Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 37
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Israeli president Isaac Herzog had a message and stuck to it: Israel and the United States are on the same page no matter who wins elections in both countries next month. "We have elections in Israel, and you're having midterm elections in the United States," Herzog told President Joe Biden in the public portion of their meeting Wednesday, Oct. 26, in the Oval Office. "But one thing is clear - and I think this visit epitomizes it best - is that our friendship and strong bond...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, a gay man in a conservative-leaning area, and a Black woman from California — all are among the nearly two-dozen Jews who are hoping to enter Congress next year. Among the 46 Jewish nominees for the U.S. House of Representatives are 22 incumbents — 21 Democrats and a single Republican. (Five Jewish incumbents retired or lost a primary this cycle.) The remaining 24 are challengers or running in open seats. Using a number of nonpartisan sources, including the Cook Political Report and 2...
A lot of people, including Jaguars’ owner Shad Kahn, New England Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry, the University of Florida and the University of Georgia spoke out clearly against the antisemitic message posted during the Gators/Bulldogs game last weekend. The message “Kanye was right about the jews [sic]” flashed on the outside of one of the end zones at TIAA Bank Field stadium. The Universities of Florida and Georgia issued a joint statement condemning the hate speech at the stadium as well as in other areas a...
(JTA) - The past few years have been tumultuous at 10 Downing St., the residence of the British prime minister in London. Last week, Liz Truss, who lasted just over six weeks in the role, became the third prime minister to resign since 2019. But the succession of Conservative Party leaders has kept some things steady: they have all had strong ties with mainstream British Jewry and professed a right-leaning foreign policy that is staunchly pro-Israel and hawkish on its enemies in the region. Rish...
Did you know that some of America's most popular candies (Tootsie Rolls! Peeps! Peanut Chews!) were invented by Jews? How and why this came to pass is a remarkable tale that needs no sugarcoating. In the 18th and 19th centuries, Jewish beet farmers throughout the Russian empire produced the bulk of the sugar necessary to satisfy the high demand of the European market. When many of these impoverished farmers fled their shetls at the turn of the 20th century and immigrated to the United States, th...
After reconciling with someone is a good time to sit back and reflect. The journey to forgiveness has shown what doesn't work, but you still may not know what could work. For example, what could be done to manage your temper or react to someone else's temper, to avoid reacting negatively next time? Now would be the time to learn a new skill to help handle these situations. Do some research. Ask someone you know who has struggled with the same concern. You might be surprised to hear what helped...
(JTA) - An $18 million museum dedicated to the legacy of Albert Einstein will be built in Jerusalem. The Israeli government approved a plan Sunday to establish a new home for Einstein's extensive materials, including some 85,000 documents, on the campus of the Hebrew University, which Einstein helped found a century ago. It's the largest collection of papers and objects related to Einstein in the world and includes his Nobel Prize and the original notes he produced while developing the general t...
(JNS) — It took “guts” for Israel to sign the American-brokered maritime border deal with Lebanon, U.S. President Joe Biden told Israeli President Isaac Herzog ahead of their Oval Office meeting on Wednesday. “I have just completed a very detailed, in-depth discussion with the president of the United States, Joe Biden, a true friend of Israel, as part of the unique relationship, the unbreakable bond, the historic relations between Israel and the United States. We had an open and frank discussion on many issues. I thanked the president for the...
(JTA) — After years of negotiation and military posturing, Israel and Lebanon signed a U.S.-brokered agreement that establishes maritime boundaries between the countries, allowing each to explore for fossil fuels unthreatened by the prospect of an attack. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, heading into an election next Tuesday and under fire from his rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who says the deal concedes too much, cast the deal as a historic breakthrough. “This is a diplomatic achievement,” Lapid said at the start of the C...
(JNS) — Illegal Palestinian construction in the Israeli-controlled regions of Judea and Samaria, known collectively as “Area C,” increased by 80 percent over the past year, according to a new report by Israeli NGO Regavim. According to the report, titled “The War of Attrition,” 5,535 illegal Palestinian structures have been built in Area C during Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s tenure. Meanwhile, Regavim pegs the total number of illegal Arab-built structures in Area C at 80,000. The organization’s members recently protested out...
(JNS) — The saga of Kanye West’s antisemitism is not without irony. Even after he had engendered controversy by engaging in anti-Jewish rants, West, who now calls himself “Ye,” boasted that his status as a rap music star and fashion mogul rendered him exempt from facing any real financial consequences for spreading hatred. The Adidas brand, in particular, would, he said, stick with him. “I can literally say antisemitic s*** and they cannot drop me,” he said. A few days later, he found out this wasn’t true when Adidas dropped him, on the ground...
(JNS) — This month, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong reversed the previous government’s decision to recognize western Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The question that should be asked is why that recognition was controversial at all. No fair-minded person who believes in two states for two peoples thinks Israel should not be entitled to at least the western part of Jerusalem in any future settlement with the Palestinians. This principle has been part of every peace proposal in recent memory and the area has been in possession of the Jewis...
(JNS) — Vladimir Putin is slaughtering Ukrainian men, women and children. Xi Jinping is committing genocide against the Muslims of East Turkistan. Ali Khamenei is murdering Iranian girls for wearing their hijabs in what he considers a provocative manner. What is the United Nations doing in response to these crises? It’s going “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” That quote, of course, is from a recent tweet by Kanye West. “DEFCON,” an acronym for “defense readiness condition,” is how the U.S. military indicates states of alert, ranging from on...
