Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3335 - 3359 of 3706
Imam Suhaib Webb was a happy man last Wednesday. The radical Islamist leader of Boston’s Saudi- funded mega mosque boasted that his Muslim community persuaded Brandeis University President Fred Lawrence to withdraw a Brandeis honorary degree from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the courageous, Somalia-born humanrights activist who fled—and who campaigns against—the horrors radical Islam inflicts on women. Webb blasted out thanks to his tens of thousands of social media followers, to the Brandeis Muslim Student Alliance and to Brandeis Professor of Islam... Full story
Dear Editor: I read with interest your article entitled ‘Take the J-Street Challenge, it is an eye opener’. Every person out there has an opinion on this touchy/controversial subject—and here is mine. First, the biblical covenant made by G-d with Abraham in Gen 15:18 -21 spells out the land allotment and title to Abraham and his seed. In Gen 17:8 it declares that G-d would give the land to His people Israel for an everlasting possession and to be Israel’s G-d forever. There was no land covenants made with the children of Ishmael (Arabs)... Full story
There are many reasons why it is utterly ridiculous for any slightly reasonable person to consider Israel an apartheid state. If, for no other reason, Webster’s Dictionary defines apartheid as “segregation by race.” Israel does not segregate anyone in any way. Israel’s enemies point to the defending border wall Israel built as a reason to label Israel an apartheid state. If that is a valid reason then the United States is also an apartheid state because of their wall on the Mexican border. Everyone must agree it is the duty of a government, in... Full story
In 1977 we had been living in Orlando for less than two years. We had moved from Cleveland and seen a great city begin its slow slide out of greatness. We were active Zionists, frequent visitors to Israel and personal friends of one of the founders of the State, Menachem Begin, who at the time was head of the Herut political party. What the Brits would call a “back bencher,” Begin was in the minority party. However, we awoke one morning in 1977 to the news that Begin had been elected prime minister of Israel and was forming a coalition, whi... Full story
Guess what? There is another proposal for solving Israel’s problem with the Palestinians. Michael Oren, recently Israeli ambassador to the US, has proposed that Israel recognize the impossibility of reaching a deal with the Palestinians, define its borders, withdraw from the rest of the West Bank, and hope for the best. Oren was trashed by the hosts of a popular discussion program for not being at all sure that the international community would accept something the Palestinians would be likely to reject. All this suggests that the end of O... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—According to press reports, the crowd at a recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference “noticeably gasped” when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie referred to the West Bank as “occupied territories.” Christie promptly apologized to the event’s host, mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, clarifying that his remarks “were not meant to be a statement of policy,” according to a source. This incident illustrates the many semantic land mines involved in talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terms employed to talk about the separ... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)—When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie apologized to Republican donor Sheldon Adelson for using the term “occupied territories” to refer to the West Bank, critics pounced. Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” ridiculed the apology, insisting that the phrase is “widely accepted” and accurate. While the term is indeed widely used to describe Israel’s relationship to the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria, that doesn’t make it accurate. Indeed, the use of the term “occupied territories” in this context is flawed legally, historically... Full story
It is illuminating to examine the record of the League of Arab States since the founding of the League in 1945, which is hardly a model for peaceful settlement of disputes in the spirit of the United Nations. Prior to the establishment of the Jewish state, the League took the following steps: In December 1945, the Arab League launched a boycott of ‘Zionist goods’ that continues to this day. In June 1946, it established the Higher Arab Committee to “coordinate efforts with regard to Palestine,” a radical body that led and coordinated attempt... Full story
Giants did exist, at least at one time. Trust me, I know. And I’m not referring to dinosaurs, or childhood fantasies or fairy tales or even NBA players. I’m talking about giants. I grew up with them, and now one of the last great ones has passed away. There are many who consider my father a giant, and in some ways, in this community, he was. A builder of institutions. A leader. A visionary. But he was my father, and as such I saw and understood his failings and foibles and missteps as well as... Full story
John Kerry’s peace process is dying. Or it was born dead, despite having parents who praised its prospects. The fault is not Israel’s, nor Palestine’s, but John Kerry’s. Or maybe Barack Obama’s, due to his appointing a visionary for a job that is supposed to be serious. Kerry’s various ideas join the collection amassed since the 1930s, resembling the jumble of the Jewish graveyard of Prague, with stones leaning one on the other and hardly room to set foot among them. An item in the Washington Post called the process a fool’s errand. Israe... Full story
Many Islamic leaders have repeatedly stated loud and clear that Islam will dominate the world. To achieve this goal, where Muslims migrate, frequently their leaders foster isolation from the native population. In these enclaves, or zones, they look to establish and enforce Sharia instead of the law of the land. Believe it, because it is happening here in the U.S. as well as the entire world. To understand what can and is happening here in the U.S. we are well advised to look at what has happened in countries such as France and England.... Full story
As its next ambassador to the United Nations Headquarters in New York, Iran has appointed a man who participated in the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979. The decision has been met with outrage—and rightly so. “Unconscionable,” said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who has introduced legislation that would prevent a U.N. ambassador from entering the United States if that ambassador is a known terrorist. “A slap in the face,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). “A disdain for the diplomatic process,” said U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).... Full story
