Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — While the Palestinian Arabs are determined to memorialize and perpetuate their displacement as a national emblem of victimhood, tens of millions of people who were displaced in other modern wars have bravely moved on to create new lives in new lands. Now 75 years on, the Palestinians repeatedly make the false claim that Israel expelled 700,000 of them en masse and stole their homeland. The truth is that most Palestinians who left their homes in Israel during the country’s War of Independence in 1948-49 did so voluntarily. Fur...
A realistic goal must be three things: specific, measurable and achievable. Will the proposals outlined in the White House’s first official strategy to counter antisemitism, released with much fanfare this week, pass this test? Or are they more political pablum? The report, which followed conversations with more than 1,000 community leaders, distills the challenges American Jews face. It is a thoughtful and comprehensive effort that should be applauded. But understanding a problem and fixing it are two very different things. And reducing a...
(JNS) — From April 3-7, Students for Justice in Palestine hosted their annual “Palestine Liberation Week,” also known as “Israeli Apartheid Week.” SJP is a campus group supported by the radical American Muslims for Palestine, an anti-Israel organization many of whose members support Hamas. Each spring, SJP leads a propaganda campaign on UCLA’s Bruin Walk, spreading misinformation about the Arab-Israeli conflict. This year, this campaign was held during the Jewish holiday of Passover. Many practicing Jews went home for the holidays and could n...
(JNS) — The Mishnaic sage Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai spoke 18 centuries ago about a group of people in a boat. One of the passengers brandished a hand drill and began to drill a hole under his seat. When the others panicked, he asked why they would care if he confined his drilling to the space where he sat. To his fellow passengers, the answer was obvious: He was causing the entire boat to sink. Last week, the White House released its unprecedented U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism. There is much to commend in this comprehensive s...
(JNS) — There were many expectations for Biden’s “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” among the usual organizational types, but anyone with common sense could have seen this coming a mile away. The “U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism” fails to address Muslim and leftist antisemitism. It briefly delves into campus antisemitism but does not address its source, has a single throwaway line about the attacks on Orthodox Jews in New York City and gives the pro-Israel IHRA definition of antisemitism nearly equal billing wit...
Dear Editor: Thirty-three centuries ago, G-d gave Moses the 10 Commandments and Moses gave them to us. One of them — “Thou shall not commit murder,” Exodus 20:13 — can be either with the tongue or physically. Antisemitism fits that commandment. In the United States there is freedom of speech. The “N” word was finally forbidden to be mentioned because it was always frowned upon and finally, finally not mentioned anymore. This is what has to be done with antisemitism. Any mention of it should be violently attacked verbally and physically...
(JNS) — On May 14, 2018—exactly the same date and even the same hour that David Ben-Gurion announced Israel’s independence 70 years earlier—I presided over the opening of the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, the eternal and undivided capital of the State of Israel. Apart from family milestones, it was the greatest day of my life, and an experience I will never forget. Moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem was, of course, deeply meaningful to Israel’s citizens and all of world Jewry. It was a firm rejection of the false claim that Jerusalem co...
University of Miami’s J Street U chapter recently shared an Instagram post about Masafer Yatta, a region in Area C of the West Bank. The group’s post promotes the narrative that the Israeli government is “carrying out a mass eviction of Palestinian communities” in Masafer Yatta, a campaign that J Street National began promoting heavily this January. However, this campaign is founded upon baseless claims that paint Israel in a malicious manner and overlook the history that proves J Street’s statements inaccurate. Although J Street labels it...
After several hours of rest and regaining my composure from my encounter with the beautiful Vistula River and its ugly past as the depository for Jewish ashes, I met the group I would be traveling with at our organizational meeting. Several of us had already communicated via e-mail, introducing ourselves to each other and sharing personal thoughts, anxiety and anticipation of what we were about to experience. The group was a cross-section of American Jews from coast to coast, non-Jewish partners and a Jewish couple from Winnipeg, Canada. An Isr...
Israel’s former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, once said that there would only be peace when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated ours. Unfortunately, that is still true. However, there is an early 21st century addendum made no less true by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent diatribe at the United Nations: There will only be peace when the Arabs change their narrative so theirs is not mutually exclusive to, a rejection of, and in existential conflict with ours. Conflicting narratives are one thing, but when one...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns and the Biden administration seem to harbor the delusional belief that China cares more about improving relations with the U.S. than China’s long-term plan to replace the American-led world order. Burns recently told Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang that America seeks to improve its “lines of communications” with the Chinese Communist Party. Gang told Burns that China would discuss better relations with the U.S. if we stop supporting Taiwan and end our efforts to “contain” China. In other words...
(JNS) — For many years, I have spent Friday mornings reading through a stack of newspapers reflecting a wide spectrum of editorial positions in Israel. It used to be amusing to count the differences in news coverage between them, as if each newspaper came from a slightly alternate reality. Recently, however, these differences have grown into chasms of ill will, cynicism and dehumanization of “the other,” making it difficult to understand how all streams of Israeli society might continue living together. This problem is not unique to Israe...
