Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3059 - 3083 of 3706
Favel (Philip) Blonder was a close friend of my Saba (Abe Engelstein, a”h). They both grew up in the town later called Auschwitz and spent their teenage years struggling for survival every day in the camps. Favel had remarkable physical strength; he walked miles around my town when he visited, could beat us all at hand-wrestling, and seemed unbreakable. Just like my Saba though, he had one of the most giving hearts and the tightest hugs that made you melt. Favel was set to turn 90 this spring. Truly one of the youngest and most spirited 90-year... Full story
By Stephen M. Flatow JNS.org “There was nothing new in it.” With those six words, President Barack Obama tried to dismiss the significance of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress on March 3. But there was, in fact, something very new and very important in the speech—something that Mr. Obama understandably wants to keep out of the spotlight. The forgotten issue in the negotiations with Iran is now back, front and center, thanks to the Israeli prime minister: Iran’s role as—in Netanyahu’s words—“the foremost sponsor of global... Full story
I have to confess that I was disappointed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference this year. I felt that it was bland, packed with tired talking points, lacking in strategic direction, and generally uninspiring. Not so with Netanyahu’s speech to Congress the following day, which was a barnstormer. In its immediate aftermath, there were the standard idiocies in response, but that was to be expected. One that caught my eye was the utterance of CNN’s Glori... Full story
Bibi remains the leading choice to be prime minister, even though Likud has been losing ground. Buji is below Bibi in polls asking preferences for prime minister, but Labor/Zionist Union has moved one or two seats ahead. However, its obvious partners are still below the obvious partners of Likud. Washington is the big question mark, that may put Likud into the lead and assure another Netanyahu government, or leave a complex outcome to the president’s choice of who gets the first chance to form a government. A video has gone viral with Diane Fei... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—The latest strategy being used by those who make a career of assaulting the good name of the State of Israel is to link the issue of full equality for African-Americans, as symbolized by the word “Ferguson,” with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is a long history of using legitimate American social justice issues to undermine the Jewish state. We saw it during the Vietnam War, where small contingents linked opposition to the war to opposition to Israel. We saw it in protests against the war in Iraq, which some linke... Full story
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA)—Don’t make the enemy of your enemy your friend. That’s the message some lawmakers hope to convey to the Obama administration as they consider its request for a war authorization to combat ISIS. Concerns about how best to shape such an authorization without empowering Iran -- a concern shared by Israel—are emerging as a factor as lawmakers consider Obama’s request for what is known formally as an Authorization for Use of Military Force, in this case against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or... Full story
Who misled President Obama into his losing showdown over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s blockbuster speech to Congress? And how much of this week’s setback to the president should be blamed on the “progressive” Israel lobbying group J Street? When J Street was established, its leaders chose a football metaphor to describe their purpose: they said they would serve as “President Obama’s blocking back.” In other words, they would charge into the defensive line, pushing aside critics so that Obama would be able to dictate terms to Israel. But a... Full story
Love, as the song goes, is in the air. If the latest media reports are accurate, the United States and the Iranian regime are rapidly closing in on a deal over the mullahs’ nuclear ambitions. Admittedly, the source of this nugget of hope was Joseph Cirincione—a former Capitol Hill operative who now serves as the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a liberal foreign policy think tank, having gotten there via the Center for American Progress, another think tank that serves as a reliable echo chamber for the Obama administration’s edicts, both... Full story
Freedom of speech. What is it worth? Without it we can lose everything including our lives. Imagine what life would be like if radical Islam eliminates free speech. You will not be able to express your opinion. According to Wikipeda the Pakistan Penal Code (295 and 298) prohibits blasphemy against any recognized religion. This includes defaming the Muslims’ prophet Muhammad. The penalty ranges from a fine to death. Danish Palestinian poet, Vahya Hassan, said, “Muslims love to take advantage of free speech. As soon as there is someone say... Full story
Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but he shows signs of a Wannabe. He emphasizes his middle name and his father’s origins when talking to Muslim audiences. That’s not a sin, but an effort to establish identity. He’d be a lousy politician if he didn’t play that game. However, he also contributes to the delusion of himself, and others with his frequent assertion that the war against terror is not about Islam. He says, “They are not religious leaders; they are terrorists.” No doubt that they are terrorists, but they are also religious leaders, ca... Full story
Alisa Robbins Doctoroff, president of the UJA-Federation of New York, the largest local philanthropy in the world leads an organization whose mission is to “care for people in need, inspire a passion for Jewish life and learning, and strengthen Jewish communities in New York, in Israel, and around the world.” She was appointed to this position on July 1, 2013—and until today no one has researched her background. Unfortunately for her, that time is over. Research reveals that Doctoroff is a donor to New Israel Fund (NIF) as revealed in their ann... Full story
Why did I go to Washington? Because, as prime minister of Israel, it’s my obligation to do everything in my power to prevent the conclusion of a bad deal that could threaten the survival of the State of Israel. The current proposal to Iran would endanger Israel. It would enable Iran to build its first nuclear device within an unacceptably short time. And it would allow Iran to build an industrial capability to enrich uranium that could provide the fuel for many bombs in the coming years. A regime that openly calls for Israel’s destruction wou... Full story
