Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — The United States and Europe stayed away from a United Nations General Assembly tribute to the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi. The so-called “Butcher of Tehran,” said to be responsible for the killings of thousands of Iranian dissidents, died on May 20 in a helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and six others. “The United States will not attend today’s United Nations tribute event for President Raisi in any capacity,” Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in a sta...
Temple Israel proved there was a lot to celebrate at their 70th Anniversary Simcha on Sunday, May 19. As more than 115 guests walked through the doors into the breezeway, they enjoyed catered appetizers, drinks, and plenty of fun in the photo booth. After the cocktail hour, which featured beautiful music from Edgewater High School's string quartet, attendees took their seats in the Roth Social Hall to enjoy a full program of events. Temple Israel Vice President Sarah Landerman welcomed guests...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is scheduled to pay a solidarity visit to Israel next week. Haley, who served as ambassador during Trump’s presidency, plans to tour communities near the Gaza border as well as in the north of the country during her visit, which is set to begin on Monday, according to former Israeli U.N. envoy Danny Danon, who is to accompany her. She is also scheduled to meet with Israeli leaders and senior security off...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden told a Jewish gathering that he will ensure that Israel will have “everything it needs” to fight Hamas, a pledge that comes after weeks of tension between the governments over his pause on the delivery of large bombs. “I’ll always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas, and all its enemies,” Biden told a White House reception on May 20, marking Jewish American Heritage Month. The crowd of several hundred in the Rose Garden cheered and applauded. Biden also denounced t...
(JNS) - The Meisels did not know that their son was serving in Gaza when he was called up for reserve duty immediately after the outbreak of the war, but when the longtime volunteer medic fell in battle, they knew exactly how best to commemorate his memory: a bullet proof ambulance for Israel's Magen David Adom rescue service. Master Sgt. (res.) Nitai Meisels, 30, served in an elite tank unit. He was killed in December, during a mission to locate hostages in a Palestinian refugee camp in the...
(JNS) — Close to three-fourths of the humanitarian aid transported from a new $320 million floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast was stolen on Saturday en route to a U.N. warehouse, Reuters reported on May 21. Eleven trucks “were cleaned out by Palestinians” on the journey to the World Food Programme warehouse in Deir El Balah in the central Strip, with only five truckloads making it to the destination. “They’ve not seen trucks for a while,” a U.N. official told Reuters. “They just basically mounted on the trucks and he...
(JNS) — Members of the U.N. Security Council, including the United States, observed a minute of silence on Monday in memory of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. Footage posted on social media showed the body’s 15 representatives rising to honor the memory of the leader, known as the “Butcher of Tehran” for his role in the 1988 execution of 30,000 political prisoners. The video shows Robert Wood, deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, joining in the minute of silence alongside representatives of th...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei oversaw a memorial service at Tehran University on Wednesday to honor President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and others killed in a recent helicopter crash. “Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him [Raisi],” Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service. People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, chanting, “Death to America!” fol...
(JNS) — Israel will not engage in a full-scale military offensive in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah. Instead, it will continue its limited operation in the last Hamas bastion, with the blessing of the Biden administration, according to Washington Post analyst David Ignatius. In an opinion piece published on May 20 citing sources familiar with the matter, the newspaper’s senior commentator wrote that the framework for eventually ending the Gaza war became more clear after a just-wrapped trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel by U.S. National Secur...
(JNS) — The Hamas terrorist organization has profited at least $500 million off humanitarian aid coming into the Gaza Strip since the start of the war on Oct. 7, according to a report that aired on Israel’s Channel 12 last week. Veteran analyst Ehud Yaari, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the broadcaster on Thursday that, according to a calculation he made with “a friend—I don’t know if I’m allowed to mention his name,” Hamas earned “no less” than half a billion dollars from the aid. “We provide [this] for...
(JNS) - The Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday evening released a video of Hamas terrorists abducting female Israel Defense Forces spotters on Oct. 7. Footage taken by body cameras of the terrorists reveals the violence and trauma experienced by five of the seven spotters captured alive from the Nahal Oz base. Another 15 field observers serving there were murdered during the attack. The video running time is 3 minutes and 10 seconds. It was edited and censored to exclude the most...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Hamas kidnapped field observers who were from the Nahal Oz base on Oct. 7. Five are seen in the abduction video released at the request of their families. Agam Berger Agam Berger, aged 19, is the twin sister of Li-Yam, born two minutes before her. She's a gifted violinist, playing since she was 8. She had only been in the position for one day when she was kidnapped from IDF's Nahal Oz Base. Her mother, Mirav, said in March, "Agam was supposed to be stationed at the...
(JNS) — Jewish Voice for Peace is being criticized and ridiculed widely on social media after the anti-Israel, far-left group claimed that Israel scheduled the holidays Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut to eclipse Nakba Day. “Yesterday, the Israeli government ended its yearly cycle of state holidays that sequentially commemorates the Holocaust, Israeli militarism and the creation of the State of Israel,” JVP wrote on Tuesday. “The sequencing of these holidays was intentionally designed to conclude and obscure May 15, the day Pales...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — Across the country, angry protesters have been blocking highways, heckling political leaders and setting up tent encampments on college campuses, all to protest a non-existent genocide. But when a real genocide is unfolding, nobody’s interested. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof reported last week that genocide appears to be erupting again in the Sudanese region of Darfur. “Some of the same Arab forces responsible for the genocide in the 2000s are picking up where they left off,” Kristof writes. “They are mass...