(JNS) — We know it’s coming. We can write the script in advance. Yet it never fails to sicken and to shock. Israel was once again forced to take military action to defend itself against increasingly deadly attacks. As ever, Western media presented this as if Israel wakes up in the morning and decides to bomb Gaza through some insatiable lust for violence. Once again, such media outlets omitted or downplayed the crucial context for this military action. Once again, questions asked by some interviewers were framed through a maliciously dis...
(JNS) — In addition to the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many Palestinians live in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Roughly 98 percent of Palestinians in the disputed territories are ruled by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. Palestinian human-rights advocates, NGOs, international bodies, the media and campus activists focus on Israeli policies. The principal abusers of Palestinians, however, are their fellow Palestinians and other Arabs. For example, Bassam Tawil noted in just the last week, the media widely reported on the death of a senior m...
(JTA) — With the conclusion of Passover last month, we now find ourselves in the period of the Jewish calendar known as the Omer, the 49-day span between the Exodus from Egypt marked on Passover and the giving of the Torah celebrated on Shavuot, which begins this year on Thursday evening, May 25. Jewish tradition considers these two holidays inextricably linked, the seven weeks between them seen as an incremental process of purification from the defilement of slavery to a state in which the Israelites were able to receive the Torah. In this sen...
On May 15, Palestinian Arabs and their supporters commemorated what they call the “Nakba,” the catastrophe. This year, sadly, it was even commemorated in the halls of the U.S. Congress. Indeed, Palestinian Arabs have suffered many catastrophes, although what they are commemorating and what the reality is are miles apart. What are the real catastrophes we need to recognize? Despite having declared statehood, and dozens of countries recognizing if not even having diplomatic relations with the “State of Palestine,” rather than celebrating their in...
(JNS) — The assassination of three senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists is a welcome change of tactics against those who incessantly fire rockets at Israel’s south. Named “Operation Shield and Arrow,” this latest operation appears to be in response to more than 500 missiles fired at Israel. It is my hope that this is just the opening gambit in a much wider operation. The Israeli military and political hierarchy should look further than the most recent skirmish and see the wider war, with a fuller understanding of the long-term battle...
(FLAME via JNS) — Over the last 75 years, since Israel’s founding, the Palestinians have achieved the dubious distinction of being among the world’s most persistent and brutal terrorists. Against all evidence, Palestinian leaders apparently believe this strategy will eventually achieve self-determination. Note that the world’s most famous and beloved leaders usually motivate their people with an uplifting vision regarding how to achieve freedom, prosperity, or greatness. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, for example, was an inspir...
(JNS) — Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen’s visit to Baku last week could be a harbinger of things to come beyond bilateral relations between Israel and Azerbaijan. After his meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on April 19, Cohen said the leaders discussed “the strategic regional challenges we share, chief among them regional security and the fight against terrorism.” Although Cohen’s comments did not directly reference Iran—Azerbaijan’s Shia Muslim neighbor—recent developments in the region amplify the significance of...
This year 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the 75th anniversary of the Jewish State of Israel’s independence. It is also the 35th anniversary of the first annual March of the Living. In that first March of the Living, Jews from around the world descended on the city of Oświecim, Poland to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camps. They walked in the same path that over one million of our people — men, women, children and babies — unbeknownst to them, made on their one-way trek from Auschw...
(JNS) — There is something about the story of the eight Jews who spent more than two years hiding in the secret annex on Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam that is irresistible to readers, as well as audiences for plays and movies. The travails of Otto Frank and his family, who were trapped in an intolerable prison with friends and a few others in an attic where they were forced to spend most of their time in silence, were immortalized by his younger daughter, Anne. Aptly characterized by Dara Horn as “everyone’s second favorite dead Jew” in her...
(JNS) — On Sunday, Jan. 8, in Davie, Fla., the organization Teach Florida had their legislative breakfast with members of the Florida legislature. More than 750 people attended to thank the group for its increased financial support for school choice. After the event ended, I spoke to Republican Rep. Randy Fine about my idea to combat the rise of antisemitism in Florida. Fine told me he had the same idea, but it could be helpful if I spoke to the Speaker of the Florida House about it. I approached the speaker and it was clear from his c...
(JNS) — Harvard University is building ties with a Palestinian Arab university that supports terrorism, even though some of Harvard’s own students have been murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Last month, Harvard president Lawrence Bacow paid a friendly visit to Al-Quds University near Jerusalem. According to an Al-Quds press release, “he met some of the students and faculty, who expressed their enthusiasm about collaborating with Harvard on future research and educational projects.” I wonder if Bacow had a chance to discuss with the student...
(JNS) — Israeli judicial reform must pass in order to secure Israel’s future as a democratic state. Over the past four months, the public’s trust in its officials and democratic elections has fallen due to the uncompromising campaign against the reform. Thus, the right-wing coalition needs to enact the policies it was elected to pursue, though compromises will need to be made and the unity of the country preserved. The political landscape of developed countries in Europe and the U.S. is similar in many ways to Israel’s and underst...
(JTA) — Last week marked Yom Haatzmaut, our beloved Israel’s 75th birthday — the day on the Hebrew calendar when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed “the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate” by establishing a Jewish state in the land of Israel. Together with countless Jews around the world, we express our gratitude to be alive at this moment in history when the Jewish people have sovereignty and a nation to call their own. But on this anniversary, Yom Haatzmaut’s special prayers and festive afternoon barbecues f...
