Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3406 - 3430 of 3706
Even though it is difficult to understand, Islamic fanatics consider themselves at war with all non-Muslims as well as the entire United States. Understanding ones enemy is important to having any hope of defending one’s self, specifically when the enemy does so many odd and illogical things. In Saudi Arabia, according to a spokesperson of the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, the religious police have the right to stop a woman who has “tempting eyes” and order her to cover them immediately or face a fine or pu... Full story
As pro bono attorneys for Jonathan Pollard since 2000, we never cease to be amazed at how those who are hostile to Pollard feel compelled to make up facts. Evidently, these adversaries recognize that the actual facts are not sufficient to justify keeping Pollard in prison any longer, as he has already served more than 28 years for delivering classified information to the State of Israel. The most recent manifestation of this phenomenon appears in an opinion piece in the online edition of The New York Times by M.E. Bowman, titled “Don’t tru... Full story
As I am out in the community, a recurring theme that comes up in many meetings and conversations is a lack of a unified Jewish community. This problem has been articulated by community members, volunteers, rabbis, and communal professionals. There is also a feeling that this Jewish community used to be united years ago, but that somehow we’ve lost our way and have become polarized and divided. Some of the strife among agencies and synagogues is a symptom of the competition for limited financial and people resources. Some of it is a r... Full story
As I speak to people in the community, I am often asked “Is Federation relevant?” The answer is a resounding, “Yes.” There’s probably no better time or place to explain my answer than this edition of The Heritage. As with any organization, Federation’s relevance depends on periodic adaptation to changing times. And the times are definitely changing. But our mission continues to be building and strengthening the Jewish community of Central Florida, which manifests in many ways. In 2008-09, when the economy took a bad turn, Federation... Full story
Dear Editor: Re: “Canada will stand by Israel through fire and water’ (Jan. 31 issue). I invite your readers to join with me to contact the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper (address: Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, J1A 0A2) and express our sincere gratitude for his extraordinary support to Israel and the Jewish people. We are quick to stand up for Israel and the Jewish people as it so frequently needed these days as the world nations are quick to condemn Israel, so let us equally express our... Full story
Dear Editor: Mr. David Benkof, MA Modern Jewish History/Stanford University article about Palestine denial is wrought with not only misinformation, but omission of information. I’m surprised that he does not tell the whole history of post biblical “Palestine” beginning with the term “Syria Palestinia,” created by Emperor Hadrian in the second century AD. Prior to that, the area under discussion was known as Judea after the Jews. As an act of retribution, Hadrian renamed the area after the arch-enemies of the Jews, the non-Semetic peoples,... Full story
I’ve written many times about my mother. My mother who lived alone. My mother who taught me to love literature, my community, and myself. My mother who taught me to give back far more than I received. My brilliant, independent mother. But I’ve never written about her voice. About how she spoke, how she wrote, the words she lived by. And they were magnificent words. I have waited, months after her death, to write about her. It’s because of the difficulty that words have to truly encompass someo... Full story
I guess we could blame it on Mohammed’s lawyer. Apparently he never got Mohammed to write a will. As a result there was no clear heir to the throne of Islam. None of his sons made it to adulthood. So, some of his followers chose a relative, Ali, to be The Man while others went with a follower named Abu Bakr. Now, this is a very overly simplified explanation of why today there is the schism between Sunnis (Abu Bakr) and Shiites (Ali). Fights within the family are one thing. But the two wings of the Islamic religion have been fighting and k... Full story
Meyer Lansky and Jonathan Pollard are both significant for what they say about US-Israel relations. Lansky was a gangster, a good American, and a good Zionist. He worked his underworld connections in behalf of U.S. efforts in World War II, the movement of refugees from Europe to Israel, and arms shipments to Israel at a crucial time. Israelis quarrel as to whether the country should have given in to U.S. demands to extradite him, despite claims of achieving sanctuary in Israel under the Law of Return, but we’ve pretty much stopped arguing a... Full story
Here are three disturbing memes about Jews and Israel that I’ve noticed in three separate-but-related news stories recently. Meme No.1: “You’re ungrateful.” Here’s State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf responding to reported remarks by the Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon attacking Secretary of State John Kerry. “We find the remarks of the defense minister to be offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States has done to support Israel’s security needs and will continue to do,” said Harf. Now, one can certainly... Full story
Illegitimacy hangs like smog over Secretary of State John Kerry’s obsessive-compulsive Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. Even assuming he succeeds in brokering a one-legged peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority administering the West Bank, it will not: • Affect the Gaza Strip, where half the Palestinian Arabs in the disputed territories live. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood derivative that violently ousted the Fatah-led P.A. Its charter is genocidal regarding not only Israel but also Jews in general. • Legally bind succe... Full story
The Jewish world seems worried about Hillel. “Are you okay?” people keep asking me. Our phones at Ohio University Hillel are ringing with those calling to hear the “real” story, or to leave long-winded diatribes on our voicemail. Reporters ask if we’ll answer a few questions (no thanks). Hillel has been in The New York Times, The New Republic and every Jewish news outlet on the planet: Everybody wants to know how we feel about Swarthmore’s Hillel chapter deciding to open itself up to anti-Zionists, against the policy of national Hillel. Wel... Full story
The intensifying Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have caused opponents of a Palestinian state to revive former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s 1969 canard that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people.” However, “Palestine Denial” is less a debating point than a conversation-stopper: if there are no Palestinians, then there is no Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and thus no need even to discuss West Bank policies. One problem: Palestinians do, in fact, exist. Last month, Israeli diplomat Danny Ayalon posted a YouTube video ent... Full story
