Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Vice President Kamala Harris took a thinly-veiled jab at the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan at an event hosted by the Israeli Embassy in Washington this week after she learned one of the plan’s architects was present, Ynet reported Thursday. On Tuesday, Harris spoke at an event hosted by the Israeli Embassy celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. In her comments, Harris made a dig at potential reforms to Israel’s judicial system and insinuated that Israel’s court should remain in its current form. “Un...
(JTA) — Amichai Chikli, the Israeli Diaspora minister who has antagonized some liberal segments of American Jewry, called J Street “hostile” to Israel after it retweeted a photo of the minister from New York City’s Celebrate Israel Parade. Chikli was photographed at the June 4 parade making what appeared to many to be an obscene gesture toward a group protesting the Israeli government. He and his staff said he was gesturing to the protesters to smile and did not intend to make the obscene gesture. Either way, the picture, taken last week by...
LONDON (JTA) - London's Jewish Museum is to close indefinitely next month and begin hunting for a new home for its collection of 40,000 objects, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The rising costs of maintaining its current premises in northwest London and a difficult fundraising environment exacerbated an already precarious financial situation for the museum, its chairman Nick Viner told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The Jewish Museum intends to close its doors at the end of June and...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration is fully invested in Israel-Saudi normalization, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC on Monday. He also said he does not see a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace happening anytime soon. “The United States has a real national security interest in promoting normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Blinken said Monday to applause at a policy summit of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. He said it was critical not to escalate the Israe...
(JNS) — Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen met with European counterparts in Slovakia on Tuesday and called for unity in countering the Iranian threat before it is too late. During the closed-door session in the capital Bratislava, Cohen also discussed strengthening the Abraham Accords and relations with the E.U. bloc. He is the first Israeli foreign minister to address the Slavkov/Austerlitz format—a regional cooperation forum consisting of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The meeting included Ministers Alexander Schallenberg of Au...
Israeli rights group urges public broadcaster to stop referring to ‘West Bank’ (JNS) — Shai Glick, the CEO of the B’Tslamo rights group, wrote a letter on Wednesday to the Kan Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation urging it to have its journalists stop using the term “West Bank” for Judea and Samaria. In the letter to Kan CEO Golan Yochpaz, Glick noted that the official term in Israel for the territories captured in the Six-Day War is Judea and Samaria. “It is incorrect that the state corporation uses the foreign term ‘West Bank,’ which is le...
(JTA) - Toronto is home to one of the world's largest Jewish communities, nearly half of the 335,000 Jews in Canada. But until last week, the city did not have a dedicated Holocaust museum. The Toronto Holocaust Museum opened its doors on Friday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by an array of dignitaries and Holocaust survivors. Aimed at young learners who will inherit a post-survivor world, the space centers around 11 kiosks where large-as-life survivors share their testimonies through...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The Biden administration has joined the chorus of American voices criticizing Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli. A photo in which Chikli is making a face at a pro-Israel parade in New York City, and his unapologetic defense of the incident, is evidence that he is out of touch with the U.S. Jewish Diaspora, a senior Biden administration official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "The fact that a senior Israeli official came to the United States and did not have a...
(JTA) - Conditions didn't seem favorable in early May as Stuart Eizenstat entered annual negotiations with the German government over reparations for the estimated 240,000 remaining Holocaust survivors around the world. Eizenstat had served as the special negotiator for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany since 2009 and had analyzed the country's economic and political landscape: high inflation, spiraling fuel costs and unprecedented government spending on defense to support...
LA PLATA, Argentina (JTA) - The most successful run in Israeli soccer history came to an end on Thursday, as the country's under-20 team lost in the semifinals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup to Uruguay. The 1-0 loss means Israel will play the winner of the other semifinal match between Italy and South Korea in a third place game. Local Jews and Israeli visitors made up a large portion of the crowd of over 27,000 at the stadium in La Plata, Argentina, a city about 40 miles outside of Buenos Aires....
