Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. via JNS) — On May 15, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces announced that a Hezbollah drone had hit the Israeli Air Force facility that operated the “Sky Dew” High Availability Aerostat System. This strike was unusual in that it took place far from the Israel-Lebanon front. It drew Israel’s attention, and not only because it represented a gradual escalation in the reaction equation. The fact that the aircraft accurately hit its target was not, in itself, the worst aspect of the incident. Hezboll...
(JNS) — Analysts are still poring over the data from Wesley Bell’s victory over anti-Israel ‘Squad’ member Cori Bush in the Missouri Democratic primary on Tuesday night, but Rabbi A.D. Motzen is sure that the Jewish vote made a difference in Bell’s nearly 7,000-vote margin of victory. “I can’t say with certainty that Jews made up the entire 7,000-vote margin, as we only worked on the Orthodox community,” the national director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America told JNS. “We also don’t know how many took a Republican ballot—n...
Israeli company installs water-generation machine in Vatican City (JNS) — Watergen, an Israeli company specializing in water-generation technology, has installed one of its machines at the Office of Papal Charities in Vatican City. The machine, which produces clean drinking water from the air, will provide Cardinal Konrad Krajewski and his team with a sustainable water source on-site. The installation reflects a shared commitment to addressing global water scarcity. Krajewski, who leads the office with a focus on humanitarian aid, will b...
(JTA) — On Oct. 9, as the toll of Hamas’ attack on Israel was still being tallied, Tim Walz stood before a room of Jewish Minnesotans and condemned the invasion of two days earlier. “If you did not find moral clarity on Saturday morning, and you find yourself waiting to think about what you needed to say, you need to reevaluate where you’re at,” the governor said at the event, which was co-hosted by the local Jewish Community Relations Council. Those words resonated with Steve Hunegs, the JCRC’s executive director. He also said they tracke...
(JNS) — A squadron of United States Air Force F-22 Raptor stealth fighter jets arrived in the Middle East on Thursday to “mitigate the possibility of regional escalation by Iran or its proxies,” the U.S. military confirmed. In an earlier statement, U.S. Central Command, the geographic command responsible for the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, said that the planes were dispatched to “address” Tehran’s anticipated attack. The statement, which was shared on X, was modified to read “mitigate” some 30 minutes after it was fi...
Shalom Orlando launched Shayna's Village at the Heller Family Grove, formerly the Jewish Community Center's youth wing, on Wednesday, July 31. Channel 2 News and the Orlando Sentinel covered the grand opening. Shayna's Village, formerly the Shayna Cai Presser Parenting Center, was created to honor Shayna Cai Presser with Presser-Cohen family's continuing generosity. Now the completely revamped one-of-a-kind Shayna's Village offers a new level that focuses on children with special needs. It will...
(JTA) - Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who burst into national view after calling Republicans "weird," will be Kamala Harris' running mate on the November Democratic ticket. Multiple outlets reported the choice early Aug.6, hours before Harris was set to appear with her pick at a Philadelphia rally. Harris' decision ends speculation that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, could be in line for the role. Walz and Shapiro were reportedly the two final choices narrowed from a...
The Heritage Florida Jewish News received two awards, including one first place honor and one second place honor, at the Florida Press Association Annual Best Weekly Newspaper awards banquet July 26 in Orlando. The awards honor work published during 2023. Marilyn Shapiro won second place in the Feature Story-Profile category for her article titled “What goes around eventually comes around,” in the Feb. 10, 2023, issue. The judge’s notes stated “Comprehensive research enabled the writer to create an interesting and compelling feature profile...
(JNS) — With the assassinations of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Mohammed Deif in Gaza, along with Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr in Lebanon, coupled with a major strike on the Houthis’ oil refineries in Yemen, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has clearly decided to escalate towards actually winning the war against Iran and its terror proxies. The timing is important. First, Israel has largely completed its intensive operations in Gaza, severely diminishing Hamas’s capacities and punishing the Palestinians living there for supportin...
The ZOA Law and Justice center has assisted numerous Florida municipalities in putting together resolutions standing up for Israel and criminalizing acts that support terror. “Recently, it was brought to our attention that the city of Miramar, Florida is trying to pass an extremely antisemitic resolution. We’ve created a petition to fight against it and we need your help,” said Allison Zur, regional director of ZOA-Florida. To view and sign copy and paste in your browser “Zionist Organization of America/Mayor Messam: Abandon Dangerous Resolut...
Jake Gould, who was appointed to the board of the Jewish Federation of Volusia & Flagler Counties in March and has been working on young professional programming in the Greater Daytona Beach area, announced that they are hosting their first large-scale kickoff event on Sunday, Aug. 25, from 7-9 p.m. It is an Israel Bar Night at the rooftop bar of the Streamline Hotel, 140 S Atlantic Ave, Daytona Beach. There will be kosher Israeli appetizers, and Israeli music. This is an opportunity for young Jews all across North Florida, including...
(JNS) — U.S. border agents have arrested three Palestinian Arab illegals at the southern border on suspicion of terror ties. One of the men had “salacious photos” on his phone, including one picture of a masked man holding a rifle, federal law enforcement sources said, according to The New York Post. Federal authorities also caught one illegal immigrant from Turkey who is suspected of ties to terror groups. “The migrants were among groups of dozens of migrants who turned themselves in to border agents at the San Diego sector,” sources t...
