Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Jewish Pavilion Senior Services recently hosted its latest Sponsor Breakfast event at K2 Medical in Maitland, bringing together 40 JPSS sponsors for a morning of networking and community building. These quarterly gatherings, along with six annual events, provide a platform for JPSS Board members and sponsors to forge stronger connections, fostering both professional and personal relationships....
The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society will tour the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the University of Florida on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024 under the direction of Dr. Rebecca Jefferson, the unofficial “The Jewish Librarian of Florida.” The Society and guests will meet in the parking lot of the Main Branch of the St. Johns County Library, 1960 North Ponce De Leon Boulevard (Route U.S. 1), St. Augustine, FL 32084 at 10 am. for the drive to Gainesville and a noontime lunch at CAVA, 1404 W University Avenue, Gainesville, Florida 326...
(JNS) — A senior Iranian general on Monday told family members of Hamas terrorists killed in Gaza that the Islamic Republic was prepared to launch another attack on the Jewish state, similar to its massive missile and drone strike in April. “We await an opportunity for ‘True Promise II’ … in which I do not know how many missiles will be fired,” Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps aerospace forces commander Brig.-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh told the family members, who were visiting Iran. Iran’s next attack, said Hajizadeh, “will lead to a complete v...
(JNS) — The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted on Monday at its biennial meeting, which is ongoing in Salt Lake City, Utah, to divest from financial bonds in Israel and to denounce Christian Zionism, Religion News Service reported. The denomination, which had 8,704 churches and 1.14 million members as of May 2023, voted to “reject Christian Zionism in all its forms” and to issue a report about the “dangers of Christian Zionism” and how “mainline Christians and those of other faiths are complicit, though unaware of connections with Christian Z...
(JNS) — Only one in three Americans under the age of 35 believe that antisemitism is a “very serious problem” in the United States, a significantly lower figure than among the broader public, according to a Gallup poll. Gallup polled a sample of 1,024 American adults from all U.S. states and Washington, D.C., between May 1-23. (The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level, Gallup noted.) Just under half of all respondents believed that Jew-hatred is a very serious problem, while 32 percent said...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Israel’s nine-month offensive in response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7 has likely influenced the terrorist organization to ease its demands in ceasefire negotiations, according to several officials in the Middle East and the U.S., the Associated Press reports. Over the weekend, Hamas appeared to drop its longstanding insistence that Israel commit to ending the war as part of any ceasefire agreement. This change has sparked renewed optimism for progress in internationally mediated talks. Recent internal commu...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the release of the director of a Gaza hospital where Hamas was embedded “a severe mistake and a moral failure” and demanded the establishment of a team to approve future releases. Shifa Hospital director Mohammad Abu Salmiya was released on Monday morning along with close to 55 other Palestinian prisoners. The hospital was proven to have been used to keep hostages and house weapons and ammunition intended to kill Israelis. Salmiya was arrested in November on suspicion of involvement with Ham...
(JTA) - Early in her senior year in high school in Washington D.C., Elie Ravitz-Basser realized that the Israel-Gaza war would upend her college plans. "I applied to four universities in the United States early in the fall, but everything changed after October 7," she said. "At that point, I decided to attend college only in Israel, surrounded by people who share my Jewish values." Ravitz-Basser is set to start her bachelor's degree this fall in Jerusalem, pursuing a double major in English and...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Liora Argamani, whose daughter Noa was held captive in Gaza for 246 days following Hamas's Oct. 7 attacks, died Tuesday after a prolonged battle with brain cancer. Argamani's final wish-to see her daughter one last time-was granted just three weeks before her passing, after Israeli forces rescued Noa in a daring raid last month to free her and three other Israeli hostages, marking a poignant end to a story that captivated Israel and the world. The 61-year-old nurse, who...
(JNS) — The Israeli government is advancing the approval of 6,016 housing units in dozens of towns throughout Judea and Samaria, the Supreme Planning Council of the Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration said on Tuesday. The body was set to meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the advancement of the building plans, some 2,400 of which were expected to receive final approval, Israel’s Channel 12 News broadcaster reported. Among the projects on the agenda of the Supreme Planning Counc...
The Israeli military denied a New York Times report that its leadership is pressing for a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza. (JNS) — Israeli forces have killed over 900 terrorists during the ongoing offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said on Tuesday. “What we saw with our eyes … over 900 dead terrorists, including commanders, at least one battalion commander, many company commanders and many operatives,” Halevi said during a visit to a forward logistics base in southern...
Shin Bet made the highly controversial decision to release 50 Palestinian prisoners, including the director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza where terrorists were embedded. Although Shin Bet claimed there was no concrete evidence to justify holding the prisoners, they added that there was “not enough room in current incarceration facilities.” Politicians and families of hostages reacted with outrage at the decision to release Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the Shifa hospital director who had been held since November 28. An IDF source told The Jerusalem Post in...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Calls for President Joe Biden to relinquish his presidential nomination have proliferated since his disastrous debate performance last week. On Tuesday, for the first time, a Democratic elected official, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, echoed the demand; Aside from Doggett, most of the appeals have come from a range of liberal-leaning publications and pundits. Biden insists he’s going nowhere and has sent out campaign surrogates to make the case that the 81-year-old president is up to the job. Nonetheless, chatter about poten...
