Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — About 20 pro-Israel activists gathered last month for a dinner meeting in suburban Washington, D.C. A veteran Democratic congressman was our guest speaker. Though his district contains comparatively few Jews and not Jewish himself, he has been for decades a staunch supporter of close U.S.-Israel ties, backed the Soviet Jewry movement and promoted other issues dear to most Jewish voters. The representative expressed qualified optimism about November’s midterm elections. Though much can change, he said he expects the Democrats “to net a...
(JNS) — In his typically acerbic style of dry humor, comedian-pundit Bill Maher marked the 78th anniversary of Israel’s Declaration of Independence with a hard-hitting monologue that promptly went viral. During the closing segment of the May 15 episode of his eponymous HBO show “Real Time,” Maher stated that “everyone must either wish [the Jewish state] a happy birthday or admit they’re antisemitic.” He didn’t mention that Zohran Mamdani—who openly mourned the nakba, the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948—perfectly fits the...
(JNS) — Forty-seven years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran vowed “Marg bar Amrika!,” “Death to America!” That declaration of war was followed by multiple acts of war from the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran to the orchestration of two bombings of Americans in Beirut in 1983 to the arming of Shia militias who killed more than 600 Americans in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 to numerous assassination and kidnapping plots. American attempts to end the war diplomatically failed. Five presidents vowed that Iran’s rulers would never be permitte...
In a May 10 interview on “60 Minutes,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained bitterly about social media: “We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost—I would say, it correlates almost 100 percent with the geometric rise of social media.” A key function of this trend is the way critics of Israel use—and often misuse—celebrities. Let’s look at one example. Last month, memes began appearing all over social media with a quote from actor Richard Gere: “There’s no defense of this occupation....
(JNS) — The violent anti-Israel demonstration in Brooklyn last week took place practically in my own backyard. I live in the Midwood section of the borough, where a 400-plus police presence was necessary to protect Jews at the Young Israel of Midwood from masked antisemitic demonstrators wearing keffiyehs, waving Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, and yelling antisemitic slurs. The protesters were out in force to scare people away from the synagogue, which hosted an event promoting real estate in Israel. The front of the synagogue looked like a c...
(JNS) — The question of how a democratic society balances free expression with public safety becomes especially urgent when protests begin to escalate. The landmark National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie case (1977) is often cited as a defining moment in which the United States reaffirmed its commitment to protecting even deeply offensive speech. The concern behind that protection was that the government should not be trusted to decide too easily which movements are legitimate and which are hateful. For that reason, the law g...
(JNS) — The veteran British broadcaster Trevor Phillips began a recent Sunday-morning program by telling his audience that he had been distressed to learn of a conversation that is increasingly common around Shabbat dinner tables in the United Kingdom. The question being asked is: Who among our non-Jewish neighbors would try to rescue us should we find ourselves being rounded up for the second time in less than a century? I thought of Phillips’s monologue last Tuesday, when I attended the funeral in Manhattan of my former boss, the leg...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s new counterterrorism strategy is now public, and its stated objective is exactly the right one: to protect Americans from terrorist groups and deter the support they receive from enemy actors. The strategy promises “peace through strength.” It repeats the president’s warning that those who hurt Americans or plan to hurt Americans will be found and killed. That is a powerful standard. But it will be measured not by words aimed at enemies alone, nor by how aggressively Washington names threats. It will be mea...
(JNS) — From May 21 sundown until May 23 sunset, Jews around the world observed the holiday of Shavuot. Arguably it is the most important of all Jewish holidays because it commemorates God giving, and Jews receiving, the Torah. Indeed, one of its names is z’man matan Torateynu—“the time of the giving of our Torah.” And of course, without the Torah, there would be no Judaism and (again, arguably) no Jewish people. Those who were in synagogue for the holiday read and heard Exodus 19 and 20, the traditional Torah selection for this holiday. Exodus...
(JNS) — Every year around Shavuot, people start talking about cheesecake, all-night learning and staying awake until sunrise. And honestly, I love all of it. There is something powerful about walking into a synagogue late at night and seeing Jews still learning Torah together. In a world that moves so fast, there is something beautiful about traditions that have lasted thousands of years. But this year, I keep thinking about a more foundational part of Shavuot. I keep thinking about Mount Sinai. Not just as a moment when the Torah was given, b...
With the rising tide of antisemitism around the world, coming together as Jews is more important than ever. Our strength in numbers provides intellectual, financial, and emotional stability — something a divided community cannot sustain. Our future, in many ways, depends on it. This is not a discussion about Israel, which faces its own complex challenges. This article focuses specifically on Jews living in the diaspora — particularly here in the United States. Divisiveness within our community is strategically beneficial to our enemies. On Jun...
(JNS) — Efrat is located in the area known as Gush Etzion in Israel. Before 1948, the residents of the Gush were Jews residing in four thriving kibbutzim, known as Kfar Etzion, Massu’ot Yitzhak, Ein Tzurim and Revadim. The land in the Gush was legally purchased. Much of it was purchased by Jewish individuals or organizations decades before the 1948 War of Independence. Following the U.N. Partition Plan, the Gush was besieged by the Jordanian army and other Arab forces. On May 13, 1948, Kfar Etzion was invaded by the Jordanian army, and it fel...
