Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA) - Vice President Kamala Harris "strongly disagrees" with a university student who told her that Israel was carrying out "ethnic genocide," her office said, pushing back against claims that she encouraged the student's view. "Throughout her career, the vice president has been unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel's security," Harris's spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, said Friday in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "While visiting George Mason University...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A GOP flier distributed to homes in the Virginia suburbs of Washington depicts the Jewish Democratic candidate for the House of Delegates at a table stacked high with gold coins, a pairing of images of Jewish candidates with money that has proliferated in political attack ads in recent years. “Dan Helmer has raised Virginia’s cost of living to new heights,” the mailer said. It was distributed this week by Helmer’s Republican challenger, Howard Pyon. Helmer, the incumbent in the House of Delegate’s 40th District, which cover...
(JTA) — In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the twin threats of Iran and the coronavirus, in keeping with his quest for a relationship with the international community that is less confrontational than his predecessor’s. Bennett launched his speech Monday morning with a plea to see Israel not as forever entrenched in warfare, but as a contributing member of the international community. Israel, Bennett said at the outset, “is a beacon of democracy, diverse by design, innov...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York, said she changed her vote from “no” to “present” on a bill for special funding for Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome defense system because of the “panic and horror” that seized the moment. Ocasio-Cortez could be seen weeping on the floor of Congress Thursday after casting her vote. She was one of 11 representatives, including the other members of “the Squad” of progressives, who did not vote to support the $1 billion in Iron Dome funding; 420 representative...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Wrapping up the feel-good-fest that marked the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and four Arabs states, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a shout-out to the big guy who started it all. No, not Donald Trump, but Abraham himself. "Abraham, in our Bible, had the temerity to engage God, to argue with God, to ask why, and maybe more important, to ask why not," Blinken said at the virtual get-together Friday that marked...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved an extra $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, following a pushback effort from Israel-critical progressives that had limited reach. The vote Thursday was 420-9, with two voting present. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to be approved. Israel asked the Biden administration for $1 billion to replenish the batteries depleted during its conflict with Hamas in May. The Biden administration agreed, and the Democratic lea...
(JTA) - Meryl Jaffe says she's like any Jewish parent keeping track of her kids on social media, except it can be terrifying. When she heard President Joe Biden deployed 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan, she had a gut feeling that her son Matt - she calls him Matthew - was among them. Her family was tracking the U.S. Marine Corps on social media to verify their suspicions. "Matthew's sister, Rebecca, saw it on one of the Marine websites that she follows on Instagram. And she said, 'I think this is...
(JTA) - Israel captured the remaining two Palestinian prisoners of the six who riveted the country with their escape from a maximum facility two weeks ago. Israeli police and army troops surrounded a building in Jenin in the West Bank on Saturday night. The two remaining prisoners emerged and surrendered. They were Iham Kamamji, 35, who was convicted in the 2006 murder of Eliyahu Asheri, an Israeli 18-year-old who had asked Kamamji for a ride near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, and Monadal...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A congressional letter backed by Muslim and Jewish groups is urging the federal government to make kosher and halal meat available to observant Jews and Muslims through an emergency food program. Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., initiated the letter sent Wednesday to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Forty-eight Democrats have signed the letter, which was obtained exclusively by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “As the United States continues to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, as many as 29 million Americans continue to face foo...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and his Arab-Israeli coalition partner Mansour Abbas thinks he knows why. “It all comes down to courage,” Abbas, the leader of the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, writes in the accompanying blurb explaining why his political opposite was recognized on the list published Wednesday. “After four elections in two years, a bold act was needed to unite a country frayed by political stalemate and brought...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jared Kushner had plenty of folks to praise at an event here last Tuesday marking the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the deals he brokered normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab countries. There were the ambassadors from Israel and two of the Arab lands, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. There were his Trump administration colleagues who worked through the agreement. There were even some Democrats. “I also want to thank Congressman Ted Deutch of Florida for being here today as well as Acting Assista...
(JTA) — Ida Nudel, the Russian Jewish refusenik whose 16-year effort to leave the Soviet Union moved figures as diverse as Republican Secretary of State George Schultz and activist actress Jane Fonda, has died. The Jerusalem Post reported that she died Tuesday and was buried the same day in Tel Aviv. Nudel, an accountant, began her activism in the 1970s after her request to emigrate to Israel was turned down. She supported Jews imprisoned for their activism and their families, delivering needed supplies and making representations on their b...
