Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2626 - 2650 of 3706
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
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sends its heartfelt condolences to the families of the 84 innocent people, including 15 children, who were murdered in the truck attack in Nice, France July 14 by radical Islamist Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. ZOA also sends prayers for recovery to the 188 injured, including the 50 people whom French President Francois Hollande stated were in critical condition “between life and death.” BBC reported that a witness who had time to see the terrorist’s face said that the terrorist-truck driver “appe... Full story
The pictures are fuzzy. Overt, explicit, and legally enforced racism is no more in the United States. Individual blacks, Asians, Jews, and other minorities, and women, can reach as high as the White House, senior governmental and corporate positions, and marry who they choose. Integration, human relations, political correctness, busing, and affirmative action accomplished a great deal. But not everything. A significant incidence of white-black violence associated with police, black activism said to paint an extremist picture, and the killing of... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Last week, we watched in horror and dismay as violent event after violent event unfolded, each amplifying and recontextualizing the one before it. By Friday morning, July 8, five Dallas police officers were dead, three black men had been killed by the police (including the Dallas shooter), and countless families were broken and traumatized. On Friday evening I was in the streets marching, chanting our movement’s simplest, yet most elusive assertion, “Black Lives Matter.” As a black person and a Jew, I was asserting the value o... Full story
I don’t know how to write a column on this theme except to say, stop, stop, please stop the killing. Killing somebody is the not the answer. Killing people because of race, gender, religion, or for any reason under the sun is wrong. Killing does not eliminate problems. Killing does not solve family or neighborhood squabbles. Yet, we kill all the time. America is a nation of killers. We’re all about killing, killing and killing. Do we want to start counting all the people killed in all the wars just in the last couple of hundred years? How many... Full story
Dear Editor: While I can certainly understand and appreciate Olga Yorish’s comments in the latest email FED Friday, dated July 8, 2016, I do not totally agree with these comments. With the tragic event that took place in Orlando, my hometown, last June, the dynamics have changed dramatically. An act of terrorism has become a reality here. As a result, the paradigm has also changed. What was acceptable behavior and response prior to this event is no longer valid. The reality is that yes there are bad people out there who “hate” for whate... Full story
Thelma Rosen, age 88, of Roswell, Ga., passed away on Monday, July 4, 2016, at Pruitt Health Care-Brookhaven in Atlanta. She was born in Bronx, New York, on Jan.1, 1928, to the late Joe and Bella Meyerson Berkoff. A high school graduate, Thelma worked for many years as a dental assistant. She married her late husband, George, in 1947, moving to Central Florida in 1976. In 1991, following George’s death, she relocated to West Palm Beach and then to Atlanta in 2008. She is survived by her daughter, Linda (Steve) Steinberg of Atlanta; and her s... Full story
These are the days that Vladimir Putin has been aching for since the end of the Cold War. On Dec. 5, 1989, three weeks after the Berlin Wall was torn down, angry crowds stormed the Dresden Headquarters of the Stasi, the brutal secret police of the Soviet puppet regime in East Germany. At the time, KGB officer Putin was based in the office across the street reserved for the representatives of the Soviet security apparatus. When Russia’s future president picked up the phone to demand military protection from the surging masses, he was told that n... Full story
We have reached the point where moral equivalence has become a moral atrocity. The smart set in the West has insisted for over a generation that Israel and the Palestinians are morally equal. There are extremists, on both sides, they say. Both sides are responsible for the absence of peace. The first serious outcry against this lie came immediately after the Palestinians began their terrorist war against Israel in September 2000. That war, incited, directed, funded, commanded and celebrated by Yassir Arafat and his henchmen, including his... Full story
A single page in the weekend edition of Yedioth Aharonoth captures the essence of where we are. One article on the page is a rational assessment of recent violence, its decline, and concludes with the point that there is no solution, other than the ceasing of incitement among the Palestinians, which no Israeli should expect. It was drafted before the weekend’s uptick in attacks, with two Israeli deaths in separate incidents in Judea and Samaria, three Palestinian attackers dead, and several Israelis injured. Without being sure, we can guess tha... Full story
The moment I finished reading “Night” many years ago, I knew that I had just experienced my personal Holocaust despite being safely tucked into, and protected by, my American way of life. The Holocaust was now mine to hang onto. Elie Wiesel gave it to me with his printed words that have left me beleaguered to this very day. Never would I have let it belong to someone else. It would have been like stealing my own soul and giving it to a stranger. It was too profound a moment in my personal psyche. No longer would my heart be the same. “Night” so... Full story
(JTA)—Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign never recovered after he was caught on video telling a group of millionaires that 47 percent of Americans will always vote for Democrats because they don’t take “personal responsibility” for their lives and are “dependent upon government.” The incident has become a case study not only in watching one’s words (and being nice to your waiters), but in spin control. Hammered by the media and the Democrats for sounding elitist and insulting half the country, Romney first blamed the listeners, sayi... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)—It finally happened. My son is almost 9 months old, and this week, for the first time, a stranger came up to me and asked me to “take him somewhere else.” Even worse, it happened at synagogue. The woman who approached me was quite obviously not a member of our congregation—and when some of the clergy and lay leaders later heard what happened, they were a combination of embarrassed, irritated and bemused. Each of them said to me, with a smile, “Well, clearly she is not a member here.” This was obvious to me, as it was to them... Full story
(JTA)—Last week Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said that if Hillary Clinton asked him to be her running mate, he’d take the job. “If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, ‘Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,’ I would say yes, but I’m very happy in the job that I have right now.” Although Franken, 64, has spent seven years in the Senate and proven himself to be a conscientious lawmaker—championing decidedly unfunny issues like health insurance, mental health services in schools and net neutrality—some still find it har... Full story
