Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Now it’s almost official, having become the subject of a detailed article in The Economist. Barack Obama has produced a New Middle East, but it ain’t the one he intended. Democracy has not blossomed as called for in his Cairo speech of 2009. The new Egyptian government that the American president cheered and supported, is now in the dust. Its president, Mohamed Morsi, is facing a death sentence, imposed by a court under the newer Egyptian government, and hoping for a reprieve to life in prison. The newer ruler, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, operates in... Full story
The world-famous Louvre art museum stands accused of discriminating against Israeli students, after being exposed by some clever amateur investigative journalism that echoes a 1940s incident involving the father of Israel’s current prime minister. The episode began last month when Prof. Sefy Hendler, who teaches art history at Tel Aviv University, contacted the Louvre’s reservation department to arrange tours for 12 of his students during their trip to Paris in late June. Hendler proposed three different dates that his students would be ava... Full story
Some words are laced with extra meaning, built on levels of nuance and implied messages. Words like turning. If you’re “turning a corner” in your life you’ve gotten around some obstacle and are heading towards something better. If you’re “turning over a new leaf” you’ve gotten rid of an old habit or promised to be better on a going forward basis. If you know someone who’s “turning over in their grave” they’re so upset at something someone close to them has done they can’t keep still...even... Full story
The French, to the casual observer, are a real enigma when it comes to foreign policy. Sometimes it seems like they can be truly helpful, whereas other times they are truly awful. Take Iran. On the question of the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions, France has retained a healthy skepticism regarding the current negotiating process being pushed by the Obama administration. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was crystal clear that any deal with Iran that didn’t grant international inspectors unfette... Full story
In the background of this note is the recent one about the misadventures of great powers, and producing unintended outcomes. It could have employed Barbara Tuchman’s title, “The March of Folly.” Here the focus is on the diplomatic maneuvers, proclamations, politely announced policy preferences, along with the yelling, screaming and chanting of the unwashed. At issue is what stands for international politics focused on Israel and the Palestinians. It includes Barack Obama’s comments that it may not be possible for his government to protect... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—In the last 48 hours, rockets from Gaza were again fired at innocent civilians. This cannot be tolerated. The Israel Defense Forces must respond swiftly and without hesitation. We, as the opposition, will support strong government action. Yet such action cannot stand alone. We need to initiate and be proactive in order to restore quiet and start the painful but necessary process of separating from the Palestinians to reach a two-state solution. I’m going to argue that the only way to achieve the two-state solution is to give up... Full story
“It is a fantastic commentary on the inhumanity of our times,” journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote at the height of the 1930s European Jewish refugee crisis, “that for thousands and thousands of people a piece of paper with a stamp on it is the difference between life and death.” Seventy-five years ago this month, president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s newly appointed assistant secretary of state sent his colleagues a memo outlining a strategy to “postpone and postpone and postpone” the granting of that “piece of paper” to refugees. Breckinridge Long... Full story
Victories aren’t usually depressing, but recent headlines about Israel include those such as: “Israel Left Off U.N. List of Parties That Kill, Injure Kids,” “Palestinians Abandon Bid to Ban Israel From FIFA,” and a couple of headlines about failed motions for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement on college campuses. Surely all of these “victories” are better than the corresponding defeats. But still, we can and should do better. The problem with these victories is that they reflect a much deeper problem in the strategy of pro-Is... Full story
The cemetery in Jerusalem’s Givat Shaul neighborhood was bathed in the fading sunlight of a late May afternoon. Silently and steadily, the column of mourners wound their way toward an open grave, surrounded by glinting white headstones, inhaling the heady scent of the cypress trees that flourish on the adjacent hillsides. As the mourners came to a halt, a rabbi recited the Jewish memorial prayer, El Male Rachamim, his sorrowful tones punctuated by the crunch of the gravel underfoot and the gentle sobs of the family of the deceased. The m... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Let’s be clear from the outset: the BDS movement, the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community. The origins of the movement lie in the highly organized and well-financed activities of anti-Israel activists who oppose the very concept of a Jewish state. They have cloaked their campaign in the language and imagery of human rights and looked to the efforts to isolate apa... Full story
It’s not easy. Perhaps it’s not wise, to comment on someone else’s politics. American officials, and lots of American Jews, especially those to the right and left extremes, often sound like loonies when expressing themselves about Israeli politics. Israelis have also blundered, at high cost. The greatest was Ariel Sharon’s certainty about the bridges he thought he was building with the Christians of Lebanon. We should remember Sabra and Shatilla, and everything else the Israelis did not get from the Christians. With all the appropriate reserva... Full story
As Jewish media far and wide started picking up on the story of this week’s devastating flood in Houston, which hit Jewish-heavy neighborhoods particularly hard, JNS.org has been (in my own estimation) conspicuously late to join the reporting. That is by design. I am both our editor and a resident of Houston, and in the days after the May 25-26 storm, the flood was a life event rather than a news story. But as I type these words on this Thursday (May 28) morning, while my local Jewish community continues to engage in inspirational relief e... Full story
The four hours of discussion on U.S.-Israel-diaspora Jewry relations was winding down as the dinner hour approached at the annual JPPI (Jewish People Policy Institute) Brainstorming Conference last Monday afternoon in Glen Cove, Long Island. That’s when the fireworks started. Most of the 25 breakout-session participants sitting around the table, Israelis and Americans, were board members of the Jerusalem-based global think tank, chaired by Stuart Eizenstat, former U.S. ambassador to the European Union. The people in the room included Mideast p... Full story