(JTA) — Israel’s Labor and Meretz parties announced on Sunday that they would unite ahead of the next election in a bid to revive the country’s left and maximize its share of parliament. The new party, called the Democrats, is the latest attempt to stem the more than 20-year decline of the Israeli left. Labor, which governed Israel for its first three decades, is now the smallest party in Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Meretz, to Labor’s left, did not receive enough votes in the most recent election to enter Knesset at all — effectively...
ADL launches $4b lawsuit on behalf of US Oct. 7 victims (JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League, together with Washington, D.C.-based law firm Crowell & Moring LLP, filed suit on Monday in U.S. federal court against Iran, Syria and North Korea on behalf of American victims of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, states that the three countries provided material support—including military, tactical and financial—to Hamas that enabled it to commit atrocities in Israel on Oct. 7. “Ira...
(JNS) - The Elmkayes family arrived in Israel from France last week, making Aliyah in honor of their son Binyamin, who fell battling Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. The family moved with the support of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the Jewish Agency for Israel, and the Israel Ministry for Aliyah and Integration. They have chosen to live in Jerusalem "as a way to ensure that the light of our son's life will continue to shine despite his death," according to the family....
(JTA) - Almost nine months after Hamas terrorists stormed the Nova music festival, killing more than 360 revelers and abducting 40 others to Gaza, tens of thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv's HaYarkon Park on Thursday evening for what organizers dubbed a "healing concert." The concert was the first official event held by the Tribe of Nova since Oct. 7, when the trance music community became synonymous with Israel's catastrophe. Many survivors of the Oct. 7 massacre attended as part of an...
(JNS) - More than 2,000 participants on Birthright Israel programs gathered on Monday for a gala evening in central Israel that marks the highlight of the organization's summer trips to Israel. The Birthright Israel Mega Event at Mini Israel Park in Latrun took place in solidarity with the Israel Defense Forces as soldiers continue to fight Hamas in the Gaza Strip, keeping in mind the hostages taken captive on Oct. 7 from Jewish communities in southern Israel who are still being held there. It...
Robert Kraft, the Jewish owner of the New England Patriots and founder of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, has generously donated $1 million to Yeshiva University in New York City. This donation will establish the Blue Square Scholars program, aimed at promoting inclusivity and supporting Jewish students who feel unsafe at other colleges due to rising antisemitism. The Blue Square Scholars program is designed to provide the necessary infrastructure to accommodate and support top-tier Jewish students rooted in Yeshiva University’s v...
(JTA) — The closed-door trial of American Jewish reporter Evan Gershkovich began in Russia on Wednesday, 15 months after his arrest there on espionage charges widely regarded as spurious. The trial is being held in Yekaterinburg, the city where Gershkovich, now 32, was arrested while on assignment as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in March 2023. He was held in Moscow before being moved prior to the trial, and appeared in court with his head shaven, as is customary in Russia. Jewish activists and organizations have mobilized to support G...
(JNS) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two bills on Monday geared to protect Jewish residents in the state. HB 187, Antisemitism, which went into effect on July 1, codifies the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its contemporary examples of Jew-hatred into state law “to assist in the monitoring and reporting of antisemitic hate crimes and discrimination and to make residents aware of and to combat such incidents in this state.” The bill passed the Florida House 115-0 on Feb. 29, after h...
(JNS) — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland urging a federal response to the violence that occurred on Sunday at the Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. “I write urging immediate action against a pro-Hamas mob’s recent assault on a Jewish community,” Cotton wrote on Tuesday. “The mob attacked Jews with bear spray, beat a man until his face and shirt were covered in blood, and chanted ‘intifada revolution.’” Noting that the anti-Israel activists had announced their plans in...
(JNS) - The lone Republican Jewish lawmaker in the Florida State legislature said Tuesday that he could never have imagined considering whether it was safe for Jews to live in the United States, even though the Sunshine State is the "gold standard" for fighting antisemitism. Randy Fine spoke after months of often violent antisemitic protests across the U.S. that have shaken American Jewry in ways not seen since World War II. "I would never have thought that I would live at a time when I would wo...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met on Monday in Washington with White House adviser Amos Hochstein. The two men discussed the ongoing conflict against Hezbollah and the “actions required to achieve a framework that enables the safe return of Israeli communities to their homes in the north,” according to an Israeli readout. Gallant reiterated his commitment to changing the security situation on the northern border. He told Hochstein that the transition to “Phase 3” in the war against Hamas in Gaza will impact developme...
(JTA) — Wikipedia’s editors have voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources. An overwhelming majority of editors involved in the debate about the ADL also voted to deem the organization unreliable on the topic of antisemitism, its core focus. A formal declaration on that count is expected next. The decision about Israel-related citations, made last week, means that one of the most prominent and longstanding Jewish advocac...
