Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — On a visit to Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged American support for the country as it ramps up its war on Hamas and other terror groups in Gaza. Israel is reportedly preparing for a ground invasion of Gaza, its first in nearly a decade, five days after hundreds of Hamas terrorists stormed Israeli towns and killed more than 1,300 people, wounding thousands and taking more than 100 captive. Israel has formed an emergency unity government to carry out the war, which will be led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin N...
(JTA) — For almost nine months, Israelis have been fighting over the future of their Supreme Court. Today, that battle has moved into the Supreme Court itself. In July, Israel’s hardline right-wing governing coalition passed a law to weaken the court. Opponents of the law then filed legal challenges against it. That put the court in the uncomfortable, and unprecedented, position of ruling on itself: It can decide to uphold the law, strike it down, or send it back to parliament to be amended. When Israelis on both sides of the debate warned tha...
(JTA) — Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush has been fired and has fled to Turkey following a meeting last week with Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen. Libya and Israel do not have diplomatic relations, and when he first announced the meeting on Sunday, Cohen hailed it as another breakthrough in Israel’s growing ties with its neighbors. Israel normalized relations with several Arab countries in 2020 under the framework of the Abraham Accords, and is now publicly exploring an agreement with Saudi Arabia. The Israel-Libya meeting, which...
(JTA) — Days after Elon Musk threatened to sue the Anti-Defamation League for billions of dollars and amplified a hashtag spread by white supremacists, the ADL’s CEO, Jonathan Greenblatt, praised Musk’s business acumen but called his behavior “frustrating” and said he was spreading “age-old tropes” around blaming Jews for antisemitism. “I’ve always tried to treat Elon and everyone at the company with respect and forthright manner and a constructive approach. I would do that again,” Greenblatt told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The truth is th...
(JTA) — Six decades ago, shortly before Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Rabbi Joachim Prinz called for racial equality in an address that began with the words, “I speak to you as an American Jew.” Last Saturday, about a dozen Jews were in the lineup of more than 100 speakers who returned to the memorial’s marble steps for what was billed as a continuation of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on its 60th anniversary. Alongside the anniversary march, whic...
(New York Jewish Week) — On his first trip to Israel as mayor, Eric Adams made all of the expected stops — meeting with the prime minister and president, visiting the Western Wall and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, sampling from the offerings of the country’s tech scene. But he added another, less traditional agenda item: a meeting with two organizers of the ongoing mass protest movement against the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul. The 40-minute meeting, which took place Tuesday at the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem, made Adams o...
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s government has passed a law restricting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down laws, the first piece of a proposed overhaul of the country’s judiciary that has led to massive street protests and a growing movement of civil disobedience. The vote, which was boycotted by the opposition in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed 64-0 and is a landmark moment in a conflict that has consumed Israel since the beginning of the year and drawn the attention and criticism of world leaders and a range of Diaspora Jewish or...
TEL AVIV (JTA) —Israel’s parliament voted on a measure that, advocates on both sides say, will determine the country’s fate — or whether it can even survive. It isn’t a peace deal or an attempt to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What it will do, if passed, is bar the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions it deems “unreasonable.” Behind that somewhat technical language is a struggle over Israel’s soul. It’s an escalating fight that has seen the largest, most sustained protest movement in Israel’s history....
TEL AVIV (JTA) — President Joe Biden has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet in the United States soon, after months of holding off on inviting him to the White House. The invitation was extended and accepted during a phone call between the two leaders on July 17. Israeli prime ministers typically receive an invitation to Washington shortly after taking office, but Biden, who has known Netanyahu for decades, has so far held off on inviting him to the capital. This invitation may not exactly end the wait: According to r...
(JTA) — The BBC has apologized for an on-air interview in which one of its anchors told former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that “Israeli forces are happy to kill children.” The journalist, Anjana Gadgil, was interviewing Bennett on Tuesday about the Israel Defense Forces’ incursion this week into the Palestinian city of Jenin. Twelve Palestinians, including a number of children, and one Israeli were killed in the operation, which lasted two days. Israel conducted the operation to root out terror cells in the city and maintai...
(JTA) — A survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that significant portions of people in 10 European countries believe a range of antisemitic stereotypes, including more than one in three people in Poland and Hungary. The ADL measures antisemitic attitudes across a range of countries by asking respondents if they believe a set of 11 stereotypes about Jews, ranging from “Jews have too much power in the business world” to “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.” This survey, taken from November to January, polled more than 6,500...
As of Monday, May 15, this was the status of the onslaught by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza against Israel. Let's hope it holds as Heritage goes to press. (JTA) - Fighting between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza ended after five days, as a ceasefire took effect and appeared to hold late Saturday night. Over the course of the fighting, 33 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including civilians and combatants. Two civilians were killed in Israel - a woman in the central Israeli...
