Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

(BESA Center via JNS)—For some time now, Russia has been striving to establish itself as the Middle East’s preeminent great power. Through its military involvement in the Syrian conflict and deep partnership with Iran against the United States,...

(JNS)—Britain now has its first celebrity prime minister. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson was elected leader of the Tory Party following Theresa May’s resignation over her failure to deliver Brexit. On Wednesday, Johnson “kissed hands” with the...

(Jewish Journal via JNS)—It’s almost a boring thought these days to observe that we are bitterly divided by our political tribes. Democrats hate Republicans, Republicans hate Democrats. Need we say more? We no longer want to win arguments; we...

I almost walked out of my first college Shabbat. Not only did I miss the close Jewish community from high school, but I also remained convinced that my new peers would view me as a “fake” Jew. Why?  Because my mother isn’t Jewish. Only my...

(JNS/Israel Hayom)—The turmoil gripping Israel’s political system ahead of the repeat election in September has not skipped over the Arab parties, among which a war is now raging that makes the struggles among the Zionist parties on both the...

(JNS)—If further proof were needed to illustrate the futility of diplomatic overtures to the Palestinian Authority, Monday’s attack on a pro-Israel Saudi in Jerusalem is a good example. As part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reg...

MITZPEH YERICHO, West Bank (JTA)—On July 8 in Psagot, I addressed the first group of participants on J Street U’s “Let My People Know” Israel trip, their new alternative to Birthright aimed to give American Jewish college students meaningful...

NEW YORK (JTA)—A recently released Pew Research Center report about global restrictions on religion focuses mostly on discrimination against, and the persecution of, various religious groups in different countries. Jews are prominent targets as alw...

(JNS)—The exposé on anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party, broadcast in the United Kingdom last week by the BBC’s flagship Panorama program, gave viewers an opportunity to see the extraordinary confrontation in April 2016 between John Mann,...

The 50th anniversary of the first successful Apollo-Saturn Moon Mission was met last week with great fanfare and enthusiasm by the national and international media, the American people and the entire global community. There were inspiring speeches, r...

(JNS)—Early last week Tehran announced its intention to enrich uranium above the level permitted by the nuclear deal to which it is a signatory. Over the weekend, soldiers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attempted to seize a British oil...

(JNS)—The radical anti-Zionist IfNotNow group hit the jackpot last week with its initial investment in efforts to impact the 2020 presidential election. IfNotNow’s attempts to infiltrate Jewish summer camps and alter the way they teach about...

How could the world forget the Beatles? “Yesterday”—first the song, now the movie. For fans of the Beatles, “Yesterday,” the song Paul McCartney says came to him note by note in a dream, has a well-deserved claim on the best popular song...

Todd Cohn Just recently, the South Florida Jewish community collectively took a very deep breath when Spanish River High School’s Principal William Latson weighed in on the school’s approach to State-mandated Holocaust education. I was in...

(JNS)—The critics are right about U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s presence at the ceremonial opening of Jerusalem’s “Pilgrimage Road” being unprecedented. None of his predecessors would have been caught dead at a Jewish site on...

In January 1966, I found myself living and working in Cocoa Beach, Florida. I had been recruited by RCA Missile Test Project, the scientific and engineering manager of the Air Force’s Eastern Test Range for rockets and missiles being test fired fro...

(JNS)—“The two-state solution,” as America and Israel define it, calls for “two states for two peoples”— for Israel and a new Palestinian-Arab state, sharing the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. The Palestinian...

(JNS)—Three seemingly unrelated incidents occurred last week, yet all share a common denominator: They exemplify the way anti-Israel politics has corrupted the concept of human rights. Let’s start with best-selling British novelist Richard Zimler...

(JNS)—For years, the pundits have been telling us that Israeli democracy is in danger because of the Arab birthrate, or because of the Jewish nation-state law, or because of the debates over the powers of Israel’s High Court. I wonder if they...

(JNS)—U.S. President Donald Trump’s last-minute decision to pull back from a retaliatory strike on Iran is nothing new in the annals of modern history. According to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Benjamin Netanyahu was on the verge of...

(JNS)—The Somali-born congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has made a number of anti-Semitic remarks, is currently embroiled in controversy over her marriage history. When claims against her of bigamy and immigration fraud first emerged in...

(Jewish Journal via JNS)—It’s a sign of how politicized our national discourse has become that nothing is out of bounds—not even the Holocaust. When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) used the charged term “concentration camp” last...

(JNS)—When the Trump administration released the economic portion of its Middle East peace plan last week, the avalanche of criticism was immediate and harsh. Even though the president’s foreign-policy team couched the plan as a “vision” of...

(JNS)—When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared, during the lead-up to the country’s March 31 municipal elections, that “whoever wins Istanbul, wins Turkey,” he couldn’t have imagined that the catchy campaign slogan was going...