Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 101 - 125 of 185
(JNS) There are a lot of people who are relieved that Michael Bloomberg has dropped out of the Democratic primary race, and not all of them are named Biden. The withdrawal of the former mayor of New York City gives a boost to former Vice President Joe Biden. Bloomberg’s jumping on the Biden bandwagon removes the last competition for more moderate Democratic primary voters and lessens the chances that Sen. Bernie Sanders will become the Democratic nominee. That’s a relief for both centrists who fear the Vermont Socialist can’t beat President Don... Full story
(JNS)—Bernie Sanders and Michael Bloomberg both want to be the nation’s first Jewish president. But they couldn’t possibly be more different. Sanders is a Socialist who is hoping to lead America on a lurch to the left that many of his more enthusiastic supporters are calling a revolution. And he hopes to be elected on the strength of a mass movement of small contributors and activists. Bloomberg is a billionaire capitalist who, as he likes to joke, is the Jewish candidate for president who “doesn’t want to turn America into a kibbutz.” And he p... Full story
(JNS)—There’s no escaping controversy any time that Israel or the Palestinians are mentioned. That’s a lesson the producers, writers and star of the long-running “Jeopardy!” television game show learned to their detriment when a clue involving the location of the Church of the Nativity was used in an episode that aired on Jan. 10, though it was taped last fall. In a category titled “Where’s That Church?” contestants were asked to identify the location of the house of worship that Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus. Katie Ne... Full story
(JNS)—We’re still more than a month away from the first actual votes being cast in the Democratic presidential race. But an analysis piece published on the influential Politico website last week reminded observers of a possibility that many are ignoring: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders could win and ultimately become the nation’s first Jewish president. While generations of American Jews have dreamed of a day when one of their own won the White House, a Sanders’s presidency would actually be an unprecedented nightmare for Israel and Jewish interest... Full story
(JNS)—Chanukah’s popularity with American Jews was largely the result of a futile though determined effort to compete with Christmas. While enjoying freedom, prosperity and influence that was unprecedented in the history of the Diaspora, American Jews needed a holiday that would allow them to play a part in the annual December festivities without abandoning their identity altogether. That is why Chanukah has become far more important to American Jews that it was to their ancestors in Europe and elsewhere, who regarded it as a minor winter fes... Full story
(JNS)—Demographers have spent a great deal of time in recent decades trying to learn more about the changing demographics of American Jewry. But whatever else he has accomplished, President Donald Trump has, albeit unwittingly, gone above and beyond those efforts. In signing an executive order extending protections to Jewish students against anti-Semitic hate on college campuses due to vicious incitement and discriminatory actions promoted by the BDS movement, Trump has, in effect, provided us with a sanity test for Jews. It consists of the f... Full story
(JNS)—The news out of Iran should shock the conscience of the world. As The New York Times reported in a front-page article published on Monday, when Iranians tried to protest their government’s arbitrary decision to drastically raise gasoline prices, the regime responded with unprecedented force. Throughout the country, security forces, including units of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have opened fire on unarmed citizens. According to the Times, in the first two weeks of the protests, anywhere from 180 to 450 persons have been kil... Full story
(JNS)—The long-awaited indictments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on corruption charges haven’t changed many minds in the Likud Party. His loyal followers are still not only convinced of his indispensability, but also of the bogus nature of the legal assault on his tenure in office. Most of his supporters would still vote for him in the next election and, more to the point, in a primary election against a challenger. Gideon Sa’ar, a former minister in past governments led by the prime minister and one of the more popular Likud Kne... Full story
(JNS)—The atmosphere on North American college campuses today is one in which anything that can be labeled, fairly or unfairly, hate speech or which might make virtually any group feel “triggered” or otherwise upset can be banned or otherwise silenced. Universities that once prided themselves on their defense of free speech against efforts to suppress dissent now go out of their way to provide “safe places” for those who are too sensitive to hear views that contradict their own prejudices and biases. But there’s one particular kind of hate spee... Full story
(JNS)—According to the Forward, the rationale for the New Israel Fund’s push to create an alternative philanthropic system can be explained by what a Philadelphia psychologist named Roy Idelson considered to be a reasonable request. He wanted his local umbrella Jewish philanthropy—the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia—to allow him to use its foundation to donate money to an entity of his choice, IfNotNow. A number of federations and many others operate foundations that allow their supporters to create so-called “donor-... Full story
(JNS)—The still-crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field proved to be a godsend for the left-wing J Street lobby. It gained attention for its annual conference this week due to the presence of five presidential candidates. But the dynamic of the event didn’t give a boost to its supposed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” agenda. To the contrary, the tenor of the coverage of the event showed that the group had achieved a very different goal. That was to be a magnet for opponents of the Jewish state, as it became clear that the main objective of the vot... Full story
(JNS)—Israelis are still trying to sort out the fallout from their second unsuccessful attempt to elect a government this year with little sign of a break in the impasse between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz. But no matter who emerges from the latest maneuvering—or from a third election that might be held early next year—Israel’s next leader needs to be concerned about the way a Democratic president might transform relations between the United States and Israel. Much of the rhetoric about the shift w... Full story