There ain’t much that is new under the sun. Israelis, Diaspora Jews and others who are concerned with us should have ceased hoping years ago for the kind of peace that prevails between the US and Canada, or among the countries of Western Europe. Something like the U.S. border with Mexico might be attainable. That is, a fenced or patrolled border; lines on the outside of people wanting to pass inspection in order to enter; conditions on the other side significantly less than desirable; and the economy on the good side profiting from joint v... Full story
In the 1920s, the Jerusalem Waqf, the local Muslim religious authority, published and distributed a pamphlet for visitors to the Haram al-Sharif, the Temple Mount. It explained that the location is named Al-Aqsa, in accordance with the Quran reference to the place the prophet Mohammed visited on his night journey to Heaven. It indicated that the prophet visited this site precisely because it was holy since time immemorial, and was where King Solomon built the Jewish Temple for divine service. The Temple connection is also reflected in another... Full story
There was a time when American Jewish families sat shiva when a child married out of the faith. Even two or three decades ago the prevailing attitude was one of disappointment, embarrassment and regret, coupled with a parental commitment to make the best of it and hope the grandchildren would be raised as Jews. Times have changed. With the increase in intermarriage has come greater communal acceptance, to the degree that for some Jewish religious leaders it is no longer standard to publicly endorse endogamy, or Jewish in-marriage. For them... Full story
Several incidents, seemingly centered on Israel, sparked nationwide reactions from academic institutions and Hillels in recent days. I would argue, though, that they have much less to do with Israel than we might think. First, dozens of university presidents and provosts around the country rejected the boycott of Israeli academic institutions recently adopted by the American Studies Association. In response, they pointed to the importance of free speech and free academic exchange. Second, at the University of Michigan, an anti-Israel student... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—When I first heard about Ariel Sharon’s stroke—the first one, a minor brain attack about four weeks before he suffered the massive hemorrhage that would leave him comatose for the final eight years of his life—I was having dinner at a Jerusalem restaurant with a colleague from The Jerusalem Post. We both sat transfixed as we watched the TV over the bar. It was December 2005, just five months after Sharon had completed Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, and there was a sense that Sharon was in the midst of engineeri... Full story
Dear Editor: A person’s perception of any other individual is always influenced by what is “public” and what is “personal.” There is the public Arik Sharon—which has been and will be written about, especially now with his death. Then there is what I would call the “personal”—the individual I got to know on a somewhat personal level. Two experiences... 1) OK, you may not consider this first experience so “personal” as it happened with about 200 other people—but, to me it was. During my tenure as the executive director of the Greater Orlando Jew... Full story
When it comes to the most asinine response to the purported deal between the world’s main powers and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program, top honors to go Harvard University’s Stephen Walt. Walt was the co-author, with his academic colleague John Mearsheimer, of “The Israel Lobby,” a badly researched, poorly argued screed about how a cluster of pro-Israel organizations have cajoled successive U.S. administrations into doing things they otherwise wouldn’t have done. Paranoically obsessed with what he regards as the malign influence o... Full story
Islamic terrorists attack America in many ways. Their goal is to Islamize America. We need the help of good Muslims to identify not so obvious ways that we are being attacked, such as noted below. They attempt to control work conditions. An employee at Disney World who, for her religion, suddenly insisted on modifying her costume with an Islamic headdress. It seems it was not good enough for this Muslim woman that Disney offered to allow the headdress for a different position. Then there are the employees at Target stores who suddenly refused... Full story
The latest Palestinian threat to leave the negotiations and turn to the international community to give it what it wants comes after the passage in the Israeli government of a proposal to attach the Jordan Valley to Israel. The principal promoter of the proposal is MK Miri Regev, one of the most outspoken of the parliamentarians in the right wing of the Likud delegation. Most likely this will join several other efforts of Israeli politicians to threaten Palestinians and Israeli Arabs with something approaching an apocalypse. Remember the... Full story
(This is part of a series of essays on Jewish day schools being published by the Sustainable Stories project of PEJE, the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education.) SILVER SPRING, MD. (JTA)—I don’t know about you, but as a Jewish day school graduate, parent and former board member, I am a little tired of hearing about how excellent we are. This is not because I embrace mediocrity but because I am increasingly unsure of what it means. I do see the word “excellence” strategically placed in development materials all the time. It is used in s... Full story
As we again approach U.N. sponsored International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan.27, it is fitting for all peoples, not just Jews, to reflect on its significance. The threat to the world is as present today as it was in the 1930s. Humanity didn’t succeed very well when confronted then by the so-called master race, so we all get to take teacher’s test again to see if we have learned anything ‘in class.’ Today, everyone is called to struggle against a new form of regime evil and totalitarianism threatening the world—master jihad, an aberratio... Full story
“Folk song calls the native back to his roots and prepares him emotionally to dance, worship, work, fight, or make love in ways normal to his place.” —Alan Lomax, Folk Songs of North America Over sushi in Brooklyn the other night, I was asked to justify why we made the kids see “Inside Llewyn Davis,” the Coen brothers new movie. The answers flowed easily. One: The creators of the film are geniuses and as far as art is concerned, kids, go with the geniuses. They always have something to say. Two: The movie is a snapshot of an historical moment i... Full story
