Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Ayelet Samerano, whose 21-year-old son Yonatan Samerano was shot by Hamas terrorists and abducted by a UNRWA social worker on Oct. 7, 2023, is relieved that her desperate calls for action are finally being answered. “Today we’re seeing the results of our hard work,” she told JNS, after the Knesset passed two laws on Monday that make it illegal for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to operate on Israeli soil, and for Israeli officials to work with the U.N. agency. Sameran...
Rachel Greenspan has been appointed as the new executive director of Shalom Orlando. Greenspan, formerly interim co-executive director, is now responsible for all of Shalom Orlando's many facets including the J, its Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center, the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, Camp J, RAISE, and more. Along with her two bachelor's degrees in Early Childhood Education and Child Psychology, Greenspan's career experience makes her well suited for all these roles. She...
(JNS) — Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Monday passed by a large majority two laws that prohibit UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory and make it illegal for state officials to be in contact with representatives of that controversial U.N. aid agency for Palestinians. The Knesset passed the laws, which followed exposures about UNRWA staff’s complicity in the Hamas massacres of Oct. 7, 2023, despite pressure by the United States and other countries to desist for fear that it would complicate humanitarian projects in Gaza and beyond. Axi...
(JNS) — The son of the late American evangelist, Billy Graham, heads a list of Israel’s top Christian Allies around the world, recognized for their unwavering faith-based support for the Jewish state. The fifth annual list released Wednesday by the Washington, D.C.-based Israel Allies Foundation comes at a time when evangelical Christian support for Israel has served as a bulwark and counterweight against international criticism of Israel for the yearlong war against Hamas in Gaza. The American evangelist and missionary Franklin Graham, 72, of...
(JNS) — A newly developed antibody-based treatment for the most aggressive type of breast cancer could also be used to treat many other cancers, the Weizmann Institute of Science announced on Sunday. The researchers at the university in the central Israeli city of Rehovot, which offers postgraduate-only degrees in the natural and exact sciences, discovered that aggressive breast cancer prompts nearby immune cells to build “molecular bridges” between themselves, which causes these cells to refrain from attacking the cancer and leads to suppr...
(JNS) — American Airlines has announced that it is suspending service to and from Tel Aviv through the end of next summer. The move, which was reported by Israeli travel agencies on Sunday, means AA’s daily non-stop service from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to Tel Aviv will not resume until September 2025 at the earliest. “To provide customers with certainty when planning travel to Tel Aviv, we are expanding our travel alert to allow customers whose travel plans are impacted to rebook their itinerary for travel involvi...
(JNS) — Iran’s supreme leader has instructed the country’s Supreme National Security Council to prepare for another assault on Israel, The New York Times reported on Thursday. The report, which cited three Iranian officials with knowledge of the matter, said Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the decision on Monday after reviewing a report from senior military commanders on the extent of damage to Iran’s missile production capabilities and air defense systems around Tehran, critical energy infrastructure and a main port in the south. Khamenei was sai...
(JNS) — White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Wednesday that Iran should not respond to Israel’s Oct. 26 retaliatory strikes. Should it choose to do so, she added, “The United States will be standing by to assist Israel in its defense.” Her remarks echoed those of U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, who said on Wednesday that Washington believes the Islamic Republic “should not respond.” “I’m not going to talk about communications between our two governments, real or imagined. But as we have made clear public...
(JNS) — A Jewish resident of Oakland, Calif., and his 5-year-old son were aggressively confronted by the owner of a local cafe on Oct. 26 and asked to leave the establishment. The incident was caught on video. Jonathan Hirsch was wearing a baseball cap with a prominent Magen David, or Star of David—a symbol of Judaism and Jewish identity—when he was approached by Abdulrahim Harara, the owner of Jerusalem Coffee House in North Oakland. Harara’s family is from the Gaza Strip. After Israeli forces killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on Oct. 16, he...
(JNS) — Hezbollah’s incessant cross-border attacks on northern Israel since Oct. 8, 2023, have burned over 57,000 acres of land, the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund said on Wednesday. According to KKL-JNF’s Forestry Department, it will take some five to seven years for nature to repair the damage. According to the data, Israel’s Upper Galilee and Golan Heights regions have suffered the most damage, with almost 43,500 acres burned, followed by the Lower Galilee (some 6,175 acres), the Western Galilee (2,223 acres) and the Hula Va...
(JNS) — A new poll reveals deep partisan divisions among American voters regarding responsibility for the escalation of the Middle East conflict, with a majority of Democrats blaming Israel. The survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted from Oct. 11-14, found that about 60 percent of voters attribute “a lot” of responsibility for the war’s escalation to Hamas, Iran’s government and Hezbollah. Partisan differences emerge regarding Israel’s role, with approximately 60 percent of Democrats saying the...
(JNS) — In his first speech since being appointed Hezbollah leader earlier this week, Naim Qassem on Wednesday vowed to continue the path of his slain predecessor Hassan Nasrallah. “What is my plan? A continuation of my predecessor’s. We will carry on with the war program as it has been outlined so far,” Qassem said in the televised speech, according to a translation by Lebanon’s L’Orient Le Jour daily. Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli strike on Sept. 27 after heading the Iranian-backed terrorist group for more than 30 years, rema...