On March 31, I attended a disturbing lecture at Washington University in St. Louis. It was co-sponsored by St. Louis Hillel at Washington University and J Street U. The speaker, a former Israeli soldier with the group “Breaking the Silence” (BtS), misrepresented and demonized the Israel Defense Forces, Israel, and Israeli policy. BtS is known for bringing in speakers like this, so I could not understand why Hillel and J Street U had sponsored a talk whose only purpose appeared to be to misinform audiences and instill hostility towards Isr... Full story
The controversy over the Harvard University students who recently posed, smiling, at Yasser Arafat’s grave sent a shot of pain through every one of us who has lost a loved one in the terrorist attacks that Arafat and his allies have waged over the years. But it must have been particularly awful for Dr. Alan Bauer, a Harvard-educated scientist, to see students from his own school smiling and enjoying their visit to the tombstone of the man responsible for the vicious attack that left Bauer and his 7-year-old son permanently maimed. Bauer and h... Full story
I came in on the middle of an interview on National Public Radio recently. I didn’t catch the name of the interviewee, but he did catch my attention. “Religions,” he said, “are too beautiful to be abandoned to those who believe in them.” And early last year another program cited statistics that showed more and more young people moving away from religion. But why? Was the next generation really moving away, or merely cherry picking the aspects of faith they liked? And what did the speaker m... Full story
Israelis have been seeking accommodation for decades, depending on when you start counting, first with Arabs and later with Palestinians. It is common, and perhaps justified, for Israelis and our friends to blame the Arabs for intransigence as well as violence. That is a cultural perspective, one that sees Israelis with a prior claim, earned by purchase, settlement, military success and development, enhanced by attitudes and behaviors that value human life and oppose bloodshed as a means of settling disputes. Those are not, alas, the Muslim... Full story
Who are Jewish Americans and what do we really believe? The approach of Pesach offers an especially good opportunity to raise that question. The seder, after all, is the single most widely observed ritual among Jewish Americans. Why might that be? Why, with thousands of possible practices, and millions of people choosing among them, has this one risen to the top? Perhaps most importantly, what can we learn from this phenomenon, especially in a year in which, thanks to the Pew Research Center study, the question of Jewish identity has been an... Full story
Fifty years ago, Elie Wiesel, then a little known Israeli news correspondent in the U.S. wrote a book that shook the soul of a generation: “The Jews of Silence.” Wiesel described two kinds of of silence: Jews in Galut who were silent about the fate of their brethren in the USSR ... the Jews who were silenced in the USSR. At Akiba, the high school I attended in Philadelphia, our student council asked Wiesel to speak for the school commencement ceremony for the class of 1967, the year before I graduate. And Wiesel did speak on the night of Jun... Full story
There is a unifying credo every American can agree upon, regardless of generational, racial or red-state/blue-state divide: Everything is better with bacon. Bacon-infused alcohol. Bacon ice-cream sundaes. Even bacon toothpaste. I’m pretty sure the last one is a gag. But how are they not all gags? The bacon craze has seemingly affected even the most famously pig-averse of people, observant Jews—at least if measured by media coverage of the latest entry into the kosher bacon pantheon, bacon-flavored Ritz crackers. Of course Bac-O Bits, among oth... Full story
To our dearest ladies here in town whom we truly cherish: Coming out of Purim and the month of Adar there is lots of joy in the air, yet we write to you with a heavy heart. This past month our dear colleague, Rashi Minkowitz, 37, a fellow shlucha like ourselves, who ran a Chabad house in Georgia was suddenly taken from this world with simply no warning. She left behind a husband, eight beautiful little children, and a grieving community that she really grew and connected with. Yet it didn’t end there; another fellow sister shlucha, Rivky B... Full story
For the past decade or so I’ve been having a similar conversation with a friend of mine. Whenever we go out to lunch, he tells me about the latest change in his business as he works to reinvent it with a vision geared toward future relevance and sustainability. “We’ve redesigned the interiors of the restaurants so they appeal more to young families,” he tells me, “and we’re adding a full-service bar.” Or “we’ve gone completely paperless with all corporate records” or “we’re looking at h... Full story
By Josh Hasten Dear Harvard College Israel Trek 2014—As you well know by now, your current trip to Israel has drawn international attention and media coverage. While a group of college students traipsing through the Jewish State is probably not worthy of such focus, your visit to Ramallah and specifically your smiley group photo at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern-day terrorism, has drawn condemnation from many (myself included). At the same time your organizers on the ground in Israel, as well as your sponsors back in Boston i... Full story
Ah, the devious Benjamin Netanyahu! Just when we are on the cusp of a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations, Israel’s slippery prime minister introduces a potential deal-breaker, in the form of insisting that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. That, in essence, is the narrative that has emerged over the past fortnight, as shaped by the tiresome pundits who spend their days forensically examining Netanyahu’s statements and actions. Writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Hussein Ibish, a faux moderate wor... Full story
Every time there’s a public discussion about whether Israel should release more imprisoned Palestinian terrorists, my heart skips a beat. My daughter Alisa was murdered by Palestinian terrorists in 1995. Two of the killers have been in an Israeli prison since 1995, serving life sentences. I always worry that they will be among the ones released. So yes, it’s personal. But it’s also much more than that. It’s not just about my daughter’s killers; it’s about dozens of other Israeli and American families whose loved ones also were victimized... Full story
By Richard A. Ries I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that I’ve been to more synagogues in the Orlando area in the last few months than many people get to in a year, let alone a lifetime. I have not been “shul shopping”—looking for a place to specifically join. Most of my pit stops had little more depth attached to them than where my car happened to be on I-4 on a given Friday or Saturday. A few weeks ago, I had a Friday business conference at a Disney resort. I had never been to the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation, so I stuck aro... Full story
