Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Following a recent anti-Israel/antisemitic rally of blustering, keffiyeh-brandishing, placard-hoisting men and women outside a prominent synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan while an aliyah-supporting conference was taking place inside, New York City’s next mayor, Zohran Mamdani, according to his press secretary, “discouraged the language” — including shouted obscenities, and “Death to the IDF” — used by the protestors, who were brought together by the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation. Mamdani, his aide said, “believes every New Yor...
Recently, CNN labeled a leader of the Hamas terrorist organization “a senior official.” This begs the question: When is a terrorist not a terrorist according to mainstream media? Far too often, news outlets like CNN apply titles and adjectives to terrorists or mention their profession as if these are the things that matter, rather than the fact that they belong to a group pledged to commit murder. This proclivity is not abstract or theoretical. It plays out in real time, in real headlines, from some of the most influential news organizations in...
I daily carry a Star of David metal keychain on my person made from a Qassam rocket. That rocket was once fired into Israel by Hamas. A piece of metal from a Qassam rocket artistically transformed into a Star of David keychain. No nation knows how to make lemonade out of lemons better than Israel! Hamas has been in the business of making and firing Qassam rockets into Israel for a quarter of a century. These deadly one-stage rockets are manufactured in underground factories, and in makeshift shops and garages. The Qassams are not particularly a...
One of my earliest memories is standing in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem at age 11, hearing how European Jews once believed that catastrophe could never touch them. They were successful, cultured, integrated—convinced that prosperity was protection. For me, the grandson of Holocaust survivors who lost more than 70 family members, that lesson was never theoretical. I grew up in a home shaped by my mother, Penina Waga, born in a Polish Displaced Persons camp before immigrating to Israel, who taught not only what the Nazis did, but what Jews did and d...
(JNS) — For too many naive, ultra-liberal European elitists who have clung to the belief that Muslim minorities would assimilate and integrate into their cultural and social fabric, a colossal surprise awaits them. They have ignored the undisguised Muslim Brotherhood motto that clearly states: “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our constitution, Jihad is our way, dying is our highest hope.” European Jewish minorities relished the opportunity to integrate into European life at the beginning of the 19th century. They...
As a Jewish man, our tradition is that my job is to teach my children how to swim and a profession. We can explore what that means on a deeper rabbinic level, but simply to give my children the skills that they will be able to protect themselves from danger, and live and be productive self-sufficient members of society. Reading reports of the father-son duo, Sajid Akram, 50, and Naveed Akram, 24, who perpetrated the antisemitic murder in Sydney, Australia on the first day of Chanukah, I was shocked to think that either the father had the evil...
(JNS) — To describe the state of American Jewry after the warm spring of the 1950s through the early 1970s is akin to watching a shriveled brown leaf fluttering aimlessly in the wind in the midst of a cold and bitter winter. At mid-century, the images of the Holocaust were still seared into the consciousness of the American public. Today, young students and even congressional staffers I meet on Capitol Hill dismiss it as “ancient history.” The moral memory that once anchored U.S. society has been steadily eroding. A major turning point came...
(JNS) — Every time antisemitism spikes abroad — constantly, these days — certain Israeli pundits, politicians and members of the public leap to the same ostensibly comforting conclusion: that it will finally spur Diaspora Jews to “come home.” The reference is to well-off Westerners, not members of the tribe escaping poverty and persecution at the hands of hostile regimes. The latter is and has always been a given. Anyone imagining that the former is about to follow suit is engaged in fantasy. Nevertheless, Israel’s Aliyah and Integration...
(JNS) — We live in strange times. Diaspora Jews in the West are wondering whether they should immigrate to Israel, while a growing number of Israelis insist they would like to leave. It is a fascinating juxtaposition that reveals Israelis do not grasp the extent to which Jew-hatred has been renormalized in the West, nor do they fully appreciate that Israel has a very bright future. It’s hardly surprising that many Israelis are dissatisfied. They are emerging from two years of incessant war, a prolonged hostage crisis, rolling terror attacks, co...
(JNS) — A recent article in The Jerusalem Post by Cookie Schwaeber-Issan (“Don’t ask, don’t tell’ aliyah,” Nov. 18) makes the uncomfortably true statement that “there is an unacceptable and antagonistic attitude present in Israel’s Interior Ministry [and the office of the Chief Rabbinate] who are discriminating against Jews who are not connected to the faith or even their community.” While the writer astutely points out that this is occurring “at a time when we are witnessing the worst wave of global antisemitism since the Holocaust, even aff...
(JNS) — Call it was it was. The attack on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, at the start of the eight-day holiday of Chanukah was not random. It was not a “disturbance.” It was not an isolated violent incident untethered from global events. It was not an unfortunate individual suffering from mental illness. It was a terrorist attack, carried out against Jews, on a Jewish holiday, in a moment deliberately chosen for its symbolism. Jews everywhere understood that immediately—because we always do. On the very first day of the “Festival of Lights...
(JNS) — How long have we been the “wandering Jews?” I imagine ever since Abraham, the very first Jew. His travels and travails are recounted in the Bible for all to see and our sages taught that the lives of our patriarchs and matriarchs would be a harbinger of the destiny of their descendants for generations to come. And the wandering Jew has also been the wondering Jew. We’ve been forever wondering about who we are and how we fit in with the countries we’ve migrated to over the centuries. I imagine it’s been one of the ongoing dilemmas of...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The scenes that everyone of us see throughout Europe cannot be obscured. From London through Paris. From Amsterdam through Brussels. The classic symbols of Western European capitals have undergone significant changes in the first two decades of the 21st century. A phenomenon that began mainly in the ’90s of the previous century has been changing in recent years, not only the appearance of streets and neighborhoods, but also the face of politics in Western Europe and, recently, in the U.S. Two years after the most bru...
