Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JERUSALEM (JTA)—A blogger and law student from Saudi Arabia who had made his name public was attacked verbally and spit on by Muslims while visiting Israel as a guest of the Foreign Ministry. Mahmoud Saud also was hit by thrown objects during his visit to the Temple Mount and Old City of Jerusalem. Saud is the only member of the six-person delegation of journalists and bloggers from Arab countries with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations, including Saudi Arabia and Iraq, who has been willing to make his name public, according to r...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s former justice minister Ayelet Shaked is head of the New Right party, replacing Naftali Bennett, the former education minister. The announcement came on Sunday night in Ramat Gan, after weeks of uncertainty about Shaked’s political future. Shaked and Bennett reportedly met on Saturday night prior to the announcement. Shaked and Bennett broke with the right-wing Jewish Home Party ahead of the April elections to form the New Right Party, which they said is based on a “full and equal partnership” between Orthodox...
(JTA)—Joe Biden said that Israel’s occupation is a “real” and “significant” problem, but would not go as far to say it is a “human rights crisis.” At a campaign event Friday in Dover, New Hampshire, the leading Democratic presidential candidate was asked the human rights crisis question by an activist who also asked if Biden would pressure Israel to end the occupation should he win the presidency. Biden first responded by saying that Israeli settlements are “unnecessary.” “The only answer is a two-state solution No. 1, No. 2 the Palestinian...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Two U.S. diplomats participated in the inauguration of a controversial archaeological tourist site in eastern Jerusalem, angering Palestinian leaders and left-wing Israeli NGOs. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and U.S. Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt were invited to deliver the final sledge-hammer blows to what Friedman described as a ceremonial wall covering the tunnel entrance to the Pilgrimage Road in the City of David. Pilgrim Road was discovered in 2004 and...
(JTA)-Judith Krantz, one of the best-selling female novelists of all time, has died. Krantz died on Saturday at her home in Bel Air, California at the age 91, Deadline reported. According to the Jewish Women's Archives, Krantz is the third-largest-selling female novelist in history. "Although her goal is for her books to provide escape and entertainment, she does try to make some serious points and has woven such issues as anti-Semitism and the German occupation into her novels. All of her...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak announced Wednesday that he is forming a new political party. At an evening news conference, Barak said he rushed to make the announcement to thwart Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to cancel the Sept. 17 election. “Netanyahu has reached the end” of his political career,” Barak said. “The Netanyahu regime must be felled.” “Bibi, this is your last chance to go home of your own volition,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. Barak, who did not say what the name of his new party wo...
(JTA)-Gary Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week for 26 years, is stepping down. Under his stewardship, the newspaper started Write On For Israel, an educational/advocacy program to prepare high school students for the Mideast debate on campus, in 2002; and The Conversation, an off-the-record retreat with a diverse Jewish participation, to discuss major issues facing American Jewry, in 2005. It also launched the publication Fresh Ink for Teens, The Jewish Week Investig...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced the establishment of a foundation dedicated to combating anti-Semitism as he accepted the Genesis Prize award in Jerusalem on Thursday. In addition to the $1 million he received along with the prize, Kraft is putting $20 million of his own money toward the project, to be called the Foundation for Social Media Messaging Against Anti-Semitism. It is also receiving funding through two $5 million gifts, one of which was pledged by Rom...
(JTA)—The U.S. Department of Education will investigate a Middle East conference on Gaza co-sponsored by two North Carolina universities over allegations that it had an anti-Israel bias. Rep. George Holding, R-N.C., called on the department to check into the late March conference co-sponsored by Duke University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill held at the latter campus. Holding said he had seen “reports of severe anti-Israeli bias and anti-Semitic rhetoric at the taxpayer-funded conference,” The Raleigh News & Observer repor...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A new Jewish community in the Golan Heights to honor President Donald Trump will be called Ramat Trump, translated as Trump Heights. A sign was unveiled Sunday during the weekly Cabinet meeting held in the Golan Heights at the site of the new community. The sign says Ramat Trump in Hebrew and Trump Heights in English under graphics of an Israeli flag and a U.S flag and surrounded by a gold border. A cornerstone-laying ceremony also was held. The name is listed in a bill to establish the community that has been submitted for a...
