Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Pro-Israel organizations in the U.S. are privately voicing their concerns that two Democratic members of Congress may have meddled in Israeli politics by recently calling on opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu to exclude a controversial, right-wing politician in his coalition should he win next month’s election. With just weeks to go until elections both in the U.S. and Israel, the private warning by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), followed by a public tweet with largely the same message by Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), departed from the c...
(JNS) — Jews around the world are reflecting on the consequential 70-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II following her death on Thursday and what she meant for the Jewish community. Shortly after the news was announced, Britain’s Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis released a video where he expressed condolences from the Jewish community throughout the Commonwealth. Mirvis said that the queen embodied “the most noble values of British society” and was a “rock of stability” in an ever-changing world, and that she had a warm relationship with the Jewish...
(JNS) — Two Biden administration nominees for top posts related to the Middle East came under fire for alleged anti-Israel bias by Senate Republicans in their confirmation hearing on Thursday. The hearing, held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, comes at a critical time as U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia next month while the United States is struggling to repair its frayed relationship with the Arab kingdom amid skyrocketing gas prices. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took issue with Tamara Cofman W...
(JNS) — Jewish organizations are responding with outrage over what they consider a flawed and biased report on the 2021 conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip after the report’s release by the U.N. Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry on Tuesday. The report blames the root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians on the “occupation of Palestinian territory and discrimination against Palestinians.” Other contributing factors identified by the report include forced displacem...
(JNS) - American Jewish organizations are divided in their reception of the new White House press secretary who has a history of taking anti-Israel positions. U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Karine Jean-Pierre, a Haitian American who currently serves as principal deputy press secretary, to be the first Black and LGBTQ person to hold the position. Jean-Pierre is slated to take over for outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday, though some Jewish organizations are pushing back...
(JNS) - Famed Jewish dissident, human-rights activist and former Knesset member Natan Sharansky provided his opinion on the situation in Ukraine on Tuesday, analyzing what could be Russian President Vladimir Putin's motivations for the invasion into Ukraine, as well as the moral obligation Israel and the West have to support Ukraine. In a Zoom session hosted by the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and moderated by JINSA president and CEO Mike Makovsky, Sharansky said that he...
(JNS) - Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), visiting Israel for the first time last month, said the experience was not only "eye-opening," but helped solidify his support for the Jewish state and understand the danger faced by the Israeli people from the threats of terrorist organizations and states on their borders. The freshman congressman, who is seeking re-election to New York's 2nd Congressional District, was one of dozens of members of Congress from both parties to travel to Israel in late...
(JNS) - The Ohio House Higher Education Committee heard testimony on Feb. 15 on a bill that would require colleges and universities in the state to provide accommodation for students when there are conflicts between class assignments, exams and religious observances. A number of Jewish organizations, including dozens of Hillels, Chabad Houses, historically Jewish fraternities, Jewish Federations and Jewish Community Relations Councils, are supporting the legislation. The bipartisan bill was...
(JNS) — In a video conversation with Jewish leaders and community members last week, White House liaison to the Jewish community Chanan Weissman spoke about the tense moments and actions he took last month when an armed assailant held four congregants hostage, including the rabbi, at Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, leading to a nearly 11-hour standoff with authorities. The moderator of the Feb. 7 event, Jeremy Burton, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, asked Weissman what i...
(JNS) — After the University of Southern California was included in the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Global Anti-Semitism 2021 Top Ten list, the school responded on Wednesday by condemning both anti-Semitism in all its forms and the threatening tweets by a student leader that led to the distinction. USC board of trustees Chairman Rick Caruso said that “the board of trustees together with [University] President [Carol] Folt unequivocally rejects antisemitism. We explicitly condemn and denounce tweets calling for the killing of Jews. This kind of ha...
(JNS) — Leaders of the Zionist Organization of America warned supporters to be vigilant against what they believe to be increasing anti-Israel positions from leaders, and the trend of encroaching tolerance for anti-Semitic rhetoric masked as anti-Zionism, during the organization’s annual gala on Sunday. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the gala was held as a webcast, highlighted by video addresses from leaders and activists in the ZOA, as well as politicians such as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Naf...
(JNS) - For a few days beginning Dec. 9, a high-rise beachfront resort became what many guests described as "little Tel Aviv" as thousands of Israeli Americans, Israelis and American Jews attended the Israeli-American Council's 2021 National Summit. For many of the 3,000 attendees, the conference is an annual destination where they reconnect with other Israelis living in the United States. Of the 3,000, 120 were attendees from Orlando and Tampa. Walking through the halls of the Diplomat Hotel...
(JNS) — The Council on American Islamic Relations is backing an organizational leader following a speech that national Jewish organizations are calling virulently antisemitic. During a speech at the American Muslims for Palestine’s 14th annual convention on Nov. 27, Zahra Billoo, the Pakistani-American director of CAIR California-San Francisco Bay Area, told the audience that “polite Zionist” organizations that support a two-state solution, condemn Islamophobia and promote interfaith cooperation, such as the Anti-Defamation League, Hillel...
