue the mainstreaming of her party as the country’s presidential election approaches. Named “Les Horaces,” in honor of imperial Rome’s most illustrious and politically astute poet, this collection of dignitaries is preparing Le Pen, who represents what has up until now been a perennial party of opposit... Full story
A group of Palestinians tried to burn some Israeli Jews to death March 23. Just another day in the Middle East. The four attackers drove up to the perimeter of the Jewish community of Beit El, north of Jerusalem, and began hurling firebombs toward homes there. A firebomb, also known as a Molotov cocktail, is of course a deadly weapon. It explodes on impact and unleashes a torrent of flames. We can all easily imagine what would happen if those firebombs had struck people or homes. Fortunately, Israeli soldiers immediately fired at the would-be m... Full story
I am learning more than just a language as I study Arabic. As I had hoped, it is allowing me a peek into a culture and mentality. For example, the other day I was riding my bike and stopped to say hello to a young Arab man employed by the city as a gardener. Turns out he is a neighbor of mine. He lives in Jebel Mukabar, which is in ear shot of where I live. I hear clearly (whether I want to or not) the call to prayer each morning from the powerful mosque loudspeakers. I knew enough Arabic to comment that his village has a bad reputation. Over t... Full story
President Donald Trump’s missile strike against Syria inaugurates a new chapter in the long and controversial history of American responses—and sometimes nonresponses—to mass murder around the world. Although the killing of Syrian civilians by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime does not technically constitute genocide—which the United Nations defined in 1948 as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”—there is no doubt Assad has committed heinous and large-scale war crimes. Trump’s d... Full story
Yair Lapid is the current favorite to become prime minister the next time the Israeli people go to the polls to elect a new Knesset, at some point in the not-too-distant future. But whether or not the former television star who leads the centrist Yesh Atid party winds up succeeding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he has already done something that ought to influence international opinion about the Middle East conflict. The only question is whether those determined to impose their will on the Jewish state will listen. Last weekend, Lapid... Full story
Israel critic Peter Beinart has announced that when his children “near adulthood, I’ll encourage them to visit the West Bank.” Why? “So they can see for themselves what it means to hold millions of people... without free movement or due process,” he wrote in his column for The Forward. The Beinart children are in for quite a surprise. In his various articles and media appearances, Papa Beinart regularly accuses Israel of occupying and oppressing the Palestinians. I imagine that’s what the Beinart kids hear at the dinner table, too. But when th... Full story
(Rabbis Without Borders via JTA)—At Passover, Jews over the world gather to celebrate “zman cheirutenu,” the season of our freedom. We will read all about freedom from slavery. We drink four cups of wine to rejoice in the four freedoms given to our ancestors by God. We eat charoset, a mixture of fruits, nuts, juice or wine that represents the mortar used with the bricks we no longer have to place as slaves. Freedom from bondage, from Egypt, from Pharaoh. The idea of being freed from slavery by God is a central tenet of Judaism. We say, remem... Full story
As reports of the savage terrorist attack in central London March 22 emerged, it was clear pretty quickly that British authorities were dealing with an incident straight from the Islamist terror manual. The weapons of choice in London were ordinary consumer goods that are easily refashioned for the purposes of murder. The car in which the kids are driven to school is also a makeshift tank that can be used for ramming pedestrians. The knife that chops a salad can also be a machete of sorts, used to hack down police officers and others who get... Full story
David Friedman was confirmed March 23 by the U.S. Senate as America’s ambassador to Israel. But that was only after a highly contentious debate, and unfortunately, only because there is a Republican majority in the Senate. The same was true of Friedman’s prior approval by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The committee’s minority leader, Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.), voted against him, as did every single Democrat on the committee. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), wrote March 6 that Friedman “lacks the necessary temperament to serve in such... Full story
At first glance, it was one more example of why the United Nations is a cesspool of anti-Semitism and hatred for Israel. The publication of a report commissioned by the U.N.’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia broke new ground by not merely unfairly criticizing Israel, but taking the position that its existence as a Jewish state is illegitimate and, in and of itself, a justification for being branded as guilty of the “crime of apartheid.” Though this was more evidence of the rise of a new anti-Semitism that masquerades as anti-Zio... Full story
(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
