Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — At a time when antisemitism is on the rise around the globe, the office of the U.S. State Department’s Special Envoy for Combating and Monitoring Antisemitism ought to be filled. Indeed, the Biden administration seemed to signal its interest in the subject when it decided to upgrade the post by expanding the office’s staff and conferring the title of ambassador on the envoy. President Joe Biden also named someone that was considered eminently qualified for the job in Emory University professor and historian Deborah Lipstadt, a widel...
(JNS) - Every age has its own narrative myth about those who acquire great wealth. In the 21st century, the prevailing story is that of the nerd who parlays technological genius into billions. The Big Tech oligarchs who make their way onto the Forbes' billionaire list are envied and feared. But with only a few conspicuous exceptions, their posh lifestyles, liberal politics and donations to fashionable and politically correct charities generally protect them from the worst abuse that pop culture...
(JNS) — To the casual observer of news from the Middle East, it would appear that the biggest story coming out of Israel lately is what some outlets are describing as a surge in settler violence against Palestinians. According to B’Tselem, an anti-settler group that is nonetheless treated as if it is an impartial and objective source by Western publications, the number of attacks by Jews living in West Bank settlements on neighboring Arabs is allegedly up by nearly 50 percent in the previous year. In this telling, radical Jews — motiv...
(JNS) — The loudest Israeli message to the Biden administration was sounded by Defense Minister Benny Gantz during his appearance last week at the Israeli-American National Council Summit in Hollywood, Fla. Gantz said that he had notified his counterparts in the U.S. government that he had ordered the Israel Defense Forces to prepare for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This is far from the first indication that Israel is stepping up preparations for acting on its own to prevent Iran from attaining the status of a nuclear power. But for...
(JNS) — Ever since President Thomas Jefferson first coined the phrase in 1802, Americans have debated exactly how high the “wall of separation” should be between religion and state. The debate continues to this day. These discussions reflect a basic truth about the central role that faith has always played in the public square of the republic since it first came into existence. But if there is any point about the intersection between religion and state that is settled and not open to disputation, it is the one about whether the United State...
As far as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are concerned, this week has brought a perfect storm of circumstances that threaten to complicate their hopes for a better relationship with the United States. Both men, each for their own reasons, see establishing a good rapport with President Joe Biden and his administration as one of the main goals of their coalition government that took office in June. But blistering criticism was issued by the U.S. State Department on two issues: its renewed commitment to...
(JNS) — It’s never a good sign when George Soros’s name is back in the headlines. The Hungarian-born hedge-fund billionaire has become a touchstone of controversy. Both Republicans and Democrats in Virginian are taking his name in vain this week as the off-year election for governor, as well as various other state and local positions, has become a battleground in an unexpectedly tight race. Each side in the tribal culture war that characterizes contemporary American political discourse views him as a symbol that can help rally support to them....
(JNS) — Some Jewish liberals say that they saw this coming. There were those who believed that the movement to stop the teaching of critical race theory in the schools was bound to negatively impact teaching about the Holocaust. They claim that those fears were vindicated by the comments of a Texas educator in Southlake, Texas, who was taped telling teachers in a training session that “make sure that if … you have a book on the Holocaust, that you have one that has opposing, that has other perspectives.” The context for this absurd suggest...
(JNS) — The Iron Dome missile-defense system has long been one of the least controversial aspects of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Funding for the idea was approved in principle by the George W. Bush administration in 2007 after the Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems conceived the project. It was an answer to the heavy missile fire from Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza that Israel faced in 2006. The Iron Dome would give Israel the ability to shoot down the rockets and missiles shot at its villages, towns a...
(JNS) — It’s been a year since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and many fans still mourn her loss. That’s not just because a true pioneer for women in the legal profession deserves to be honored as a role model or even because of the odd — and not entirely apt — pop-culture-icon status she achieved late in late as the “notorious RBG.” The recent passage of draconian restrictions on abortion by Texas in a piece of questionable legislation designed to evade judicial scrutiny has sent many of her liberal admirers into a state of panic. The “p...
(JNS) — The reviews at home were mixed for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s first meeting with President Joe Biden. Many of those who despise Bennett’s right-wing principles thought he did a good job, while most of those who share his views were appalled by his performance. The disconnect is understandable. The drumbeat of personal invective against Bennett from former allies and friends has been constant since he assumed the role of leader of the current coalition in June. For those who think Bennett “betrayed” the right by joining w...
(JNS) — For those old enough to remember the images of the last days of South Vietnam, recent events in Afghanistan are shockingly familiar. In each case, a flawed American ally facing a determined foe quickly collapsed once both sides to the conflict realized that the United States wouldn’t lift a finger to help its friends. Afghanistan was America’s longest war, and sadly, it must go down in history, like Vietnam, as one in which a superpower was defeated by a much weaker enemy. In both instances, there are good reasons to argue that defea...
(JNS) — If you thought that American Jews were going to unite against discrimination in ice-cream sales, you were wrong. The decision of the Ben & Jerry’s company to “end sales of our ice-cream in ‘occupied Palestinian territories’” was widely condemned across the political spectrum in Israel, by many mainstream Jewish groups and by American political leaders. But the notion that this is an issue around which Jews are going to rally is wrong. Even worse, it may be that, like so much else, it will become fodder for partisan squabbling...