(JNS) - Former longtime Kansas Republican senator, leader and 1996 GOP nominee for president Bob Dole died on Dec. 5 at the age of 98. Dole's death was announced by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation on Sunday morning, saying that Dole died in his sleep after it became known early this year that he had stage IV lung cancer. His passing was met with words of respect from a bipartisan swath of the Jewish community. Dole was the recipient of the Jewish Federations of North America's 2020 Lifetime...
(JNS) — Democratic consultant Aaron Keyak, 36, has been appointed to serve as U.S. Deputy Envoy to Monitor and Combat anti-Semitism after recently directing U.S. President Joe Biden’s Jewish outreach during the 2020 election campaign. As first reported in The Forward, Keyak’s role will not require Senate confirmation, allowing him to begin serving immediately as acting envoy until the Senate moves on the nomination of Holocaust historian and Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt to serve as the U.S. Envoy for Monitor and Combat anti-...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden held an outdoor ceremony at the White House on Monday to sign the hard-won Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, otherwise known as the infrastructure bill, joined by legislators and politicians from all over the United States who helped craft and promote the legislation. Nathan Diament, executive director of Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, was there celebrating the inclusion of another part of the bill — a $50-million pilot program for nonprofit organizations to apply for a grant to reduce energy con...
(JNS) — After a year hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Israeli-American Council is looking forward to holding an in-person summit this December. IAC CEO Shoham Nicolet said it was more important than ever for people to show their support for Israel and denounce rising antisemitism in the United States and around the world. “The feeling was that it’s not a luxury to have the summit, but really essential,” he said. “Because for us to really support Israel, to really show our united voice against antisemitism, you need to bring peo...
(JNS) - On the first of a three-day visit to Washington, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made his rounds in Congress on Tuesday, highlighting the Israeli government's push for bipartisan support for Israel in the United States. Lapid met with a bipartisan group of U.S. House of Representative members in the early afternoon and held a brief press conference in a Capitol hallway with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Pelosi began by saying that the U.S.-Israeli relationship has always bee...
(JNS) — For the second year in a row, the Jewish Federations of North America decided to go virtual, condensing its traditional multiple-day General Assembly into a 90-minute online video stream on Sunday due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The conference highlighted the fact that despite an unusual year-and-a-half, JFNA has had more to do than ever in the midst of the COVID crisis and a worldwide rise in anti-Semitism. Multiple speakers noted the goal of strengthening Jewish communities, both in identity and physical security. Despite t...
(JNS)—Demarking a clear distinction between himself and his predecessor, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday morning that one of the most dangerous problems in the world today is political polarization. In his first address as prime minister to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Bennett called polarizations one of two plagues affecting the world at the moment, with the other being the COVID-19 pandemic. “Both the coronavirus and polarization can erode public trust in our institutions. Both can paralyze nations,” he said....
(JNS) — A number of American Jewish organizations slammed a resolution adopted on Wednesday at a high-level meeting at the U.N. General Assembly that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action stemming from a notoriously anti-Semitic World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. “The resolution predictably claimed that the DDPA offered ‘a comprehensive United Nations framework and solid foundation for combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intol...
(JNS) — A group of pro-Israel academics, activists, government officials and members of the media held a virtual conference strongly criticizing the Durban conferences against racism, which from its first and most notable conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001 singled out and demonized the Jewish state. The Sept. 19 conference focused on various parts of the legacy left by not only the first Durban conference, where Israel was labeled an “apartheid state,” and, according to many of the speakers, Zionism was linked to racism in the lexic...
(JNS) — The Republican Jewish Coalition publicly stated on Monday that it will not comply with a threat from the Jewish Democratic Council of America of legal action if a tweet it posted last month criticizing the JDCA is not deleted. The tweet questioned the Jewish Democrat group and its executive director, Halie Soifer, on their silence following the latest round of anti-Semitic rhetoric by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who following the 11-day May conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, compared the United States and Israel to t...
(JNS) - If day one of the Christians United for Israel 2021 summit was about honoring Israel, the next day's focus at the organization's annual conference held this year in Dallas was a call to action. The more than 700 invited CUFI leaders and donors at the two-day conference on July 18-19 arrived early in the morning for the start of the marathon conference day that covered every topic from Iran, BDS and antisemitism among others. Rather than the pep rally for Israel last Sunday, Monday...
(JNS) — In a video address to the 2021 summit of Christians United for Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid on Monday expressed his appreciation to the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States for their ongoing support — most recently, during and after the 11-day conflict with Hamas in Gaza in May. While its base is American evangelicals, which are largely politically conservative, CUFI as an organization emphasized that it makes its decisions based on the pro-Israel issues it believes in. While evangelicals fervently sup...
