Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 14 of 14
(JNS) — An Islamist insurgency in Mali may destroy the country’s Christian communities. Recently, Islamic militants there told Christians that they must support the militants’ activities through money or soldiers—or flee their homes. In August, the organization Open Doors, an organization that monitors Christian persecution on a global scale reported that: Christians in central Mali have been given an ultimatum by terrorists, either help in their fight against the country’s military power or leave their homes and communities. Pastors in the Mo...
(JNS) — Few Jews still believe that the Jewish establishment has done a good job defending and protecting the community from the rhetorical onslaught against Israel that has morphed into a full-on assault against American Jewry. From the start, the “establishment” — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federation system, the Jewish Community Relations Councils and many rabbis—failed to understand that the obsessive, intense, continuous “criticism of Israeli policies” that appeared almost daily in the media was...
(JNS) — Since the Oct. 7 massacre, American Jews have experienced attacks that are now burned into our souls: On dozens of campuses and nearby streets, Jews have been screamed at, attacked, hectored, threatened and bullied — and did not fight back. These images are humiliating, and all the more so because our historical experience has taught us that not responding with force has consequences: The easier Jews are to bully, the more we are attacked. The bleating of the sheep excites the tiger. Our exclusively non-violent reaction to the current w...
(JNS) — In response to public outrage over the pervasive, systemic, years-long scandal of antisemitism at CUNY, the university formed its inaugural Advisory Council on Jewish Life. At first, Chancellor Matos Rodríguez refused the demands of Jewish faculty and student victims at CUNY to be represented on the council, stating, “… [T]he advisory council on Jewish life will be comprised of Jewish leaders in New York who are external to the university” [emphasis added]. But in late May or early June of 2023, secretly and behind the scenes, Rodrígue...
(JNS) —Jewish life in America is under assault. Ideological and political campaigns that defame and demonize Jews are now fashionable in the media, academia and too many Christian and Muslim religious institutions. This demonization naturally incites physical violence, as it has throughout history. The simplistic and short-term response is, of course, increased physical security — armed guards at Jewish venues and events. Wise leadership would recognize that we cannot provide physical security for every Jew and that unless we deal with the root...
On Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in a premeditated attack, two shooters opened fire inside a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey, and murdered four people. The killers included a former member of a notoriously anti-Semitic group and, reportedly, a follower of Louis Farrakhan. It’s becoming obvious to most Jews that we are living in a state of siege. Practically every Jewish institution in America now needs significant security. College campuses have become hostile territory for Jewish students. Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jerse...
(JNS) — Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is now the most popular and dangerous anti-Semite in America. Neo-Nazis and white supremacists are surely a problem for Jews, but polite society rejects them. Their best effort to date — a “national rally” in Charlottesville, Va. — drew a few hundred people, whereas Farrakhan’s rants excite adoring crowds many times that size. His online influence is growing. Unlike alt-right rallies, a Farrakhan event will never be shut down by toughs throwing fists. Unlike the white anti-Semites, Farrakhan has op...
On Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in a premeditated attack, two shooters opened fire inside a kosher deli in Jersey City, New Jersey, and murdered four people. The killers included a former member of a notoriously anti-Semitic group and, reportedly, a follower of Louis Farrakhan. It’s becoming obvious to most Jews that we are living in a state of siege. Practically every Jewish institution in America now needs significant security. College campuses have become hostile territory for Jewish students. Jews are murdered in Pittsburgh, San Diego, and Jerse...
(JNS)—The Israel-bashing problem so prevalent on North American college campuses has now reached into high schools. Under the guise of teaching history, social studies, conflict resolution or “peace studies,” curriculum mills hostile to the Jewish state are spreading anti-Israel “lessons” throughout the nation’s public high schools. The biased curricula are designed to be easy to use with formats familiar to teachers, many of whom, we now know, have themselves imbibed anti-Israel lessons in the politicized education departments of American un...
When it comes to Jews and Israel, the Boston Globe has a habit of inverting reality in the nastiest ways imaginable. Decades ago, the Globe reported on a Palestinian who had been arrested after the bomb he was making blew up and blinded him. The Globe headline? “Israelis Arrest Blind Palestinian.” Really. For years on the holiest Jewish day of Yom Kippur, when Jews repent for their personal sins, the Globe published op-eds by an anti-Israel Jewish activist who hectored Boston’s Jews to repent for “oppressing” the Palestinians. And then ther...
Where is the Anti-Defamation League? As a “new anti-Semitism” casts the Jewish state as the cruelest of nations, and her Jewish supporters as “racists,” the ADL has been largely silent. The lies are spread in newspapers, churches and college classrooms. On campuses, Jewish students are harassed and intimidated. Even the curricula in many public high schools and middle schools is biased against Israel. Yet the ADL, once the Jewish people’s defense agency, seems unable or unwilling to effectively fight back. Case in point: Linda Sarsour,...
The recent announcement of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran has sparked deep concern and even outrage in the Jewish community. In an almost unprecedented moment for American Jewry, the majority of prominent Jewish organizations have lined up in order to combat this deal. This includes AIPAC, the ADL, and various Jewish Federation chapters, including those in Boston and Miami. This historic display of Jewish unity comes because of a clear belief that Israel and the Jewish people have been placed in a life-threatening situation. But the J Street...
The White House’s announcement of its conference on “Countering Violent Extremism” names Boston as one of the pilot cities where law enforcement officials have developed partnerships with Muslim community leaders. Unfortunately, to counter “violent extremism,” federal agencies are working with the Islamic Society of Boston and its political arm, the Muslim American Society. Charles Jacobs, Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) recently said: “On Feb. 18, 2015, President Obama’s project to “combat violent extremism,” is to be showcased in a...
Imam Suhaib Webb was a happy man last Wednesday. The radical Islamist leader of Boston’s Saudi- funded mega mosque boasted that his Muslim community persuaded Brandeis University President Fred Lawrence to withdraw a Brandeis honorary degree from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the courageous, Somalia-born humanrights activist who fled—and who campaigns against—the horrors radical Islam inflicts on women. Webb blasted out thanks to his tens of thousands of social media followers, to the Brandeis Muslim Student Alliance and to Brandeis Professor of Islam...
