Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2456 - 2480 of 3706
(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
By Rhonda Forest “When is Federation going to issue a statement?” It’s a question periodically posed to me as president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, usually when a national political issue dominates the headlines. And in the past several months, there has been no shortage of such issues. Just four months removed from one of the most contentious elections in modern history, our nation is polarized. To a lesser extent, our Jewish community is polarized. We see it, hear it and feel it almost daily at Federation. As presi... Full story
My time as a college student involved decision making. My Jewish observance was no exception. I had grown up in a traditional Conservative Jewish home. My four sisters and I attended Hebrew school beginning at age four through the eighth grade, and celebrated our b’not mitzvah. I attended Shabbat services several times a month and learned to read Hebrew, lead prayers, and take an active role in synagogue life. We had lots of Jewish friends in the neighborhood and at public school. At home, we kept kosher, enjoyed Friday evening Shabbat d... Full story
HIAS was established 135 years ago to protect Jewish refugees who were fleeing the pogroms of Czarist Russia. Today, we remain true to our original mission of refugee protection. We are helping people who have fled their countries because their lives were in jeopardy due to who they are or what they believe. When there are refugees who are Jewish, HIAS is still there to make sure they receive help. In the past year, HIAS brought Jews from Iran, the Middle East, Ukraine, and other parts of the former Soviet Union to safety and freedom in the...
Imagine you are an impoverished religious Jew living in Paris. You can no longer wear religious garb out of fear of being set upon by assailants from North Africa who will beat you to within an inch of your life, if not take it. Your children are bullied in school, as their teachers ignore their complaints, and might even take perverse satisfaction in their plight. Even though French political figures make speeches condemning anti-Semitism and police are routinely sent to protect Jewish institutions, the anti-Semitism grows on the body politic... Full story
To hear the news media tell it, Israel’s Knesset has approved extreme right-wing legislation that will steal Palestinian land by legalizing illegal outposts and thereby demolish the last hopes for Middle East peace. The truth, of course, is very different. The Israeli government has not authorized the establishment of a new Jewish community in Judea and Samaria since 1992. That was the policy decreed by then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and followed by his successors, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the 1993 Oslo Accords d... Full story
In 1950, my family moved to Shaker Heights, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. It was a lovely, leafy area with stately homes and a storied history. Once my parents bought their home we were shocked to find that just shortly before we moved, a law was struck down that prevented Jews from owning homes in that lovely, leafy suburb. They actually had a LAW that prevented Jews and African Americans from buying a home in their town. We’ve come a long way, baby. Restrictive covenants have practically disappeared in the United States. You have the w... Full story
We are undeniably blessed to live in a first-world nation like the United States and it’s not because of the copious amounts of WiFi hotspots and unlimited breadsticks at Olive Garden. Nor is it because of our incomparable military and massive economy. We are the most fortunate population of people to ever exist because of our access to the most important entity life has ever known: Water. It is absolutely intolerable that 660 million people or 1 in 10 live without access to clean water in the 21st century. What’s more outrageous is that thi... Full story
Dear Editor: I was delighted to learn that West Volusia County and the National Jewish Outreach Program rediscovered the fourth of the Ten Commandments. Now, let us remind the Jewish women who marched on Shabbat in Washington, D.C., holding up signs identifying them and their concern for “justice.” Were they concerned about the injustice experienced by our children and grandchildren through anti-Semitism and intimidation of their right to free speech in colleges all over this country? Our pro-Israel Christian friends help us in recognizing the... Full story
Dear Editor: In the Feb. 3, 2017, edition of the Heritage, Abigail Pickus gives a detailed argument in favor of expanding government support of Jewish days schools. While I certainly understand the source of this desire of additional funding I am not sure that in the long term it will service the Jewish community as envisioned. I should note that the assumption of the article that this is only an issue for the Orthodox Community alone is not correct. While certainly the percentage of Orthodox Jews sending their children to Jewish day schools... Full story
