Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2551 - 2575 of 3644
(JTA)—With the presidential race heating up, a number of progressive Jewish commentators have portrayed the Republicans’ vice presidential candidate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, as a conservative extremist opposed to Jewish beliefs and values. As officers of the only statewide, grassroots Jewish and Israel advocacy organization in Indiana—who also have had the privilege of working closely with Pence and other Indiana legislators of both political parties to pass important pro-Jewish, pro-Israel legislation—we dispute this inaccurate portray... Full story
I hosted a Christian journalist recently. She wanted to visit a “settlement” to see for herself what life is like, to understand better the Jewish connection to biblical Judea and Samaria, and actual life on the ground. What she learned, witnessed, and took away is very different from that which is portrayed in the world media, and among those with anti-Israel agendas that delegitimize Israel’s very existence. At the top of a hill overlooking the adjacent Arab village next to my neighborhood, so close that someone with a good arm could throw... Full story
Politics isn’t everything. There’s also sport. Anyone who’s visited Rome’s Coliseum, or the remains of Greek amphitheaters around the Mediterranean, knows that its capacity to divert has been with us for a long time. We’ve moved beyond the blood sport of the gladiators. Boxing is losing its popularity. Dog fighting and cock fighting are underground. Wrestling is more theater than sport. American football and North American hockey are about as bloody as they get, with football on the agenda of those who worry about the damage to knees and brain... Full story
When I made aliyah over a year ago, I was warned that it would be hard. With no family here, many people gave me their contact information and an open invitation for any assistance when needed. But for me, for the first year, it really wasn’t all that hard. Thanks to a great absorption experience, a steady job and an amazing support system, I felt great about my choice to make aliyah. I didn’t need much assistance and had nearly 100 percent positive experiences. That is, up until this week. The pain in my back returned, but this time with a v... Full story
In late March 2016, Rabbi Barry Silver reached out to his Muslim friends Wilfredo Ruiz (CAIR), Professor Bassem Al-Halabi (ICBR Mosque), Deputy Sheriff Nezar Hamze (CAIR), and former Israeli Army Officer David Shimon to have a panel discussion on Islamophobia, Shariah Law, and Islam on July 20, 2016 at Congregation L’Dor Va-Dor. All four men agreed to be a part of the discussion. The community responded enthusiastically filling Rabbi Silver’s Synagogue to standing room only. The three Muslim leaders were last minute no shows in a shameful and... Full story
By Gideon Aronoff, Ken Bob, Josh Weinberg and John Rosove NEW YORK (JTA)—As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.” However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist values. And those values mandate activism in order to ensure that Israel is both a democracy and the national home of the Jewish people. The difference between us and pr... Full story
Imagine a bi-partisan commission focused on one of America’s most pressing national issues. Imagine a consensus opinion on what needs to be done to save generations of American youth-at-risk. Now imagine ignoring those recommendations. Unthinkable to some, but the sad reality we see today. Some 40 years ago, A Nation at Risk called the American public to arms, impressing on them the urgent need to refocus on a robust education for our nation’s youth. Nearly half a century later, we have forgotten this report’s impactful message. We forge... Full story
It’s been a long time since I saw a gesture this desperate. At the recent Arab Summit in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, the Palestinian Authority (PA) foreign minister, Riyad al-Maliki, announced that his boss, PA President Mahmoud Abbas, had asked the Arab states to prepare a legal case against Britain in retaliation for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration, which took the form of a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to the Zionist leader Lord Rothschild, confirmed Britain’s favorable view of a ... Full story
The world has a serious problem, that of the massive number of refugees fleeing Middle Eastern war-torn countries. The vast majority of these refugees are Syrian and Iraqi Muslims while non-Muslims constitute less than three percent. Some countries refuse to admit refugees. Lebanon and Jordan shut their borders to Syrians in 2014. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United-Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman will not take a single refugee because of the crime and violence threat to their safety, as jihadist terrorists hide among those fleeing. After the... Full story
By Eliana Rudee (JNS.org) Living in Israel comes with many hardships, some of them known and some of them unknown. I expected certain dilemmas with the language, bureaucracy, cultural immersion and finances, for example. But there is one thing that I did not expect to deal with when I made aliyah, namely, experiencing loss from abroad. I believed that if I didn’t think about such a situation, maybe it would go away. As my boyfriend says, “that’s a problem for future Ellie,” as if I could put the problem off in my mind. So I did. Well, at leas... Full story
Israel’s parliament this week took action in response to an Arab Knesset member’s public support of a terrorist who murdered an American-Jewish peace activist. But if you read the account by New York Times correspondent Isabel Kershner, you wouldn’t know anything about the terrorist or his victim—all you would learn is that Israel’s rulers are suppressing dissent and might be infected by “budding fascism.” It’s as if Kershner and her editors are living in some kind of alternative universe, in which Israel is always guilty, Arab extremists are... Full story
In 2012, the Electronic Intifada, an online anti-Zionist media outlet that aggressively promotes the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, ran a lengthy article suggesting that “allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ create a real climate of fear” that is “silencing” pro-Palestinian student activists on U.S. campuses. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw the article, not because of the absurd nature of the charges—that Jewish students were somehow intimidating and silencing pro-Palestinian student activists just by virtue of speak... Full story
