Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The Jewish world has a longstanding aversion to tattoos. Even among largely secular Jews, the taboo against body ink remains powerful - a disinclination attributed both to the tattooing of concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust and the myth that tattooed Jews can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. As tattooing has grown increasingly mainstream in recent years, some Jews have even embraced it as a way to honor ancestors tattooed by the Nazis. While some liberal Jews have taken a fresh...
(JTA) - Five years ago, Rabbi Guy Austrian made a small but powerful change at the synagogue he leads: He wrote down the language his community used to call non-binary members to the Torah. That language had been developed informally over time through a process that Austrian recalled as being "a little awkward" because it involved tweaking language on the fly for congregants whose gender did not fit into the male-female binary that's baked into Hebrew. Codifying the language meant changing only...
(JNS) — While an official U.N. Commission of Inquiry seeks Israel’s diplomatic isolation, 21 nations came out in support of the Jewish state on Monday, expressing concern about the commission’s uncommonly broad mandate and the U.N. Human Rights Council’s irregular targeting of Israel. In Geneva, the three members of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry—all of whom have a history of anti-Israel activity and rhetoric—addressed the Human Rights Council and the press in the wake of their first report released last week. On Tuesday, commission...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden will visit Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia next month in a visit that will emphasize reestablishing U.S. ties with the Palestinians. The Biden administration on Tuesday morning posted the dates for Biden’s Middle East tour, July 13 to 16, after weeks of reporting that such a trip would take place this summer. The visit to Saudi Arabia will include attending a summit of the “GCC+3,” a body that brings together the Gulf Cooperation Council, the umbrella for Gulf Arab states, plus Egypt, Iraq and Jorda...
Israel urges citizens not to travel to Istanbul citing Iranian terrorist threat By Ron Kampeas (JTA) — Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid urged Israelis not to travel to Istanbul, saying that Israeli and Turkish authorities have recently thwarted Iranian-backed terrorist attacks. “In recent weeks, Israeli security services, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Prime Minister’s Office have put tremendous effort into saving Israeli lives, some of whom have returned to Israel and are walking among us without knowing their lives were saved...
(JNS) — The Stuttgart Administrative Court recently ruled that calls to single out the Jewish state for boycott, divestment and sanctions do not violate Germany’s laws against hate speech and are protected, sparking outrage from critics that the decision turns anti-Semitism into a socially and politically correct view. “It is probably the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a court has expressly declared ‘anti-Semitic views’ to be a legally protected area of ‘freedom of opinion,’” Henryk M. Broder, a leading expert on G...
Ben & Jerry's is requiring all new employees to watch four videos about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, all of which appear to be biased against the Jewish state, the Jewish Insider reported. The videos are part of the company's "Scooper Series: Social Mission" concerning the conflict as well as racism in the U.S., an employee told the Jewish Insider. Featured in one of the videos is anti-Israel activist Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch's Israel and Palestine director. Shakir, a BDS promoter,...
(JNS) - Being a Mossad operative in Iran isn't a job for the faint of heart. Viewers get a sense of such intensity watching "Tehran" on Apple TV+, a show that will keep them on the edge of their seats. In Season 1, Israeli actress Niv Sultan proved as Tamar Rabinyan, a young Jewish woman born in Iran but raised in Israel, that she was able to hack almost any computer system, shoot anyone and happily risk her life for Israel. In the first episode of Season 2, she has to save the life of an...
LOS ANGELES (JTA) - When Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff sat down for a Zoom conversation with Holocaust survivor Pinchas Gutter on Wednesday, he opened by saying, "I feel like I already know you!" Though the two had never met, Emhoff did, to an extent, know Gutter. Just moments before the video call, Emhoff had engaged with Gutter's interactive biography, asking him questions about his experience in concentration camps and even listening to Gutter sing "Shir Hama'alot," the song that begins...