Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Speaking at a Michigan Democratic Party fundraiser, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said on Saturday that she mourns the Palestinians killed during Israel’s raid that freed four hostages. “Before I begin, I just say a few words about the morning which I know weighs heavily on all of our hearts,” Harris said, per Fox News. “On Oct. 7, Hamas committed a brutal massacre of 1,200 innocent people and abducted 250 hostages,” she said. “Thankfully, four of those hostages were reunited with their families tonight. And we mourn all of the in...
(JNS) — The four hostages rescued on Saturday after eight months in Gaza captivity are in a “state of severe malnutrition,” according to a doctor who treated them upon their return to Israel. “They have been physically and mentally abused for a long time. They are all in a state of severe malnutrition, although it does not appear that way to them,” Dr. Itay Pessach, director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, told Channel 12 on Monday. During “Operation Arnon,” Israeli forces rescued the four...
(JNS) — The Biden administration has talked about negotiating a unilateral deal for the release of five Americans held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, NBC News reported on Monday. The talks wouldn’t include Israel and would take place via Qatari mediators, two current senior U.S. officials and two former ones told NBC. One of the current officials called it a “very real option.” The five American hostages were abducted on Oct. 7 when the terror group invaded Israel. They are Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Omer Neutra and Kei...
(JNS) — Five days after U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a multi-stage outline for a hostage release deal and ceasefire, debate within Israel has intensified over the costs and merits of the plan, as well as the extent to which Biden’s claim that this is an Israeli proposal reflects reality. Biden’s three-staged proposal envisages a temporary truce lasting six weeks to enable the release of tens of Israeli hostages in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian security prisoners, and a return of Gaza civilians to the north of the Strip. This would...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — One day before their university’s president was due to appear before Congress, hundreds of Jewish Rutgers University staff and students decried what they described as an intimidating campus environment for Jews. “The entire university community has suffered through the disruption of normal university operations and an often chaotic and intimidating environment on our campuses,” said one letter released Wednesday by Rutgers Jewish Faculty, Administrators, and Staff, with 208 signatures. A separate letter from close to 160 Jew...
Herzog hosts families of IDF spotters kidnapped by Hamas (JNS) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal on Tuesday hosted the families of five female Israel Defense Forces soldiers who were kidnapped from the IDF Field Observers base in Nahal Oz by Hamas on Oct. 7. Karina Ariev, Liri Albag, Daniela Gilboa, Naama Levy and Agam Berger have been held captive in Gaza ever since. Last month, The Hostages and Missing Families Forum released video footage of their abduction filmed by the terrorists themselves. During the meeting, the H...
(JTA) — Columbia University has settled a lawsuit brought against it by a Jewish student alleging a hostile environment as a result of the pro-Palestinian encampment movement. The settlement is a major development in Jewish groups’ efforts to hold universities accountable in light of a reported increase in campus antisemitism since Oct. 7. As part of the settlement, Columbia has promised to provide walking escorts and safe campus entrances at all hours of the day, as well as accommodations for students who were unable to complete exams owi...
(JNS) — U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Tuesday that Israel has accepted the ceasefire proposal President Joe Biden revealed on Friday, and that “the ball is in Hamas’s court.” “We are waiting for a response from Hamas,” said Sullivan. He acknowledged that the terror group in Gaza might well choose to continue the conflict instead. “That wouldn’t be terribly out of character for a vicious and brutal terror group, but what we hope they do in the end is see that the best pathway to an end to this war, the return of all t...
(JNS) - Around 100 students participated in an anti-Israel protest at the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem on Tuesday, waving PLO flags and chanting inflammatory slogans, according to Hebrew media reports. Kan News shared video of the demonstration to its X account, quoting some of the slogans being chanted, such as "there is no solution but to expel the occupier" and "Al Aqsa has been redeemed in spirit and blood." The students were protesting against "the ongoing genocide...
(JTA) - Claudia Sheinbaum swept to victory in Mexico's presidential election Sunday, giving the country of more than 120 million a woman leader and a Jewish leader for the first time. Sheinbaum's election makes Mexico by far the biggest country to have a Jewish head of state. Only Israel (9.5 million) and Ukraine (38 million) currently have Jewish leaders. Sheinbaum's Jewish ties are centered mostly on her family story - her grandparents came to Mexico after fleeing persecution in Europe - and l...
Jewish Pavilion Senior Services cherishes the opportunity to celebrate our rich heritage and foster a sense of community among our beloved seniors. Recently, residents have experienced a series of meaningful and joyous events, reflecting the vibrancy and resilience of our culture and history. Israel Remembrance Day and Israel Independence Day Commemorations began with Israel Remembrance Day (Yom Ha Zikaron), a solemn occasion where we honored the memory of the brave soldiers and victims of...
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that there are “gaps” between the ceasefire terms that President Joe Biden laid out on Friday and what he is prepared to accept. “The proposal that Biden presented is incomplete,” Netanyahu said during a closed-door government meeting in which he called reporting about his position on a potential deal “fake news,” according to Israeli media reports. Netanyahu’s comments, as well as growing tension within the government over a potential ceasefire, are muting hopes that Biden’s an...