Dear Editor: Centuries ago, there were followers of Judaism and Christianity, specifically zealots and crusaders, who supported or committed violence and conquest in the name of religion. Nowadays, however, due to the reformation of Judaism and Christianity, it is extremely rare for acts of terror to be committed by Christians or Jews in the name of either religion. Sadly, the opposite is true for Islam, which has been hijacked by millions of followers, who support violence in the name of Allah. Most perpetrators of this violence and those who... Full story
We live in an era of resurgent, strongman leaders. Some of them, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, carry an aura of invincibility, a sense that they effortlessly control the levers of power at every level of state activity, from parliament to intelligence operations to the military. Some of them cling to power even as the states they created crumble under the weight of corruption, mismanagement, political repression, and economic degradation; Venezuela’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, is a prime example of this. Still others cling to power t... Full story
The Jewish community’s polarization in reaction to the selection of Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s running mate illustrates the political chasm that divides American Jewry. Predictably, the J Street lobby, which had shilled for President Barack Obama’s deceptive Iran deal, sprang into support mode. Still touting its role in bringing the deal to a successful conclusion, J Street has been undeterred by recent revelations of Iran’s hunt in Germany for materials to build an aggressive nuclear weapons... Full story
According to U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), I am a termite. Speaking to an anti-Israel group on the sidelines of the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, the congressman said, “There has been a steady [stream], almost like termites can get into a residence and eat before you know that you’ve been eaten up and you fall in on yourself, there has been settlement activity that has marched forward with impunity and at an ever increasing rate to the point where it has become alarming.” So much for brotherly love. Why should I care? What diffe... Full story
In the 1930s in Germany, many caved to the dangerous political agenda of the time. They wanted power, peace, and prosperity, to reclaim their country from the ravages of World War I. Christians were no different. But in doing so, they embraced the words of Martin Luther. In 1539, in his book “The Jews and Their Lies,” he wrote, “Next to the devil, you have no more bitter, venomous and vehement foe than a real Jew... Even if the Jews were punished in the most gruesome manner so that the streets ran with blood, so that their dead would be count... Full story
(JTA)—Last week, Pope Francis made a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz—the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual “theater of death,” where the vast majority of Jews were murdered. At Birkenau, there is a large church in what once was the Nazi commandant headquarters. The church is in direct violation of a 1987 agreement signed by four European cardinals and European Jewish lea... Full story
A decade after fighting the Second Lebanon War against the Islamist terror militia Hezbollah, Israel is once again facing a build-up on its northern border, with the prospect of fresh hostilities looming The 2006 conflict, waged over a month during the hot summer, was the culmination of six years of rocket attacks by Hezbollah on cities and towns in northern Israel. By the time that war broke out, Hezbollah had taken advantage of Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 to assemble 15,000 fighters and thousands of missiles aimed in t... Full story
(JNS.org) Exactly six years ago, when I was just 18 years old, I wrote as my Facebook status, “Doesn’t want to go home tomorrow :( I live in America but my heart is in Israel.” It was only my second time in Israel and I just knew. I knew that the minute I stepped off the plane back in the U.S., my heart would be split in two, and nothing would ever be the same again. I remember how when I got home from my first trip to Israel, I got into my onesie, a down jacket, and a blanket. It wasn’t actually that cold in Seattle, in fact, it was the summer... Full story
When he was younger, our son Adam (now in his 50s) asked me “Dad, what will happen when the last old Jewish guy dies?” What he meant, metaphorically, was what do he and his generation do when they no longer have access to the stories, the culture and the warmth of that first generation that had that accent, loved that food and cried when they heard Ha Tikva. Memories fade. Young people will be voting in this year’s presidential election for the first time who were three years old when Saudi terrorists took out the Twin Towers. Their parents and... Full story
The relationship between religion and state in Israel is stormy. Lately, it seems the ultra-Orthodox have launched a new offensive on several fronts. First, representatives of the ultra-Orthodox community went back on their Western Wall compromise agreement, a compromise that would give anyone interested in alternative prayer the option of holding services at the Wall’s southern section. Now, they are demanding that the Reform and Conservative movements be denied any official recognition in the new plaza at all. Further, judges from the P... Full story
The recent op-ed by Yair Sheleg, “Israel’s battle for peace between religion and state,” is troublesome in several ways. While he portrays himself as a dispassionate analyst, it is clear that Sheleg’s essay intends, on the contrary, to inflame passions. The editor’s note added by JNS.org is revealing. In lieu of “haredi,” the writer used the pejorative term “ultra-Orthodox,” prompting this editorial disclaimer. In an era when we express sensitivity and consideration toward minority populations, we allow them to choose the terms of their ow... Full story
The omission of Palestinian statehood from this year’s Republican Party platform is neither a radical change nor a departure from immutable U.S. policy, as some critics are claiming. In fact, both parties’ platforms have repeatedly changed positions on Israel-related issues over the years, in keeping with the preference of the presidential nominee or the changing mood among their rank and file. The first time the Republican platform mentioned a Palestinian state was in 1980. In that year’s race, GOP nominee Ronald Reagan positioned himse... Full story
Later this month the Republicans and Democrats will hold their respective conventions. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton will officially become the presidential nominees. Ahead of the conventions, both parties selected delegates to draft their platforms. The Democratic platform committee convened late last month. As soon as the delegates to the Democratic platform committee were named, it was clear that the future of the party’s support for Israel would come under assault. After Clinton clinched the Democratic nomination with her primary v... Full story