I always had a soft spot for the comedian Anne Meara, in large part because she looked a lot like my mother, of blessed memory. Similar cheek bones, the wide smile, a deep dimple in her left cheek. My mother was usually there, too, on her side of the striped love seat, when we’d watch Meara and her comedy partner and husband Jerry Stiller on a talk or variety show in the 1960s and ’70s—Carson, or Mike Douglas, or Ed Sullivan (where the pair were said to have performed 36 times). So it felt sort of personal when Meara died last week at age 8... Full story
I will be interesting to see if Saudi Arabia’s King Salman gets the “Bibi treatment” from the news media this week. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you’ll remember, was accused of snubbing President Barack Obama when he addressed Congress on the Iranian nuclear threat back in March. Contrastingly, King Salman can be said to have snubbed the president by not coming to Washington for his May 14 summit with Gulf Arab leaders. In any case, supporters of Israel should feel some relief at the political heat being directed, if only tempora... Full story
In what was a precedent-setting event, the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) sponsored a recent conference titled “People of the Land: A Twenty-First Century Case for Christian Zionism” in Washington, D.C. It was reportedly the first-ever event specifically devoted to presenting academic arguments in support of Christian Zionism. The content presented at the April 17 symposium—11 academic papers—comprised a long-overdue contribution to the dialogue about Zionism in the Christian world. The combined presentations made a theolog... Full story
Prior to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, public opinion on a Jewish Homeland was divided—even among Jews. Some, especially in the United States felt that we shouldn’t make a fuss. After all, wasn’t life here pretty good? Well, yeah, it was—compared to from where most of the immigrants came. But we were a People without a country. A People, not just a religion. We had mutual DNA with many others of our flock. We had a language, not much used, but we had one. The stirrings of nationalism had begun with Herzl, but it was Adolf H... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA) – When considering the Vatican’s creep toward recognition of Palestinian statehood, think “Israel-Vatican” and not “Jewish-Catholic,” say Jewish officials involved in dialogue with the church. A May 13 announcement on an agreement regarding the functioning of the church in areas under Palestinian control raised eyebrows in its reference to the “State of Palestine.” The upset was compounded by confusion over whether Pope Francis, in a meeting over the weekend with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, praised him as... Full story
Recent ordeals for Jews on college campuses include being probed on their religious identity in student government hearings, seeing swastikas sprayed on fraternity houses, and the presence of a student-initiated course accused of anti-Semitism. Pro-Israel voices are fighting back, but who is winning this war of ideas? An episode at Columbia University, a historic hotbed of anti-Zionism, illustrates the complex dynamics at play. Last month, Christians United for Israel (CUFI), America’s largest pro-Israel organization with more than 2 million me... Full story
With another Jerusalem Day (May 17) passing us by, we are once again witnesses to the usual platitudes from our leaders. We again hear the speeches about the unity of our capital and how it will never be divided again. These notions are of course all true, but Jerusalem is much more than an idea. It is a living city that must be safe for its inhabitants, and it must continue to grow and expand in a manner befitting of Israel’s largest city. Over the past year we have seen an unfortunate rise in rioting and violence by Arab extremists in J... Full story
For two weeks in June, Washington, DC will play host to a group of pro-Palestinian activists who have assembled an exhibit about the dispersion of the Palestinians during Israel’s War of Independence. The exhibit takes place under the auspices of the “Nakba Museum Project of Memory and Hope”—“nakba” is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which is how Palestinians and their supporters typically refer to the 1948 upheaval that accompanied the war launched against the nascent state of Israel by five Arab armies. It’s a clever idea that require... Full story
My eye was drawn this week to one of those little news items that appear in the Israeli media, but never make it into the American press. I call them the near-misses: the bomb that was discovered just before it went off, the bullet that struck just inches from its intended target. No casualties? That apparently dictates that the news is not fit to print. This time it was a shower of rocks that were hurled at an Israeli automobile on the afternoon of May 8. Chen Borochov made the mistake of driving through an Arab neighborhood of Jerusalem known... Full story
Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who served as the Vatican ambassador and Papal Nuncio in Jerusalem from 1998 until 2006, died four years ago. In the wake of current developments between the Holy See and the Palestinian Authority, it would be instructive to review the writings of Archbishop Pietro Sambi, of blessed memory. His advice to the Church concerning the reality of the Palestinian Authority, especially PA education, should be studied. Had Archbishop Sambi, still been alive today, he would have expressed another view of the current pope’s b... Full story
“We are so used to bombs and the sound of firing guns that we don’t get upset anymore.” In choosing those words, Florence Bar Ilan probably hoped to convey that there was a certain stability to her daily life, but one can imagine her parents, Rachel and Samuel Ribakove, back in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, trembling as they read the letter their daughter sent from besieged Jerusalem during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence. “Dear Florence, Dear Mother and Dad,” a collection of letters between Florence and her American relatives f... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Obama administration officials have long contended that the friction between the U.S. president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not personal and that American support for Israel remains as robust as ever—and arguably even more robust by some metrics. But a year of tense and angry exchanges between President Barack Obama and Netanyahu has yielded an atmosphere of deep mistrust, with each side insinuating the other is acting in bad faith. Conversations with current and former officials from both countries, as... Full story
