Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3034 - 3058 of 3706
(Kveller via JTA)—I want to raise my children with a strong sense of spirituality and connection to their Jewish heritage. But I’m struggling with the reality that my children do not like going to religious school, and have only a passing interest in attending services with me. They love going to the synagogue, just not so much actually participating. There is a lot of arguing about going to Hebrew school and why it’s a good idea to occasionally step into services, as opposed to just wrestling with your friends in the lobby or hiding out with... Full story
Last month, the Iranian mission at the United Nations wrote the International Atomic Energy Agency an “explanatory note” protesting resolutions by the organization had questioned Iran’s nuclear aims. The document asserts that “nuclear material in Iran has never been diverted from peaceful purposes.” In fact, it uses the word “peaceful” 11 times. It’s time to call Iran’s bluff that their nuclear program exists only to provide for its people’s electrical needs. We should calculate Iran’s annual savings from its nuclear power plants, and off... Full story
Twenty-five years ago I was walking with a friend on the lower west side of Manhattan, nearly in the shadows of the World Trade Center towers. He was about my age and, as you figured out by my choice of pronouns, a guy. A male friend—one of my best friends, in fact. As we walked something suddenly clanked against the curb beside us. It was a half-full beer can, and a car full of youngish punks from New Jersey (their car had Jersey plates), yelled out, “Go home, faggots!” We were taken aback in so many ways. Not only were we not gay, we were... Full story
By Ben Cohen JNS.org Back in 2010, I interviewed Gerard Araud, who is now the French ambassador in Washington, DC, while he was still serving as France’s envoy to the United Nations in New York. We talked at length about Iran, and this was the first thing he told me: “The Iranian nuclear program has no civilian explanation whatsoever. You don’t start a civilian nuclear program by enriching uranium. It’s like if you buy the gas before the car.” As I watched the Iran nuclear negotiations in the Swiss city of Lausanne slide past an agreed de... Full story
Barack Obama had some nasty comments about Netanyahu’s election day call that Arabs were going to the polls “in droves,” which the President saw as Bibi’s eroding the meaning of democracy. In a post-election meeting with Arabs, Netanyahu said “I know that the things I said a few days ago hurt some citizens in Israel, the Arab Israeli citizens. This was not my intention and I am sorry,” What Netanyahu actually said on election day, and what Likud sent to Israelis in text messages, were comments about Arabs going to the polls in great numbe... Full story
American Jewish leaders who supported the Oslo Accords or have criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are now strongly challenging the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel. It’s the latest sign of a growing consensus in the Jewish community that the president’s vindictive approach toward Israel is unfair and overreaching. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, head of the Kehilath Jeshurun synagogue and the Ramaz Day School in Manhattan, was an early supporter of the left-leaning Israeli party Meimad, and its American equivalent, Shvil Hazah... Full story
Given all the frothing by hawkish U.S. Senators about Iran’s possible development of nuclear weapons, one might think that Iran was violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But it’s not. The NPT, signed by 190 nations and in effect since 1970, is a treaty in which the non-nuclear nations agreed to forgo developing nuclear weapons and the nuclear nations agreed to divest themselves of their nuclear weapons. It also granted nations the right to develop peaceful nuclear power. The current negotiations in which Iran is engaged wit... Full story
President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, used his appearance at the recent J Street conference to take a carefully aimed jab at Israel’s prime minister. McDonough was irked that prior to the recent Israeli election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that in view of radical Islam’s global rise, he did not expect a Palestinian state could safely be created in his lifetime. Then, in a post-election interview, the prime minister clarified that while he was pointing to the hazards of such a state, he had not withdrawn the p... Full story
President Barack Obama is correct. There is, as he said on Tuesday, no realistic prospect of a Palestinian state being created through a diplomatic process for the foreseeable future. “What we can’t do is pretend that there’s a possibility for something that’s not there,” Obama said. “And we can’t continue to premise our public diplomacy based on something that everybody knows is not going to happen at least in the next several years.” So that, it would seem, is that. In 2012, Obama confidently told the U.N. General Assembly, “The road is ha... Full story
The heading is not meant to mourn the election results, but the month or more of haggling and babbling that will surround us until there is a new government. Several times a day we’ll be hearing commentators speculating about who gets what ministries. Just as often we’ll hear the self-appointed “ranking” members of each party likely to join the coalition telling us what ministries they deserve. Kahlon, Lieberman, and Deri have threatened to bolt if Bibi doesn’t cooperate. So far we haven’t heard about talks between Bibi and Lapid, but that ma... Full story
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to appeal directly to Israel’s nationalist camp in the final days of the election campaign appears to have paid off, at least in the short term. He won a decisive victory and is now in the process of forming a coalition of right-wing and charedi parties as he had hoped in calling for new elections in December. But the repercussions of his actions, beginning with his decision to break U.S. protocol and address the U.S. Congress without the invitation of the president, are profound and continue to resonate wit... Full story
My name is Gabriel Naddaf, and I have the privilege of being a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth in the Galilee. My people have mistakenly been called “Christian Arabs”, but the reality is that we are Arameans, descendents of people who lived here in Israel since the time of the Bible. Recently Israel’s Interior Ministry has recognized us as the “Aramean nation,” following a lengthy public campaign. Partners in this effort were a number of Israeli Zionist organizations. In the past three years I have become a controversial figure in Israel... Full story
