Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Part II (JTA) - In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted in southern Italy, burying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii in scalding stone and ash. The catastrophe famously entombed, and preserved, the city's villas, workshops, and a gladiator barracks known as the Caserma dei Gladiatori. Excavators first unearthed the barracks in the late 1700s. Among the ruins they found a bronze helmet, with a circular brim, a griffin rising from its crest, and on its forehead, a palm tree - then a symbol tied to Jews...
(JTA) — A number of progressive Jewish groups are backing an effort by Sen. Bernie Sanders to block arms sales to Israel. The effort, a collection of several resolutions, is unlikely to pass in the closely divided Senate but could split Democratic lawmakers. The push is driving a wedge among Jewish organizations in the lead-up to Wednesday’s vote: A group of centrist and right-wing pro-Israel groups oppose the bills. But large liberal Jewish organizations have offered support, signaling those groups’ growing criticism of how Israel is opera...
Part I (JTA) - In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius erupted in southern Italy, burying the nearby Roman city of Pompeii in scalding stone and ash. The catastrophe famously entombed, and preserved, the city's villas, workshops, and a gladiator barracks known as the Caserma dei Gladiatori. Excavators first unearthed the barracks in the late 1700s. Among the ruins they found a bronze helmet, with a circular brim, a griffin rising from its crest, and on its forehead, a palm tree - then a symbol tied to Jews in...
(New York Jewish Week) - Donald Trump picked Lee Zeldin, a Jewish Republican and former congressman from New York, to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump announced Zeldin's appointment on Monday in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying Zeldin "has been a true fighter for America First policies." "He will set new standards on environmental review and maintenance, that will allow the United States to grow in a healthy and well-structured way," Trump said. Trump, who...
(New York Jewish Week) — Republican Rep. Mike Lawler retained his seat in New York’s 17th Congressional District in a race that saw both candidates vie for the area’s large Jewish vote and spar over support for Israel. The race was one of several swing districts in New York State that could sway control of the House. Lawler defeated Democratic challenger Mondaire Jones in the district, which covers territory north of New York City in Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess and Westchester counties. Lawler won around 57 percent of the vote, 16 points ahead...
(New York Jewish Week) - Shai Davidai, an Israeli assistant professor at Columbia University's business school and outspoken pro-Israel activist, said he has been barred from the school's campus again. In a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday, Davidai said his lawyer had been informed that Davidai was barred from campus after he posted videos of himself confronting university officials about anti-Israel protests on Oct. 7, the one-year anniversary of Hamas' attack. "The university decided to...
(JTA) - LAS VEGAS - Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish Harvard alumnus who is suing the school over its response to antisemitism, announced that he has broken with the Democratic Party and will be voting for Donald Trump. Kestenbaum made the declaration during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual convention here on Sept. 5. He said that he had become disillusioned with Democratic leaders and their policies during his push for action against campus antisemitism. "I did not support Trump...
By (New York Jewish Week) - Vandals defaced the apartment building of Cas Holloway, Columbia University's chief operating officer, on Thursday, splattering red paint around the entrance to the building and painting inverted red triangles, a Hamas symbol, on its facade. The vandals also smashed a glass door, put up threatening posters, and released insects inside the building, according to the New York Post. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the vandalism, saying the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task...
(JTA) — Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar won her Democratic party primary on Tuesday, securing a victory for the hardline-left “Squad” member who is one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress. Omar defeated her challenger, Don Samuels, in Minnesota’s 5th District by a margin of 56 percent to 43 percent with nearly all votes reported. Samuels is a centrist, pro-Israel Democrat who narrowly lost a primary vote to Omar in 2022. This time around, Omar’s campaign said it had learned from the close call and worked harder to shore up support. Omar’s win...
(New York Jewish Week) — Columbia University restricted access to its campus on Monday, a sign that the university is girding for a renewal of anti-Israel student protests as the fall semester is set to begin. The university’s chief operating officer, Cas Holloway, said in a Friday statement that the campus would effectively be closed to members of the public starting on Monday. The official first day of classes is Sept. 3, though some schools’ orientation activities begin this week. “This change is intended to keep our community safe given r...
(New York Jewish Week) — The Democratic Socialists of America dropped its endorsement of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she hosted a panel discussion on antisemitism. The DSA said in a Tuesday statement that it was rescinding its conditional endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez’s reelection campaign after she “conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions” during the discussion she sponsored last month. “This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israe...
(New York Jewish Week) — The NYPD reported 45 anti-Jewish hate crimes across the city in June as the increase in antisemitism continues more than eight months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel. The total for June was more than double the tally during the same month last year, when there were 19 antisemitic incidents reported to police. Jews were targeted in 57 percent of all hate crimes reported to the NYPD last month. Hate incidents against Jews spiked after the Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, with 69 in October and 62 in November. The number...
(New York Jewish Week) — Three Columbia University administrators have “been permanently removed from their positions” after sending a series of derisive text messages during a panel on campus Jewish life, the university’s provost announced Monday. In an accompanying letter, Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote that the texts echoed antisemitism and vowed to start a “vigorous program of antisemitism and antidiscrimination training” in the fall, when classes reconvene. “This incident revealed behavior and sentiments that were not only unpr...
