Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 590 - 614 of 3730
(JNS) — “A fool is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,” Oscar Wilde famously quipped. In Milwaukee last week, the Republican candidates for president—minus one Donald J. Trump—quarreled over both the price and value of American support for Ukraine. Only Nikki Haley crunched the numbers correctly. From the February 2022 Russian invasion to August of this year, the United States has committed roughly $43 billion to Ukraine. As Haley suggested, that’s just 3.5 percent of U.S. spending on the Defense Department over...
(JNS) — Reports confirm the Biden administration will gift Iran a whopping $6 billion in exchange for the release of five American hostages. This decision is a godsend for outcast regimes and terrorists around the world—starting with Iran itself—that will no doubt feel emboldened to pursue further acts of belligerence against America and its allies. The decision reflects the president’s naive view that friendly diplomacy can subdue our enemies. Rather, Biden’s policies have only encouraged rogue elements like Iran’s Islamist regime to continue...
(JNS) — There are many kinds of blessings. Every situation, every occasion, has a different blessing. We wish success to some, to others long life or good health, and to still others we wish nachas and pride from their children. When my sister was a small child, she was somewhat confused by the traditional Yiddish blessings we give people at various life milestones. Someone had a baby and she wished them biz hundert un tzvantzig! In plain English, that means, “till 120!” It’s what we say when someone, particularly a more mature person, has a b...
(JNS) — Many uber-wealthy people believe they are wise and well-informed on all subjects because they have achieved financial success. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is a frightening example of this type of hubris. Born in Cincinnati to Indian-American parents, the 38-year-old Ramaswamy is a perfect example of what can be achieved in America. He became a billionaire as a pharmaceutical executive, hedge fund manager and lobbyist. His success should be applauded. However, this does not mean he knows anything about history or t...
When Israel declared the forming of the Second Jewish Commonwealth on the very land where the First Jewish Commonwealth was declared centuries ago, there were those who were thrilled, those who were nervous and those who violently protested the change in that part of the world. It took a war, according to biblical accounts, because there were people living there. This has been proven through archeological digs and other evidence – so whether it was God or Providence or a people tired of wandering – the First Jewish Commonwealth was formed, fou...
(JNS) — The role of halachah in the State of Israel was a point of contention even before the state was founded. In his landmark book The Jewish State, modern Zionism’s founder Theodor Herzl wrote, “Shall we end by having a theocracy? No, indeed. Faith unites us, knowledge gives us freedom. We shall therefore prevent any theocratic tendencies from coming to the fore on the part of our priesthood.” “We shall keep our priests within the confines of their temples in the same way as we shall keep our professional army within the confines of their...
(JNS) — In a dramatic scene from the new film “Golda,” Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir meets with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger says, “You must remember that first I am an American, second I am secretary of state and third I am a Jew.” Golda replies, “Henry, you forget that in Israel we read from right to left.” The upcoming release of “Golda” will remind and educate Americans, Israelis and people around the world about the tense days of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when Israel’s fate hung in the balance. It will no...
(JNS) — Things cannot go on like this. Well, they can, but it would be beyond the pale. We must not tolerate a situation in which Jews are killed all over the country as if this was some incurable disease or natural phenomenon that cannot be prevented. It’s not that the settlers can’t stand it anymore—they have shown resilience in the past, and during tougher times. They know full well why they are not giving up their hold on the areas of the Land of Israel: They’re doing it for the sake of the entire nation. Nor are Israelis in general going t...
My heart sunk when I read of an impending deal to pay the evil Islamist Iranian regime several billion dollars (or more) in ransom to free Americans held hostage in Iran. Taking American and other hostages is not new for the Islamist regime. They keep doing it because it works. It’s profitable. And the West caves into their demands. This has to stop. As an Iranian-born American citizen, I can raise my voice without consequence. I especially admire the brave Iranians who are raising their voices publicly against this deal which millions of Irani...
The City of Warsaw was ravaged in WWII by the Nazis, who destroyed close to 95 percent of all its buildings including museums, historical landmarks, churches, and of course synagogues. The Warsaw Ghetto in which the Jews courageously fought the Nazis was reduced to rubble. Once liberated from Soviet domination, having prospered economically from European Union membership and increased national security under the umbrella of NATO, Poland undertook a major rebuilding of its war-torn country. As our tour bus entered the city at dusk we were met...
(JNS) — “Where there is unity, there is always victory,” the famed Latin writer Publilius Syrus wrote. In much of the world, this statement would likely to be used by politicians or others to rally people around a certain ideology or policy. In Israel, however, unity is a matter of life or death: Safety or destruction, victory or defeat. Jewish sovereignty in its ancestral and indigenous homeland was reestablished in 1948 only because Jews—and some non-Jews—stood side-by-side to overcome unimaginable odds and defeat their enemies. There are num...
(JNS) — Michigan State Sen. Sylvia Santana has publicly apologized to her state’s Arab community for the “sin” of visiting Israel earlier this month. Her only intention, she pleaded, was “to improve my understanding of matters related to Michigan.” Well, if Santana is genuinely interested in Arab-Israeli developments that are “related to Michigan,” then she didn’t have to travel 6,000 miles. All she had to do was look in her own backyard—at least four Michiganders have been murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists. I’m sure the victims’ fam...
