Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2827 - 2851 of 3706
Even before the dust settled on the happy headlines proclaiming that after 30 years in federal prison, Jonathan Pollard was being released, we discovered that his release wasn’t the end of his sad saga. Pollard’s parole conditions are draconian. For the next five years he will be under curfew, barred from stepping outside his apartment after 7 pm. He is prohibited from surfing the Internet. Anyone hiring him will be required to allow law enforcement authorities full access to their computers. Pollard already lost one job due to this con... Full story
ORLANDO (JTA)—Standing before the burning bush, Moses asks of God, “Mi anochi?” Who am I to be the one who goes to Pharaoh? Though there are many reasons why Moses may have asked the question, a tip-off to what is really on Moses’ mind comes just a few verses later when Moses reminds God that he is “slow of speech and tongue.” In most commentaries, this is interpreted to mean that Moses has a severe speech impediment. God’s response to Moses’ disability is powerful. God wants him for his leadership qualities notwithstanding his disability, and... Full story
The massacre in San Bernardino by an Islamist husband-and-wife terror team forces us to recognize, once again, that the United States has to choose between isolationism and internationalism in its foreign policy. Put another way, it’s a choice between disengaging from the world’s most febrile regions, in the hope that doing so will put us out of harm’s way and rein in our “imperial” instincts, or actively engaging on our own terms, in the expectation that we can effectively counter rogue regimes and terrorist groups. This is where we get to a... Full story
By Christine DeSouza It is unbelievable how people rewrite history. On the Israel Video Network (www.israelvideonetwork.com) a Costco smoothie demonstrator was videoed as she proceeded to slam Jews. Standing in front of a food demonstration in a Costco in the San Francisco Bay area, two men were having a discussion when an employee interrupted them to say that Jews should leave Israel because “it is Palestinian land,” and that they should “go back where they came from.” “Where is that?” one of the men asked. “Go back to Europe,” she... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—If Israel does not take steps now to preserve the option of two states and secure its own destiny as a Jewish and democratic state, it will wake up one day soon to find out it’s too late. That was the overarching message communicated repeatedly to an Israel Policy Forum delegation of American Jewish leaders to Israel which I recently led. Over five days in November, the leaders met with a diverse array of Israeli politicians, Palestinian officials, security establishment figures, diplomats, journalists and representatives of... Full story
By Ben Cohen JNS.org Belgium’s justice minister came in for a fair bit of stick this week over some injudicious observations regarding the Nov. 13 Islamist terrorist massacre in Paris. “It’s no longer synagogues or the Jewish museums or police stations, it’s mass gatherings and public places,” said Koen Geens, as he tried to encapsulate the deadliest security dilemma that Europe has faced since the height of the Cold War. Of all the obvious terrorist targets that Geens could have picked, he chose two that were distinctly Jewish among a list of... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Every time Palestinian leaders sit down at the negotiating table, or give a public speech, they never fail to raise the plight of the 700,000 Arab-Palestinians displaced when they refused to accept Israel’s existence in 1948. For too long, the State of Israel and the global Jewish community have done too little to memorialize and honor the other side of that story—the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries. For many Jews, these are personal stories, family accounts told around the Shabbat table. It is now our duty to ensur... Full story
John Kerry is seeking to top up his several efforts to deal with the Middle East by joining the Israeli and international left in warning that Israel will have to accommodate itself to a single country, with a Palestinian majority, if it doesn’t make peace with a Palestinian state. As my late mother used to say when pressed, “Horse shit.” We are used to Mahmoud Abbas’ threats, more or less weekly, that if he doesn’t get what he wants he will have no choice but to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and present to Israel responsib... Full story
It is almost hard to believe that it has been just a year since the horrific events of Paris in January of 2015. The painful memories of the attack at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, followed by the murderous strike on the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket, persist when we are forced to contend with all that has happened since. It is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the times we live in are more tumultuous and uncertain than any that we have seen since the end of World War II. Rarely does a day go by where another innocent person doesn’t lose h... Full story
In an interview on CBS-TV’s “This Morning” last week, President Obama outlined his theory of the causes of terrorism: climate change is straining natural resources around the world, and “when people are not able to make a living or take care of their families,” they become “desperate,” and “as human beings are placed under strain, then bad things happen.” The next day, a middle-class Muslim couple who were not under any evident financial strain and were perfectly capable of taking care of their six-month old daughter, decided to massacre fourt... Full story
There are many issues one can debate in the Jewish community—endorsing a boycott of Israel is completely out of bounds. Yet, there remain strong voices who are simply opposed to Israel. Founded in 1940 by the sons of John D. Rockefeller, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund claims to be a “private, family foundation helping to advance social change that contributes to a more just, sustainable and peaceful world.” This organization who wants “peace” gave $140,000 in June to the Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization that openly endorses BDS and suppo... Full story
I was telling a friend this week that of all the topics I write about, the global campaign against Israel’s very existence is the one that just won’t go away, no matter how much I might wish otherwise. After all, it’s an issue that’s consumed a good deal of my attention for more than a decade now. Anyone who writes about a particular subject for that length of time faces the prospect of becoming inured to it, not to mention bored. (Take it from me; anti-Zionists are, on top of everything else, deeply boring folks who repeat the same discredited... Full story