(New York Jewish Week) — Three years after voting to “consider” boycotting Israel, and weeks after defending a pro-Palestinian student encampment, the faculty union of the City University of New York overwhelmingly rejected a resolution calling for an Israel boycott. The union’s president actively opposed the resolution, saying that it inappropriately singled out Israel. But insiders say the Professional Staff Congress’ rejection may have had more to do with the union’s salary negotiations than any principled view about the Israel-Hama...
(New York Jewish Week) – On Tuesday night, as police cleared protesters out of a Columbia University building and arrested more than 100 people, lawyer Gerard Filitti said fault lay with the students who had erected an unauthorized pro-Palestinian encampment at the school. But they’re not the only ones he blamed. Although Columbia’s administration had called in the NYPD, Fillitti said Tuesday’s clashes were the result of inaction by Columbia’s leadership — not just during the two weeks of the encampment, but in the more than six months sinc...
(New York Jewish Week) — An outspoken Israeli professor was blocked from entering a portion of the Columbia University campus and Jewish members of Congress demanded action from the administration on Monday as pro-Palestinian protests continued to roil the Manhattan university. Shai Davidai, an Israeli assistant professor at Columbia University’s business school, had announced on social media that he planned to enter the university’s main campus on Monday morning to hold a “peaceful sit in” in the area of pro-Palestinian demonstra...
(New York Jewish Week) – When event producer Erez Safar announced a Valentine’s Day comedy show to raise funds for survivors of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the flier included a date, time and photo of headliner Daniel Ryan Spaulding, the non-Jewish comic who has stood out since the attack for his pro-Israel activism. But fans hoping to attend the show wouldn’t be able to get there by looking at the poster. All it said was “Location upon RSVP.” Following a spike in antisemitic incidents in New York City and beyond following Oct. 7, Safar is...
(New York Jewish Week) – An Israeli hostage who was released from Hamas captivity said the support of New York’s Jewish community “gives us strength” as thousands of demonstrators gathered in Central Park on Sunday morning to mark 150 days since the captives were taken in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. “This support is really moving,” said Keren Munder, who was taken from Kibbutz Nir Oz with other members of her family. She was released in November, during a temporary ceasefire, with her 9-year-old son, Ohad, and her mother, Ruti, 78. Her father,...
By (New York Jewish Week) — The philanthropic organization Broadway Cares said it would allocate funds to Israeli civilians in need after complaints from a rabbi and pro-Israel group about the theater charity’s contributions to Gaza relief efforts. In a statement to the New York Jewish Week, the nonprofit also acknowledged that it had “created confusion among our valued supporters.” The group vowed to provide more information about where it was allocating the money it raised. “Transparency is of the utmost importance to us,” read the stateme...
(JTA) – More than a third of Americans would be reluctant to vote for a pro-Israel politician. One fifth are uncomfortable buying products from Israel. More than 40 percent at least somewhat agreed that Israel intends to cause as much Palestinian suffering as possible. But nearly all U.S. adults believe Jews have the right to an independent country. Those are some of the results of a survey published Thursday by the Anti-Defamation League, measuring antisemitism and anti-Israel views across the United States. The survey found that a...
(New York Jewish Week) – On Tuesday, a group of Jewish men gathered to pray under a leaky white tent in the drizzling rain outside the Chabad-Lubavitch movement's world headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, draping their wet jackets over portable bookshelves and talking about what had happened there the previous afternoon. As for the building itself, it was closed off. Outside the entrance to the complex's main synagogue, a line formed in the rain, with Chabadniks waiting patiently to r...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out his preconditions for peace with Gaza in a Monday op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, saying, “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized.” “These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbors in Gaza,” Netanyahu wrote. The outline for a peace agreement came as Israel pushed its ground offensive farther into Gaza in its campaign to destroy the Hamas terrorist group. The counter-o...
(JTA) — Two Israeli-Americans missing since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel have been confirmed killed, their kibbutz announced. Judith Weinstein, 70, a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was fatally wounded during the terrorist invasion of southern Israel, Nir Oz said. The statement confirmed her death but did not say if she had died the same day. Last week, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a volunteer group that represents Israelis held captive by Hamas, said Weinstein’s husband, Gadi Haggai, 72, had been killed. Their bodies are being hel...
(New York Jewish Week) — At least two protesters brandished signs with swastikas at an anti-Israel protest targeting the annual Rockefeller Christmas tree lighting in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday night. One demonstrator held a sign with the Nazi symbol and the words “Israeli military.” The protester was forcibly ejected from the event by other participants who shouted at him and trampled his sign, prompting police to separate the two sides. Another protester carried a sign that compared Jews to Nazis via a blood-spattered swastika inter...
(New York Jewish Week) — A Cornell University junior has been arrested in connection with threats to kill Jewish students at the school, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday. Patrick Dai, 21, from Pittsford, New York, is being charged with posting threats to kill or injure another using interstate communications, a federal charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He is due in court on Wednesday. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office announced that a person had been taken into custody on Tuesday as her office unveiled a ser...
