Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — This November, Iraq is hosting a celebration to honor 90 years since the British gave it independence. Iraq will be joined by Jordan, which will mark 76 years since the British Mandate for Transjordan ended. In attendance at these ceremonies will be United Nations officials. A keynote speech will be delivered by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who will reflect on Britain’s role in the creation of two major Arab countries. Except this won’t happen. After World War I, the League of Nations created five mandates in the Middle East:...
(JNS) — Much is being made of Donald Trump’s recent dinner at Mar-a-Lago with celebrity antisemite Kanye West (now known as “Ye”) and Ye’s friend Nick Fuentes, who is an outspoken white supremacist, Holocaust denier and neo-Nazi. Much of the commentary on this incident, however, is wrong. It is too easy and glib to say that it proves Trump is unfit for office because he is a Jew-hater. How does one reconcile that allegation with the fact that his administration was arguably the most pro-Israel in American history? Moreover, the apple of his ey...
(JNS) — My Iranian Jewish friends who live in the United States are telling me that regime change in Iran is a distinct possibility. Could the Biden administration do more to make this happen? You bet it could. The continued attempts to salvage a nuclear agreement with Iran along the lines of the 2015 JCPOA deal only make regime change less likely. In fact, the talks strengthen the hand of the ayatollahs. This is precisely the opposite of what should be done, given that the current protests in Iran—which began when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was...
(JNS) — A curious thing occurred at the end of 2020. A program that had been promoted by the organized American-Jewish community was proven to be a tremendous success. But not everyone was happy about it. So, the news that this program is now having budget problems will probably prompt mixed responses from a community that is clearly ambivalent about measures undertaken to ensure that it both survives and thrives. The program in question is Taglit-Birthright Israel. Founded in 1999, it was created to ensure that every young Jew who wanted to g...
(JNS) — “Democracy is at stake” was a major theme voiced by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party throughout the recent U.S. midterm elections. For instance, during a Nov. 2 speech entitled “On Standing Up for Democracy,” in which Biden accused “MAGA Republicans” of voter intimidation, the president asserted: “Democracy is fundamental. … Democracy is on the ballot for all of us. … Autocracy is the opposite of democracy. It means the rule of one: one person, one interest, one ideology, one party. … Democracy is under attack because … [of...
(JNS) — Since there is no chance of implementing the two-state solution, why support it? It has some advantages, but it is also dangerous. The idea of a two-state solution was created by Israeli politicians Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin as part of the Oslo Accords, which recognized the PLO as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people,” giving it the exclusive right to determine what would happen as a result of negotiations. The Oslo Accords, however, do not refer to a two-state solution. The idea was part of secret agreements made...
(JNS) — Can Israel break its dependency on the United States? The question has always been widely dismissed as unthinkable. But recent events are prompting it to be raised with increasing urgency. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been far from friendly towards Israel. Despite continuing to fund its defense needs and support it against the relentless malice of the U.N., the Bidenites’ reckless appeasement of the Iranian regime has increased the Islamic republic’s capacity to attack Israel. At the same time, the U.S. has repea...
(JTA) — A few days after the comedian Dave Chappelle appeared to justify the never-ending appeal of Jewish conspiracy theories, this sentence appeared in the New York Times: “Bankman-Fried is already drawing comparisons to Bernie Madoff.” I’ll explain: Sam Bankman-Fried is the 30-year-old founder of FTX, the crypto-currency exchange that vaporized overnight, leaving more than 1 million creditors on the hook. Bernie Madoff, is, of course, Bernie Madoff, the financier who defrauded thousands of investors through a multibillion-dollar Ponzi s...
(JTA) — I don’t find Dave Chapelle’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue funny, unlike my classmates who draw inspiration from him. About a year ago, in my eighth-grade English class, I was listening to my classmates talk about Holocaust denial. Some of them were joking, sure, but that didn’t make it any better. We’d been reading “Maus,” Art Speigelman’s autobiographical graphic novel about the Holocaust, whose characters are depicted as mice. Because of this, people began saying how it was fictitious. And then, it devolved into how the Holoca...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — On Monday morning, news broke that controversial, far-right, probable soon-to-be government minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, while in coalition talks with Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed support for an amendment to existing Israeli policy that would no doubt harm relations between American Jews and Israeli Jews. This change relates to aliyah—who is considered Jewish enough to move to the Jewish state. Status-quo Israeli policy welcomes converts to Judaism into Israeli citizenship, even converts who underwent the process of...
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs via JNS) — The IDF and the Israel Security Agency have inflicted heavy blows on the Lions’ Den terror group in Nablus but are unable to stop the phenomenon. The group continues to operate and announced that it was involved in a new shooting attack on IDF forces protecting a group of Knesset members during a visit to Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus. There is also a terrorist group called the Nablus Battalion and another called the Balata Battalion that was recently established in the Balata refugee camp in the city....
(JNS) — It’s not like me to be an alarmist, but I’ve been thinking about something for months, maybe years. As time passes, it’s become increasingly clear that the worst-case scenario is about to happen. The Jewish people outside of Israel must step back and examine their reality. Too many things are happening at once that point to the fact that the s**t is about to hit the fan. This isn’t new. It’s been going on for years, escalation after escalation. But over the past few months, it’s reached the point of no return. It’s just too much to ign...
(JTA) — Last week saw Dave Chappelle deliver a brilliant monologue on “Saturday Night Live” addressing the antisemitism controversies surrounding Kanye West and Kyrie Irving. Unfortunately, “brilliant” doesn’t inherently mean “moral” or “good.” Chappelle’s monologue was a masterclass in how to normalize and embolden antisemitic discourse, delivered in plain sight and with just enough “wink wink, nudge nudge” plausible deniability — mixed in with a sprinkle of real commentary — that one would easily almost not realize that … wait, did Chap...