(JNS) — An estimated 50 cross-border tunnels link Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai, enabling Hamas to smuggle weapons, funds and personnel, and black-market traders to import a range of goods to the Strip. Yoni Ben Menachem, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, said that since the Israel Defense Forces has not yet captured all of Rafah and the Philadelphi Corridor, aka the Philadelphi Route or the Saladin Axis (the narrow strip of land along the 8.7-mile border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt), the estimate for the number of...
(JNS) — Only a fortnight after the start of the Israel Defense Forces’ targeted operation in Rafah, almost a million Palestinians have been evacuated from the city to humanitarian zones, according to a military estimate made public on Monday. According to the IDF, 950,000 Palestinians have already left the Hamas stronghold on the Egyptian border. Approximately 300,000 to 400,000 noncombatants remain in Rafah, primarily in the coastal area and parts of the city center, Ynet cited army officials as saying. Almost all of them—some 300,0...
(JNS) — A group of pro-Israel Christian college students demonstrated their support for the Jewish state with a solidarity “walk-in” at the University of California, Los Angeles on Monday. Members of the organization Passages joined Students Supporting Israel on the Westwood campus to celebrate Israel’s 76th Independence Day. According to Passages, the “walk-in” concept was created to counter the anti-Israel “walk-outs” in recent months that have turned universities into hostile environments for Jewish and Zionist students and faculty. Passag... Full story
Foxx warns ‘spineless college leaders’ of ‘healthy dose of reality’ at hearings (JNS) — Three more university leaders will face questions from congressional representatives regarding antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation on their U.S. campuses promulgated by anti-Israel protesters. Members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce will conduct a hearing titled “Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos” on Thursday, when they will demand explanations from Northwestern University president Michael Schill; Rutge...
(JTA) — Spain, Norway and Ireland said Wednesday they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, a sign of Israel’s challenges on the global stage. The countries portrayed the step as an attempt to salvage long-dormant prospects for progress toward a two-state solution, creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israel castigated the move as a reward for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which launched the current war. “Last month I stood on these same steps with Prime Minister Sanchez of Spain, and we said that the point of recognizing the state of...
(JNS) — Knesset member Limor Son Har-Melech said on Tuesday that “foreign countries,” and in particular Pakistan, were developing a Palestinian army. “This army is being trained in foreign countries, is practiced, and armed, and plans to continue the atrocities that were carried out by Hamas on October 7th. They are just waiting for the correct moment to strike at the rest of the Israeli populace,” she told the Knesset plenum. Son Har Hamelech quoted a joint investigation by HaKol HaYehudi and the Struggle for Every Dunam organizat...
(JTA) — Pro-Palestinian encampment protesters at dozens of universities have called for their administrations to divest from Israel. But on two campuses, activists are asking their schools to split from organizations closer to home that they say are complicit in Israeli crimes. At Drexel University in Philadelphia and the University of California, Santa Cruz, pro-Palestinian protesters have demanded their universities cut ties with, or “terminate” the presence of, the schools’ Hillel chapters. The Drexel protesters also demand that the univers...
(JNS) - Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, known as the "Butcher of Tehran," was killed in a helicopter crash in the country's northwestern East Azerbaijan province on Sunday, Iranian state media confirmed on Monday morning. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, the regime's representative in East Azerbaijan and Malek Rahmati, the province's governor, were also killed, along with the pilot and co-pilot. They were returning from an inauguration ceremony for a...
By Kim Fischer On Friday, May 17 former presidents of the Jewish Academy of Orlando and members of the community came together to hear from founder Dr. Edward Zissman. He announced to the people present that due to a very generous multi-year gift from Samra and Bernard Gotlib the school will be named “Gotlib Jewish Academy a Community Day School of excellence. This endowment will serve the future needs of the school. According to Samra Gotlib, “the base of your education is elementary school. We are thrilled to share some incredibly exc...
A Proclamation expressing support for the State of Israel and condemning the Hamas terror attack was presented to the Seminole County Republican Executive Committee by Sandi Solomon on May 16. SCREC Chairman Bruce Cherry and the general body voted enthusiastically in favor of the proclamation supporting the State of Israel, recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself and to exist as a sovereign nation. The Proclamation states: WHEREAS, beginning on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacked the State of Israel, raping, torturing, and murdering over...
On Wednesday, May 8, 2024, nearly 100 female philanthropists attended Jewish National Fund-USA's Women for Israel reception at University Club in Winter Park to learn how they can make a tangible difference in the lives of Israelis who were impacted by the Oct. 7 massacres. The evening's featured speaker was Debbie Zimelman, an award-winning photographer and author who specializes in documenting the lives of women in Israel. Zimelman's photography book, "Women on the Front Lines," highlights...