(JTA) — Evan Gerhskovich, the American Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter who has been held in Russian prison for more than a year, is now free, the White House announced Thursday. Gershkovich, 32, was freed as part of a massive, 26-person prisoner exchange that included several prominent people jailed by Russia. The list of those released includes Russian-British activist and journalist Kara-Murza, who is also Jewish, as well as former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. The secretive swap occurred in Ankara, Turkey, between Russia and the United S...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — A Lufthansa flight from Munich to Israel made an unscheduled landing in Larnaca, Cyprus on Thursday morning due to heightened tensions in the region. The airline gave passengers the option of disembarking in Larnaca but did not offer them any assistance in completing their journey to Israel and informed them that their luggage would be returning to Munich with the plane, according to Israel’s Channel 12 News. Some 20 Israelis disembarked without their luggage, with the rest returning to Munich, according to the rep...
(JNS) — Reports from watchdog group Middle East Media Research Institute show a boisterous anti-Israel demonstration in Times Square on the evening of July 31 against a Jewish-organized rally to support the Israel Defense Forces. The New York Post reported that about 300 people attended the rally, which featured a speech by Jonathan Conricus, former spokesperson for the IDF during its ongoing war with Hamas in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel. The Post wrote that the demonstration was reportedly organized by the r...
(JNS) — The Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist organization in Lebanon resumed its attacks on northern Israel late Thursday night, firing a large volley of rockets at civilian communities in the Jewish state’s Western Galilee. The rocket assault ended a 48-hour lull that followed Tuesday’s Israeli airstrike in Beirut in which Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s No. 2, was killed. Air-raid sirens were activated in Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra, Hanita, Shlomi, Matzuva, Liman, Betzet, Shlomi, Snir and the Achziv Miluot industrial zone, according to the Israel Defense...
(JNS) — Judea and Samaria saw more than 500 Palestinian terrorist attacks each month on average in the first half of 2024, according to figures Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) published on Thursday. In the first six months of this year, first responders recorded 3,272 acts of terrorism in the region, including 1,868 cases of rock-throwing, 456 attacks with Molotov cocktails, 299 explosive charges and 109 shootings. Palestinian terrorists have killed 14 people and wounded 155 others in Judea and Samaria since the start o...
(JTA) - A Russian court has sentenced the decorated Russian-Jewish writer Masha Gessen to eight years in prison in absentia over comments made about the country's conduct in the Ukraine war in 2022. The sentence makes Gessen at least the fifth prominent Jewish writer to be targeted by Russia for dissenting comments since the outbreak of war. Gessen, a New York Times columnist and former New Yorker writer who fled the Soviet Union as a teenager and has written and commented extensively on...
(JTA) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan openly threatened to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians as fears of a war with Hezbollah escalate — a shocking comment from a member of NATO, the international alliance of Western nations. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine,” Erdogan said on Sunday during a party meeting that was televised, according to media reports. “Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them.” He added, “There is no reason wh...
(JNS) - MAJDAL SHAMS, Israel - The pictures of 12 smiling children line the shattered gate of a soccer field, above wreaths of flowers. The blackened remains of bicycles lie next to the bomb shelter the boys and girls were rushing to after a siren went off during their weekend game in this windswept Druze village in the Golan Heights. "Donated with love for the safety of the People of Israel," reads a sign on the shelter, pockmarked by the shrapnel from the Iranian-made Hezbollah rocket that...
(JTA) — When he was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, Josh Shapiro declared victory by quoting a famous adage from Pirkei Avot, an ancient code of Jewish ethics. Now, after losing the battle to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, Shapiro has turned to the same adage, attributed to Rabbi Tarfon, a sage who lived nearly 2,000 years ago. “Since I first ran for State Representative 20 years ago, I’ve been called to serve because I want to leave our community, our Commonwealth, and our country better off for our children – and because my faith...
(JTA) - Hours after the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, a building-sized poster went up in the city's Palestine Square that featured the national language of Iran's sworn enemy Israel. "Wait for harsh punishment," the billboard said in Hebrew, atop a massive portrait of Haniyeh, whose funeral took place Thursday. Haniyeh is shown in front of the Dome of the Rock, a Muslim holy place on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The poster offered a powerful symbol of what unnamed Iranian...
(JNS) — A massive quarry dating to the Second Temple period has been uncovered in Jerusalem, offering a new glimpse into the capital’s ancient past, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Thursday. The quarry, which was unearthed in the city’s present-day Har Hotzvim industrial park several weeks ago, is one of the largest ever found in Jerusalem, the state-run archaeological body said. Two stone vessels, impervious to ritual defilement according to Jewish law, were uncovered at the s...
The information in the article is as of Aug. 5. (JNS) — Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered a direct attack on Israel following the assassination of Hamas terror chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. Jerusalem has not taken responsibility for the missile strike that killed the Palestinian terror group’s “political” leader and his bodyguard early on Wednesday morning. Hours after the attack, the Islamic Republic held an emergency meeting of its Supreme National Security Council at the supreme...
(JNS) — Palestinian-American supermodel Bella Hadid took to her Instagram account on Monday to call out Adidas for its “insensitive campaign” surrounding the release of its classic SL 72 sneaker, which originally debuted during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. She claimed she had not been aware of the Palestinian terrorist attack that marred the 1972 games or how that background affected the campaign she was asked to be a part of. Adidas dropped her from the campaign following widespread backlash, which included a post on the Israe...