(JTA)-An invitation to the 1928 wedding of the seventh and last Lubavitcher rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, was discovered at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. Schneerson popularized the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement and through aggressive outreach to non-affiliated Jews became one of the most influential forces in the Jewish world. The discovery of the invitation comes just days before the 25th anniversary of his death on June 12. Several versions of the invitation were...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The last living survivor of the Nazi death camp Sobibor has died. Semion Rosenfeld died on Monday at a hospital in central Israel at the age of 96. He moved to Israel from the Ukraine in 1990, according to the Jerusalem Post. Sobibor was built and operated by the SS during World War II near the railway station of Sobibor in Poland. At least 200,000 Jews were murdered in the gas chambers at Sobibor though some have put the number as high as 350,000. The camp was destroyed by the Germans at the end of 1943. Rosenfeld, who was b...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—A rocket fired from Gaza hit a school building in the southern Israeli city of Sderot on Thursday evening. The building, identified as a Jewish religious school, was damaged but no injuries were reported. It was reported to be empty at the time of impact and was fortified against rockets. No one has taken responsibility for firing the rocket, but the Israeli military typically blames Hamas, the terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip. A Code Red rocket alert was sounded in the area and one rocket was identified as being f...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-The blame game started shortly after midnight Thursday morning. The Knesset's vote to dissolve itself and hold a second national election in five months had hardly been posted on the chyrons of news networks in Israel and around the world when the major players in the drama that is coalition government-forming took to microphones throughout the Knesset. It goes something like this: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Yisrael Beiteinu head Avigdor Liberman. Liberman blamed th...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-The Netherlands won the Eurovision song contest 2019 and earned the right to host the international event next year. Duncan Laurence sat behind his keyboard and sang his ballad "Arcade," which had been considered a favorite, and gave the Netherlands its first victory since 1975. Italy finished in second, Russia in third, followed by Switzerland and Norway. Israel's Kobi Marimi finished in 23rd place out of the 26 countries in the finals with his ballad "Home." Marimi burst into t...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-NASA released a photo of what it says is the crash site of Israel's Beresheet lunar lander. The image taken some 56 miles from the surface of the moon by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 22, 11 days after the crash, shows a dark smudge that indicates the point of impact. A light halo around the smudge could have formed from gas associated with the impact or from fine soil particles blown outward during Beresheet's descent, which smoothed out the soil around the...
(JTA)—Children at a Muslim center in Philadelphia sing they will “chop off their heads”—an apparent reference to Jews—in a video uploaded by the center to Facebook. The Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations is investigating the April 17 program at the Muslim American Society’s chapter in the city, The Associated Press reported. The Middle East Media Research Institute posted a translation of the video on Friday. The children in the program, from young kids to early teens, are wearing Palestinian scarves. They sing in one of the lyrics,...
(JTA)—The New York Times editorial board said in an editorial published Tuesday that the newspaper’s publishing of “an appalling political cartoon” is “evidence of a profound danger—not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep.” The newspaper also acknowledged its own historical contributions to the rise of anti-Semitism. “In the 1930s and the 1940s, The Times was largely silent as anti-Semitism rose up and bathed the world in blood,” it wrote. “That failure still haunts this newspaper.” The editorial said that “anti-Semitic imagery i...
POWAY, California (JTA)-Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who was killed in the attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, is credited with jumping in front of the synagogue's rabbi to shield him from the gunman's bullets. Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of San Diego, is survived by her husband and 22-year-old daughter. "Lori you were a jewel of our community a true Eshet Chayil, a Woman of Valor," her friend Audrey Jacobs, a community activist, wrote in a post on Facebook. "You were always running to do a mitzvah (good...
(JTA)—One week after winning election to a fifth term as Israel’s head of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people. Other Jewish people on the list include: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; Jennifer Hyman, whose $1 billion company Rent the Runway allows subscribers to rent designer clothing online; and Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin, who started the progressive activism group Indivisible. “Israel grows more prosperous. It grows more powerful,” Time columnist David French wr...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s election on Tuesday was contentious, historic, crazy—and somewhat predictable. Benjamin Netanyahu seems poised to become the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, with the help of his strengthened right-wing parliamentary bloc. But that didn’t mean the results didn’t bring some surprises. Here are the big takeaways. 1. Two winners? No Israeli party had ever garnered more than a million votes in an election, but two did on Tuesday: Netanyahu’s Likud Party, and former Israeli military chief of staff Benny G...
(JTA)-The head of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein, told a congressional committee that the New Zealand mosque shooter was a "left-wing" terrorist, basing his assessment on the killer's discursive 74-page manifesto. Klein testified on Tuesday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on "Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism." "The New Zealand mosque murderer was actually a left-wing self-described 'eco-Fascist' who also published a manifesto praising Communist China...
(JTA)—Two student activists confronted Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the 50 Muslims killed in an attack on a New Zealand mosque and accused her of being a cause of the massacre. New York University students Leen Dweik, who is Muslim, and Rose Asaf, who is Jewish, approached Clinton at the vigil held at the school Friday night. According to The Washington Post, they took issue with Clinton’s recent tweet about Rep. Ilhan Omar, after the Minnesota congresswoman was accused of promoting anti-Semitic tropes in her own tweet. Clinton had res...
(JTA)-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival, Benny Gantz, will speak at the annual AIPAC policy conference in Washington ahead of national elections next month in Israel. Gantz, whose new center-left Blue and White party is leading Netanyahu's Likud in the polls, will address the pro-Israel lobby's main session plenary on March 25. Gantz, a former chief of staff of the Israeli military who heads Blue and White, will "use his speech to emphasize that after the election he...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a Fatah Party insider who was educated abroad as prime minister. Mohammad Shtayyeh, a longtime Abbas ally, was announced on Sunday as the new prime minister. He replaces Rami Hamdallah, who had been prime minister since 2014. Shtayyeh, a member of the central committee of the Palestinian president's Fatah party, will form a new government. An economist, Shtayyeh earned a PhD in development at Sussex University in Britain...