(JNS) — Judaism is all about bringing light into the world — affecting and improving it through positive acts, awareness, kindness and compassion. This mission is especially meaningful during the darkest of times and in the darkest of places, when light is not just comforting but transformative. The notion that each person can contribute to the illumination of the world is central to Jewish thought and practice, and it is this principle that Chanukah, the “Festival of Lights,” so beautifully exemplifies. In the Jewish month of Kislev comes t...
(JNS) — Whether on Broadway or in City Hall, theatrics are a fixture of New York City life. But no performance — whether in Times Square or Lower Manhattan — rivals mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s outrageous campaign-trail promise and post-election reaffirmation that he would seek to enforce an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot in the city. The significance of Mamdani’s pledge lies not merely in its impossibility or illegality, but in what the promise and its later “cl...
You can be forgiven for thinking that the war is over in Israel and peace has broken out. Since President Trump’s October ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, countless reports and headlines have presented this as a peace deal. Barring reports of daily conflict in Gaza or the return of the bodies of the remaining hostage in captivity for 26 months, “quiet” can be misperceived as peace. But the truth could not be more opposite. There are abundant examples. One recent one hit home personally. This week there was another terrorist attac...
(JNS) — I trust that Sabine Baring-Gould, an Anglican priest and scholar, will forgive me filching my title from his 1865 hymn. As it is based on a New Testament reference, II Timothy 2:3, whose theme is shared suffering, I thought it appropriate. Indeed, a few verses further in that chapter, we read, “the word of God cannot be chained!” and that harmonizes with the essential shared message of both Jewish and Christian Zionism. The support for Zionism is under a renewed attack of opposition and invalidation. One stream of vitriol, of cours...
Several years ago, I went through a long, nearly immobilizing depression. At some point during that time, I made a playlist I called “Morning,” with the hope that it would help propel me out of bed and into my day. The playlist was made up of contemporary music anchored in traditional Jewish morning liturgy. Each track contained a mantra of ancient verses that poignantly captured essential sentiments — gratitude, desperation, yearning, connection — and wordless melodies that articulated striving, divinity and even joy. Traditional prayer...
On Wednesday night, a mob of Muslims and radical leftists assaulted a synagogue in Manhattan. Much as in the past, the police allowed the mob to blockade the synagogue and terrorize the Jews in and around it with no response. The pro-terrorist mob chanted calls for death and globalizing the ‘intifada’ of Islamic terrorism. Taunts were shouted at local Jewish community members. As well as an explicit call for violence” “Take another settler out”. The pretext for the attack on the Park East Synagogue was that ‘Nefesh b’Nefesh’ (Soul to Soul)...
Chanukah, a holiday of eight days duration beginning on the evening of December 14, 2025, commemorates, according to Jewish tradition, the miracle of finding a small jar of kosher oil in the defiled Holy Temple in Jerusalem to reignite and rededicate the eternal flame of the Temple Menorah. The small jar of oil was sufficient to light the menorah for only one day, but it burned brightly for eight days until a new supply of consecrated oil could be secured; thus the holiday became known as the “Festival of Lights.” The “Festival of Light...
(JNS) — My son led Birkat Hamazon, the blessing after a meal, for the first time this summer at the Conservative movement’s Ramah summer camp in Wisconsin. This was a breakthrough—and not because 10 years ago, when he was 15 and knee-deep into Nietzsche, Nathaniel was an adamant atheist. The camp’s Atzmayim vocational program has guided Nathaniel, who is on the autism spectrum, into a role of public leadership. (Atzmayim is Hebrew for “independent.”) The program is an extension of Ramah’s storied Tikvah inclusion program. It pairs neurodi...
Almost 50 years ago the movie “Network” (1976) was released. The film is best known for the anchorman rant scene that features Howard Beale’s: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!” But it is also known for another dramatic scene, a five-minute oratory by a man named Arthur Jensen (chairman of the conglomerate that owns the network) who convinces the same Howard Beale “the world is a business.” That concept was introduced to Beale because he had earlier caused a hysteria among the American public that was responsible f...
(JNS) — A strange thing happened in the middle of the night on Monday: the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved one of the most acrobatic, contradictory resolutions in its long history. It envisions an International Stabilization Force marching into Gaza to rebuild “civil order,” control the borders, dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure and—almost as an afterthought—lay down “a path toward a Palestinian state.” As always, the conditions are buried in diplomatic language. First, Hamas must complete the handover of the...
Here is an amazing set of iconic and ironic events! Israel essentially defeats its Muslim enemies on seven military fronts after the unprovoked barbaric attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. The Israeli Mossad obliterates 90 percent of Hezbollah leadership by distributing pagers to its upper echelon which simultaneously explode in their hands, killing and maiming thousands and humiliating the survivors. The Israeli Air Force decimates Iran’s air defenses and missile launches allowing American B-2 bombers to invade Iranian airspace unhindered to deliver BGU-...
(JNS) — I’ve often wondered what we can learn from the stories of ancient Jewish communities that have for years been besieged by cultural prejudice. How did they survive for centuries, in some cases, for millennia? What can we learn from their resilience? And, most importantly, how did they maintain a sense of community in the face of antisemitism? What customs and traditions helped them build that strength in times of difficulty? This November, one such community, the Beta Israel, will gather at the Armon Hanatziv Promenade above Jer...