(JNS) — It may have been discouraging, but the dismal turnout for a national rally that was supposed to bring Jews together against antisemitism was also an appropriate reminder of the greatest challenge facing them. A week before Tisha B’Av — the annual day of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples, in addition to other disasters that befell the Jews throughout history — a well-meaning attempt to mobilize and unite the community to confront antisemitism didn’t seem to resonate with most Jews. While lots of e...
(JNS) — The first thing to be said about the “No Fear” rally against antisemitism held in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sunday was that it was a noble effort. The organizers and those who showed up deserve credit for trying to shine a spotlight on a surge in hate crimes against Jews. A new group called Alliance for Israel was the primary organizer of the effort; it was launched in the aftermath of the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in mid-May that led to a torrent of incidents of antisemitic incitement and violence acros...
(JNS) — There is no more obvious sign that American education is in trouble than the fact that most state legislatures have become battlegrounds over how to teach history. The subject can be fraught with controversy under any circumstances. But in the last year, as efforts to put critical race theory into public-school curricula have increased, the entire question of how to think not just about the history of ourselves but the United States itself has become wrapped up in controversies about education. On the one hand, some Americans believe t...
(JNS) — As far as some of Israel’s most vicious critics were concerned, it was the sort of thing that gave their critiques of Zionism a bad name. It was difficult to pretend that the decision of organizers of a Philadelphia food festival to disinvite an Israeli-owned food truck from participating was rooted in anything other than prejudice against Israel and Jews. Those who run the “Taste of Home” event that had been scheduled to take place in the Kensington section of the City of Brotherly Love thought they were being prudent when they to...
(JNS) — Over the weekend, President Joe Biden finally conceded that what was happening at America’s southern border is a “crisis,” a word that his administration had consistently refused to use when referring to the situation there which appears to be worsening every day. By Monday, White House flacks were trying to walk back the admission as just another Biden gaffe to be ignored or reinterpreted, but no one is being fooled. Except that is, blind partisans or donors to HIAS—the agency that once played an essential role in aiding Jewish im...
(JNS) — On Dec. 11, 2008, one of the worst events to rock the organized Jewish world was revealed on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. Few outside of the financial world had ever heard of him before that day. But when news broke that Bernard Madoff’s Wall Street investment firm was a Ponzi scheme and that some of the Jewish community’s richest and most respected individuals, as well as philanthropies and educational institutions, had been the victims of a gigantic fraud, the impact was devastating. More than $64.8 billion had disappe...
(JNS) — In case you haven’t heard, people who want to eliminate Israel are very interested in stopping anti-Semitism. In other words, the same people who want to deny rights to the Jewish people that they don’t think of trying to deny to anyone else in the same manner believe they are entitled to declare themselves friends and protectors of Jews. And no, I’m not kidding about this. This goes for Jewish Voice for Peace and the participants in an online panel held this week about “Dismantling Anti-Semitism, Winning Justice.” The leftist group and...
(JNS) — Two weeks ago, the White House Passover seder was hosted by America’s Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born lawyer is the first Jew to be a spouse of a vice president, as well as the first male to occupy the role. Being a Jew in such an important place in American society is not quite as big a deal as it might have been in previous eras when most Jews were either immigrants or first-generation Americans. Nonetheless, Emhoff has become a symbol of the acceptance of a community that was once marginalized. The same mig...
(JNS) — President Joe Biden’s foreign-policy team has talked a lot about re-emphasizing diplomacy and re-engaging with allies after what they claim was the trashing of old friends during the presidency of Donald Trump. But that doesn’t appear to include America’s two most important allies in the Middle East: Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Israelis have been reassured that Biden still regards their security as important and that any disputes between the two countries will be handled behind the scenes, rather than highlighted in an effort to achi...
(JNS) — The little blue box is no longer ubiquitous in Jewish households the way it once was. The symbolic pushke into which coins were collected in the homes of both the rich and the poor to help the Jewish National Fund redeem the land of Israel has been replaced by websites where you can pay to have trees planted in Israel and other conventional fundraisers. But the work of the JNF, which was founded in 1901 by Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl and his associates in order to start making their dream of a state for the Jews a reality, is o...
(JNS) — Following the U.S. Capitol riot, there has been a renewed emphasis on the threat from white-supremacist hate groups from the Biden administration, much of the media as well as the organized Jewish community. The anti-Semitic imagery seen at the rally organized by former President Donald Trump as well as in the mob storming Congress was frightening. No one should discount the fact that although their numbers are few, such violent right-wing extremists are dangerous. If there was any complacency about such threats, the deadly attacks on s...
(JNS) — With the U.S. House of Representatives poised to pass new articles of impeachment against former President Donald Trump, the debate about the proper response to his role in last week’s disgraceful and bloody Capitol riot has now moved to the next stage. Some supporters of the president are sticking with him, despite his egging on protesters to march on the Capitol to pressure Congress to prevent the certification of the votes of the Electoral College, where they stormed into the shrine of democracy, and his failure to unequivocally con...
