Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 201 - 225 of 10187
(JNS) — Asked by a reporter if he has plans to speak with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Joe Biden said “eventually.” Asked if it would happen this week or next, the U.S. president said “eventually,” per the White House pool report. Earlier on Sept. 2, Biden said that Netanyahu wasn’t doing enough to free the hostages. The Israeli prime minister responded to a similar question from a reporter during a speech, in which he said that “I was asked whether I am not doing enough to the release of hostages. Well, I want...
(JNS) — An international organization of Islamic scholars and faith leaders has issued a blistering condemnation of the murder by Hamas of six Israeli hostages last week in Gaza. The Iraqi-based Global Imams Council called the executions, carried out in a tunnel under Rafah in southern Israel, “barbaric” and “a violation all principles of humanity, religious teachings, and international law.” In a statement on its website, the organization said, “The targeting and brutalization of civilians, especially those who are defenseless and held agains...
(JNS) — The Jerusalem District Court issued a provisional order on Wednesday allowing a group of Israeli families who have lost members to terrorism to seize 160 million shekels ($43 million) in Palestinian Authority funds frozen by Jerusalem pending proceedings against the P.A., according to Ynet. If the families win the lawsuit, the funds will be distributed among the dozens of plaintiffs, amounting to 10 million shekels ($2.7 million) per family. The 210 million-shekel claim was filed in early July by dozens of Israeli families whose r...
(JTA) - LAS VEGAS - Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Jewish Harvard alumnus who is suing the school over its response to antisemitism, announced that he has broken with the Democratic Party and will be voting for Donald Trump. Kestenbaum made the declaration during a speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition's annual convention here on Sept. 5. He said that he had become disillusioned with Democratic leaders and their policies during his push for action against campus antisemitism. "I did not support Trump...
(JTA) — As Israeli Paralympic rower Shahar Milfelder won her first career medal on Sunday, she was thinking about the families of the six newly confirmed dead hostages. “We had in mind to give pride to the country,” Milfelder said, according to the Israeli news site Mako. “I cried in the morning from the hard news and now I cry from the good news and send the biggest hug I can to the families of the abducted and to all the citizens of the State of Israel.” Milfelder and her rowing partner,...
(JNS) - Hundreds of Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria gathered in protest at intersections throughout the territory on Sept. 3, demanding that the army launch a broad operation against Palestinian terrorism. The rallies, called by the Yesha Council that represents the interests of the 500,000 or so Jews of Judea and Samaria, marked the first time that the group led mass protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government since its inception in December 2022. "The...
(JTA) — The University of Maryland has revoked a permit for pro-Palestinian groups to hold an event on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, following concerns from Jewish groups that such an event could glorify the Hamas killings. According to the campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, the planned event was a “vigil” to be held jointly with the school’s chapter of the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace. University President Darryll Pines announced the change in a letter to the school on Sunday, writing...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Recent events have reportedly triggered a major policy shift in Israel’s approach to Judea and Samaria. Designated a “secondary arena” since the onset of the war with Hamas on Oct. 7, the recent increase in terror attacks in the area have convinced top officials that this stance is no longer tenable. The Israel Defense Forces now considers Judea and Samaria as the country’s most critical front after the Gaza Strip. While this directive is still in its initial stages, with substantial changes on the ground expected...
(JNS) — The Palestinian Authority is circulating a draft resolution asking the United Nations General Assembly to urge Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria and remove some 500,000 Israeli citizens living in the territory within six months. According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 on Sunday, the resolution, which cites a July 19 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice in The Hague, is expected to be brought to a vote next week. The 79th Session of the U.N. General Assembly was scheduled to open on Sept. 10. In add...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — In a poignant testimony, 12-year-old Erez Kalderon, kidnapped from his home in Nir Oz during the Oct. 7 onslaught, has shared his harrowing story of captivity in the Gaza Strip. Erez, whose father, Ofer Kalderon, remains in Hamas captivity, bravely opened up about his traumatic experience, saying, “It’s difficult for me to speak on camera, but if this reaches my dad—it’s worth everything.” Erez recounted the terrifying moments when attackers breached their home: “They simply broke the handle and entered. My dad quickl...
UNSC to convene for first talks on Gaza hostages since Oct. 7 (JNS) — The United Nations Security Council is scheduled to meet on Wednesday to discuss the hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, following an “urgent request” by Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon. According to the envoy, it will mark the first time since the Oct. 7 attack that the Security Council has convened for an official deliberation on the issue. Hamas currently holds 101 hostages, including 97 of the 251 captured on Oct. 7. “It is a disgrace that it has taken the...
(JNS) — Some 120 protesters gathered near the Columbia University campus on Tuesday evening to call on U.S. universities to ban people from protesting on their campuses with face coverings masking their identities. Columbia was one of many sites of anti-Israel encampments that spread across campuses. In April, school’s president Minouche Shafik, who has since resigned, called police to campus to remove anti-Israel vandals who occupied the school’s Hamilton Hall. Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, largely dropped charges again...
(JNS) — The Israel Police has criticized the country’s State Attorney for having failed to produce indictments against Hamas leaders, after the U.S. Department of Justice announced such indictments on Sept. 3, Kan News reported on Tuesday, Sept. 4. “The indictment filed in the United States is based, among other things, on evidence compiled in Israel and given to the American investigators, while 11 months have passed and [in Israel] there are no indictments,” a source in the police’s special crimes unit, Lahav 433, told the Israeli public br...