I will admit that this sounds perverse, but Iran’s recent ballistic missile test was welcome in one important sense. Let me explain. Just more than a fortnight into President Donald Trump’s administration, America and the world have been bombarded with all sorts of crises, to the extent that it feels as if two years of history has been packed into two weeks. Relations with Mexico are at their lowest ebb in more than a century. The administration continues to exasperate, most likely intentionally, European heads of state with its on again, off... Full story
Like schoolchildren everywhere, Palestinian Arab children occasionally are assigned by their teachers to write poems. But the poetry they produce is not like that of children in the U.S. or elsewhere in the free world. Palestinian Media Watch reports that twice in the past month, a children’s program on official Palestinian Authority Television (PA TV) featured children reciting their poems. Among the most common terms they used: “blood,” “slaughter” and “revolution.” The PA TV program is called “The Best Home,” and the children who were... Full story
Liberals are saying Trump Education nominee Betsy DeVos “wants to take money away from public schools” by helping parents use taxpayer dollars for religious and other schools. But under the current system, the government unfairly forces many parents to choose between an expensive religious education and a free education that stymies their religious observance. Since practicing one’s religion without government interference is a constitutional guarantee, America’s public school regime is unconstitutional, and should be upended by the coming... Full story
To say the implementation of President Donald Trump’s travel ban was clumsy would be an understatement. To say, however, that the principles involved were totally without constitutional justification would be unwarranted. Since Trump’s inauguration, nothing has dominated the political conversation as much as hatred punctuated by hysteria. The aspiration toward civility that once served as a norm for political discourse in this country has been consumed in conflagration, riots, mass demonstrations and physical attacks. In no other policy are... Full story
There are all kinds of sayings reminding us that if we fail to learn from the tragedies of the past, we are doomed to relive them in the future. We appear to have failed to heed that warning. On May 31, 1939, the German ship St. Louis left Hamburg for Cuba with more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing for their lives from Nazi Germany. They were offered respite in Cuba temporarily until their visa applications would be approved to enter the U.S. But anti-Semitic rallies of thousands of people were instigated throughout Cuba, demanding that these... Full story
Dear Editor: The spate of recent bomb threats at our Maitland Jewish Community Campus should not lead to making American Jewish life similar to Paris or other cities in Europe. Walking or driving through more security fences and being searched by security guards and monitored by more cameras will push only the strongly committed amongst us away from all our institutions. Better to use this crisis as an opportunity to make a broad outreach to the greater Orlando community. Holocaust Remembrance Day could have been such a date to hold a... Full story
It turns out, according to today’s JTA, that the Holocaust Statement was written—all or mostly—by Boris Epshteyn, a strongly identifying American Jew, of Russian Jewish ethnicity, who is in the Trump inner circle and who is a descendant of Holocaust survivors. I shall now place myself in Trump’s place, and I invite you to do so. I am a chief executive, and I want to issue a statement on Cesar Chavez Day, so I ask a trusted advisor who also is Chicano to handle the statement. Or I ask an African American close advisor to draft my Martin Luther... Full story
He came to Canada as a 16-year-old refugee from Somalia. He’s highly regarded across the Canadian political spectrum. He was just appointed as immigration minister in the cabinet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Now 40 years old, Ahmed Hussen has a promising career in front of him. And in these polarized, fragmented times, he is exactly the kind of public figure we need when it comes to clarifying the wider debate about immigration and Islamism, human rights and national security. Trudeau, the leader of Canada’s Liberal Party, has often bee... Full story
Someday, perhaps, a team of sociologists and psychologists will examine the curious question of why Jewish ex-State Department officials are obsessed with Israel. Until that day comes, though, the rest of us will be stuck having to listen to those officials’ relentless harassment of Israel and promotion of the Palestinian cause. With the issue of moving the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on the front burner, The New York Times trotted out two former State Department hands, both Jewish, to pour cold water on the embassy r... Full story
