Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — When Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, failed to meet his own deadline to announce a plan to annex portions of the West Bank during the summer of 2020, it wasn’t just his usual critics and advocates for the prompt creation of a Palestinian state who breathed a sigh of relief. The missed deadline was also a relief to insiders at the Trump White House, who knew that annexation would derail their ambitious effort to make peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the very afternoon of the annexation deadlin...
(JTA) — The Democratic primary next week in Michigan’s 11th District could end a four-decade Jewish political dynasty — and spending by the country’s biggest pro-Israel lobby is playing a significant role. Because of redistricting, the race pits two incumbent Democrats against each other: Rep. Andy Levin, a Jewish Democrat who favors conditioning aid to Israel and counts some of Congress’s most outspoken Israel critics as his friends, and Rep. Haley Stevens, a non-Jewish centrist whose Israel commitments lie mainly in assuring its military...
(JTA) — Yair Lapid might only be Israel’s interim prime minister, but he appears to be determined to maximize the position in the four months he is guaranteed to occupy it. In a speech delivered Saturday night, Lapid laid out a set of beliefs that he said bind Israelis of all ideologies, as well as his diagnosis for why widespread agreement on fundamental ideas hasn’t translated into political harmony. “The answer is politics,” he said in the speech, published in English by the Times of Israel and in adapted form in Hebrew by Lapid on Twitte...
(JTA) - Vladimir Zelenko, the doctor from an Orthodox enclave near New York City who rose to fame early in the COVID-19 pandemic for promoting a drug cocktail, has died of cancer at 48. The foundation that Zelenko launched to advance his theories after he left his family medical practice amid controversy in May 2020 announced his death on Thursday, saying that it would accept donations to continue his work, which included opposition to COVID-19 vaccines. Zelenko, who went by Zev, was born in...
(JTA) — Israelis seeking to end pregnancies will no longer be required to appear before an approval committee, go to a hospital for medication or be asked invasive questions about why they want an abortion. A Knesset committee approved the new regulations on Monday, just days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 50-year-old Roe v. Wade precedent guaranteeing Americans the right to abortion. The regulations fall short of the full abolition of the hospital-based approval committees that Israeli Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz had said h...
(JTA) — In the summer of 2020, Gabe Kapler, then in his first season as manager of the San Francisco Giants, joined figures across sports in taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Now, two years later, Kapler has announced that he will not take the field at all for the anthem out of broad dismay over the United States’ direction, spurred by the mass murder of 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. “When I was the same age as the children in Uvalde, my father taught me to stand for the pledge of al...
(JTA) — The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and our partner sites at 70 Faces Media have answered the question many times over the years, a testament to its persistence in political life and its significance to American Jews: What do Jews believe about abortion? After a new report that the Supreme Court reviewed a majority opinion in February that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the question is relevant yet again. Here’s what we know: American Jews favor abortion rights, more than any other religious group, according to public polling. And tra...
(JTA) - Let's get one thing out of the way: Elon Musk is not Jewish. But his acquisition of Twitter comes amid longstanding problems with antisemitism and hate speech on the platform - and Jewish users fear his free-speech orientation could make things worse. Musk's purchase of the social media company, for a reported $44 billion, will likely take months to complete and could be derailed in any number of ways. And while the serial entrepreneur is known for acting quickly and decisively - sometim...
(JTA) — When Season 2 of “Russian Doll,” Natasha Lyonne’s sci-fi exploration of identity and trauma, dropped on Netflix Friday, it immediately became clear that teasers of the season’s Jewish content were not overblown. In the season, which features New York City subway-induced time travel, Lyonne’s character zips back to 1982, the year of her birth; 1968 New York City; and 1944, when her grandmother was being pursued by Nazis in her native Budapest. In every timeline, she witnesses how layers of Jewish trauma forged the family in which she e...
(JTA) - Of all the issues facing Israel - violence within the country, how to handle Russia's war on Ukraine, Iran - the one that appears to have put the country's delicate governing coalition at risk could appear picayune. When Idit Silman, a member of Knesset from the right-wing Yamina party, surprised government leaders and even her party by resigning Wednesday, she said she was doing so over hospital food. Her decision vaults issues of religious freedom and Israel's Jewish character to the...
(JTA) - The most prominent Jewish figure in Ukraine right now is the country's president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The runner-up may well be another country's famous Jewish leader. Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel and a native of Kyiv whose family fled amid antisemitic violence, has loomed large ever since Russia launched its war on Ukraine late last month. Her words have appeared in pro-Ukrainian memes, been quoted by Ukrainian diplomats and even been pulled from the backpack of a...
(JTA) - The morning after Russian bombs fell at the site of a 1941 massacre of Ukrainian Jews, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the world's Jews to speak out about what is happening in his country. Russia's attack adjacent to Babyn Yar, the Kyiv site where Nazis and local collaborators executed tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, along with its bombing several days ago of Uman, the Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims visit each year,...
(JTA) — The world has had a crash course on Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days, as the Ukrainian president has galvanized his country against an unprovoked attack by neighboring Russia. The broad strokes of Zelensky’s career have long been known to those who pay attention to Ukrainian politics — or to their spillover effects in American government. He’s young, funny, Jewish and committed to a strong democratic Ukraine, even at the risk of death. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” he reportedly told American authorities this week after they offere...
