Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3181 - 3205 of 3706
NEW YORK (JTA)—“See it. You Decide,” the Metropolitan Opera of New York exhorts in a promotional push capitalizing on the controversy over its new production of “The Death of Klinghoffer.” Well, I saw it. And I’m not sure which was more of a letdown, the hubbub over the show or the show itself. Let’s start with the critics and protesters, since they are responsible ultimately for turning the show into the most buzzed about cultural happening in New York (at least since the close of the Jeff Koons retrospective on Sunday at the Whitney Museu...
On Oct. 8, 1985, our 69-year-old, wheelchair-bound father, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot in the head by Palestinian hijackers on the Achille Lauro cruise ship. The terrorists brutally and unceremoniously threw his body and wheelchair overboard into the Mediterranean. His body washed up on the Syrian shore a few days later. Beginning on Oct. 20 for eight performances, a baritone portraying “Leon Klinghoffer” appeared on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera and sang the “Aria of the Falling Body” as he artfully fell into the sea. Competing choruse...
Ex-presidents seldom take an interest in Jewish affairs, with two notable exceptions. One is Jimmy Carter, who has repeatedly clashed with the Jewish community. Another is Herbert Hoover, an unlikely ally of the Jews who passed away 50 years ago this week (Oct. 20, 1964). Most ex-presidents have gone quietly into the sunset, and some have taken issue with the few who have chosen to speak out on current affairs. George W. Bush, for example, last week had some strong words in reaction to fellow ex-president Carter’s public criticism of President...
For several decades now, Israel’s enemies have actively and willfully defamed the Jewish state by comparing its actions to the atrocities committed by the worst villains in recent history. We all know about the ludicrous and insulting parallel drawn between Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa. It was precisely that parallel that underpinned the notorious U.N. General Assembly resolution of 1975, which has since been rescinded, equating Zionism with racism. And we know, too, of the obscene comparison between Israel and Nazi G...
Relax? Impossible. Too much is threatening. Daesh, whatever that is, is chopping heads and managing to evade the U.S. air campaign (along with a few other participants providing 10 percent of the airstrikes), and imposing its draconian Islam across much of Syria and Iraq. Hamas says that it intends to do throughout Palestine what Daesh is doing in Syria and Iraq. More modest Palestinians are demanding international recognition for something that would shrink and threaten Israel. Sweden’s prime minister and the British Parliament are talking abo...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Once again the love affair between the Jewish people and higher education is back in full bloom. The start of a new school year, and the Jewish New Year, marked the beginning of robust programming for Jewish college students across the globe. As students dig into their studies, the events in Israel and Gaza this past summer are a hot topic on many campuses. In response, Hillel International, the largest Jewish student organization in the world— its growing network now serves some 550 campuses in North and South America, Eur...
As Yom Kippur sermons go, Martin Indyk’s was a doozy. Speaking at the Adas Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C. on the holiest day of the Jewish year, the former U.S. envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations accused Israel of showing “total disrespect” for the Obama administration. Indyk said many things in his Yom Kippur address with which one might take issue, but one analogy in particular stands out as especially disturbing. He said that he “discovered” in the most recent round of failed negotiations “that we would crack the whip, b...
WASHINGTON (JTA)— Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is talking tough. And Israel and the United States don’t seem to mind too much—or else think their best option at this point is to grin and bear it. Abbas used his Sept. 26 speech to the United Nations General Assembly to accuse Israel of racism and genocide. He and his aides again are raising the possibility of seeking U.N. action to sanction Israel. They appear ready to bypass negotiations with Israel in favor of seeking an international declaration of a Palestinian state...
Dear Editor: My grandfather, from Poland, escaped the Nazis and made it onto a boat when he was 13. He arrived in New York City and was looked after by survivors of the Nazis Holocaust and others who denied Jewish people the right of prayer and their religion. He became the president of the First Benevolent Komorower (Association/Organization) in New York. Louis, my grandfather, worked for a clothing manufacturer in New York. For the summer, he built two ‘Bungalow Colonies’ in the Catskills, NY. He also had the first hotel in the Catskills wit...
Who are we at war with in the Middle East? At first glance, this seems like a straightforward question with an obvious answer. We are at war with the Islamic State terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria. Moreover, “war” is the exact descriptor to use, now that the Obama administration has gotten over its initial reluctance to portray the clash in this part of the Middle East with such a stark and unmistakable word. War, however, is rarely simple. As a rule of thumb, one should appreciate that the identified enemy is not the only enemy. Hence,...
This article is mainly for those Americans who naively insist that Islamic terrorists are of no concern here, with reasoning like: they know nice Muslims, there are too few fanatics, they do not see them here or if we are nice to them they will be nice to us (as they were with (beheaded) journalists Daniel Pearl, James Foley and Stephen Sotloff?) Listen to the threatening words and actions below, of their vicious leaders, here in the United States. They are throughout America from New York to California and coming across the U.S.-Mexican...
What do the 1861 attack on Fort Sumter, Germany’s 1941 attack on Russia, Pearl Harbor, and 9/11 have in common? They represent an adversary’s error that brought upon it a greater power, and—in the case of the first three—eventual destruction. We’re still seeing the playing out of 9/11, principally now in Iraq and Syria. The end game has not been reached. Moreover, insofar as this is the first of the examples where organized states are dealing with non-state violence fueled by religious fanaticism, it may not end in anything like a surrender...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Saying a nuclear Iran would be a “thousand times” greater threat to the world than ISIS, Israel’s ambassador to the United States warned against including Iran in any coalition to derail the jihadist group. Ron Dermer, speaking Wednesday to guests at a pre-Rosh Hashanah reception at his residence in suburban Maryland, also cautioned the U.S. against accommodating Iran during the current effort to degrade ISIS. His urgent tone was the latest sign of a split between the Obama and Netanyahu governments over how to deal with Ir...
