Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 37
(JTA) — Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who injected outlandish comments about Jews into the national dialogue and also vocally supported Israel, suspended his campaign Friday and said he would support Donald Trump. Kennedy, who had previously run in the Democratic party and had gained attention in recent years as an anti-vaccine activist, dropped his bid Friday during an extended press conference in Phoenix, shortly before a scheduled Trump rally nearby. Kennedy’s lon...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The Israeli American Council unveiled its “Hostage Square” exhibit on Tuesday at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, drawing attention to Israeli captives held by Hamas. The political event has been marked by large pro-Palestinian demonstrations. An IAC spokesperson confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the exhibit is situated on private property near the United Center, where the convention is taking place until Aug. 22. By choosing a private lot,...
(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...
(JNS) — At this moment, 109 treasured human beings are being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. They are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. They are from 23 different countries. The youngest hostage is a 1-year-old, red-headed baby boy, and the oldest is an 86-year-old mustachioed grandpa. Among the hostages are eight American citizens. One of those Americans is our only son. His name is Hersh. He’s 23 years old, and like Vice President Kamala Harris, Hersh was born in Oakland, California. Hersh is a happy-go-lucky, laid-back, goo...
Dr. Kenneth Hanson has just released a powerful documentary about the Oct. 7 massacre of 1200 innocent Jewish men, women and children in the northwestern Negev. The video, titled "October Shadows: Denying the Day of Despair," brings attention to what exactly happened on that fateful day and covers the almost immediate denial of the evil acts committed by Hamas and Gazan citizens. "... while Oct. 7 is a different kind of Holocaust than what transpired during the dark years of World War II, the...
Participants are in for two very special treats in the Jewish Pavilion Senior Services online auction fundraiser this year. Not only can participants bid on the usual amazing range of items from restaurant gift cards to theme park tickets to unique experiences, but this year’s auction will also feature nearly 75 brand-new, couture fashion items such as purses and shoes donated by a wealthy benefactor in New York City. Even better, everyone who registers for the auction has the chance to win a $500 Visa gift card courtesy of Cornerstone H...
(JTA) — CHICAGO — The Democratic National Convention is denying a speaking spot to a group of pro-Palestinian delegates, a decision it confirmed after the parents of an Israeli-American hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, delivered an address that brought the convention to a standstill. The delegation of activists belongs to “Uncommitted,” the movement that calls for an end to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. They protested the decision by staging a sit-in outside the convention center that lasted into...
(JNS) — Outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday in a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that anti-Israel protesters “have a point.” “Those protesters out on the street. They have a point. A lot of innocent people are being killed on both sides,” the 81-year-old president told the United Center crowd on the first night of the convention after being introduced by First Lady Jill Biden and their daughter, Ashley Biden. Four demonstrators were arrested after anti-Israel protesters breached an outer fence lin...
(JNS) — In a JNS/Direct Polls survey of Israelis conducted on Aug. 19 regarding their view of the presidential race that pits Vice President Kamala Harris against former President Donald Trump, Harris enjoys the support of 28 percent of Israelis to Trump’s 64 percent, with 9 percent of Israelis professing to have no opinion. In a JNS/Direct Polls survey of Israelis carried out on July 9, 34 percent of respondents supported Biden to 55 percent for Donald Trump and 11 percent had no opinion. In this week’s poll, Harris has virtually no support am...
(JNS) — The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who has eluded Israeli crosshairs since Oct. 7, is making it a precondition to a ceasefire and hostage release deal that Israel spare his life, according to reporting in Asharq al-Awsat, an Arabic publication in London. Israel media reported, citing Egyptian officials who spoke anonymously with Asharq al-Awsat and other Arabic media, that Cario presented a stipulation to U.S. counterparts on behalf of the Oct. 7 terror attack mastermind. “Should a deal be struck alongside the return of hostages, ‘Si...
By Jonathan Feldstein During my freshman year in college, my Hillel rabbi asked me a question: “If you have a decision to make with two bad options as the outcome, what do you do?” 19-year-old wise Jonathan answered, “You choose the least bad option.” His response is a lesson that still guides me today. “No, you come up with a good option.” Since the inhuman Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas terrorists, murdering 1200 people, systematic rape and sexual mutilation, incinerating people alive, and kidnapping over 250 people, 109 of whom are still in ca...
(JNS) — I remember well when Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1963 barred entry of two students, James Hood and Vivian Malone, to the University of Alabama because of their race. The response from President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was electric. First, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach personally confronted the governor at the University of Alabama and sought in vain to convince him to desist. Kennedy reacted by federalizing the Alabama National Guard. The two students returned to the u...
(JNS) — We Jews have been called lots of things. Some of the less offensive appellations are “stubborn” and “obstinate.” Yes, we can be stubborn, obstinate or davka. Call it what you like. But, curiously, not all the rabbis see stubbornness as a fault. In last week’s Torah reading, Ekev, Moses continues his recap of the events of the last 40 years and speaks of the terrible sin of the Golden Calf: “Then, G-d spoke to me and said: ‘I have observed this people and behold, it is a stiff-necked people.’” The phrase first appears back in Exo...
