Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2962 - 2986 of 3730
Dear Editor: I was not surprised to read the position statement by the JFGO published in the Heritage last week. In my opinion, it basically is said nothing. While it mentioned some concerns about the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), there was no definitive statement either in favor of or against the implementation of the action plan. The fear of offending anyone seems to have been the primary objective. After searching what other Federations or Jewish communities stands were, I found the JFGO’s stand to be a namby-pamby, neither h... Full story
The recent announcement of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran has sparked deep concern and even outrage in the Jewish community. In an almost unprecedented moment for American Jewry, the majority of prominent Jewish organizations have lined up in order to combat this deal. This includes AIPAC, the ADL, and various Jewish Federation chapters, including those in Boston and Miami. This historic display of Jewish unity comes because of a clear belief that Israel and the Jewish people have been placed in a life-threatening situation. But the J Street... Full story
By Ira Sharkansky Israel is currently facing two especially delicate issues. We’re hearing about a New Middle East. This is not the one that Barack Obama and his supporters saw coming out of his Cairo speech and Arab Spring, but a post-Arab Spring alliance between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It looks promising in terms of mutual antagonism to Iran and its clients, and joint opposition to the American-brokered deal with Iran. One suspects that there is already considerable cooperation between the three, in terms of high level meetings b... Full story
Jews stood up to the U.S. government 40 years ago, and should again on Iran. These days, like many Israelis and American Jews, I find myself in a precarious and painful situation. Those of us who believe that the nuclear agreement just signed between world powers and Iran is dangerously misguided are now compelled to criticize Israel’s best friend and ally, the government of the United States. In standing up for what we think is right, for both our people and the world, we find ourselves at odds with the power best able to protect us and promot... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)—For four years, my children attended Community Day School, Pittsburgh’s independent Jewish day school located in Squirrel Hill, the city’s historically Jewish neighborhood. The school’s mission is to “educate Menschen: young people who are academically strong who grow to be good people, knowledgeable Jews, contributing citizens of the people of Israel, the United States, and our world.” Essentially, CDS promises not only a rigorous secular education, it promises to partner with me to raise my children. Last summer, how... Full story
Israel’s Channel 2 recently dedicated a full 15 minutes to the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Reporter Danny Kushmaro brought to an Israeli audience awareness of “the Jews that stand behind the boycott of Israel.” For me, a longtime “student” of JVP, as well as many Americans, there would be little surprise to hear the venomous rhetoric disgorged by JVP activists. For an Israeli audience that never heard of JVP, however, the reaction had to have been nothing short of shock and a profound sense of betrayal. For decades,... Full story
The Obama administration’s weak response to Iran’s latest belligerent rhetoric is reminiscent of how the U.S. responded to one of Yasser Arafat’s most infamous speeches—and illustrates one of the main dangers of the Iran nuclear agreement. Just four days after the nuclear deal was signed in Vienna, with the ink on the agreement barely dry, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced America’s “arrogance” and vowed that despite the agreement, Iran will continue “supporting our friends in Palestine, Lebanon” and elsewhere. In oth... Full story
For those who have been confused by the incredible amount of verbiage that has surfaced on the Iran nuclear agreement since it was signed, the best analysis I have read appeared in this morning’s Ha’aretz written by Ari Shavit, titled “The Iran deal: From Thriller to Horror Story.” While I often disagree with Shavit’s politics, his analysis, which is totally bereft of political commentary but is based on his detailed reading of the entire 159-page document, is worthy of perusal and a short précis follows: The good news: The Iranians agreed not... Full story
Despite years of our warnings, the United States and the P5+1 powers reached a nuclear agreement with Iran. As we had feared, the deal is indeed extremely dangerous. Billions of dollars will soon flow into Iran and quickly make their way to the rockets and missiles of Hamas and Hezbollah. At the same time, the arms embargo that has stopped Iran from further developing its ballistic missile program will be lifted, threatening not just Israel, but also Europe and the U.S. Most importantly, in 10 years, when my daughter is called up for duty in... Full story
This week, a bunch of journalists, foreign policy wonks, and assorted pundits received an email from the White House that began with the legendary words, “Hey, I’m Ben Rhodes, a Deputy National Security Advisor to President Obama. For the past few years, I’ve been working closely with America’s negotiating team, which was tasked with finding a way to achieve a diplomatic resolution that prevents Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” Don’t you just love that “Hey,” greeting? So informal, so accessible, so confident, so quintessentiall... Full story
The history of Jewish democracy is scattered with congresses, parliaments, unions, councils, sejms, and kahals—all attempts to govern or speak for an unruly body of people who shared a common culture but lacked genuine political autonomy. Various groups claim to speak for the “community,” but they tend to be membership organizations that can only pretend to be broadly democratic. Federations, the North American Jewish fund-raising umbrellas, stake a claim to this territory, with some justification: Like governments, they collect revenue (in t... Full story
Dear American Jewish leadership, I have read your statements on the Iran nuclear deal, and as a Jew, I am deeply disturbed by your response. A combination of reticence, apathy and naivety seem to be all at play, and as the beacons of our people, I find that wanting. You talk of mobilizing and urging Congress to fulfill their mandate. You talk of ensuring that elected representatives hear our concerns. You organize rallies for “peace,” such as the one in New York on July 22. Are these real concrete steps that will protect the Jewish people fro... Full story