(JNS) — Beijing will provide $69 million in aid to the Palestinians and an additional $3 million to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, Xi Jinping, the president of China, said on Thursday. “Since last October, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has escalated drastically, throwing people into tremendous suffering,” Xi said at the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum in Beijing, the Associated Press reported. “War should not continue indefinitely,” he said. Xi also said there should be an international conference to press for the end of the war....
(JTA) — The Republican Jewish Coalition leapt to the defense of Donald Trump after he was found guilty on 34 charges related to falsifying records to conceal that he paid an adult film star to cover up a sexual liaison just before the 2016 presidential election. The verdict makes Trump, who is seeking to return to office this fall, the only U.S. president ever to have been convicted of a felony. “Without question this is a political prosecution of a political opponent,” Matt Brooks, the group’s CEO, said after jurors in Manhattan deliver...
(JNS) — China will host several Arab leaders in Beijing this week with the Palestinian issue on the agenda, the foreign ministry said on Monday. The visitors are to include Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government has played a key role in the indirect truce talks between Israel and the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza. Israel’s Abraham Accords allies the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain will also be in China, the former represented by UAE President and ruler of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the latter by Kin...
(CAMERA via JNS) - Unsurprisingly, the International Court of Justice played along with the cynical attempt by Hamas's ally South Africa to halt the Israeli military operation launched to destroy the terrorist organization after its horrific Oct. 7 massacre. Equally unsurprising is that the ICJ justified its ruling by relying on a thin, distorted and inaccurate set of "facts." In its May 24 ruling, the court relied on a handful of dubious, generalized and misleading claims made by various...
Sderot, Israel (JNS) - Israel is fighting against the enemies of the United States in a war orchestrated by Iran, helped by Russian intelligence and funded by money from China, said Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, in Israel on Monday. A former Republican presidential candidate known for her stalwart support for Israel, she spoke during a solidarity visit to communities near the Gaza Strip and just days after announcing that she would be v...
(JNS) - Hamas published footage of masked terrorists opening fire with automatic weapons at Bat Hefer, an Israeli village east of Netanya that borders the Green Line with Samaria, Channel 12 News reported. In the footage, two Palestinians wearing Hamas headbands declare their allegiance to the Gaza-based terrorist organization. The video also includes a photo of the weapons they used to carry out the attack. The alleged shooting towards central Israel did not cause any casualties, according to Channel 12. Hamas said it committed the attack in r...
(New York Jewish Week) — Three years after voting to “consider” boycotting Israel, and weeks after defending a pro-Palestinian student encampment, the faculty union of the City University of New York overwhelmingly rejected a resolution calling for an Israel boycott. The union’s president actively opposed the resolution, saying that it inappropriately singled out Israel. But insiders say the Professional Staff Congress’ rejection may have had more to do with the union’s salary negotiations than any principled view about the Israel-Hama...
By (JNS) — Evacuees from Israel’s north set up a tent encampment on Tuesday outside the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem to protest their ongoing displacement due to daily attacks by the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon. “We’ve been unable to return to our homes for more than seven months. We won’t go back until we know we’re safe,” Raphael Salve, co-founder of Lobby 1701, a group representing displaced people from northern towns and villages, told JNS. Lobby 1701 is named after the U.N. Security Council Resolution that...
(JNS) — The Israel Land Authority notified the U.N. relief agency UNRWA that it must immediately vacate state land and buildings in northern Jerusalem, which it had occupied illegally. The Israel Land Authority is also demanding retroactive compensation of $27 million shekels (~$7 million) for the years the United Nations Relief and Works Agency used the land. Yitzchak Goldknopf, minister of construction and housing, announced the decision on Wednesday afternoon, at the annual meeting of the Israel Bar Association in Eilat. In a letter sent W...
US health, human services secretary appears to recognize ‘Palestine’ (JNS) — Xavier Becerra, the U.S. secretary of health and human services, appeared to recognize “Palestine” as a formal entity and referred to a “cycle” of violence between Israelis and Palestinians during a speech at the 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. “The health and security of each nation is irrevocably connected to the health and security of people everywhere,” the former California attorney general said at the gathering of the body which is part of...
(JNS) — Recent moves by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court at the Hague are having no tangible effect on the Israel Defense Force’s ongoing Gaza operation, aimed at dismantling Hamas’s remaining battalions in Rafah city. While the courts have signaled a disturbing willingness to cooperate to varying degrees with “lawfare” initiatives against Israel, aimed at delegitimizing Israeli military actions to defend the country against a genocidal terrorist group, this has had no obvious influence on how the Israe...
(JTA) — The share of Israeli Jews who believe an Israeli and a Palestinian state can peacefully coexist has plummeted since Oct. 7, according to a new survey. The figure of 19 percent, reported in a study published Thursday by the Pew Research Center, was the lowest since Pew started surveying Israelis in 2013. It is down from 32 percent in a survey released just weeks before the war broke out. In 2013, according to Pew, nearly half of Israeli Jews — and a majority of Israelis overall — supported a two-state solution. In 2005, another polli...
(JTA) – For months, Zoe Buckman, a Brooklyn artist with more than 72,000 followers on Instagram, has posted about the hypocrisy she sees in critics of Israel who downplayed atrocities committed by Hamas on Oct. 7. On Monday, she again decried hypocrisy. But this time, she aimed her criticism in large part toward fellow supporters of Israel. "Folks who do not condemn loss of civilian life in Palestine are akin to the many who refuse to condemn 10/7, h@mas and what is being done to the h...
