Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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I recently saw worlds being created. My students, 50 Catholic participants in the four-year degree program of the Salesian Pontifical University housed at the Ratisbonne monastery in Jerusalem, together with four priests and I, traveled north to spend a day studying with students at a yeshiva located on Kibbutz Ma’ale Gilboa. The monastery was built in 1874 to house the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion, an order founded by two Jewish converts to Catholicism, Alphonse and Theodore Ratisbonne. The Brothers and Sisters of Sion were dedicated f... Full story
It’s not all Arab terror, clashing demands of ultra-Orthodox and Reform Jews, concerns about what Obama might do in the coming month, Trump in the Oval Office, or barbaric Russians, Syrians, and other Muslims just over the northern border. There’s also been an explosion of concern about women’s legs, and cartoons of the prime minister, at least one of which has raised concerns about another political murder and brought the police to investigate a first-year art student and her teachers. There is also what may be a more serious wave of accus... Full story
While as Jews we celebrate our own New Year with a religious flourish for 10 days, usually in the fall, tell me you won’t do at least a little family and friends this weekend. What a year, right? It looks mightily like we will, in this country of ours have four political parties by the end of 2017. The Democrats are split between the “Regulars” and the “Progressives”; the Republicans between the “Regulars” and the “Tea Party.” Not to worry—we are one of the last developed nations on earth to have only two “major” parties. Will things wo... Full story
In late November, radical protesters in London attacked a Jewish communal building. As they wrestled with police at the gates, they screamed abuse about “baby killers!” and cried out, “It’s a Holocaust!” According to local media outlets, among them the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish News, the protesters also daubed the building with graffiti that included a Star of David, a smear about a “kosher Holocaust,” and references to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. What was the reason for the protesters’ anger, the cause of their unashamedly ant... Full story
President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign he wants to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His nominee for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has said he hopes he will work from an embassy in the city. Trump’s transition team has affirmed the intention to move the embassy, albeit without a timeline. And now, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, in a forceful speech at Tuesday night’s Chanukah party at the embassy here, encouraged Trump to make good on the pledge, saying it was long past due. Dermer last night enume... Full story
On one of my first assignments abroad as a rookie journalist back in the early 1990s, I found myself in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, just as the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia was getting underway in earnest. One afternoon, sitting with a group of journalists and writers in a café in the city center, I was drawn into a long conversation with an Israeli professor who was temporarily teaching in Belgrade. We began comparing nationalism in the Balkans with nationalism in the Middle East, and an observation he made has stuck with me ever... Full story
As the BDS movement grows on college campuses, and as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activities increase in high schools and in our communities, the American Jewish community is losing ground, losing time, and losing connection to Israel of our Jewish youth. Getting Jewish teens, ages 16 and 17, to Israel en masse, including and following up with Israel advocacy training before they go to college, will equip them to fight anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, and particularly the BDS movement. Key to attracting Jewish teens en masse to go to Israel is to... Full story
The concept is vague and messy in a number of ways. Where does the Wild East begin? On the eastern border of what was Israel prior to the 1967 war? With or without the expansion of Jerusalem legislated by Israel but not recognized by other countries? Another vagueness is how many Israelis have moved beyond those lines in the first and second of those conceptions. Estimates range up to 800,000, with about half in the parts of Jerusalem defined as especially unkosher by the friendly part of the international community, Officially, those... Full story
Haim Saban is wrong when he says Minnesota’s U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison is unqualified to head the Democratic National Committee. Ellison’s anti-Israel and anti-Semitic lineages do not disqualify him from the position. They more than qualify him. It is Ellison, not Saban—the Israeli-American mega-donor to both the Democratic Party and pro-Israel causes—who represents the Democrats’ true colors. The party has been abandoning support for the Jewish state for well over a decade. Recent studies by Brookings, Gallup, and Pew reveal a growing gap of su... Full story
John Kerry and J Street are worried. They see their cherished dream of a Palestinian state slipping away. Kerry’s criticism of Israel at the Saban Forum Dec. 4 attracted a lot of attention. But the transcript of the U.S. secretary of state’s remarks reveals an important moment that the media overlooked. Just as he was about to denounce Israel’s policies, Kerry suddenly turned to the audience and said: “By the way, just let me ask a question. Raise your hands. I mean, I know some of you may not want to acknowledge, but how many of you believe... Full story
When students at Toronto’s Ryerson University Hillel proposed to their Student Union that the university participate in the broader Canadian Holocaust Awareness Week, they did not anticipate the jeers, snickers, and eventual walkout to prevent a quorum from approving the motion. Nor did they anticipate that this hateful behavior would be led by members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Hillel students assumed SJP would respond as Hillel and most groups would respond were any minority group to propose an event promoting awareness of a... Full story
Can you feel the center collapsing all around you? Looking to the left and to the right—politically and religiously, here and in Israel—I see the gap widening at an increasingly rapid rate. The search for The Golden Mean, the desirable balance between extremes in our lives and worldview advocated by the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the 12th-century philosopher), seems unattainable. The demographic decline at the center of the American Jewish community has been well documented. National and local studies have shown that we are moving in two o... Full story