(JNS) — In a hyper-partisan, highly polarized red vs blue America, the politics of Israel and the Middle East in general have always been complicated. Rather than breaking down neatly along party lines, there are profound divisions within both Republican and Democratic ranks on issues relating to the U.S. role in the Middle East. We’ll discuss the intramural GOP fight at another time, but it’s beginning to look like the early action in next year’s election cycle will be in Democratic House primaries. The great majority of Democrats in Congres...
(JNS) — On his way out the door, the retiring U.S. ambassador to Israel, Thomas Nides, has belatedly acknowledged that he “screwed up” in one of his last major actions. He’s just the latest in a growing line of U.S. diplomats who have admitted—when it was too late—that they made significant errors in their treatment of Israel. So why does anybody still listen to them when they offer advice on the Arab-Israeli conflict? In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, Nides was asked about his outrageous tweet commenting on the June 20...
(JNS) — Do blessings and curses come from heaven or do we bring them upon ourselves by the way we live our lives? Last week’s Torah reading, Re’eh, from Deuteronomy 11, begins with blessings and curses. Moses is continuing his sermonic messages before he takes leave of his people. The great leader waxes philosophical: “Behold, I give you this day a blessing and a curse. The blessing: that you hearken to the commandments of God that I command you this day. And the curse: if you do not hearken to the commandments of God and you stray from th...
(JTA) — For those following the judicial reform crisis in Israel, this week’s Torah portion is almost too on the nose. For months now, Israel has been convulsed by protests in response to a plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “reform” Israel’s Supreme Court by stripping it of much of its powers of oversight and shifting the balance of power heavily in favor of the legislature. Defenders of the reform call it a corrective measure meant to rein in a high court that too often flouts the will of the democratically elected Knesset. Critics...
(JNS) — Palestinian society is in disarray. In two major West Bank towns—Jenin and Nablus—the Palestinian Authority has lost control, and rogue gangs rule the land. Last week, thousands of Gazans protested in the streets—risking brutal backlash from the Hamas regime. Meanwhile, talks in Egypt meant to reconcile the P.A. and Hamas after 17 bitter years have again hopelessly failed. All this takes place as the Biden administration tries to pressure Israel and Saudi Arabia into a “normalization” deal contingent on concrete steps toward a Pa...
(JNS) — The heady excitement over the Abraham Accords overlooked Israel’s core strategic problems. The United Arab Emirates deal may have led to business ties and a certain amount of (mostly one-way) tourism, but then rockets from the terrorist territories once again began raining down on major Israeli cities. The covert price for the Abraham Accords appeared to be the end of any talk of Israel annexing its own territory. And being able to visit Emirati hotels is a poor exchange for the failure to permanently secure Israeli territory. Now the...
(JNS) — I am not a comic book fan. I am not a superhero fan. I think comic book films are slowly demolishing whatever remains of American cinema. But, if I may be slightly hypocritical, I am a huge Superman fan. My love for the character goes back to my earliest childhood, when my family gathered before a black-and-white television to watch the first network broadcast of the classic 1978 film “Superman,” starring the immortal Christopher Reeve as the title character. Even without its vibrant colors, the film transported me to another world...
(JNS) — “Sound of Freedom” is the film that the chattering classes are encouraging you not to see. NPR says its success is due to support from the shadowy QAnon extremist group. It’s been blasted by The Guardian as “QAnon adjacent” and was linked to blood libels and conspiracy theories by a JTA article. A CNN segment labeled it as a crude and fraudulent piece of agitprop that is the product of a “moral panic.” It’s the kind of movie that enlightened and educated people are supposed to avoid at all costs. And yet, somehow in this season of Ho...
The next day our positive energy experienced on the March of the Living quickly dissipated as we arrived at the site where an estimated 800 Jewish children are buried in a mass grave in the Zbylitowska Góra Forest. The gravesite is located deep in the forest on the outskirts of the Polish village of Tarnow, which also once included a sizable Jewish community. The site was only discovered after the war. According to our guide and my own research, these Jewish children, many of whom were outed by their non-Jewish neighbors, were taken from the to...
(JNS) — In response to public outrage over the pervasive, systemic, years-long scandal of antisemitism at CUNY, the university formed its inaugural Advisory Council on Jewish Life. At first, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez refused the demands of Jewish faculty and student victims at CUNY to be represented on the council, stating, “… [T]he advisory council on Jewish life will be comprised of Jewish leaders in New York who are external to the university” [emphasis added]. But in late May or early June of 2023, secretly and behind the scenes, Rodrígue...
(JTA) — The Orthodox Jewish community boasts a wide array of creative services providers. And, in keeping with the Jewish religious tradition over millennia, those vendors cannot, in good conscience, buy into elements of “progressive” social developments. They do not accept, for instance, that it is proper to identify as a different sex from one’s biological one, or that a same-sex union is proper. That is why my organization took a particular interest in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Lorie Smith,...
(JNS) — Once again, we are seeing Hezbollah threatening us, encroaching on the demilitarized area and daring us to retaliate. In Southern Lebanon, Hezbollah has positioned thousands of rockets aimed at Israel in direct violation of the stipulations of the pact Israel agreed to after the Second Lebanon War. At the end of the hostilities, Israel was in possession of Southern Lebanon south of the Litani River. Israel retreated to its previous border based on an international agreement, which Hezbollah immediately violated. Notice to the Israel D...
(JNS) — Last week, the Biden administration announced that it will no longer support scientific and technological research at Israeli institutions in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declared that “engaging in bilateral scientific and technological cooperation with Israel in geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after 1967 and which remain subject to final-status negotiations is inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy.” Attempting to at least give the i...