Amid the Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago, there’s legitimate excitement seeing a woman heading a major political party’s ticket this year. Women are being encouraged to vote for Kamala Harris as a woman. But as a Christian, Iranian American woman, I will not be voting for Kamala because she represents exactly the values that endanger women in the Middle East and around the world. And neither should you. For my first 33 years I lived under the harsh rules of the extremist Iranian Islamic regime. I have countless scars of...
(JNS) — In the summer of 1982, following the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Israel launched Operation Peace for Galilee, also known as the First Lebanon War. In so doing, Israel reacted to the continual Katyusha rocket fire being lobbed into northern Israel that disrupted the lives of its citizens for many years. At the time, the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasser Arafat broke every ceasefire arranged by Philip Habib, a senior State Department diplomat sent to the region by the...
Dear Editor: At last the Heritage had good news about Israel’s winnings at the Olympics and Cori Bush’s loss in her primary thanks to AIPAC. The less cheerful news, admirably discussed by Jerome M. Marcus (Heritage Aug. 6, 2024), is the activity of the Reconstructive “Rabbinical College” trying to outdo the “Radical Liberal Rabbis” in appeasing the narrative of the “Islamic superiority” condemning the existence of the Jewish State of Israel. In reviewing the current state of antisemitism, I considered the neo-Nazis consisting of well-funded...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of South Orlando — Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. and 10 minutes before sunset; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 8:15 a.m., 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael — Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona — Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy of Orlando — Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Temple Israel — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3...
(JNS) — Former Hamas hostage Noa Argamani met with top global diplomats on Wednesday to raise the plight of the 109 captives still being held by the terrorist group in the Gaza Strip. “Every night I was falling asleep and thinking, this may be the last night of my life,” the 26-year-old told senior diplomats from G7 countries in Tokyo. “And until the moment I was [rescued] … I just did not believe that I’m still surviving,” she added. “And in this moment that I’m … sitting with you, it’s a miracle that I’m here,” she said. Argamani, Shlomi Zi...
(JNS) - MAGHAR, Israel - After seven months fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza with his elite military reserve unit, 32-year-old Eyal Ghanam is now heading to the country's volatile northern border for a two-month stint. For Ghanam, a member of Israel's small and strongly patriotic Druze community, military service runs deep in the family; his father's 25-year Israel Defense Forces career saw him rise to become infantry brigade commander of the northern Gaza Strip before Israel's unilateral...
(JNS) — During Barack Obama’s presidency, Thomas Nides attended foreign policy meetings as U.S. deputy secretary of state for management and resources. Just as he saw Obama include Joe Biden, then the vice president, Nides has seen President Biden consult with Vice President Kamala Harris. “I sat in the Situation Room for hundreds of meetings with President Obama and the vice president, and the vice president was included on almost every major foreign policy decision,” Nides told JNS on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convent...
(JNS) - The secrets of the Jewish kitchen dating back two millennia to the time of the Biblical Second Temple are being uncovered in Jerusalem's ancient drainage channel, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. Items such as expensive oils, grape seeds and 2,000-year-old eggshells were unearthed during an excavation-outside the Old City walls-in the drainage channel that ran under Jerusalem's main street during the Second Temple period. The ancient drainage channel ran under the...
(JNS) — As tensions between Israel and Iran escalate, a group of American military veterans is preparing to evacuate U.S. citizens from the region for the second time since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught on southwestern Israel. “Our ambition is for every American who travels to know that Project DYNAMO is there to help them if the need were to arise,” Mario Duarte, president and CEO of the Florida-based organization, told JNS on Sunday. Project DYNAMO was created in 2021, as the United States pulled forces out of Afghanistan. After the withdrawal, th...
(JNS) — An evacuee from Israel’s north was wounded over the weekend when a porcupine violently attacked him over the weekend on the grounds of the hotel where he was staying. Shalom Yonassi, a 50-year-old resident of Kiryat Shmona who has been evacuated to the Herbert Samuel Bayit Bagalil Hotel Spa in Hatzor HaGlilit due to the Hezbollah threat, was rushed to Safed’s Ziv Medical Center, where surgeons removed 40 spines from his legs and feet. “We are staying at a hotel in the middle of the Bir...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - The release of the trailer for Disney's live-action remake of "Snow White" has sparked an antisemitic campaign on social media against Israeli actress Gal Gadot. Pro-Palestinian users have criticized Gadot's casting as the Evil Queen and called for a boycott of the film, citing her Israeli background and military service. This past weekend, Disney unveiled the first trailer for its new adaptation of "Snow White" at the D23 fan convention in Anaheim, California. The...
(JNS) - Israel's Yes Studios is collaborating with Fox Entertainment Studios on the first scripted drama series about the Oct. 7 attacks as the anniversary of the Hamas-led massacre approaches, entertainment industry online news site Deadline reported on Tuesday. Yes and Fox are co-producing "One Day in October," a four-part Hebrew-language anthology series telling the personal stories that emerged from the events of the day. That title is for international release, while the Hebrew title is...