(JNS) — What is the mainstream expression of Jewish power? When superstars with millions of followers like Kanye West and Kyrie Irving exhibit anti-Semitic behavior, more often than not it revolves around a sinister view of Jewish power. Jews are the bosses. They own the record labels, the movie studios and the sports teams. They run the world. These stereotypes are not just sinister and anti-Semitic, they are also insultingly materialistic. They overlook a whole other view of Jewish power, one that has little to do with material wealth and e...
(JNS) — I missed comedian Dave Chappelle’s opening monologue on “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, but I knew I had to watch it when the wave of social media outrage reached me. When I finally saw it, what I heard shocked me. Chappelle’s jokes about the Kanye West and Kyrie Irving controversies were not only funny, they were insightful and true, which is why they were funny and why so many were angered by them. The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, issued a statement suggesting that Chapelle’s jokes “normalize” a...
(JNS) — If Americans thought that the midterm elections would provide a clear picture of their country’s future political direction, they woke up the next morning as confused as ever. The Democrats may have won the expectations game as the “red wave” that Republicans hoped would sweep them into control of both Houses of Congress didn’t materialize. But the stalemate the election seemingly produced is likely to only deepen the already stark partisan divide separating Americans into two warring camps that neither understands nor trusts one anoth...
(JNS) — New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has predictably described the results of Israel’s Nov. 1 election in apocalyptic terms. Of course, any government that does not share his views is anathema. The same goes for many other critics. The doomsayers predicting the demise of U.S.-Israel relations are crying wolf. Israel demonstrated again that it has a super-democracy that Americans and Jews should be proud of. Instead of being limited to choosing between two parties, Israelis had a choice of 40, giving them a better opportunity to be...
(JNS) — The elections that have just taken place in Israel and the United States each boiled down to a contest between dragons and dragon-slayers. The difference is this: Israeli Jews mostly recognize who are the dragons and who are their slayers. American Jews mostly can’t work out which is which. In Israel, the dragons are the Palestinians, who want to kill Israeli Jews and steal their land, as well as the Islamic revolutionary leaders of Iran, who want to kill Israeli Jews and destroy their land. In last week’s election, the Israeli publi...
(JNS) — New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is distraught. Nothing could be worse, he appears to think, than Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent reelection as Israel’s prime minister. Netanyahu’s new governing coalition, Friedman warns, will comprise “a rowdy alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and ultranationalist politicians, including some outright racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists.” This “previously unthinkable reality,” Friedman asserts, raises “a fundamental question” that will “roil synagogues in America and across the globe.” The congrega...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — Very little media attention has been given to the fact that President Joe Biden has brought the U.S. back into the U.N. Human Rights Council, arguably the most antisemitic institution on the planet. Its latest outrage is a Commission of Inquiry that is so blatantly racist it can best be described as something akin to the Spanish Inquisition. For most of the U.N.’s existence, one could be excused for forgetting that it emerged in 1945 out of the ashes of the Holocaust. Indeed, over the decades, collusion between the...
(JNS) — The Change.org petition calling on Adidas to cancel its partnership with Kanye West (aka “Ye”) flooded my inbox and social media feeds a few days ago. Many of my Jewish friends, outraged by Ye’s recent anti-Semitic comments, were rightly upset and wanted to do something. But they shouldn’t have done this. Summoning corporate America to punish those with disfavored views is a dangerous idea, especially for Jews. It leads to bans on ice cream sales on the “bad” side of Israel’s “Green Line” and the cancellation of Zionist and conserv...
(JNS) — A picture may be worth a thousand words, but what happens when that picture contradicts the very article it accompanies? That’s what the editors at The New York Times should be asking themselves in regard to their Oct. 26 article concerning Israel’s recent counterterrorist operations. Times correspondent Isabel Kershner reported that the IDF has targeted “the Nablus-based militia known as the Lions’ Den, which emerged this year.” Well-organized, heavily armed terrorist groups do not suddenly “emerge.” Moreover, the Palestinian Aut...
(JNS) — Kanye West’s descent into antisemitic hysteria has been a clarifying moment for American Jews. We have found out who our friends are from their reaction or non-reaction to Kanye’s appalling statements. Unfortunately, not enough conservative and Republican leaders have spoken out. The Daily Wire’s Candace Owens’s incoherent defense of Kanye, who is a friend of hers, was disappointing. Hopefully she will reconsider and put some distance between herself and Kanye. Much worse, however, is the case of Jason Whitlock. A black Christian...
(JNS) — It was a bad joke that flyers used to announce an anti-Israel conference entitled “Jerusalem Is Ours”—featuring Italian Senator Tino Magni—included photos of various Palestinian activists, some of whom are tied to the terrorist group Hamas. Other left-wing Italian politicos were featured, as well as Mohammad Hannoun, a staunch friend of Hamas, who not only organized the conference, but has been hosted in the Italian Chamber of Deputies by some of those same leftist politicians. All involved in the conference, of course, are convinced...
(JNS) — Countless people across the world have publicly condemned Kanye West’s anti-Semitic tirades in recent weeks, including his threat to go “Death Con 3 on Jewish People’’ and his statements blaming the “Jewish media” for various personal grievances. If the latter smear sounds familiar, that’s because it was recently used by Miloon Kothari, a member of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry (CoI) targeting Israel, who claimed over the summer that “the Jewish lobby” controls social media. In its recently released report on Israel’s...