(JNS)—This July, Aaron Boone, the manager of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, created an Internet meme when he launched into an epic and profane rant in taking issue with a call that went against his team. His abuse of an inexperienced umpire was recorded on a field microphone and then spread across the Internet to the amusement of players and fans, but to the consternation of the sport’s overlords. His repeated description of his players as “f****** savages” being mistreated by incompetent officials led to a one-game suspensio... Full story
(JNS)—As the year 5780 begins, political division is the predominant theme in both Israel and the United States. In Israel, two attempts to elect a Knesset in one year may not have been enough. The stalemate that has prevented the formation of a new government is not so much about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies as it is about him. That has been complicated by the re-emergence of the ongoing conflict between secular and religious Jews. But that may not be as bad as what’s happening in the United States. Americans seem divid... Full story
(JNS)—When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted his supporters at Likud Party campaign headquarters on Tuesday evening, his demeanor as much as his words made the outcome of the vote clear to everyone. While he neither claimed victory nor conceded defeat, his body language screamed that he knew that he had not won. His talk of working for the creation of a “Zionist” government rather than the “right-wing” coalition that he pledged to build in April when he thought he had triumphed was telling. There will be no Likud-led coalition... Full story
(JNS)—On the 18th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, government officials and institutions throughout America commemorated the horror of that day. But after all these years, there is a sense that—other than for those who lost family members or close friends—the ceremonies are increasingly becoming more a matter of going through the motions than of national grief. Much like the way the memory of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941—a comparable tragedy that altered the life of the nation—became routine and then ultimatel... Full story
By Jonathan S. Tobin (JNS)—For the overwhelming majority of Americans, Labor Day weekend is the unofficial end of summer. But like other federal holidays, such as Memorial Day, which were once rooted in specific historical experiences such as the carnage of the Civil War, the first Monday of September is no longer tied specifically to a celebration of the labor movement. Labor unions are still with us, but in an economy that is no longer dominated by manufacturing industries they are but a shadow of their former selves both in terms of their n... Full story
(JNS)—In the wake of the latest mass shootings to afflict America, some Jewish organizations and their leaders joined in the effort to place at least some of the blame for these atrocities on President Donald Trump. Rabbi Rick Jacobs of the Union of Reform Judaism reacted to the slaughter in El Paso, which was reportedly the work of a white-nationalist racist who claimed to be reacting to the “invasion” of the country by Hispanics, by pointing the finger directly at the president: “When will this president stop demonizing asylum seekers and imm... Full story
(JNS)—The radical anti-Zionist IfNotNow group hit the jackpot last week with its initial investment in efforts to impact the 2020 presidential election. IfNotNow’s attempts to infiltrate Jewish summer camps and alter the way they teach about Israel, as well as its campaign to disrupt Birthright Israel trips, haven’t had much success in terms of changing curriculums or deterring young Jews from visiting the Jewish state. But they have served to move the discussion about its anti-Zionist agenda from the margins of Jewish life to the mains... Full story
(JNS)—The critics are right about U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s presence at the ceremonial opening of Jerusalem’s “Pilgrimage Road” being unprecedented. None of his predecessors would have been caught dead at a Jewish site on the wrong side of the “Green Line.” Up until last year, the United States had stubbornly refused to recognize that any part of the ancient capital of the Jews belonged to the Jewish state. But even if we concede that the participation of Friedman and U.S. Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt was a departure fro... Full story
(JNS)—When the Trump administration released the economic portion of its Middle East peace plan last week, the avalanche of criticism was immediate and harsh. Even though the president’s foreign-policy team couched the plan as a “vision” of peace rather than an intricate blueprint, its critics weren’t wrong in pointing out that there was little in it that was new, and that its chances of success were nil. Yet in analyzing the effort, it’s important to note that there’s a difference saying that the plan won’t succeed and saying that putting it... Full story
(JNS)—His death, like much of his life, was in service to the Islamist cause he championed. By dropping dead in a courtroom where he was caged and silenced, Mohamed Morsi served to bring attention to the dictatorial nature of the Egypt’s military government. The man who sought to make the world’s most populous Arab country into line with the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood was lionized in his New York Times obituary as “Egypt’s First Democratically Elected President.” That accurate, but still misleading, headline also should remind us t... Full story
(JNS)—Israelis are rightly infuriated that their politicians couldn’t get their act together and form a government after national elections held on April 9. A rerun scheduled for Sept. 17 will be an enormous waste of time and money. But almost as infuriating as the new election is the way this turn of events will serve as an excuse for months of bloviating from Israeli and international pundits about the crisis in Israeli democracy. That means we’re about to be subjected to nearly 100 more days of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netan... Full story
(JNS)—Who could really be surprised by the story that grabbed the attention of the Jewish world this past weekend? When Felix Klein, Germany’s first Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight Against Anti-Semitism (yes, that’s his full title) warned Jews about the danger of wearing a kipah in public, it was hardly a shock that this would be the case in the country responsible for the Holocaust. Yet the alarming frankness of his admission has made it impossible to ignore the truth about the threat to Jews in Europe any longer. Some of... Full story
(JNS)—There’s an old joke that tells of a person who has been accused of being a self-hating Jew. His response is to tell his accuser that he doesn’t hate himself. It’s other Jews he hates. That’s an apt introduction to the controversy over cartoonist Eli Valley. For the last decade, Valley’s densely packed, grotesquely illustrated multi-panel cartoons have been spewing anti-Zionist propaganda over the Internet. His work used to appear in Jewish publications like The Forward and Tablet online magazine, but no longer. Still, he remains a p... Full story