Last week, Jews around the world read the Torah portion about Noah (Genesis 6:9-10). Noah is fascinating. God doesn’t say he was a great guy. What happens after the ark comes to rest, after the floodwaters subside, planting a vineyard and getting drunk, is a great example. The Torah says he was righteous in his generation, which means he was better than others, deserving of being saved along with his family, and reliable enough to gather every species of animal to repopulate the world. Even though God made a covenant never to destroy the world...
(JNS) — Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, the head of Israel’s falsely dubbed “center left” Labor Party, doesn’t even bother these days to temper the radicalism that makes her indistinguishable from Meretz leader Zahava Gal-On. This isn’t the sole reason that the outspoken feminist — who has boasted of carrying on the legacy of the late (assassinated) prime minister Yitzhak Rabin — is polling so poorly in the run-up to the Nov. 1 Knesset elections. Her drawing of such a comparison would be merely comical if it didn’t serve a purpose b...
Dear Editor: I was saddened to read of Tess’ death. She was a very special lady — a true Eishet Chayil. The Orlando Jewish community benefited greatly and will continue to benefit greatly for many future decades from Tess’s commitment and efforts. I’d like to expand on this one sentence in the Heritage article: “What began with her “Holocaust Project” in the early 1980s with small conferences and discussions about extremism and terrorism, stands today as the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida.” As with Hy Lake, Tess (...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of North Orlando and Chabad of Altamonte Springs are holding in-person 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...
(JTA) — A feud between two Jewish bagel shop owners in Columbus, Ohio, has spilled out of the oven and into full public view, resulting in a lawsuit and restraining order. The Columbus Jewish News reports that the owner of Block’s Bagels, a local Jewish deli mainstay since 1967, last week sued former business partner Jeremy Fox, owner of the Fox’s Bagels & Deli chain, after the latter moved to rebrand two shops the parties had been operating jointly. In court earlier this week, the judge in the case ordered two Fox’s locations to continu...
(JTA) – Trish Adlesic was visiting her father in Pittsburgh on the day a gunman walked into the city's Tree of Life synagogue building and murdered 11 people. Almost immediately, the director started filming her surroundings with the aim of producing a documentary about the tragedy, bringing on a Tree of Life congregant, Eric Schuman, as an editor and producer. Drawing on her own experiences conducting "trauma-informed" interviews, Adlesic reached out to survivors hoping to create "a platform fo...
Jews have played a major part in inventing, creating, and running companies. Here are three early industry game-changers. Levi Strauss: Jeans from Jewish Genes Bavarian immigrant to the U.S. Levi Loeb Strauss (1829-1902), in partnership with Latvian-born inventor, Jacob W. Davis (1831–1908), and Levi's brother in-law, David Stern (1820-1875), also from Bavaria founded Levi Strauss & Co following the "creation" of the ubiquitous jeans by Strauss and Davis. Levi Strauss arrived on American soil i...
(JNS) - Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently hosted events with Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd, who has made a series of anti-semitic comments. El-Kurd, who appeared at MIT on Oct. 22 and Harvard on Oct. 24, has described Zionism as a "death cult," "murderous", "genocidal," and "sadistic," according to research compiled by the CAMERA media watchdog. He has also said that Israelis have "an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood." More than 60 MIT...
(JTA) - As images of the banner held above Interstate 405 in Los Angeles claiming "Kanye is right about the Jews" ricocheted around the internet this weekend, Jessica Seinfeld decided to take a stand A cookbook author and wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld posted a simple piece of text on a black background that reads "I support my friends and the Jewish people" and encouraged her 580,000 followers to share the post. Seinfeld, who is Jewish, was weighing in two weeks after West, the...
(JTA) — Two weeks ago, Ariel Elias, then a little-known standup comedian performing at a club in New Jersey, had a beer thrown at her head from a group of Trump-supporting hecklers who discovered she voted for Joe Biden. After the beer smashed against the brick wall behind her, she picked up the splattered can and chugged its remaining contents. It made for a very viral video and caught the attention of comedians from Whitney Cummings to Jimmy Kimmel, prompting the latter to invite her onto his late-night talk show. “I’m Jewish and from Kentu...
(JTA) — The athletic wear company Adidas is ending its relationship with Kanye West, days after the rapper boasted that he could “literally say antisemitics — and they cannot drop me.” The brand had faced growing criticism of its continued relationship with West, who is known as Ye, as other brands affiliated with West broke ties with him. Adidas reportedly brings in $2 billion a year through its Yeezy brand, accounting for about 10 percent of the company’s revenue. Now, the brand will stop making Yeezy products and stop all payments to West a...
(JTA) - As rap star Kanye West continually refuses to back down from his antisemitic rants, some of the many institutions he has ties with have begun to jump ship. The fashion tastemakers Balenciaga and Vogue have announced they will no longer be working with him. Hollywood talent giant CAA has dropped him, and a planned documentary about him has been scrapped. But one formidable company remained, until recently, in West's corner: Adidas. Despite the German sportswear conglomerate's...
