Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Hosting “Saturday Night Live” in its final broadcast before the inauguration of Donald Trump, comedian Dave Chappelle concluded with advice for the new president. “Do not forget your humanity,” Chappelle said. “And please, have empathy for displaced people, whether they’re in the Palisades or Palestine.” The line represented Chappelle’s signature mix of humor and serious sermonizing and came after a nearly 15-minute monologue that acknowledged his own controversies as a comedian and included an extended anecdote about President Jimmy Ca...
(JTA) — After the hostages return to Israel, peace takes hold in the Middle East. Army recruitment offices are shuttered; Israelis shelve the second passports that let them live abroad; and trains run uninterrupted from Egypt to Syria. Soon, Israeli and Iranian judokas embrace, and Israel advances in the World Cup. Ultimately, Taylor Swift takes the stage in Tel Aviv. The sequence of events exceeds even the wildest ambitions of most Israelis, who know from experience that peace, when it c...
(JTA) - A synagogue with more than 100 years of history in Pasadena, California, burned down overnight as fires swept across parts of Southern California. The fate of a Chabad center about 40 miles away near the coast was unclear as a major fire flared in the Pacific Palisades, one of three different blazes destroying structures and threatening lives in multiple pockets of the greater Los Angeles area. Additional Jewish institutions lay in evacuation zones, while others took preparations in...
(JTA) — Two blocks away: a school reduced to ruins. Across the street: rubble. Under the door: ashes. And yet at Kehillat Israel, things look much the same as they did at the beginning of the week, before the fires. That’s what the clergy found when they reentered their synagogue’s building on Thursday in the wake of the blaze that devastated Pacific Palisades. A reporter with NBC News who himself grew up at Kehillat Israel accompanied Rabbi Amy Bernstein, Rabbi Daniel Sher and Cantor Chayim Frenkel as they took stock of their synagogue’s remar...
(JTA) - Jewish groups are mourning Jimmy Carter, the former president and broker of Israel's peace deal with Egypt who died Sunday at 100. In statements issued following his death, many of the groups are citing the peace deal and other landmark moments in Carter's presidency, which stretched from 1977 to 1981, as examples of Carter's legacy. Several of them are also acknowledging that in his post-presidency, the longest in American history, Carter aggrieved some American Jews by aggressively...
(JTA) — Israel is closing its embassy in Dublin in response to the Irish government’s criticism, Israel’s foreign minister announced on Sunday. The move does not end diplomatic relations between the two countries. Still, it offers a dramatic illustration of how Gideon Saar, who became foreign minister last month after a rapprochement with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is approaching ties with countries that are critical of Israel. In a statement on social media, Saar cited Ireland’s recognition of a Palestinian state, its support for cas...
(JTA) — A ballistic missile fired from Yemen severely damaged a Tel Aviv-area school early Thursday morning, in some of the most significant damage yet in an ongoing barrage from Houthi rebels based there. No children were present at the school in the suburb of Ramat Gan, which officials said would be rebuilt, and would reopen in another already constructed building within weeks. The rocket, which Israel partially intercepted, was fired as Israeli fighter jets were on their way to Yemen to target Houthi positions there. Dozens of jets t...
(JTA) — Among the legions of Grateful Dead fans mourning Phil Lesh are a small but devoted cohort of Jewish Deadheads with memories of celebrating Passover with him. “To life! To Phil! Our love will not fade away! Eternally grateful,” the Jewish vocalist Jeannette Ferber posted on Facebook, alongside a picture showing herself with Lesh at a seder. Lesh, the legendary jam band’s bassist, died Friday at 84. His Instagram account, which announced his death without specifying a cause, said Lesh wa...
(JTA) — Speaking at a campaign rally in Georgia on Monday night, Donald Trump said the Kamala Harris campaign was painting him and his supporters as Nazis, a charge he rejected forcefully. “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump said to cheers. The comments, which come a week before Election Day, represent an unusual statement by a presidential candidate. They also represent the latest fallout since Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, last week said in on-the-record interviews that Trump had expressed admiration for Hitler...
(JTA) - A new campaign ad for Donald Trump pushes back against Kamala Harris' claim that the former president is a "fascist" by featuring a Holocaust survivor who says Harris is disgracing his murdered family members with the allegation. "Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family," says 94-year-old Jerry Wartski, an Auschwitz survivor and retired New York City real estate investor in the ad released last Friday. "I know more about Hitler...
(JTA) — Christopher Columbus was likely Jewish, Spanish researchers have announced in a splashy new documentary aired on Spain’s national broadcaster on Saturday. According to the documentary, the researchers spent 22 years researching Columbus’ national origins before concluding that bones buried in a Seville cathedral are in fact the famed explorer’s — and that his DNA suggests that he likely came from a Jewish family. “We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” the le...
(JTA) - Hersh Goldberg-Polin's mother looked almost as the world has gotten to know her when she took the podium at her son's funeral in Jerusalem. Rachel Goldberg-Polin had her hair pulled back neatly and was wearing a crisp white shirt, the trademark piece of masking tape marking the number of days since her son and 250 others were taken hostage on Oct. 7 affixed to its breast. But the shirt was ripped, in keeping with the Jewish tradition of rending one's clothing upon learning of the death...
