Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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As I look around me this mid-August morning in 2014 I see a number of crap shoots, or games of chance. We can argue what historical events they reflect. Among the candidates are the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Arab Spring that began toward the end of 2010 with a promise of democracy but now unraveled to barbarism, or the spread of independence throughout the Third World after World War II and then the conquest of the UN General Assembly and several ancillary bodies by governments that barely—if at all—meet the criteria of being civ...
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is refusing to meet with Palestinian leaders during his visit to Israel this week. Maybe that’s a mistake. The Palestinian Authority has invited him to visit the areas under its control, and the New York Times and others are quick to accuse the governor of bias for refusing. In our view, the governor would actually be performing a great public service if he did visit certain PA-controlled areas—some of the ones they don’t want him to see. That would help clarify many of the issues that need to be considered befor...
The woman to my left said she felt “overwhelmed” and “emotional” in dealing with the news about Israel’s war in Gaza. The heavy volume of postings on her Facebook page were so upsetting, with their criticism of Israeli actions, that she was considering “unfriending” some of her online correspondents. The woman across the table from her, older than the rest of us, said she wasn’t a Facebook user but that she, too, felt “overwhelmed” in reading about the war and seeing it on TV. “I feel horrible for both sides,” she said. Admitting that her know...
I awoke this morning to shocking news. I guess that’s not so unusual in Israel – especially during war time – but this really floored me. Robin Williams dead at 63; the media buzzing around the story like bees around honey, throwing out words like “suicide,” “depression,” “drug addiction” and “alcoholism.” In my humble opinion, there was no actor more talented, no comic more genius than Robin Williams. From the moment he burst on the scene, he displayed an awesome ability to evoke the deepest feelings and sentiments from his audience. He coul...
By Tammi Rossman-Benjamin JNS.org Amid the current unrest in Israel and Gaza, Jews around the world have been targeted for attack. Virulently anti-Israel demonstrations and activities in cities across Europe and around the world have resulted in frightening anti-Jewish violence. Meanwhile, in the U.S. right now, school is out and students are safe. But there is little doubt that when the academic year commences, Jewish students on American college and university campuses will be targeted for harassment, intimidation, bullying, and worse,...
I am sick of apologizing for Israel when it is Israel that really deserves an apology. I am sick of apologizing for Israel’s right to defend itself. I am sick of the word “ceasefire” when all that really means is “time for Hamas to build more rockets” while we stand by helplessly. I am sick of the UN calling this an Israeli-Palestinian War when all along it’s clearly been a prolonged terrorist attack that the IDF is courageously trying to stop. I’m sick of people criticizing Israel for killing innocent people when they have done more than any...
Lots of questions Why Hamas attacked in the first place? Why it continues to attack, especially from within the time frame of the cease fire that it requested? Why has the US sided with the most radical of the Muslim governments? Why has the Israeli government dithered about escalating beyond goals not likely to achieve lasting quiet? There are no clear answers to any of these questions. The fog of war surrounds us, and we should not expect any of the players to be candid about their aims or capacities. Hamas’ motives are the most i...
“Wie Gott in Frankreich leben”—“living like God in France”—was a popular Yiddish saying among Ashkenazi Jews for a long time. It suggested a certain fascination with France, implying that Jews living there are uniquely fortunate. Growing up in a traumatized post-Holocaust Germany and haunted by the imperative of “Never Again,” that rosy vision of France, despite the dark episodes of its historical treatment of Jews, no doubt played a role in my decision to make Paris my home. France, to me, was the land of the Enlightenment; human rights; liber...
Editor’s note: This article was received too late for the Aug. 1 issue and Tisha b’Av was Aug. 4, but Edmon Rodman’s message here is too important to pass over just because of deadlines. LOS ANGELES (JTA)—After weeks of missiles falling on Israel and bombs dropping on Gaza, we land on Tisha b’Av. With the day-to-day images of explosions and tunnels so fresh, I wondered how they might connect to my mid-summer night’s struggle with the somber holiday’s relevance. Tisha b’Av, this year starting on the evening of Aug. 4, is a day on which we are...
As the war between Israel and Hamas intensified, and Secretary of State John Kerry was meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others to try to broker a cease fire, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, while being interviewed by Sean Hannity on Fox News, proclaimed that the Obama administration was the most hostile to Israel in the history of the U.S.—something Hannity agreed with. Well, not so fast. Barack Obama may not be the best friend Israel has ever had—some say he makes Jimmy Carter look like Harry Truman—but he is probably no mo...
The debate about whether Jews have a future in Europe has once again surfaced, as Israel’s Operation Protective Edge gained momentum in response to Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza. The two issues are connected for a simple reason: on July 13, a large number of pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Paris decided to attack a synagogue in the French capital, thereby demonstrating that these days, aspiring pogromists are more likely to wear a Palestinian keffiyeh than a swastika armband. I had originally intended to write about whether Europe’s Jews sho...
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims Israel is carrying out “systematic genocide” in Gaza. South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), asserts that Israel’s actions in Gaza “remind [us] of the atrocities of Nazi Germany.” Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is accusing Israel of “genocide,” and the PA’s newspaper is calling the current war “Israel’s Holocaust.” It seems as if every time Israel defends itself, somebody points an accusing finger and yells “Genocide!” Raphael Lemkin, who coined...
