Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - U.S. President Donald Trump warmly welcomed a delegation of former hostages and family members to the White House on Thursday. In a message shared by the White House, he told them: "You're not a hostage anymore ... today you're heroes." The delegation consisted of 26 former hostages, including 17 of the 20 living captives who were released in the Gaza ceasefire deal that Trump brokered in October. Trump handed each member of the delegation a special presidential coin. In his remarks to a...
(JTA) - A silver Tiffany & Co. menorah from the year 2000. A bronze, 23-inch tall Statue of Liberty menorah made in 1986 in New Jersey by German-born artist Manfred Anson. A silver Chanukah lamp, inlaid with carnelian stones, that was made in the early 20th century at the Bezalel school in Jerusalem. These are just a few of the 35 unique and historic menorahs that famed auction house Christie's is selling ahead of the Jewish holiday of Chanukah, which this year begins on Dec. 14. The menorahs,...
(JNS) — Saad Almadi, 75, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen detained in Saudi Arabia since 2021, is on his way back to Florida, coinciding with U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House meetings with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Almadi, a naturalized U.S. citizen who moved to the United States in 1976, had traveled to Saudi Arabia to visit family and manage personal property. Upon arriving in Riyadh, he was detained and questioned about social media posts he had made from his home in Boca Raton that were critical of the Saudi government. One...
(JNS) — Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish military officer who was falsely accused of treason in 1894 in France, has been posthumously promoted to the rank of brigadier general, AFP reported on Tuesday. French President Emmanuel Macron and French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu signed the promotion into law on Monday, and it was published in the Journal Officiel de La République Française, the government gazette of the French Republic, the next day. The law is seen as an act of reparation for the notorious case that highlighted the ramp...
(JNS) — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) and Leo Terrell, chair of the U.S. Justice Department task force to combat Jew-hatred, were among the honorees awarded for speaking out on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people at a ceremony in Washington on Wednesday. Speaking at the Endowment for Middle East Truth’s annual “Rays of Light in the Darkness” gala, Fetterman said that the more people “back away from Israel,” the more he would “lean in stronger.” “What Hamas has started was a full-on war against civilization and trying to destroy Israel,...
Shalom Orlando must raise $97,000 to keep the Live Secure grants that fund security throughout the Central Forida Jewish community. Thanks to the Live Secure grants, Shalom Orlando is now the Regional Security Advisor for Jewish institutions across Central Florida. They provide: • Threat assessments for synagogues, schools and agencies • Active threat and emergency training for staff and volunteers • STOP-THE-BLEED certification and response readiness • Real-time intelligence sharing with the FBI, DHS, and local law enforcement • Advocacy...
(JNS) — Dora Pekec, press secretary for Zohran Mamdani, told Jewish Insider on Thursday that the New York City mayor-elect “has discouraged” the language that protesters used outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan the prior night “and will continue to do so.” She added that her boss “believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” The 200 protesters who reportedly shouted calls for violence agai...
(JNS) — Israel on Thursday night recovered the remains of Hamas hostage Meny (Menachem) Godard, who was murdered by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization during the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and whose body was taken into the Gaza Strip. Meny was 73 at the time of his murder and was abducted from his home in Kibbutz Be’eri. His death was officially confirmed on Dec. 8, 2023. He is survived by four children and seven grandchildren. His wife, Ayelet Godard, was also killed during the attack on the kibbutz. “The IDF expresses deep condo...
(JNS) - Israeli authorities have rearrested a Palestinian terrorist released from prison a few months ago as part of a hostage deal with Hamas, the Israel Police Spokesperson's Unit said on Thursday. He was taken into custody on suspicion of bomb-making. Detectives from the Judea District Crime Fighting Unit and National Counterterrorism Unit officers from the Shai (Judea and Samaria) District raided his Bethlehem home on Wednesday night and detained him for questioning. The terrorist was...
(JNS) — Israeli forces overnight Wednesday carried out a sweeping counterterrorism operation across Judea and Samaria, seizing weapons and arresting suspected terrorists linked to recent attacks, the IDF and Shin Bet said in a joint statement. Guided by Shin Bet intelligence, IDF troops searched more than 70 locations, finding weapons concealed inside residences, including a “Carlo” submachine gun hidden in a microwave and a hunting rifle stashed behind a curtain, according to the military. At the same time, soldiers launched a major opera...
(JNS) - The body returned to Israel on Tuesday from Gaza has been identified as that of Dror Or, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office said. The identification was completed in coordination with the National Center for Forensic Medicine, the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate. "The Government of Israel shares in the deep sorrow of the Or family and all the families of the abducted fallen," said the PMO. "The IDF expresses deep condolences to the families, continues to make every effort to...
(JNS) — A high-level delegation of South African Christian leaders visited Israel in mid-November with a clear mission: to witness the reality on the ground, strengthen long-standing ties with the Jewish state and return home as “ambassadors for truth” at a time when diplomatic ties between Jerusalem and Pretoria are under intense strain. Three members of the delegation—Shaun Zagnoev, chairman of the South African Friends of Israel (SAFI); Pastor Bert Pretorius, founder and president of the South African Coalition for Families and Faith (...