(JNS) — Israel is pursuing a “long-term strategy” focused on neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program and proxies, despite claims to the contrary, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. Speaking at the opening of the Knesset’s winter session, Netanyahu pushed back against recent claims that Israel’s war effort lacked focus. “After each of our achievements, I hear the former officials in the television studios say: ‘Well, we understand the immediate war goals, but what’s the strategy?’” he said. “So if it’s not clear by now,...
(JNS) — United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday accused Israel of seeking to carry out “ethnic cleansing” in Gaza, while hailing the refusal by Arab nations to accept Palestinian war refugees. “The intention might be for the Palestinians to leave Gaza, for others to occupy it,” Guterres told The Guardian, speaking on the sidelines of the COP16 United Nations Biodiversity Conference in Cali, Colombia. “But there has been—and I pay tribute to the courage and the resilience of the Palestinian people and to the determinat...
(JNS) — Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on Monday over a decision to place portable bomb shelters, known in Hebrew as miguniot, in Judea and Samaria towns that have not been formally recognized by Jerusalem. According to Baharav-Miara, the government’s decision to provide Israeli citizens in unrecognized outposts throughout Judea and Samaria with shelters was illegal, as it was made by members of the Cabinet without requesting professional advice from the security estab...
(JNS) — A former U.N. soldier in Southern Lebanon told the Danish tabloid B.T. on Sunday that during his service there 10 years ago, “we were totally subject to Hezbollah.” The Danish citizen, who the article named “Michael,” was deployed as part of UNTSO (U.N. Truce Supervision Organization), which works closely with the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL. UNTSO is tasked with observing and reporting violations of U.N. Resolution 1701, which ended the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 and calls on the Iranian terror proxy to...
(JNS) — Former Hamas captive Erez Kalderon celebrated his bar mitzvah in Kiryat Gat, southeast of Ashkelon, on Thursday, after marking his 12th birthday in the Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists kidnapped Kalderon, along with his father, Ofer, and 16-year-old sister, Sahar, from their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz during the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Erez and Sahar were among 105 hostages released last November as part of a weeklong ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Ofer, now 53, remains a captive in Gaza. “It was very dif...
(JNS) — Orthodox Jewish parents of children with disabilities have attempted for decades to send their children to Jewish day schools in California. They were denied because while federal funding is available for private schools to provide critical support services, California lawmakers have banned money available for kids with special needs from being used at religious private schools, including Jewish ones. In a 3-0 ruling on Monday, a federal appeals court effectively declared that California is violating federal law. “We easily con...
(JTA) — Iran has executed a 20-year-old Jewish man who killed a man in a 2022 fight after the victim’s family refused to negotiate an alternative punishment. Arvin Ghahremani, 20, had been scheduled to be executed in May but received a stay after Jewish and human rights groups around the world called attention to his case. Ghahremani was arrested more than two years ago on charges that he had killed a man with whom he had a financial dispute. In a report published Monday in Mizan Online, an Iranian news agency, the prosecutor for the city of...
(JNS) — A Muslim political strategist from the United Arab Emirates and a Jewish entrepreneur based in Dubai are promoting the landmark Abraham Accords during a joint tour of Australia this week, seeking to combat antisemitism and spread Jewish-Arab coexistence. The unusual 10-day mission to Australia comes as Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza enters its second year, with Jewish communities facing a sharp rise in antisemitism around the globe. “We are standing shoulder to shoulder and sending a message of Arab-Jewish solidarity,” Eitan N...
Two fighter jets nearly collide at Israeli airbase By Lilach Shoval (Israel Hayom via JNS) — A near miss at an Israeli airbase: Drama unfolded at the Ramat David Airbase when an F-16 fighter pilot received clearance from the control tower to take off. While accelerating to 250 km/h, the pilot spotted another fighter jet directly in front of him. At the last possible moment, the pilot shut off his engine and managed to steer the jet away. In a video of the incident revealed on Monday, the surprised fighter pilot is heard asking the control t...
(JNS) — President Isaac Herzog announced on Monday the award of the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor to eight Jewish and non-Jewish leaders from around the world, in recognition of their long-standing contributions to the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Against the background of the ongoing war, the president chose these leaders for their unwavering commitment to Israel and their exceptional support of the Jewish people over decades of endeavors, particularly since the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023. The Israeli Presidential Medal of H...
(JTA) - WASHINGTON - Israel said it hit military targets in Iran in retaliation for that country's missile barrage on Oct. 1, apparently heeding Biden administration pleas to avoid oil fields or Iran's nuclear program because of fears of escalation into an all-out war. "In response to months of continuous attacks from the regime in Iran against the State of Israel – right now the Israel Defense Forces is conducting precise strikes on military targets in Iran," Daniel Hagari, the Israeli army s...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — With just four days to go before the election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both tried to use Israel as a wedge issue: Trump has said the country will not exist in two years if he is defeated, and Harris’ campaign has called his rhetoric on Israel antisemitic. Trump and Harris do disagree on a range of Israel-related topics, from how Israel should fight its battles to their starkly different visions of America’s role in the world. But there are also key issues where — in the big picture — they agree. Both Harris and...
The Jewish Chamber is excited to host a free Chanukah breakfast on Tuesday, Dec. 3, at One Senior Place, located at 715 Douglas Ave in Altamonte Springs. This festive event will begin at 9 a.m. and is open to the community, offering a warm and welcoming introduction to Chanukah for over 30 attendees, including many who may not be familiar with the holiday's traditions. Attendees will enjoy festive decor and a spread of delicious homemade holiday foods, generously provided by Jewish Pavilion...
