Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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In parts of Europe, Jews have been warned that wearing anything that identifies them as Jewish means putting a target on their back. In Stockholm, Jews were asked to stay away from the Kristallnacht remembrance ceremonies for fear of sparking violence. French Jews are immigrating to Israel in increasing numbers. In Manchester, England, special police accompany Jewish children to school. The main synagogue in Florence, Italy, looks like an American military outpost in Afghanistan. All of this is in response to a growing and flourishing anti-Semi... Full story
There are a few paradoxes as the World Happiness Report was published this month by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), ranking Israel as the 11th happiest country in the world. As summarized in the daily Yisrael Hayom, “Israel is caught in an intractable conflict and situated in a region that is crumbling amidst religious extremist violence. And yet, Israelis are amongst the happiest people on earth.” It’s noteworthy that the top 10 happiest countries this year were Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Finland, Canada, Neth... Full story
We have just finished celebrating the Jewish Holiday of Purim. It is the one day in the Jewish calendar where merrymaking and drinking are sanctioned to the point where you can’t tell the difference between the bad guy (Haman)and the good guy (Mordechai). But even with the ISIS Belgium attacks still reverberating across the globe, we’re left wondering if the spirit of Purim hasn’t infected the White House. How else to explain two parallel headlines emanating from Washington? First, in an unprecedented indictment as the U.S. Justice Depar... Full story
Dear Editor: In reference to the Kafir soldier who fired on a Palistinian knife attacker: The soldier saw the knife attacker on the ground, not moving. The soldier shot the bullet to finish him off. Dear Commanding officer, These two attckers were out to kill Israeli soldiers. The soldier in question did not know if the terrorist had an explosive belt or not. He made the prudent decision to protect himself as well as other nearby soldiers. His family cannot believe that their son, who has an excellent record in the military, is now being... Full story
President Barack Obama’s determination to downgrade U.S. international power has generated massive global instability and chaos with especially ominous implications for Israel. The Obama policies have undermined longstanding alliances within the Western bloc. By supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and allying with terrorist and rogue states like Iran, the U.S. has alienated Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which consider themselves abandoned and betrayed. The wooing and groveling toward Iran has empowered the world’s leading Isl... Full story
By David Suissa How powerful is AIPAC? It did what no one else in America has come close to doing: It tamed the wild verbal beast of Trump. For nearly 30 minutes Monday night in front of close to 18,000 raving Israel fans at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., the Donald showed that he, too, can play politician—he read from a speech. Sure, there was the odd ad lib, but compared to his usual rambunctious rambling, his performance Monday night was worthy of a High Holiday sermon delivered by a meticulous Rabbi. It was a speech perfectly c... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—I am trying to imagine a conversation between Donald Trump’s people and a delegation of Reform rabbis and lay leaders. Rabbi Jonah Pesner, the Reform movement’s man in Washington, told me that Trump’s people have agreed to a “staff-to-staff” meeting to discuss Jewish concerns about Trump’s policies on immigration, Muslims and women, to name a few. Pesner hopes it is the start of a long process of repentance—“teshuvah,” in Hebrew—for the real estate mogul and Republican front-runner. “Teshuvah is not a quick thing,” Pesner to... Full story
The Regents of the University of California (UC) are preparing to issue a policy statement that could be a major advance in the battle against campus anti-Semitism. In response to anti-Semitic incidents throughout the UC system’s 10 campuses, the Regents have released an important draft Statement of Principles Against Intolerance. It is not what the Jewish community requested. But it will be a game-changer nevertheless—if the Regents formally adopt it. (By way of disclosure, I was one of the two national experts on anti-Semitism with whom the... Full story
(JTA)—Growing up, trips to stay with my Jewish family in Brussels were a taste of freedom. In my native Israel, waves of Palestinian terrorist attacks kept me under constant maternal surveillance. Fear of regular bus bombings limited my excursions to biking distance. On the tranquil streets of the Belgian capital, by contrast, I could wander at will amid the mix of Medieval architecture and glass-and-steel skyscrapers. Even riding the tram with my cousin Eli was exhilarating. The rails seemed to stretch out endlessly, and there was the added t... Full story
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement: On Monday evening, at AIPAC’s invitation, Donald Trump presented his views on the Arab war against Israel at AIPAC’s policy conference. It is innappropriate that AIPAC’s leaders then turned around the next morning and condemned Trump’s appropriate criticism of President Obama’s anti-Israel policies. It was also disgraceful that AIPAC’s leaders chastised the rank-and-file AIPAC audience for cheering Trump’s well-justified condemnation of President... Full story
John Kerry has a new strategy for achieving Mideast peace: mobilize the international community to gang up on Israel. That was the essence of the secretary of state’s disturbing remarks in Paris on March 13. Kerry declared that the Obama administration is “looking for a way forward” to bring about creation of a Palestinian state. He said that Palestinian statehood is “absolutely essential.” Not just “an idea worth exploring”; not just “something to be considered.” Rather, “absolutely essential.” Kerry and President Obama have made up their mi... Full story
Joe Biden visited Israel in the past few weeks. He had a little better dinner with Bibi—last time he left before dinner was served because the Shas Housing minister decided to stick his thumb in the eye of Israel’s number one ally by announcing new Jerusalem settlements while Biden was in town. This trip, Biden went to visit the offices of the Palestine Authority in Ramallah, where he heard the old saw that the present terror attacks against civilians by Palestinians (which, in addition to over 40 Israelis, has killed two U.S. citizens so far... Full story