(JNS) — It has always been a mistake for politicians and pundits to underestimate the basic moderation of the American people. Whenever either major party goes too far to the right or the left, the rule has always been that they are soon punished for it by the electorate. But Democrats who are cheering the prospect of extremists like Graham Platner and Abdul El-Sayed to represent their party in the U.S. Senate in contests in Maine and Michigan seem to be ignoring that lesson. If there is any real constant in the ever-changing American e...
(JNS) — The fear is palpable. Every week brings new horrors. Every conversation is dominated by one topic. British Jews are struggling to come to terms with what is happening on our streets, outside our synagogues and in the public discourse. One thing we are not, however, is surprised. We have all watched as events have unfolded across recent years to bring us to this position, even if most of us never believed it would become this serious. The massive surge in antisemitism in Britain has, in the past few weeks, exploded onto the streets w...
(JNS) — After the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, the world should have responded with moral clarity. Thousands of Hamas operatives and even ordinary Palestinians from Gaza carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust; families slaughtered, children burned, civilians hunted and kidnapped. Instead, across the West, we saw something else: justification, celebration and the rapid return of one of history’s most dangerous lies. That Jews cannot be trusted. Today, it hides behind fashionable language: “Zionist,” “coloni...
(JNS) — Most people in America are against the war with Iran, as they are in Britain, too. Very few, however, actually understand why this war is as necessary as it is unavoidably complex. Few seem aware that Iran has been actively at war against America for the past 47 years. Few seem to grasp that Iran’s fanatical Islamic regime has killed hundreds of U.S. servicemen, perpetrated numerous attacks on U.S. bases, committed countless terrorist atrocities and taken Americans hostage. Few grasp that U.S. and Israeli intelligence had discovered tha...
(JNS) — Antisemitism today is like an atomic bomb: anything can happen if institutions fail to take it in hand and act quickly, so that no one feels authorized to deal with it on their own. This is a very delicate moment. All countries and states in Europe and across the world must act against antisemitism; otherwise, the consequences will be disastrous. The young Jewish man who fired an air gun during an April 25 Liberation Day rally in Rome, targeting two representatives of the National Association of Italian Partisans, acted with a...
Dear Editor: For Jews, there is always a sense of that impending danger even during the last few decades when we have risen to positions of leadership and power here in the U.S. and abroad. There were other times in modern history where Jews were well integrated professionally, economically and sometimes politically yet later faced persecution — Jews during the Golden Age in Spain, Jews in 19th century France, Jews in the Ottoman Empire and, of course, Jews in modern Germany and Poland. It would be histrionic, paranoid and hyperbolic to say t...
(JNS) — When U.S. President Donald Trump sent Vice President JD Vance to negotiate with members of the Iranian regime in Islamabad, people initially thought that Vance—reportedly the most outspoken voice in the Trump administration against going to war with Iran—would be a soft touch. When the talks in Pakistan broke down, however, Vance’s position could hardly have been tougher. Having seen the Iranian regime up close, he said, he was absolutely certain that these people must never be allowed to get nuclear weapons. In recent days, he has agai...
(JNS) — This headline from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation last week was typical: “Trump announces Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, but major disputes remain.” That framing misses a basic truth: Ceasefires don’t resolve conflicts. Though they can lead to productive negotiations, they are more often used by both sides to prepare for the kinetic battles that lie ahead. Even ones that hold don’t necessarily produce good outcomes. The most obvious example: More than seven decades after the 1953 Korean armistice, the United States remains in a froz...
(JNS) — Ze’ev Jabotinsky wrote in 1923 that the Jew is a prince, regardless of circumstances—that Jewish dignity does not depend on the world’s recognition and that Jewish sovereignty does not require the world’s permission. A century later, the State of Israel proves his point. In January 1948, with independence weeks away and war with five Arab armies inevitable, Israeli founding father (and several months later, its first prime minister) David Ben-Gurion sent Golda Meir (who eventually went on to become prime minister herself) to the Unite...
(JNS) — Tehran’s strategy is not to win but to last. For decades, it has managed pressure by extending timelines, calibrating escalation and avoiding decisive outcomes. The question now is whether that strategy—strategic delay—has reached its limits. For years, policymakers treated time as neutral, something to be managed, extended or deferred. That assumption is increasingly untenable. Time is not neutral. It is a forcing mechanism, not a refuge. In the biblical tradition, time was never meant to be indefinite. It was a mechanism for correct...
(JNS) — A Jewish college student sits in a lecture hall while her professor describes Israel as a colonial project. She’s not sure he’s right, but she doesn’t have the knowledge or courage to push back. She stays quiet. After class, she scrolls through Instagram, where the algorithm serves her a steady diet of the same narrative. By winter break, she’s stopped going to Hillel. By spring, she tells her parents she doesn’t feel connected to Israel anymore. She’s not angry. She’s just gone. This is not a hypothetical. This is the pattern Brandeis...
A simple “thank you” for a simple act the other day bothered me. Early one recent Friday morning, on a warm spring day, I decided, during a round of errands in my New York City neighborhood, to buy a few items for Shabbat at a small kosher grocery store a few blocks from my apartment building. As I entered the glass door at front of the store, I could see a small crowd of shoppers already in line, getting their necessities for their Shabbos meals. Someone coming in my direction also caught my eye — a young frum woman, tichel upon her head,...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of a 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon has created at least a temporary pause in hostilities, opening a potential diplomatic window while underscoring the deeper regional confrontation involving Iran and its proxies. According to reports, Trump personally intervened with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, helping bring both sides to accept a cessation of hostilities despite earlier reluctance in Beirut to engage directly with Jerusalem. The...