(JTA) — The morning after Russian bombs fell at the site of a 1941 massacre of Ukrainian Jews, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the world’s Jews to speak out about what is happening in his country. Russia’s attack adjacent to Babyn Yar, the Kyiv site where Nazis and local collaborators executed tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, along with its bombing several days ago of Uman, the Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims visit each year, repre...
(JTA) — One week ago, Jews outside of Ukraine knew Volodymyr Zelensky as the world leader on the other end of the “perfect phone call” that resulted in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But now, after days of watching Zelensky balance humor and gravitas while rallying his fellow Ukrainians to rebuff the Russian army invasion, they know him as a contemporary Jewish hero. “Zelensky gives modern Maccabee energy,” Peter Fox, a writer, wrote on Twitter. Fox was referring to the ancient Jews who, though outflanked in every way, fended of...
(JTA) - Felice Jacobs and Alan Feldstein could have tied the knot in Phoenix, where they met and where his mother worked at the local Reform synagogue. Or they could have held their wedding on the U.S. Army base in Austria where Alan was stationed at the time. Instead, they chose the Eagle's Nest, the Nazis' former mountain retreat in the Bavarian Alps - a location that, as far as anyone knew, had never before hosted a Jewish wedding. "We got married there because my husband wanted to thumb his...
(JTA) - Spoiler alert: This story contains details from "Seeing the Light," the season finale of HBO's "And Just Like That," which first aired Feb. 3, 2022. The previews for the season finale of "And Just Like That," the "Sex and the City" reboot airing on HBO, suggested that viewers would get to see a "they mitzvah." And for most of the episode, which began streaming Thursday, that's exactly what seemed like was happening. Charlotte (Kristin Davis), who converted to Judaism in the original...
(JTA) — Emma Saltzberg knew she might invite criticism by competing on “Jeopardy!” From her years of experience in progressive Jewish groups, including IfNotNow, a group founded in 2014 to galvanize American Jews to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, she knew that her appearance on one of the most popular TV shows in the United States would likely generate negative comments from those who believe criticizing the occupation is antisemitic. So when those comments started to appear on social media, especially after IfNotNo...
(JTA) — Tinder says it has banned Shimon Hayut and all of his known aliases. But it’s hard to imagine anyone swiping right on the Israeli who masqueraded as a son of the Russian-Israeli diamond dealer Lev Leviev while allegedly defrauding women he met on the dating app, now that millions of people have seen a Netflix documentary about his crimes. “The Tinder Swindler,” released last week, offers a dramatic reconstruction of the shocking story that emerged in early 2019. Under the alias Simon Leviev, Hayut would wine and dine Scandin...
(JTA) — ABC has suspended Whoopi Goldberg from her role as a co-host of a morning TV talk show for two weeks amid criticism of Goldberg’s characterization of the Holocaust. Goldberg will take two weeks off from the show, ABC News President Kim Godwin announced in a statement Tuesday evening, hours after a leading Jewish organization that had been among Goldberg’s critics said it had welcomed her apology for saying the Holocaust “isn’t about race.” “Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful c...
(JTA) - A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic memoir about his father's Holocaust experience, from its curriculum after board members raised objections about curse words, nude drawings and "not wise or healthy" content within it. Spiegelman, who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for the book, told CNBC that the decision was "Orwellian" and said he doubted that the McMinn County school board's decision to stop teaching his book had only to do with his choic...
(JTA) - The New York City rabbi who spoke twice to the man who held Jews hostage in their Texas synagogue last week detailed the experience in a sermon Friday night. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue also outlined her anxiety as an American Jew and exhorted her congregants to heed a prayer that the Reform movement has made part of its liturgy on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day mourning the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and other traumatic events in Jewish history: "Blessed...
(JTA) — Few rabbis appear before more people than Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi of New York City’s 2,000-member Central Synagogue. But Buchdahl may have become one of the most recognizable rabbis ever after her name — and face — appeared as a clue on “Jeopardy!”. The cameo came toward the end of the game show’s second round, in a category titled “I am Woman.” Reigning champion Amy Schneider, en route to her 21st straight win, selected the $800 clue, and a picture of Buchdahl wearing a tallit with purple stripes appeared. Host Ken Jennings...
(JTA) — When Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, picked a favorite memory from the last year for a reflective Thanksgiving-themed tweet on Thursday, he didn’t turn to the day in January when his wife was sworn in or mention their first diplomatic trip together this week. Instead, he shared pictures from the day his family affixed a mezuzah on the doorframe of the vice president’s mansion. Mezuzahs are tubes containing the text of the Shema prayer that Jews traditionally attach to their doorposts. Emhoff is the first Jew t...
(JTA) - Women of the Wall's monthly prayer service at the Western Wall in Jerusalem was disrupted yet again by more than 100 Orthodox protesters, a day after former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amplified the protesters' cause. The disruptions took place even though lawmakers who support and oppose the group agreed to stay away from the Western Wall, in a bid to calm tensions. Women of the Wall, a group that organizes a women's prayer service at the holy site on the first day of each Hebrew...