By Ira Sharkansky One of the more problematic stories associated with the present wave of Palestinian violence is that of an attack on a security guard at a shopping mall in Maale Adumim. A video shows repeated blows with an ax, directed at the head of the security guard, which continue despite the guard already down and defenseless. You can see it here. What’s especially troubling about this episode is that the attacker is someone who worked at the shopping mall, and was known to his victim. They had coffee together at the canteen, and the v... Full story
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. (JTA)—At many colleges and universities today, Jewish students are often pitted against students of color when it comes to Israel. In my three years at Vassar College, I have been told—by a Jewish student leader, no less—that supporting Israel is tantamount to supporting oppression. I have watched Jewish friends bullied into silence by aggressive anti-Israel activists who call the Jews racists. I have seen many anti-Semitic comments from fellow students on social media. Although I have had many good experiences at Vassa... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—America’s political system is broken, and the last thing the country needs is another career politician at the helm. With money more than ever a corrupting influence in politics, the White House should be occupied by someone who isn’t beholden to well-funded lobbyists or super PACs. Politicians have a real problem with honesty. The country needs someone authentic who isn’t afraid to speak the truth and disrupt convention, even if it’s not politically correct. If you’re planning to vote for Donald Trump for president, you’ve prob... Full story
Belarus has a Jewish heart. This country used to be home to millions of Jews for centuries. It used to be the only country in the world that had Hebrew and Yiddish as two of the state languages. Many extraordinary people have Jewish roots in Belarus. Among them are Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, Harrison Ford, Louis Bart Mayer (The person who created Oscar), Michael Kirk Douglas, Marc Chagall and Yehuda Pen (internationally renowned artist), Chaim Weizmann, Steve Ballmer (an ex CEO of Microsoft), Isser Harel (he established Mossad), Yeruham “Eitan” Liv... Full story
In recent weeks, the administration has warned various government ministers that any construction of housing for Jews in Jerusalem will be viewed with hostility by the administration. The messages from Washington ahead of Vice President Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel this week show President Barack Obama’s hostile policies toward Israel will maintained until he leaves office. In recent weeks, the administration has warned various government ministers that any construction of housing for Jews in Jerusalem will be viewed with hostility by the adm... Full story
By Stephen M. Flatow JNS.org It has taken more than a month, but the international news media are finally waking up to the fact that the largest teacher’s strike in memory is raging in the Middle East. In a major feature story on March 8, the New York Times reported that “public schools across the West Bank have been shuttered” since early February, when more than 20,000 Palestinian public school teachers went on strike. The strike has led to “the largest demonstrations in years,” including “four large demonstrations in [the Palestinian... Full story
By Morton Klein PHILADELPHIA (JTA)—The recent Pew Research Center study finding that about half of Israeli Jews favor transferring Arabs from Israel reveals the fear, frustration and misery that Israeli Jews feel after being subjected to decades of Arab terrorist attacks that have killed and maimed thousands of innocents. Even 54 percent of Masorti (traditional) Israeli Jews and 36 percent of secular Israeli Jews support transfer. An additional concern has been repeated instances of Arab Knesset members expressing sympathy for foreign and home-... Full story
Free-speech idealists argue that the solution to bad speech (misinformation, lies, abusive language, etc.) is not censorship but more speech. But bad speech can, and often does, drown out the good. A classic form of bad speech is hate speech. Jeremy Waldron, a law professor at the New York University School of Law, describes it this way: “Its aim is to compromise the dignity of those at whom it is targeted, both in their own eyes and in the eyes of other members of society. And it sets out to make the establishment and upholding of their d... Full story
Recently, Ben Carson suspended his campaign for president. In a letter to his supporters he wrote the following message that everyone should consider, regardless of party line. “Running for president was never on my bucket list, and when I was drafted by a grassroots movement asking me to do so, it was not a decision that I made lightly. However, I believed that my values, life experience and common sense solutions put me in a position to help get our nation back on track for the sake of our children and grandchildren. This grueling endeavor w... Full story
By Ben Cohen JNS.org In his preface to a recent publication from Fathom, a British magazine covering the Middle East, British lawyer and anti-Semitism expert Anthony Julius—always the author of a memorable phrase—denounced “anti-Zionism and its creature, the BDS movement,” as “one of the major political stupidities of our time.” The import of Julius’s comment struck me as I was reflecting on the terrible fate of Ilan Halimi, the young French Jew who 10 years ago was kidnapped for ransom by a largely Muslim gang. Halimi spent nearly a mont... Full story
I support Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for United States president 2016, and not because he is a Jew, that is just an added bonus—although Judaism does contribute to my reasoning as to why I support him. I believe that individuals should be strengthened above any sort of governmental machine. Individuals should come first, and everything else should be far behind in importance. Life and health should not be just another variable, rather, it should be the decider. I believe that Judaism generally communicates the same principle, t... Full story
(JTA)—In her victory speech after the Nevada primaries, Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton said it’s time to invest in marginalized communities by “ensuring that people with disabilities have the same opportunities to work and fully participate in our society.” That may seem like the standard campaign rhetoric of a serious presidential candidate, but what many people don’t realize is that disability rights have rarely been mentioned in national campaigns. Fortunately, Clinton is not alone. Sen. Bernie Sanders, another Democratic candidate... Full story
As president of Knights for Israel, this semester marked the beginning of one of the most difficult periods of my life. I am three months into my new position and it would be fair to say I underestimated how challenging this role would be. As a biotechnology major I realized beforehand how often my studies and this job would interfere with one another. Yet my love for Israel knows not a single bound and I accepted the position anyway. What I could not anticipate were the growing pains I would face. I set high expectations for myself, this organ... Full story