TEL AVIV (JTA) - In an unusual politicization of Israel's Memorial Day on Tuesday, several senior Israeli government officials faced protests at ceremonies commemorating fallen soldiers. The tensions unfolded as an Israeli was wounded in a shooting in the West Bank, and after five people were wounded in a car ramming Monday at Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market. The observances of the day, which is treated with solemnity and reverence in Israel, came days before the government intends to resume...
(JTA) — Nikki Fried, who chairs Florida’s Democratic Party, was arrested at a protest for abortion rights in the state capital, along with 10 other demonstrators. The protest on April 3, which took place outside Tallahassee City Hall, was in opposition to a proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida that the state senate passed Monday evening. The bill must pass the state House of Representatives before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fried, who is Jewish, previously served as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, a rare De...
(JTA) - A new FBI report found that anti-Jewish incidents increased nearly 20% in 2021 relative to 2020, but decreased relative to prior years. The updated FBI statistics released Monday counted 817 anti-Jewish criminal offenses reported by local law enforcement agencies in 2021, up from 683 in 2020 - a year when people largely stayed off the streets for a substantial period due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 numbers, however, represent a 15% decline from 2019, when the FBI reported 963...
If it feels like there’s an overload of news out of Israel — a sea of flags at a Jerusalem protest, police sirens outside of a synagogue — that’s because there is. Israel has been consumed by two escalating crises that both appear to be crescendoing at the same time. And even though they feel separate, they’re intertwined in at least one big way. Allow us to explain: Israel is simultaneously contending with two things: a wave of Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli military raids in the West Bank, and massive protests of a government plan to...
\(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Almost exactly 18 months ago, as the U.S. settled into its first pandemic summer, the Upper West Side’s flagship Jewish community center delivered some bad news to its staff: more than a third of them would be laid off or furloughed. The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan joined JCCs nationwide in cutting staff when in-person programming abruptly shut down that spring and summer. Facing the devastating wave of COVID that hit the city at the time, the JCC Manhattan found itself unable to offer the range of services...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Israel will set plans in motion to renovate the non-Orthodox prayer space at the Western Wall, an Israeli official said Tuesday in New York. The current Israeli government is expected to implement an agreement, shelved under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that would expand an area of the holy site where men and women could pray as they please. But speaking to journalists at the Israeli consulate in New York City, Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai said that before it formally implements the 2...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - Yuri Foreman's professional peak as a boxer arguably came 11 years ago, when he faced off against Miguel Cotto in a marquee boxing match at Yankee Stadium. The match, dubbed the "Stadium Slugfest," was a super welterweight title fight that had been promoted on huge posters at subway stops around the city. Foreman was a world champion who had won his belt the year prior. Cotto was one of the best boxers in the world, and won the fight by technical knockout in the...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Speaking to a group of college students, Rep. Jamaal Bowman expressed no regret about taking a recent trip to Israel and the West Bank with the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, despite intense backlash from his socialist allies. He did, however, have harsh words for Israel’s government. “I left less optimistic about a two-state solution because of the reality on the ground,” he said in the question-and-answer session Monday. “Of course, I still believe in it and working toward making it happen but I think the...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Marty Markowitz, the former borough president of Brooklyn, has never listened to the popular podcast called “The Shrink Next Door.” He’s only vaguely aware that it’s now a TV series with an A-list cast. He does know, however, that he and the main character share the exact same name. “‘The Shrink Next Door’?” he said when a reporter called Friday. After hearing a brief description of the story, he said, “The one with Marty Markowitz?” “Shrink,” which premieres on Friday on Apple TV+, is based on the true story o...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — In what was billed as her first speech to a Jewish audience as New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul vowed to fight hate crimes and criticized fellow Democrats over their positions on Israel. The speech, delivered virtually to the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York on Wednesday night, hit the usual notes sounded by Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, who resigned in August in the face of sexual misconduct allegations. Hochul pledged to fight antisemitism and help bolster security at Jewish institutions....
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - One of the first images of "The Shrink Next Door," the limited series premiering Friday on Apple TV+, is of a smiling man wearing a huge kippah, chatting at a party in the Hamptons. The party, viewers will later find out, is being held at the summer home of Marty Markowitz, a garment district merchant whose life becomes increasingly dominated by his psychiatrist, Isaac "Ike" Herschkopf. The series is based on a true story that was first told in a popular 2019...
(JTA) — The bestselling author Sally Rooney said she decided not to publish her latest novel with an Israeli publishing house because she supports a boycott of Israel, but added that a non-Israeli press could still publish the book in Hebrew. Rooney’s statement, made on Tuesday, confirms a report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month that Rooney declined to sell Hebrew publishing rights for her new book, “Beautiful World, Where Are You,” to Modan Publishing House, an Israeli press that published her first two novels in Hebrew. The Jewish...
NEW YORK (JTA) - The first thing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, facing a room full of the leaders of the American Jewish community: "I wish my mom were here." The son of American immigrants to Israel, Bennett, like his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks a fluent, nearly accentless English, and spent years living in the United States as both a child and an adult. But in other crucial ways, Bennett sounded different from Netanyahu in his first public address to American Jewish...