Dear Editor: I found the recent interview with Mr. Hassan Shibly in the Orlando Sentinel dated Feb. 11, 2015, to be quite enlightening and informative. I was interested in what Mr. Shibly had to say. However, I was much more interested in what Mr. Shibly didn’t say. For instance, Mr. Shibly forgot to disclose the relationship between the organization he represents, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and The Muslim Brotherhood. It is well known that CAIR is a subsidiary of The Muslim Brotherhood that has been considered a terrorist o... Full story
Some years ago, just as social media began to explode in popularity, a sensitive young man living in New York City had a decision to make. Every day he was bombarded by people’s acts of unkindness. He witnessed pregnant women standing on the subway, and no one offering them a seat. He saw the elderly rudely jostled as they tried to cross busy streets. He watched men shout out disgusting profanities as young women walked by. He picked up after people who dropped their garbage beside garbage c... Full story
In his book on politics in the Arab world, “Cruelty and Silence,” the Iraqi intellectual Kanan Makiya made a telling point about the opposition to the first Gulf war of 1991, when a U.S.-led coalition ejected Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime from Kuwait. “A principled opposition to the Gulf war does not require,” Makiya wrote, “(a) denying that the Iraqi regime gassed its own citizens; (b) inventing dates to prove that the United States not only started the fighting on the ground (which it did) but that it sent Iraq into Kuwait (which it d... Full story
I am a member of the first post- “Sha, Still” generations. Those were the generations of Jews in the United States who wanted to remain quiet. “Don’t make a fuss.” That was there mantra. The Jews who came in waves during the latter part of the 19th century just wanted to “Fit In.” They did not want to be known as “Greenhorns”—a slang term for newly arrived immigrants. So, they did their best to learn English. My grandmother learned how to read and write English when she was 63. They changed their names. Greenblatt became Greene, Shapiro bec... Full story
While the global anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has officially hit America’s scholarly associations over the last two years, even considering academic boycotts is a dramatic rupture with the past. In 2005, the prestigious American Association of University Professors (AAUP) wrote that it “condemned any such boycotts as prima facie violations of academic freedom.” This bedrock principle was so valued that the AAUP opposed academic boycotts of apartheid South Africa. Three-hundred university presidents signed a lett... Full story
The White House’s announcement of its conference on “Countering Violent Extremism” names Boston as one of the pilot cities where law enforcement officials have developed partnerships with Muslim community leaders. Unfortunately, to counter “violent extremism,” federal agencies are working with the Islamic Society of Boston and its political arm, the Muslim American Society. Charles Jacobs, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) recently said: “On Feb. 18, 2015, President Obama’s project to “combat violent extremism,” is to be showcased in a... Full story
Dear Editor: After reading the article in the Feb. 13 edition of The Heritage by Stephen Flatlow, “How to respond to honors for Palestinian killer,” I would like to make a suggestion. In the article, he notes that the terrorist Hussain Fayadh who was involved with the murder of an American and 36 Israelis in 1978 was released in a prisoner swap and is currently working for the PA and their television station. And then there is the terrorist, Sajda al-Rishawi who in 2005 in Amman, Jordan took part in the bomb attack that killed 57 people. ISIS w... Full story
A few months ago I asked William Schabas, the Canadian academic who this week resigned as head of the United Nations Human Rights Council’s probe into last summer’s war in Gaza because of a conflict of interest involving his work for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), whether I could interview him for a magazine piece I was writing. He replied promptly and courteously, explaining that he couldn’t be interviewed because his commission hadn’t yet appointed a media relations officer. I remember being rather staggered by that admissi... Full story
I once met a woman who was born and raised in Iran and lived under the Shah, and later, under Ayatollah Khomeini. I remember how she spoke passionately, in her broken English, about just how terrible the Shah of Iran actually was. When I asked her about life under the Ayatollah, she replied, “Shah bad, Ayatollah worse, much worse!” Of course, the Iranian leadership has come a long way since their Ayatollah Khomeini days. Unfortunately for the world, most of their progress has been confined to their department of great ambitions. Back in October... Full story
One cannot help but wonder what it is about Obama that (a) makes him seemingly so hostile to Israel, (b) gives him so much trouble identifying killings such as those in the Hyper Cacher market in Paris last month as anti-Semitic and (c) impels him to give history lessons on the Crusades at a multicultural religious gathering as he did at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last week? That last item was later referred to by an African-American author in attendance as “verbal rape.” To begin to understand the president’s point of referenc... Full story
As the debate on vaccination heats up again in the U.S., some “anti-vaxxers” are requesting exemptions from vaccinating their children on religious grounds. But what do their faiths, including Judaism, actually say about the issue? The recent outbreak of measles that began in the Disneyland theme park in southern California has led to the infection of more than 100 people who then possibly exposed countless others to the disease around the country. This is not the first such outbreak of a disease thought to have been nearly eradicated in 200... Full story
MINNEAPOLIS (JTA)—Michael Paulson reported in The New York Times on the “Pay What You Want” model that some synagogues are implementing to reduce the financial barrier to membership. Paulson estimated that about 30 synagogues across the United States are trying voluntary dues. These changes, Paulson wrote Monday, have come from “an acknowledgement that many Jewish communal organizations are suffering the effects of growing secularization, declining affection for institutions, a dispersal of Jewish philanthropy and an end to the era in which m... Full story
My early days as a Jewish Federation professional were at a time when our system was evolving away from reliance on messages of combating anti-Semitism and statements of “never again,” to one of strengthening our communities through education and meaningful engagement. Yet reflecting on the turbulent and troubling start to 2015, I cannot help but be struck by the rapid change back in our global agenda. Last year, we were working with the Israeli government in exploring how to strengthen Jewish life and connection globally. Now, we are inc... Full story