(JTA) — The family of an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor in Virginia has sued Boar’s Head, claiming that listeria from the meat company’s products is responsible for his death. The filing is the first wrongful death lawsuit to stem from the Boar’s Head listeria outbreak. So far, more than 50 people have fallen ill in connection with the outbreak and nine have died, including Günter “Garshon” Morgenstein, who survived the Holocaust as a child. “We’re all still in shock, for all of the things you know that he’s seen and been through in his lif...
(JNS) - Israeli Cabinet ministers on Sunday night were presented with video footage of the tunnel in Rafah where the six murdered hostages were held, footage they described as "stomach-churning" and "horrific." IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi showed the visual documentation from southern Gaza at the request of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Ministers did not see the hostage's corpses but rather the inhumane conditions in which their Hamas captors forced them to live. The bodies of...
(JNS) - Members of the Gvura Forum converged on the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem on Monday to protest against a general strike called by the Histadrut labor federation following the IDF's recovery over the weekend of six hostages' bodies from the Gaza Strip. "We call on the prime minister not to give up to [Hamas terror chief Yahya] Sinwar and instead to keep up military pressure to achieve total victory," Yehoshua Shani, a member of the forum whose son IDF Capt. Ori Shani was killed in...
(JNS) - The six hostages whose bodies were recovered by Israeli forces in a Rafah tunnel in southern Gaza overnight Saturday were shot multiple times at close range just days before their discovery, Israel's Health Ministry said on Sunday. According to examinations conducted by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, the captives were murdered 48 to 72 hours before the autopsies, which would place their deaths at some point between Thursday and Friday morning. That the captives were shot...
By (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for not freeing hostages as Israel woke up to the shattering news that Hamas terrorists murdered six captives who were on the verge of being rescued. Some of those killed had been slated for release under a failed deal in July, an anonymous Israeli official told the Israeli news outlet Ynet. Netanyahu’s apology, delivered Sunday to the parents of one of the six, Alex Lubnov, was a first for the prime minister who until now has said that accountability should come after Hamas is...
(JNS) - The U.S. Postal Service has announced a "Hanukkah Forever" stamp to commemorate the eight-day Jewish "Festival of Lights." Designed by Antonio Alcalá, it features a ocean-blue background, white hanukkiah and nine floating yellow lights. USPS says the design uses "irregular lines to suggest a more human presence." A first day of issue dedication ceremony will take place on Sept. 19, to be led by Michael Gordon, USPS government liaison director, at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital...
Chabad of South Orlando is hosting a Mega Challah Bake for the safety of families and soldiers in Israel and the return of the hostages. The event will be held Thursday, Sept. 12, at The Castle Hotel, 8602 Universal Blvd., Orlando. Doors open at 5 p.m. and the program begins at 6 p.m. and ends at 9:10 p.m. The cost is $36 online or $45 at the door. To register, visit JewishOrlando.com/megachallahbake. Registration closes on Sept. 10....
(JNS) — Where is the Air Force? This was the tragic question that did not have to be repeated yesterday. Those like this reporter who remember Oct. 7 minute by minute cannot forget how, from the moment of the opening missile barrage, everyone’s eyes fixed desperately on the sky, looking for the Israeli fighter planes. We expected them to finally flush out the terrorists, destroy the missile launchers, bomb the hundreds of invaders in the south and then those in Gaza, and cover the army’s retaliation. It didn’t happen. The desolation of the sil...
(JNS) — The U.S. State Department stated on Tuesday that it “strongly opposes” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s call for construction of a synagogue on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. The proposed Jewish house of worship “on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount” would “would demonstrate blatant disregard for the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem,” Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said. “The ongoing reckless statements and actions of this minister only sow chaos and exacerbate tensions at a...
(JNS) — Israeli Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz on Wednesday called for “the temporary evacuation of Palestinian residents and whatever steps are required,” after the IDF overnight on Aug. 27 launched a large-scale anti-terror operation in Judea and Samaria. “This is a war in every respect and we must win it,” Katz tweeted. “The IDF is working intensively starting tonight in the Jenin and Tulkarem refugee camps to thwart Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructures that have been established there,” he said. Iran is working “to establish an ea...
(JNS) — The Israel Defense Forces launched a large-scale counterterrorism operation in the Jenin and Tulkarem areas of northern Samaria overnight Tuesday, involving hundreds of troops and air support. At least 11 Palestinians were killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry—including two in clashes with IDF troops in Jenin, three in a drone strike in a nearby village and another four in a drone strike in the Far’a camp in Tubas. Israel’s Channel 12 identified two of the fatalities as Kassam Jabarin, 25, and Atsam Belot, 39. Several...
(JNS) — A new campaign by the Samaria Regional Council blames Israel’s 2005 disengagement from Gaza for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist massacre of some 1,200 people, primarily civilians, in the Jewish state. As part of the effort, financed by friends of Samaria in Israel and abroad, the council put up billboards in Tel Aviv and other cities that read, “The reason—the result.” The ad shows a picture of the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, followed by a photo of the Oct. 7 attacks. “Oslo and the ‘disengagement’ brought this disaster upon us. Gush Kat...