Last year, Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall held its 10th anniversary of a Hanukkah concert series that was rebooted 70 years after it was halted by the Nazis, in what some Dutch Jews saw as a repudiation of antisemitism that had swelled during the war in Gaza. This year, the concert has been called off — and the prestigious concert hall citing the chosen singer’s ties to the Israeli army. The Chanukah Concert Foundation, which organizes the event, had booked Shai Abramson to sing. Abramson is a retired lieutenant colonel for the IDF who serve...
(JNS) — In the hours leading up to the United Nations Security Council’s unanimous vote, 13 to 0, on Monday to approve a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing Washington’s 20-point plan for Gaza, experts told JNS that Israelis worry about the plan’s “pathway” to Palestinian statehood. Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister, stated that the “deterioration” was due to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “silence,” and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli national security minister, stated that his party would not be part of any governmen...
(JNS) — Hamas had closely followed 100,000 Israeli troops on social media and other networks for years before executing the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, meticulously collecting information about Israel Defense Forces posts along the border, including how to operate Israeli tanks, Israel’s Army Radio correspondent Doron Kadosh reported on Sunday. The terrorist organization established an array of some 2,500 members who took part in gathering data online, piece by piece, for five years before the attacks on the northwestern Negev, according to Kad...
(JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League released a report on Friday detailing how prompts can produce antisemitism, extremism and violence in text-to-video artificial intelligence tools despite safeguards that companies have put in place. Text-to-video AI tools generate videos from written prompts. The ADL says that misleading and disturbing materials produced with that technology have been “leveraged to sow confusion and division following newsworthy events or tragedies.” The companies that created and run the tools are supposed to have safeg...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in the Oval Office alongside Zohran Mamdani, mayor-elect of New York City, that the two had “a great meeting.” “A really good, a very productive meeting,” Trump said. “We have one thing in common. We want this city of ours, which we love, to do really well.” Trump said of Mamdani, a socialist who has said that he would have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrested in New York City, that “I met with a man who’s a very rational person.” “I met with a man who really wants to see N...
(JNS) — A new watchdog report alleges that the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, “the largest and most financially significant branch of the national CAIR network,” paid $1,000 to anti-Israel campus activists disciplined by their universities. The report—conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Intelligent Advocacy Network—states that CAIR-CA “started an education fund to ‘help students targeted for their pro-Palestine advocacy on college campuses’ and solicited over $64,000 in donations....
(JNS) — Some 250,000 Israelis living in communities along the Samaria security barrier are facing an escalating environmental and health emergency from Palestinian waste fires, Channel 12 News reported on Thursday. Tens of thousands in Emek Hefer, Menashe and Shoham and nearby towns have reported sleepless nights, strong odors and respiratory issues, a Knesset Interior Committee hearing revealed on Wednesday. At the meeting, residents shared testimony of nights when “you simply cannot breathe,” while government representatives blamed the lack...
(JNS) — Iranian state television on Monday for the first time ever aired a program with Hebrew subtitles, according to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting outlet. “Toward the Horizon of Palestine,” which began airing on IRIB‘s Ofogh channel in the days after the Hamas massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, included Hebrew subtitles for the first time on Monday evening. After Tehran “realized that ‘Toward the Horizon of Palestine’ is being monitored in the occupied territories, starting last night, we began broadcasting the news in H...
(JTA) - When Michael Smuss died last month at 99, an era of Jewish history came to a close. Smuss was the last known resistance fighter during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews rose up against their Nazi persecutors in one of the most dramatic episodes of the Holocaust. Smuss was not the only prominent survivor to die in recent weeks. A number of survivors, several centenarians, have died in a wave that underscores the rapid disappearance of anyone alive with robust memories of the...
Shalom Orlando has appointed Marni Mandell as the new CEO of the organization. While already busy engaging with local leaders and other stakeholders in the Jewish community, Mandell will formally begin her role as CEO in early January 2026. Mandell previously spent 12 years leading Jewish nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Israel, and for the last 15 years, she has founded and led technology startup companies in Tel Aviv. Mandell most recently joined with other Israeli entrepreneurs to...
Kinneret Council on Aging is proud to celebrate 40 years of dedicated service to enhancing the lives of Central Florida's low-income senior residents. Since its founding in 1985, KCOA has remained steadfast in its mission to support independence, dignity, and quality of life for older adults through innovative programs, advocacy, and community partnerships. Over four decades, the Kinneret Council on Aging has become a cornerstone of support for older adults across the region, touching thousands...
(JNS) — Assault rifles and other equipment belonging to Hamas terrorists were discovered on Wednesday during reconstruction work at Kibbutz Be’eri, more than two years after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on the community. “Arms and communication devices belonging to Hamas terrorists were found in a kindergarten in Kibbutz Be’eri. Police bomb squad officers neutralized the weapons safely and without incident,” the Israel Police stated. An investigation found the weapons included “loaded and ready-to-fire Kalashnikov rifles, along with communicati...
Quarterback for the Miami Dolphins Tua Tagovailoa told reporters on Sunday he would like to play an NFL International Series game in Jerusalem. The football player was asked after the Dolphins’ 16-13 win over the Washington Commanders in Madrid, Spain, in which international destination he would like to play next. Tagovailoa first mentioned Hawaii, where he is originally from, but then added Jerusalem as his next favored location. “Shoot, it’d be pretty cool to go play in Jerusalem. I don’t know, that’d be sick,” he said. The Dolphins pl...
