Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Charlie Kirk was only 31 years old when he was cut down by an assassin’s bullet while speaking at Utah Valley University. A husband, father, voice for freedom and unapologetic defender of Western values, he was murdered in cold blood—his life stolen not because of anything he did wrong, but because of what he stood for. His killing was not just the silencing of a man. It was an attack on the principles that bind free nations together: faith, courage and the determination to speak the truth, even when it is unpopular. Utah Gov. Spenc...
(JNS) — Although I oppose boycotts in principle, I’ve nevertheless been driven to consider launching one of my own. I will no longer rent a film that stars an actor or an actress who has signed a petition or delivered an unexpected shout-out at their award ceremony that condemned Israel for committing an alleged “genocide.” Quite frankly, I hereby denounce all Hollywood stars who have lip-synched a version of “Heil Hitler” by extemporaneously calling out: “Free Palestine.” This happened the other night at the Emmy Awards ceremony. Hanna...
(JNS)— I was never a mega-fan of Charlie Kirk. I never met him. I had some work-related contact with Turning Point USA, but, like many pro-Israel, pro-American pundits, I mostly followed his social-media feeds, where he voiced opinions others were often too afraid to share, particularly about the dangers of Islam and illegal immigration. I disagreed with him about when human life begins in the womb, his isolationist stance on the 12-day war this June between Israel and Iran, and his belief that women find ultimate happiness in m...
(JNS) — “You can say the earth is flat a hundred times from the U.N. podium in New York, and that will still not make it real.” — Arsen Ostrovsky, human-rights attorney At the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, a handful of prominent Western nations, desperate to show they still have global influence, joined the overwhelming support of a resolution recognizing the “State of Palestine.” Their gesture is absurd, of course, since no such state exists. Indeed, for 78 years, the Palestinians have proven incapable of accepting, let alone creating a...
(JNS)— It’s been almost two years since Hamas and other Palestinian Arab terrorists invaded southern Israel, murdered more than 1,200 people, and kidnapped 251 others, dragging them into the Gaza Strip. Two years since those terrorists committed rape and other unspeakable atrocities, as well as fired as many as 5,000 rockets into the Jewish state as part of the barrage on Oct. 7, 2023. Much like the Nazis, Hamas’s goal and war aims were explicitly disclosed and not hidden. It was the elimination of Israel and its citizens. The Hamas Coven...
(JNS) — In September 1972, the world watched in horror as Palestinian terrorists stormed the Olympic Village in Munich, taking members of the Israeli Olympic team hostage. By the time the ordeal ended, 11 Israeli athletes were dead. The world’s reaction was predictable: outrage, speeches and hand-wringing, but little action. The International Olympic Committee hurried to resume the Games. West German officials bungled the rescue attempt and then quietly released three of the captured terrorists. Israel drew a very different conclusion. The...
(JNS) — It’s easy to be cynical about congressional hearings. They often seem political and ideological. They encourage grandstanding. But hearing rooms aren’t courtrooms and they aren’t meant to be. Public hearings are forums where lawmakers are able to expose real problems in ways invaluable to American democracy. In an era when the most pedigreed brands in journalism have abandoned their duty to report facts honestly in favor of extremist advocacy, hearings can also be an essential corrective, allowing citizens to bypass the legacy media f...
(JNS) — At the heart of Jewish identity stands freedom. The people of Israel were born out of the eternal cry: “Let my people go!” This is our founding story, the DNA of Jewish existence, the yearning for liberty, the duty to break the chains of bondage, and the understanding that freedom is the precondition for a worthy human life. And it is no coincidence that freedom precedes the giving of the Torah: Without freedom, there can be no choice, and without choice, values themselves are stripped of meaning. Freedom is what separates man from...
(JNS) — The editorial writers at The Washington Post support establishing a sovereign Palestinian Arab state next to Israel. They continue to say this even as Israel approaches nearly two years of war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to understand that Oct. 7 has changed everything. The most alarming statement in the Aug. 24 editorial may be this groundless claim: “A two-state solution remains the only viable option to end decades of conti...
This article won second place in the American Jewish Press Association’s annual Simon Rockower Award program. Rosh Hashanah is the time of year when we as individuals find ourselves at the center of the universe in direct communication with God. For a brief moment the present stops, the past does not recede and the future refuses to beckon us. The High Holy Days are rest stops on our journey through life; a brief respite to catch our breaths, to check our baggage and to recharge our human energy. To understand where we have been, where we are,...
(JNS) — In 2023, I advised colleagues not to show the video that Hamas filmed of their sadistic murders on Oct. 7, certainly not at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I said that the sight of Jewish blood always unleashes denial and even more Jew-hatred. Soon enough, I also understood that the sight of Jewish military prowess unleashes even more Jew-hatred. As Israel fought to ensure that Hamas could not make good on their threat of even more Oct. 7-style attacks on Israeli soil and displayed an extraordinary command of t...
(JNS) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese probably didn’t imagine that one week after his interior ministry abruptly canceled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a member of Israel’s Knesset, his government would be enveloped in a major dispute with Israel’s arch-foe, the regime in Iran. Unlike Iran, Israel has not carried out any terrorist attacks in Australia. It has not encouraged hate crimes against that country’s growing Muslim population. It is not boycotting goods produced in Australia. Had Rothman been permitted to go ahead with his...