A major American university is currently hosting a visiting novelist who says that Israel is a deeply racist country and that its creation was a “catastrophe.” And the Chicago Jewish Federation is helping to foot the bill. The Israel Studies Project at the University of Illinois, which was created by, and is funded in part by, the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan of Chicago, invites Israeli writers and academics to spend time at American universities. This year’s choice, Sayed Kashua, certainly has some interesting things to say. Kashua is an...
As the Republican party pushes to retake the majority of the U.S. Senate in the upcoming November midterm elections, which would give it control of both houses of Congress, a partisan shift in power may significantly affect a broad range of foreign policy and domestic social issues that are prioritized by American Jews. Midterm elections in the Senate and House of Representatives have been historically difficult for the party holding the presidency. Democrats have held the Senate since public disapproval with the administration of President...
Space-time compression. Globalization. Expansion diffusion. These are terms my son just had to define and learn in his ninth grade human geography course. Though each has a different meaning, they all have an underlying connection. As technology improves, as travel is made easier, and ideas and culture and products are exported with greater ease, while the database we share may grow, the world shrinks. It is the rare individual now who is not connected. It is the unique community that does not h...
I will confess that I felt more anxious than I’d anticipated about the outcome of the Scottish independence referendum. In case it’s not clear why, I’m a British citizen who has lived in the United States for the past decade. Over that period, as with many arrivals to these shores, my attention has been consumed far more by domestic issues here, just as my concern with the finer details of politics in my native land has faded. Yet the spectacle of Scots voting on whether to leave the United Kingdom stirred something in me. I couldn’t observe it...
Does something smell especially bad? Or is it just the normal smell of political infighting and mutual accusation? Front and center is Martin Indyk, his past and present roles as a leading figure in the Brookings Institution, Qatar’s multi-million dollar gifts to Brookings, the failure of Indyk to broker a deal between Israel and Palestinians, and the blame that Indyk has directed against Prime Minister Netanyahu. Qatar has received headlines for its financial support of Hamas, the desire of Indyk’s bosses to include Qatar and Turkey among the...
The United States has a problem with Islamic State. Its problem is that it refuses to acknowledge why Islamic State is a problem. The problem with Islamic State is not that it is brutal. Plenty of regimes are brutal. Islamic State poses two challenges for the US. First, unlike the Saudis and even the Iranians, IS actively recruits Americans and other Westerners to join its lines. This is a problem because these Americans and other Westerners have embraced an ideology that is viciously hostile to every aspect of Western civilization. Two weeks...
I once heard a rabbi, a noted proponent of a Greater Israel, make a plea to his congregation for bipartisan empathy. This was just a few years after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, when both the Right’s dreams for an unchecked settlement movement and the Left’s dreams of a two-state solution appeared dashed. “Friends,” he said, “whether we are on the right or the left, I think we can all agree that our dreams have died.” “Except,” whispered a left-leaning friend, “his dream killed my dream.” That’s the problem when rabbis talk about Isr...
Every fall, Jewish teens arrive on college campuses unprepared, uninformed and unable to cope with the hostility and antagonism against Israel and Jews that they find there. While Birthright Israel does a commendable job of bolstering Jewish student pride and community, the program could have a much greater impact if the age of eligibility was lowered to 16. When Birthright Israel started in 1999, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities on campus were not the critical issue they have become. Consequently, teaching Jewish teens Israel advocacy...
Not all the religious fanatics are Muslims. One can think of candidates under the umbrella of Christianity, but here our concern is Jews. Two cases recently in the headlines provoke shame or something else, depending on one’s sense of responsibility or cynicism. One is a bearded, well-coiffured man whose trial on sexual exploitation and slavery ended after four years of delays. There were guilty verdicts for rape and other varieties of sexual exploitation involving several wives and lots of children, but the court could not find sufficient e...
It cannot be denied or ignored any longer. Islamic terrorists such as ISIS, Boka Harram, Hamas, etc., have declared war on all infidels (non-Muslims) worldwide. I pray that every American man, woman and child finally accept the fact that there are millions of Muslims dedicated to eliminating freedom and taking over the world in the name of Allah. This article presents the preaching of Islamic leaders and actions of their fanatic followers. They make their fanatic obsession very clear. One world. One religion, ruled by Islamic law. My question...
There was a time when Jewish humor ruled. Sometimes it might have been “racy” but never obscene. The great Jewish comics did not have to resort to profanity or description of body parts to get laughs. They told truths about themselves and their people. And it was mostly their people who laughed. The audience was usually live. Television was young and inexperienced. Yes, there was Ed Sullivan and he booked the big names like Myron Cohen and Buddy Hackett. But mostly? It was the Catskill Mountains and hotels like Grossingers, the Concord, Kut...
On the eve of 5775, more than 50 Jewish thought leaders and communal activists from around the country gathered at a retreat near Baltimore last week for 48 hours to talk about whatever was on their mind. Not surprisingly, their frank discussions covered a wide range of themes and interests. But bottom-line, the common thread was a deep concern about Jewish unity—more precisely, the lack of it—over the policies of the State of Israel, and the denominational divides that underscore the dearth of religious and communal leadership at home. As one...