Donald Trump is sending mixed messages, some of them more troubling than others. Americans might wonder why others are paying attention. The answer is simple. The U.S. aspires to influence the world, or at least large parts of it. And large parts of the world aspire to be helped, protected, left alone, or be led by the U.S. example. Soothing words heard from Trump reflect his winding down from the shrill rhetoric of the campaign. He won’t bother with criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, and thereby he removes one potential political and m... Full story
The New Israel Fund recently received a grant to “research and report on anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses.” On the surface, this appears to be a welcome development—a progressive group being mobilized to confront a major social malady plaguing institutions of higher education. Beneath the surface of the Sept. 27 grant, however, are vested interests seeking to use this issue to cover up their role in fomenting the atmosphere that is hostile to Jewish students. The NIF is being paid by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF)—a main backer of the ant... Full story
It’s always interesting when Jimmy Carter raises his head from the depths of his presidency in exile, like a perennial groundhog. The main difference is that when groundhogs raise their head, it forecasts either more winter or an early spring. In Carter’s case, it’s always gloom and blame of Israel. As President Reagan famously and appropriately quipped, “There you go again.” It’s novel for Carter to use the anniversary of the UN Partition vote to be heard from most recently. He’s too smart to make errors of the magnitude that he has in his NY... Full story
During the past few years, the resettlement of refugees has been one of the key issues in international politics. Thehorrendous conflict in Syria has forced more than half the country from their homes, with 4.8 million refugees fleeing to neighboring countries and 1 million applying for asylum in Europe. The United Nations has taken the issue very seriously, trying to persuade countries around the world to commit to take in and resettle refugees. At the end of an international conference on the refugee crisis, which took place in Geneva this... Full story
In considering the furor around President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen Bannon, the CEO of the hard-right news website Breitbart, as his chief strategist, let’s start with the perspective of those who have defended him. On one important level, their anger over the Bannon spat is justified. It is galling to see the behemoths of the liberal left, from MoveOn.org to The New York Times, suddenly discover the threat of anti-Semitism after showing general indifference to its resurgence in public life during the last 16 years. Sim... Full story
Important government action was taken to protect the environment in the Middle East this week. But don’t expect the government in question to get any credit—because it was the Israeli government that took the action, and the Palestinian Arabs who were the polluters. And the Palestinians, as we all know, are immune from international criticism. The Israeli authorities repeatedly alerted the Palestinian Authority (PA), over the course of several years, about a charcoal factory in the PA-ruled city of Ya’bad that was causing serious air pollu... Full story
Will the real Donald Trump stand up. Opps. He doesn’t seem to be ready. We don’t know. It may take some time. We may never know. We’re not yet sure who is the real Barack Obama or Benyamin Netanyahu. Going back in history, we can ask the same about Richard Nixon, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, and all the rest, including Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Successful politicians must be actors, hiding their true feelings while seeking support for election, the enactment of legislation, or the implementation of what the legislation appe... Full story
A constant drumbeat of sharp headlines has heralded former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, president-elect Donald Trump’s chief strategist, as an open anti-Semite. The attack is rooted in nothing more credible than an unverified accusation by a crusading left-wing journalist, namely that Bannon had “proudly” told her five weeks earlier, “We’re the platform for the alt-right.” To be fair, though, critics have amply demonstrated that during Bannon’s tenure Breitbart harbored some pretty noxious ideas—reflected in click-bait headlines, infl... Full story
Standing up to anti-Israel sentiment on campus and around the globe makes a real difference. The head of Kent State’s Students for Justice in Palestine was urging the erasure of Golda Meir’s quote that adorns a wall on campus, along with other inspirational sayings. Here’s the offending quote: “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”—Golda Meir This outlandish demand to remove Golda Meir... Full story
For the first time in my life, on the morning after Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, I had a glimmering—the faintest of ideas—of what it must have felt like for Jews in 1930s Germany. I woke up asking myself questions I couldn’t answer, questions I’m sure were constantly on the minds of our ancestors. What do I do? How do I protect my family? Do we have to move to another country to be safe? Do we abandon our family, friends, our lives—and move halfway a... Full story
(It is so simple—and it will put President Trump in history books!) The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 is a public law of the United States passed by the 104th Congress on October 23, 1995. It was passed for the purposes of initiating and funding the relocation of the Embassy of the United States in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no later than May 31, 1999. The act also called for Jerusalem to remain an undivided city and for it to be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel. The proposed law was adopted by the Senate (93–5), and the... Full story
I have worked with Stephen K. Bannon, President-elect Donald Trump’s new chief strategist and senior counselor, for nearly six years at Breitbart News. I can say, without hesitation, that Steve is a friend of the Jewish people and a defender of Israel, as well as being a passionate American patriot and a great leader. A word or two about my credentials: I am an Orthodox Jew, and I hold a Master of Arts degree in Jewish Studies. My thesis at the Isaac and Jesse Kaplan Centre at the University of Cape Town dealt with the troubled status of J... Full story
At least five of the most notorious and sensational national sexual stories of the modern era belong to Jews: The Monica Lewinsky story of the 1990s; the quickly forgotten and tragic Chandra Levy affair in 2001; the duplicitous life of Governor Eliot Spitzer (who prosecuted prostitution rings, only to use them himself); the disturbing pedophilia of Jared Fogel, disgraced Subway pitchman, and now the libidinous Anthony Weiner once again creeping into national life. To be sure, Jews have no monopoly on national or political sex scandals. Tiger... Full story
