Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - The father of an Israeli Defense Forces soldier killed in action in the Gaza Strip has denounced renewed anti-government protests, accusing demonstrators of using the plight of bereaved families and the relatives of hostages to further their political aims. "Nobody should burn the country down," Hagay Lober, whose son Staff Sgt. (res.) Elisha Yehonatan Lober, 24, was killed in the southern Gaza Strip in December, wrote in a viral Facebook post on Sunday. "You cannot dismantle the...
(JTA) — Since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the right to abortion is no longer protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. But that seismic constitutional change has triggered a new legal debate: In the absence of federal constitutional protection, does state law provide Jews with a religious liberty right to abortion? Last week an Indiana state appellate court answered yes to the question — invoking variations on the word “Jew” more than 70 times in the process. As the first state appellate c...
(JNS) — Family members of U.S. citizens whom Hamas terrorists kidnapped and took to Gaza on Oct. 7 held a “very productive meeting” at the White House on Tuesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, Rachel Goldberg-Polin said, per the pool report. “We are thinking of all 133 souls who are being held” in Gaza, added Goldberg-Polin, whose son is the American Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Hersh’s father Jonathan Polin also attended the meeting.) “We want results,” Goldberg-Polin said. Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of American Israeli hostage...
Written by Susan Zimmon Linda Mayer, beloved wife, mother and grandmother, and a resident of Village on the Green in Longwood, Florida, passed away on Sunday, April 7, 2024, at the age of 81. Linda was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. She moved to Longwood, Florida after enjoying 65 years living in the mid-Hudson valley in New York. She is survived by her husband, Gary; her children, Susan (Robert) Zimmon and Bill (Melissa) Mayer; as well as her grandchildren - Jessica, Sam, Sabrina, and Melissa. Linda wa...
Written by Maurice Salamy Mr. Maurice Samuel Salamy, 101, of Orlando, Florida passed away Saturday, April 6, 2024, at Advent Health Apopka following a brief illness. Mr. Salamy was born April 4, 1923, in New York, New York to the late Samuel & Suzanne (Haddad) Salamy. He moved to the Orlando area in 1962 and retired as an Electronics Engineer after 22 years with Martin Marietta. He is predeceased by his loving wife of 67 years Sally Salamy who passed away July 26, 2015, at the age of 103. He and his wife Sally have been members of Congregation...
(JTA) — How might we celebrate Passover differently this year? With so many Israelis brutally murdered on Oct. 7, so many soldiers killed or wounded in battle, so many people — Palestinians and aid workers — dead or suffering in Gaza, we cannot simply celebrate as we did last year. As a community, we need to encourage ritual innovations or special readings to address all these tragic realities. I want to focus on one aspect of a post-Oct. 7 seder: a ritual change meant to call our attention to the more than 130 hostages — men, women and chi...
By Yaakov Lappin (JNS) — Hamas’s leadership in Rafah continues to cling to fanatical visions of eventual victory, six months into the war it launched with Israel, according to Israeli observers. “As long as they are not decisively defeated, they have a chance to stay alive in Gaza. Therefore, they positively view the outcomes of the war, or at least they have some kind of optimism,” said Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the Research and Assessment Division of Israel’s Military Intelligence and currently director of the Proje...
Some iPhone keyboards suggest Palestinian flag for ‘Jerusalem’ (JNS) — Typing “Jerusalem” on the current iPhone iOS 17.4.1 software in an emoji search returns a Palestinian flag icon if the phone is set to English (UK) but not when set to English (U.S.), JNS found on Wednesday. The same thing happens on some Google’s Android devices The Jewish Chronicle reported, citing a social media post by Rachel Riley, a British television presenter. “I’ve just upgraded my software to version iOS 17.4.1, and now, when I type the capital of Israel, Jerusal...
(JNS) — Esther Panitch was inspired when Renee Evans, of the World Jewish Congress, bought trees in Israel recently for Peach State legislators who voted in favor of a bill to codify into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. Evans put Jewish National Fund tree certificates on the lawmakers’ desks. “I saw the certificate, and I was like, ‘Huh. This would be great if I could just name it in honor of a troll,’” Panitch, a Democrat who is the only Jewish state representative in Georgia, told...
(JTA) - The celebrity chef behind the nonprofit whose aid workers were killed in an IDF strike on Tuesday is appealing to Israel, and the Jewish people, to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. In an op-ed published simultaneously Wednesday in Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, and The New York Times, World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres laments the killings and names the seven workers who died. He also calls on Israel to open land routes to deliver aid to hungry Gazans and says his...
(JNS) - Israel will open a new land crossing to the Gaza Strip designed primarily to facilitate the entry of foreign aid, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday. Gallant told reporters that the new crossing point would be established in the northern part of the coastal enclave, between the Israeli village of Zikim and the Palestinian village of As-Siafa. According to the minister, the new crossing will reduce travel time for trucks to enter Gaza after picking up shipments at...
(JNS) — Washington has no evidence that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified during a Tuesday hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee about the 2025 defense budget. About a dozen and a half anti-Israel protesters, who disrupted the beginning of the nearly three-hour hearing, were removed from the room. “I want to address what the protesters raised earlier: Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza?” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked Austin. “We don’t have any evidence of genocide,” Au...