(JTA) - In a significant move, Israel and the United States have set up a joint team at the national security adviser level to contain Iran, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told U.S. Jewish leaders in a Rosh Hashanah call. Bennett and his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu have vehemently opposed negotiating a deal with Iran to contain its nuclear program. But in his first meeting with Bennett last week, President Joe Biden looked to appease Israel's fears by signaling an openness to using a...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a Rosh Hashanah call last Thursday with a thousand rabbis across the denominational spectrum, President Joe Biden rededicated his presidency to combating hate and extremism and called on the Senate to swiftly confirm his nominee for antisemitism monitor, Deborah Lipstadt. In the afternoon webinar, Biden was asked how he intended to combat a spike in antisemitic incidents. He noted that the attorney general, Merrick Garland, was hiring staff to coordinate the prosecution of hate crimes and that his administration was t...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib called for Israel to return the body of a woman who was killed while she attempted to kill Israeli soldiers. In a Twitter thread on Saturday, Tlaib, one of Israel’s harshest critics in Congress, slammed Israel for its policy of holding onto the bodies of assailants who are killed during an attack. “Meet Mai Afana’s mother, Khuloud, who is fighting to be able to bury her daughter & begin her healing,” wrote Tlaib, a Palestinian American. “Mai was a mother, loving daughter & successful...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - In his first meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, President Joe Biden said that although he prefers diplomatic means to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, he is not afraid to "turn to other options" on the issue. The pledge captured what both men, who are in varying degrees of political precariousness right now, hoped to extract from the meeting: A bigger focus on what they agree on than what they disagree on, and the start of a new era in relations...
(JTA) - Ed Asner, the Emmy award-winning Jewish actor who trademarked a gruff, flawed, and loving persona as Lou Grant in "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and co-starred in the Pixar fan favorite animated movie "Up," has died at 91. "We are sorry to say that our beloved patriarch passed away this morning peacefully," the family said Sunday on Asner's Twitter account. "Words cannot express the sadness we feel. With a kiss on your head - Goodnight dad. We love you." Asner, who once told The Forward he...
(JTA) - Zebulon Simantov, Afghanistan's last Jew, has not left Kabul, despite the best efforts of some Jewish figures and organizations. One of them was Moshe Margaraten, a haredi Orthodox fixer whose passion is bringing Jews out of danger. Margareten paid Moti Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who helped extract people from war-torn Syria, to be a middleman and get Simantov out - but Kahana told Margareten what many others had heard: Simantov was not leaving because of his longstanding...
(JTA) — A woman is suing Bob Dylan for sexually abusing her when she was 12 under a New York law that temporarily lifted limitations on such lawsuits. The woman, identified in court documents as JC, says the Jewish rock star groomed and exploited her in his room at the Chelsea Hotel over six weeks in 1965, USA Today reported on Monday. She says she suffered physical and psychological harm. A lawyer for Dylan vigorously denied the charges, the newspaper reported. The Chelsea Hotel was at the time a hideout for bohemian artists and musicians. D...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — While most of the foreign policy world is focused on President Joe Biden’s moves in Afghanistan in the wake of the stunning turn of events there, the first anniversary of another important Middle East development quietly took place last week. The first part of the Abraham Accords, the historic cooperation agreements between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors, brokered in large part by the United States, turned one year old on Friday. The United Arab Emirates signed a treaty to normalize its relations with Israel for...
(JTA) — The Jewish Federations of North America has canceled the in-person portion of its signature annual event, the General Assembly, citing the coronavirus. The umbrella group for local federations had planned to combine online and in-person events, but told participants this week that it was canceling the latter for the expected 500 participants. Events last year were held online only, but Jewish Federations until the recent spike in coronavirus cases had hoped to reemerge into in-person events. Instead, the events Oct. 4-5 will take p...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - President Joe Biden is set to nominate Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University Holocaust historian, to be the State Department's antisemitism envoy. The White House alerted top Biden supporters of the pick, which has been expected for weeks, on Thursday night, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned. Lipstadt is perhaps best known for defeating Holocaust denier David Irving after he sued her in a British court for defamation for calling him a Holocaust denier. Her 2005 book,...
(JTA) - It has been a question insiders have posed all week: Could Ben & Jerry's decision to stop selling its ice cream in the West Bank trigger many or all of the laws that U.S. states have passed in recent years to hurt the Israel boycott movement? Well, five states are already looking into it. Officials in Florida, Texas, New York, New Jersey and Illinois are reviewing whether the move will require divestment from Ben & Jerry's parent company Unilever under their various state laws. There...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ben & Jerry’s decision this week to pull out of an agreement that allowed its Israeli franchisee to sell its product in what the company terms “Occupied Palestinian Territory” has angered some Jewish-owned businesses. But the move also could have legal repercussions in the United States. As a result of a campaign since the mid-2010s led by center-right and Christian pro-Israel groups, 33 states have passed laws or issued executive orders targeting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, accordi...
(JTA) - A survey of U.S. Jewish voters taken after the Israel-Gaza conflict finds that a sizable minority believe some of the harshest criticisms of Israel, including that it is committing genocide and apartheid. Among respondents to the survey commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats, 34 percent agreed that "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States," 25 percent agreed that "Israel is an apartheid state" and 22...