Dear Imam Abdul Rahmam Ahmad: I read the text of the condolence letter that you wrote the Jewish community of Boston following the recent murder of 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz by Palestinian terrorists. As the father of a young woman who was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Israel in 1995, I appreciated the fact that you, as the imam of the Islamic Center of New England, spoke out. I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of your expression of “great sadness” that Ezra “had his life brutally cut short in Israel...” I am glad to know that, a... Full story
It’s not exactly the story of Sisyphus, with Israel always pushing a stone but never getting it to the top of the hill, but it’s close. Currently we’re at another of the upticks in violence. We’ve lost count as to how many of these have occurred in the last century or more, or when we should start counting. We hear from some of the experts that it is almost all individual actions, lots of them by teenagers or even pre-teens. They are said to be excited by the Internet, preachers in the mosques, kids at school, or what they hear in the family ab... Full story
He cannot move to Israel for at least five years. The reason reeks of hypocrisy. After 30 long years of imprisonment, unprecedented punishment for the crime of spying on behalf of an American ally, Jonathan Pollard is at last a free man. Almost. Pollard’s incarceration in a maximum security prison which he spent in solitary isolation for lengthy periods of time is finally over. Even those appalled by his offense must surely find sufficient compassion in their hearts to be gladdened by his long-awaited release, having more than paid for his u... Full story
Examining America’s response to the Holocaust can help us avoid repeating the mistakes of that era, so applying the lessons of the Nazi years to contemporary concerns—including the plight of the Syrian refugees—certainly is appropriate. But those who are invoking the memory of the Jewish refugees are choosing the wrong analogy for today’s Syrian refugees. One problem with the analogy is that it distorts the nature of what happened—and what is happening now—to the victims. The Jews fleeing Hitler were the targets of religious and racial pers... Full story
Secretary of State John Kerry’s assertion that the Palestinian Arabs are in a “very dire situation” is not only absurd but also very revealing--about the fantasies that guide the Obama administration’s Middle East policy. Emerging from a meeting with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Nov. 24, Kerry declared: “I know that the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, in Jerusalem, in Gaza is, at this moment, very dire, that there are extraordinary concerns, obviously, about the violence,” he added. “Dire”? Is he kidding or just... Full story
Charles Bronfman and the other kings, queens, princes, dukes, duchesses, lords and ladies of the American Jewish community need to wake up to the impressive accomplishments of the passionate, strategic, creative and loving serfs and vassals of Chabad who commitedly serve the Jewish people globally, with all their hearts and souls. It is outrageous that Mr. Bronfman told the attendees of the Reform Movement at its convention two weeks ago to “take back Birthright from Chabad.” Imagine if the tables were turned what kind of indignant outcry the... Full story
A form of amnesia must be affecting the Obama administration’s former chief Mideast negotiator, Martin Indyk. It is, however, a very selective kind of amnesia—he forgets only concessions that Israel has made. Speaking recently at a conference in Tel Aviv, Indyk declared that the only reason there are no peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians is because of Israeli construction in Judea-Samaria. Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas would “become a partner tomorrow for the deal you’d like to make if there was a settlement freeze,... Full story
Routines are everywhere, with everyone. Almost all our waking hours we are employing one or another. How we brush our teeth, fix our breakfast, drive to where we’ve been before, get ready for bed. They are crucial for government and politics. Just as an individual cannot be bothered to ponder at length what to do in most situations, officials, politicians, and activists generally do what they have done in similar circumstances. Routines simply life, make expectations more predictable, and serve well in most cases. They are also limiting. R... Full story
A memorial ceremony was held at Ben Gurion Airport just before the body of 18-year-old Ezra Schwartz was flown to the United States for burial last Saturday night. William Grant, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, was in attendance. Yet if the ceremony had taken place at the site of the attack in which Ezra was murdered, U.S. diplomats would have boycotted the event. That’s because the attack took place in Gush Etzion, and believe it or not, the policy of the U.S. government is to boycott the funerals of American victims o... Full story
Our revulsion at the Paris attacks and subsequent Isis violence was palpable, and our reaction almost universal. We want action. But are we prepared to accept the difficult truth? The only answer to brute force by evil and depraved fanatics is brute force by the good guys—working with some of the not-so-good guys. The French wasted no time launching counterstrikes against ISIS targets in retaliation for the brutal slaughter of 129 citizens at multiple Paris locations. At the same time, the Russians, once confirming their airliner was brought d... Full story
From the attacks in Paris to the deadly toll of terror in Israel, events of the past week have reminded us of the wide gap between Jews and the rest of the world. As if we needed any reminding. Following the rampage in Paris, which left over 140 dead, Jewish organizations, Israeli officials, and everyday Jews rushed to condemn the murders and express their solidarity with the people of France. Friends adopted the Tricolorefilter on their Facebook pages; the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City were illuminated in blue, white, and red. But even in s... Full story
One of the most memorable scenes in the 2010 film “Four Lions,” a dark British comedy about a group of the most incompetent jihadis imaginable, takes place as the aspiring martyrs climb into a van for the long nighttime drive down to London, where their plan is to bomb the annual marathon. As they set off in the dark, the four jihadis are silent and pensive, listening to a somber recording of chanted verses from the Qu’ran. But as dawn breaks on the outskirts of London, they swap out the Qu’ran for the irrepressibly joyful song “Dancin... Full story
Clearly in 2015, in Israel, there has been a noticeable increase in violent attacks on civilians by Muslims. In Israel, almost every day, there are reports of attempts to murder Israelis. On Oct. 3 two Israeli men were stabbed, in Jerusalem, and killed by a Palestinian. On the same day a mother and her 2-year-old child were attacked. While on Oct 12, in three separate stabbing attacks in Jerusalem, six were wounded. One victim was a 13-year-old Israeli boy riding his bike. On Oct. 13, in four separate terror attacks, three Israelis were killed... Full story