(JNS) — The history of Jew-hatred can be understood as the systematic perpetuation of defamatory rumors strategically deployed to demonize Jews. These myths have repeatedly produced lethal consequences, claiming Jewish lives across centuries and geographies. The recurrence of these claims makes them difficult to refute before violence ensues. From the medieval blood libel to contemporary accusations of genocide and colonialism, each new fabrication presents itself as unprecedented. In reality, each libel constitutes a continuation of a long a...
(JNS) — The Jewish community of Australia has long served as a model of integration, resilience and commitment. For decades, it has stood in constant solidarity with Israel, nurturing a relationship defined by deep emotional bonds and shared historical memory. Many Holocaust survivors rebuilt their shattered lives on Australian shores, laying the foundations of communities that remain among the strongest Jewish centers in the Diaspora. Despite the vast physical distance from Israel, the connection has never been a matter of miles, but of h...
(JNS) — You can see it in online exchanges and hear it in casual conversations. The accumulated weight of nearly two years of media stories claiming that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza, murdering journalists to cover up those misdeeds, deliberately starving its residents and thus responsible for “genocide” has had an impact on public opinion across the globe, as well as in the United States. This has created a growing consensus about the war that ensued after the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab attacks on Israeli communities that took...
(JNS) — Low voter turnout in local primary and general elections has allowed a determined and militant group of outsiders to infiltrate and effectively the takeover the Democratic Party’s political machinery in certain cities. The most striking recent example is in New York City, where state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, won the Democratic Party mayoral primary, with fewer than 470,000 first-round votes out of the slightly more than 1.07 million votes cast. To put this in perspective, more tha...
The outpouring of thousands of Israelis into the streets of Israeli towns and cities, demanding that the Israeli government make a deal with the butchers of Hamas for the remaining hostages, no matter what the cost to Israel, is not in Israel’s best interest. These demonstrations against the government were the result of incitement by many of the hostage families critical of the government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to bring the remaining hostages home. Despite the severe pressure exerted by the former Biden a...
(JNS) — Israel drew a firestorm of international criticism recently when it announced its plan to defeat Hamas once and for all by taking full control of the Gaza Strip. While Hamas’s command and control has been devastated, it is still a deadly enemy that refuses to surrender or release the estimated 50 hostages it holds captive, and it remains deeply embedded within Gazan society. French President Emmanuel Macron described Israel’s latest plan to achieve victory over Hamas as “a disaster of unprecedented gravity waiting to happen.” Likewise,...
(JNS) — U.N. members held a conference last month to discuss the “Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution.” It was spearheaded by France and Saudi Arabia and sought to define the conditions that the Palestinian state must meet to be recognized. Regardless, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he will recognize a Palestinian state in September. Among those countries participating in the conference for statehood were Great Britain, Canada, Norway, Qatar, Spain and Turkey. Yet decla...
(JNS) — When Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich recently approved some 3,400 new housing units in Area E1, global condemnation was swift. Kaja Kallas, the foreign-policy chief for the European Union, denounced the move as “illegal under international law” and a mortal threat to the “viability of a future Palestinian state.” But there’s a glaring omission in this outrage: For years, the European Union has sponsored Palestinian construction across Area C, including E1 itself, without permits and in direct violation of the framework of the...
(JNS) — It’s time to acknowledge that in its 77-year history, Israel has made some critically painful mistakes. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, during which as many as 2,800 Israeli soldiers had lost their lives, the Agranat Commission was established to investigate Israeli intelligence failures. It was found that the military and intelligence community failed to establish the gravity of the Egyptian military build-up along the Chaim Bar Lev Line. They also felt that they failed to establish that Syria would enter the war, assuming it would onl...
(JNS) — I’ve never been much of a flirt with people, but ideas? I flirt shamelessly. I don’t fall head over heels, but I linger. I’ll bat my lashes at a seductive concept, maybe take it out for coffee, but I rarely commit. One of my life mottos (possibly from Stephen Colbert?) is “Don’t believe everything you think.” It has served me well, especially when it comes to the thoughts that won’t leave me alone. Take “child of a Holocaust survivor.” My father was born in Germany in 1928. His teacher was a Nazi. He witnessed Kristallnacht in No...
(JNS) — I recently had the chance to speak with Kobi Samerano, the father of 21-year-old Yonatan Samerano, who was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, by an employee of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees and held in Gaza for 627 days. His body was found by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza and returned to Israel. Kobi Samerano permitted me to share his story with the world. His words are not mine to keep; they are for all Jews to hear. During our exchange, he told me something that will haunt me forever: “Burying my son was a rel...
(JNS) — How is a two-state solution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians like a cure for cancer? Consider the following: • Rational people of goodwill wish that there truly were “Y” today. • Rational people of goodwill hope that someday in the future there truly will be “Y”. • Rational people of goodwill understand that, notwithstanding their wishes and hopes, “Y” is not a reality today. If you substitute “Y” for either “a two-state solution for the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians” or “a cure for cancer,” you will ge...
(JNS) — Currently, there are a number of essential questions not being asked of nations that will recognize a planned Palestinian state. Journalists should pose these questions to the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. • Will the planned Palestinian state abolish the Palestinian Charter, which mandates the destruction of Israel? • Will the planned Palestinian state revoke the law that guarantees salaries to anyone who murders a Jew? • Will the planned Palestinian state remove texts t...