(JTA) — Israel bombed hundreds of sites inside Lebanon and Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into Israel early Sunday in a sharp flare of hostilities at Israel’s northern border. Hezbollah has said for weeks that it is planning a significant attack within Israel in response to Israel’s killing in Beirut last month of Fuad Shukr, a Hezbollah commander. Israeli military leaders said they had determined that an attack was imminent and struck against Hezbollah’s rocket launchers in a bid to prevent or blunt the damage. They said that a fleet o...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. “I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened,” he told Time Magazine during an hourlong interview this week in Jerusalem. The interview, which Time published in full, was Netanyahu’s first major one with any news organization since Oct. 7. Eric Cortellessa, Time’s national political correspondent, interviewed the prime minister shortly after his visit to...
(JTA) - Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who burst into national view after calling Republicans "weird," will be Kamala Harris' running mate on the November Democratic ticket. Multiple outlets reported the choice early Aug.6, hours before Harris was set to appear with her pick at a Philadelphia rally. Harris' decision ends speculation that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, could be in line for the role. Walz and Shapiro were reportedly the two final choices narrowed from a...
(JTA) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly threatened to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians as fears of a war with Hezbollah escalate — a shocking comment from a member of NATO, the international alliance of Western nations. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a party meeting that was televised, according to media reports. “Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.” He added, “There is no reason wh...
(JTA) - Hours after the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, a building-sized poster went up in the city's Palestine Square that featured the national language of Iran's sworn enemy Israel. "Wait for harsh punishment," the billboard said in Hebrew, atop a massive portrait of Haniyeh, whose funeral took place Thursday. Haniyeh is shown in front of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim holy place on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The poster offered a powerful symbol of what unnamed Iranian...
(JTA) — Yahya Sinwar, the architect of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the highest-ranking leader of the terror group still alive, has been selected to helm Hamas’ political bureau going forward. The group announced the selection Wednesday, a week after the assassination in Tehran of its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh is believed to have been killed by a bomb orchestrated by Israel, which had vowed to kill Hamas’ leaders wherever they could be found but has not claimed credit for Haniyeh’s death. The move means that Sinwar, w...
(JTA) - For its latest cover model, Vogue Germany selected a celebrity who regularly hobnobs with visiting dignitaries and walks the red carpet at film premieres: Margot Friedländer, 102, one of the oldest and most prominent Holocaust survivors in the world. In addition to documenting Friedländer impeccable attire and indefatigable spirit, the Vogue article includes her public condemnation of the rise of the political far right in Germany. About the rise of the far-right Alternative for G...
(JTA) - The musician Jonny Greenwood is pushing back on critics who say he should abandon a plan to tour with an Israeli collaborator because of the Israel-Hamas war. Greenwood and Dudu Tassa, an Israeli rock star from a prominent Mizrahi musical family, are scheduled to perform together on the European festival circuit this summer, a year after they released a joint record that featured singers from across the Middle East. Some of the dates were rescheduled after the pair canceled shows in the...
(JTA) — The German government has agreed to allocate $1.5 billion in Holocaust reparations this year, setting a new record for how much the country is spending to support survivors. The increase from a total of $1.4 billion last year is due to a rise in the amount the government is paying to reimburse survivors’ medical expenses. But the sum paid directly to survivors has once again declined, reflecting the accelerating deaths of survivors. And the growth in the total package is expected to end soon as the number of living survivors plu...
(JTA) - Claudia Sheinbaum swept to victory in Mexico's presidential election Sunday, giving the country of more than 120 million a woman leader and a Jewish leader for the first time. Sheinbaum's election makes Mexico by far the biggest country to have a Jewish head of state. Only Israel (9.5 million) and Ukraine (38 million) currently have Jewish leaders. Sheinbaum's Jewish ties are centered mostly on her family story - her grandparents came to Mexico after fleeing persecution in Europe - and l...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that there are “gaps” between the ceasefire terms that President Joe Biden laid out on Friday and what he is prepared to accept. “The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door government meeting in which he called reporting about his position on a potential deal “fake news,” according to Israeli media reports. Netanyahu’s comments, as well as growing tension within the government over a potential ceasefire, are muting hopes that Biden’s an...
(JTA) — On Tuesday night, the president of Sonoma State University sent an email to his school community announcing an academic boycott of Israel and other concessions to pro-Palestinian protesters on his campus. On Wednesday afternoon, he sent another surprising message: He was taking a leave of absence. “In my attempt to find agreement with one group of students, I marginalized other members of our student population and community,” Mike Lee wrote in the second email. “I realize the harm that this has caused, and I take full ownersh...
(JTA) - Despite steep backlash including protests from other competitors, Israel's Eden Golan placed fifth in the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night after delivering a rousing final performance of her song "Hurricane." The competition's winner is determined by a complex system in which juries for each participating country allocate half of all votes, while the public contributes the other half. Golan's success - which exceeded expectations set in betting markets before the competition -...