Anyone who follows the actions in the Middle East or Islamic communities readily becomes aware that Muslims continuously make demands on their non-Islamic neighbors. One would assume they come to westernized countries like the U.S. for a better way of life. Yet through their ongoing demands it appears they want to convert our lives to the strict oppressive Islamic life style they’ve left. For example, the Council on American-Islamic Relation’s (CAIR-MI) Executive Director Dawud Walid, sent a complaint letter to the Michigan Roseville Public Sch...
It boggles the mind to think that a determined, Jew-hating terror army would fire more than 1,000 rockets at Israel over seven days and inflict so few casualties. I wonder what must be going through the minds of those Hamas terrorists right now: “We lost half of our arsenal and what do we have to show for it? Where are all the dead Jews? How is this possible?” Well, the answers, my friends, are blowing in the wind. These answers have come in the form of sleek seeing-eye missiles that met up with incoming Hamas missiles and ... killed them. To...
A simple cease-fire in Gaza would give Hamas time to re-arm and renew its terrorist activities. The demilitarization of Gaza would put an end to Hamas’s terrorist activities. Which goal makes more sense? President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have been working hard to achieve a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This effort is shortsighted and worse. A simple cease-fire would be a de-facto victory for Hamas. It would give Hamas the time and breathing space it needs to smuggle in more weapons, repair its terror tunnels, a...
This week, I had the honor and privilege to lead 57 international Jewish community leaders from 22 countries on a solidarity mission to Israel, where we were joined by 21 Israeli leaders and World Jewish Congress staff. The fact that WJC brought people from all WJC regions—North America, South America, Europe, Euro-Asia, and Africa—to Israel on only a few days’ notice shows the fervent support of world Jewry for the Jewish state. Concern for Israel binds the diverse Jewish communities of the world together, and it was amazing to see this outpou...
Dear Editor: To say I am totally disappointed in the leadership of the Jewish community of greater Orlando would be putting it mildly. With the current situation that has been taking place in Israel for the last two weeks, not one word, not one act of public support has been forth coming. Sure, a community event was held last week. But, it was behind closed doors, not open so the whole community could see support for Israel. It’s reminiscent of life in the shtetlach during the pogroms of the 19th century. If we hide, if we are quiet, if we don...
It was often remarked that the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader, Yasser Arafat, would sound moderate when speaking in English and utterly intransigent when speaking in Arabic. Much of the same could be said about his successor, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. In an exclusive op-ed for Haaretz—published to coincide with the Israeli newspaper’s one-day conference on peace in Tel Aviv that was rudely interrupted by a barrage of rockets from Gaza—Abbas sounded rather statesmanlike. “As the president of the...
The short answer to the question heading this note is “No.” There are too many Muslims in the world, having weight in international forums, with the U.S. and E.U. inclined to go along with them. The ascendance of radicalism among Muslims makes any of their governments reluctant to challenge a hard line against Israel. All that is true, but within those constraints, there is wiggle room for Israel and its friends. Governments of Muslim countries routinely demand anti-Israel declarations in the U.N. and other bodies, and press governments of the...
Every two years it seems Hamas gets the courage and the means to begin an aerial assault on Israel. The usual responses always come. The Arab States and Iran call on Israel to stop the “aggression.” Gaza civilians get killed because Hamas puts their rocket launchers in alleyways and neighborhoods, trapping the civilians there. Every two years. As I write this it is going on now. The only discussion is one of a ground invasion. That is a political decision, not a military one. It will have been made before you read this. Hamas is supplied by...
A Washington Post foreign affairs blogger, Ishaan Tharoor, listed the names, ages, and places of death of the 83 Palestinian Arabs killed in the first three days of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (“These are the names of 21 children killed in Gaza,” July 10, 2014), with the children identified by boldface type. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/09/these-are-the-names-of-13-children-killed-in-gaza/ Tharoor noted that Israel said it was trying to minimize civilian casualties, but nevertheless, “civilians are dying....
There’s something about war that can make intelligent people look foolish. I’m thinking right now of all those smart people in Tel Aviv who analyzed the subtleties of peace at the Haaretz Peace Conference—only a few hours before Jew-hating terrorists from Hamas began firing rockets all over Israel. I wonder if they even considered having a session at the conference called, “What happens when people want to kill you no matter what you do?” That session might have included, for example, a panel of experts discussing the Hamas Charter, which cal...
All too often, unspeakable crimes are committed that harshly violate moral norms. How a society reacts to such atrocities tells a lot about its ultimate values. Every community has its bigots, racists, and criminals, but in most, the murder of innocents is rejected as beyond the pale. A Frenchman who had fought for the Islamist jihadists in Syria shot to death four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, on May 24. The assassin was quickly apprehended, and the authorities pledged to do their utmost to prevent any recurrence....
If you want the measure of how American policy has clumsily tailed the shifting system of alliances in the Middle East, look no further than the op-ed titled “Iraq Must Not Come Apart,” published in the New York Times by Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations. Once an advocate of a federal Iraq, Gelb has now changed his mind. Nothing wrong with that, except that in doing so, Gelb, one of the most influential foreign policy thinkers in America today, has arrived at a most troubling position. America’s priority, Gelb says, is to defea...
There are far more questions than answers. There may be a new country being formed. It won’t be a welcome addition, as judged by the various governments sending units of their armed forces to attempt an abortion. Those associated with the movement, variously called the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or more simply the Islamic State (IS), are talking about a caliphate that will begin with large parts of Iraq and Syria, and eventually control the world. So far the record of the new regime is barbaric, proud of shooting p...