My name is Gabriel Naddaf, and I have the privilege of being a Greek Orthodox priest from Nazareth in the Galilee. My people have mistakenly been called “Christian Arabs”, but the reality is that we are Arameans, descendents of people who lived here in Israel since the time of the Bible. Recently Israel’s Interior Ministry has recognized us as the “Aramean nation,” following a lengthy public campaign. Partners in this effort were a number of Israeli Zionist organizations. In the past three years I have become a controversial figure in Israel... Full story
(JTA)—Another slick bar mitzvah invitation video of questionable taste has gone viral. This time it’s for the impending bar mitzvah of Brody Criz, whose invitation consists of him starring in a Jew-ified medley of pop-song parodies—including one of “Blurred Lines,” the song to which Miley Cyrus famously twerked. Fortunately, Criz doesn’t twerk, but he does bare way more skin than I’d like to see, even if I weren’t more than three times his age. In cases like this, it’s easy to pile on with judgments about materialism, superficiality, ... Full story
There is no world leader more hated by bien-pensant liberals in America and Europe than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whereas once the bile was directed at former U.S. President George W. Bush—for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, for identifying radical Islam in both its Shi’a and Sunni variations as an existential threat, and for backing Israel—it’s now largely focused on Netanyahu, an alleged “racist” and “war criminal” who just happens to have won a resounding vote of confidence from the Israeli electorate on March 17. Two N... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Transitions are never easy. You decide to leave one place that is known to you for some unfamiliar territory. You don’t feel quite like yourself (and probably won’t for a while). You try to act like everything is fine even though you know that your whole life has just been upended. It will take time until things begin to fall into place— when you start to integrate the “old” you into your new identity, when you can trust that your life will make sense as you take this step into the unknown. And while we all might experience... Full story
If you look for the beginnings of the turmoil in the Middle East and the reason for the incredible upheaval of the past 10 years or so, you have to go back to the First World War. With the war raging in France and Germany, there was scant attention paid to the Middle East and the Caliphate. The Ottoman Empire had in essence, replaced the Holy Roman Empire as rulers of a great swath of the Middle East. They had declared neutrality in this European dust up and the Sultan in Istanbul hoped to keep it that way. But a couple of German war ships... Full story
(JTA)—When Hillel International President Eric Fingerhut announced his decision to withdraw a commitment to speak to over 1,000 students at the upcoming J Street National Conference, he expressed only one major regret. In his statement last week, Fingerhut lamented that he would miss the opportunity to “thank those who have been active in the fight against BDS.” Indeed, he made clear that the reason he was interested in attending in the first place was “to thank those who have joined in the fight against BDS and anti-Semitism on college... Full story
The incidents at my alma mater, UCLA, in the past weeks have shaken us all. As a Bruin, to hear that members of the student government were considering not electing a perfectly competent student to a position because she was Jewish is astounding and frightening. As a Jew and a Hillel supporter (having been the product of the leadership education, social and cultural and religious programming provided by Hillel organizations around the world) the accusations and inanity felt way too close to home for comfort. When fellow Kveller contributor... Full story
Dear Bibi, I apologize for not calling you immediately after the election returns showed that you and the Likkud Party came in first place. Israel is, as I’ve often said, an important and long-time alley and the only true Democracy in the Middle-East, so I should not have listened to Valerie and I should have called you earlier. Mazel Tov! The people of Israel have spoken and, of course, we must and will support in the strongest way possible their decision. You and I have not had the best relationship these past six years. I’m sure that you... Full story
You say ISIL I say ISIS... There’s only one thing I can say I believe about ISIL, but before I do, listen to the litany of their accomplishments. They have captured land in two dysfunctional countries by force, murdering thousands of locals along the way. They have beheaded innocent foreigners from a wide range of countries—reporters, good Samaritans and health care workers. They have destroyed ancient artifacts and irreplaceable historical monuments. They have disseminated a video of a chi... Full story
The latest news for those dreaming of a Palestinian state is the refusal of the United List, a group of four largely Arab parties, to sign an agreement with Meretz to provide to one of them the excess votes left over to each after the parceling out via Israel’s system of Proportional Representation. This would have been a standard technical agreement, common between parties close to one another on the political spectrum, to assure that their cluster does not lose any votes to the mechanics of dividing votes for the 120 Knesset seats. The U... Full story
I probably shouldn’t admit this, given that my political views are fairly well-known, but one of my favorite songs is “I’m So Bored With the USA,” by British punk legends The Clash. “Yankee dollar talk to the dictators of the world,” spits vocalist Joe Strummer in the song’s opening verse. “In fact it’s giving orders, an’ they can’t afford to miss a word!” Oh how times have changed since “I’m So Bored” was released in 1977! The images of steely jawed, stone-hearted CIA officers conjured up by the song seem hopelessly dated. In today’s... Full story
It felt like hitting the jackpot. After attending 10 AIPAC Policy Conferences over the past dozen years, I experienced three immensely rewarding moments in Washington earlier this month: 1. Being in attendance during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, 2. Functioning as group leader in lobbying two of our congressmen and 3. Joining the largest Orlando-area delegation in history. A remarkable 68 members strong, Central Florida was represented by an amazing cross-section of people: doctors, lawyers, homemakers, business leade... Full story
In an op-ed headlined “The Two Israels” (New York Times, March 1, 2015), Nicholas Kristof made a rather broad accusation stating that Jewish National Fund (JNF) plants forests on land owned by Bedouin Arabs. Unfortunately, Mr. Kristof chose to subscribe to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s diatribe against Israel and used JNF as a straw man to do so. We take exception to such reporting, and let the Times know just that in a letter to the editor Red flags should be raised when considering the fact that no Israeli gover... Full story