Dear Editor: This letter is in response to Andres Silow-Carroll’s op ed, “Should Federations wade into the Iran nuke debate?” (in this issue of Heritage). In the days when the federations REALLY understood there responsibilities, and when there were strong national umbrella organizations like UJA and CJF, this question would never have even been asked. The Feds would have, alongside AIPAC, pulled out all the stops to block this deal. How can any Jew, or Jewish organization support this deal ESPECIALLY since both the Israeli prime minister AND t... Full story
Last week—and please forgive me for the graphic nature of this metaphor—Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled down his pants and urinated over the graves of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys exterminated by Serb forces in the enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. Twenty years after Bosnia was torn apart by the genocide committed by both Serb and Croatian forces, the Russians—who were the main backers of the regime of the late tyrant of Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic—are still playing the insidious role of denying the most monstrous crime t... Full story
There aren’t any in the realms of politics or public policy, except in the books written for children, or childish adults. The world is too complex. We know too much to be heroic. There may be heroes on the field of battle, some of who survive their heroism, but that is a different story. Wise people, and perhaps most of those elected to high office, do not aspire to solve the big problems. They’ve learned to cope. That is, managing the problems, doing little things that make the big things less threatening. That leaves a lot of work for the... Full story
By what form is a nation born? What makes its nationhood and citizenry stand out from all the others? Having just celebrated a birthday on July 4th, I am acutely aware of the rebellious group of British Subjects who declared independence from England and how and why they did it. Jews have a national identity that goes back a bit farther than 1776. Near as we can tell, we were a people almost six thousand years ago. We formed a nation a little over two thousand years ago (sorry, creationists). We built our capital city from the ground up on the... Full story
By Alan Kornman The role of man in this world is to work, create, innovate, accumulate wealth, and elevate the material world while caring for those in need. Israel and Jews have a long-standing tradition of extending aid to alleviate hunger, disease and poverty, in the wake of natural disasters and terrorist attacks beyond its borders. Israel’s 200-strong relief team was the first on the scene after a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, saving thousands of lives. In March 2011, Israel was one of the first countries to set up field c... Full story
By Chava Shervington NEW YORK (JTA)—When I was 24, an Orthodox matchmaker tried to set me up on a date with a man older than my parents. When I objected, she told me, “Stop being so picky. Not many guys are willing to consider a black girl.” As an African-American Orthodox Jew, this was hardly my first encounter with the questionable treatment I and my fellow Jews of color endure. “Why is the goy here?” one black Jewish parent overheard when taking her child to a Jewish children’s event. At one yeshiva in Brooklyn, the mother of a biracial st... Full story
An Israeli soldier who shot back at an Arab who was trying to murder him is now under investigation, following protests by self-described human rights activists. Given the focus of the activists’ concern, perhaps it would be more accurate to call them terrorists’ rights activists. The activists, from the B’Tselem non-governmental organization, have released a highly edited five-second piece of security camera footage (from a nearby gas station) that shows part of the incident. Even with the selective editing, you can clearly see the terro... Full story
I’ve been thinking for years about the best way to respond to the threat of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. I’ve read pretty much everything on the topic and brainstormed every possible idea, but I’ve never heard anything that really made sense to me. Until I heard from Hillary Clinton. Ironically, Clinton wasn’t trying to provide any answers; she was merely asking for assistance. In a letter this week to a small group of Jewish leaders, including mega Democratic donor Haim Saban, that was made public,... Full story
The Iran deal is the worst agreement in U.S. diplomatic history. The devil is not in the details. It’s in the entire conception of the Iran deal, animated by President Obama’s fantastical belief that he, uniquely, could achieve detente with a fanatical Islamist regime whose foundational purpose is to cleanse the Middle East of the poisonous corruption of American power and influence. In pursuit of his desire to make the Islamic Republic into an accepted, normalized “successful regional power,” Obama decided to take over the nuclear negotiations... Full story
We should pity them, as well as oppose their wildest demands. Those claiming to speak for them (the terms “leader” or “leadership” are too grandiose for their history) have brought them to blind alleys. Demanding too much (it would not be an exaggeration to say “demanding everything,” or “everything imaginable”) have led them to one failure after another. You can start with their rejection of the British proposal to divide the area between Jews and Arabs, which would have provided the Palestinians (then calling themselves, for the most part,... Full story
CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA)—My father died a few weeks ago. The hardest part of the shiva was when it ended. Friends and family were, by and large, no longer visiting. I was alone in pain and agony. I thought of this reality during my visit to the Emanuel AME Church in this city merely two weeks after the racially motivated massacre that killed nine people. Joined by Rabbis Shmuel Herzfeld and Etan Mintz, we approached the front of the church. The cameras, which had been everywhere for days, were gone. Only a couple dozen people were milling a... Full story
Ralph Nader, the famous crusader against fraud and corruption, believes he has uncovered a horrific new injustice—and the perpetrators are “the Jews.” “You never avoid using the word anti-Semitism when Arabs and Arab-Americans are discriminated against, are arrested without charges, are exposed to all kinds of swears and bars against employment and all kinds of discrimination that goes on, and that is anti-Semitism. The Semitic race is Arabs and Jews and the Jews do not own the phrase anti-Semitism,” Nader declared at the recent annual co... Full story
I had looked forward to my year in seminary with great anticipation because I knew that living and learning in Israel would open up a whole new world to me. In fact, everyone I encountered informed me that my “gap year” would consist of one life-altering experience after another and that I needed to make the most of every opportunity that came my way. But I was a little anxious about my ability to truly maximize the year. After all, I had only a few short months to achieve so many important things. In addition to increasing my Torah knowledge a... Full story