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Speaking before one of the leading architects of the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of independent courts in a democracy. Harris’s speech on Tuesday came after a week in which opponents of the judicial overhaul — which would significantly weaken the Israeli Supreme Court — protested Israeli right-wing politicians at a series of events in New York City and elsewhere. Simcha Rothman, a far-right lawmaker who is a leading proponent of the judicial overhaul, was in at...
(JNS) — Israel’s foreign minister on Wednesday took issue with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris weighing in on Israel’s judicial reform debate, saying she didn’t know a thing about it. Harris waded into Israel’s domestic political affairs during an event at the Israeli embassy in Washington on Tuesday celebrating the Jewish state’s 75th anniversary. “America will continue to stand for the values that have been the bedrock of the U.S.-Israel relationship, which includes continuing to strengthen our democracies, which as the [Israeli] ambassador...
(Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs via JNS) — The Israeli security establishment has begun intensive discussions on the possibility of conducting a widespread military operation in Judea and Samaria against Palestinian terror groups following the shooting attack on May 30, 2023 in which a 32-year-old civilian, Meir Tamari, was murdered near the community of Hermesh. The attack was carried out by the “Rapid Reaction” unit of the “Tulkarm Battalion,” a joint terrorist body of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Palestinian Authority chief Mahmo...
New head of Birthright’s foundation an alumnus of its inaugural trip to Israel Elias Saratovsky, who participated in Birthright’s inaugural trip to Israel in 1999-2000, has been named the new president and CEO of the Birthright Israel Foundation. Saratovsky, who will start the new position on Sept. 1, has worked at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for more than two decades, most recently as national director of regional affairs. “I remember standing at Birthright’s Mega-Event in Jerusalem alongside thousands of other young Jewish...
(JTA) — A survey by the Anti-Defamation League found that significant portions of people in 10 European countries believe a range of antisemitic stereotypes, including more than one in three people in Poland and Hungary. The ADL measures antisemitic attitudes across a range of countries by asking respondents if they believe a set of 11 stereotypes about Jews, ranging from “Jews have too much power in the business world” to “Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.” This survey, taken from November to January, polled more than 6,500...
(JTA) — Israel’s under-20 men’s team defeated Brazil 3-2 in the quarterfinals of the FIFA U-20 World Cup on Saturday, their most shocking win in a string of dramatic underdog victories at the tournament. The player who scored the winning goal in extra time dedicated the win to three Israeli soldiers killed in an attack the previous morning. The team, making its first-ever appearance at the under-20 World Cup, is now through to the semifinal round, in which they will face Uruguay on Thursday. Israel — facing a country known for its interna...
(JTA) — A man rushed the stage and unfurled an Israeli flag at a Roger Waters concert in Frankfurt on Sunday in protest of the former Pink Floyd frontman’s continued criticism of Israel. Video circulating on social media showed a group of fans chanting “Am Yisrael Chai” (“The people of Israel live”) while the protester makes it to the main stage, where he lasts a few seconds before security guards chase him away. Since at least last week, Berlin police have been investigating Waters over a costume he has been wearing at concerts for years t...
(JNS) — German police have launched a criminal investigation after former Pink Floyd bassist and anti-Israel provocateur Roger Waters wore a Nazi-style uniform during a recent concert in the German capital. On May 17 at Mercedes-Benz Arena, the British musician dressed up in a costume resembling that of an SS soldier and pretended to fire a rifle. Waters also compared the murder of Anne Frank in the Holocaust to the accidental killing in Jenin in May 2022 of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. “The State Security Department at...
(JNS) - The U.S. seeks to silence Israeli opposition to a revived Iran nuclear deal by offering to broker a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal in exchange, Israel Hayom reported on Thursday. Israel's Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi flew Wednesday to Washington for meetings with U.S. officials about the possible Iran deal, which Israel strongly opposes, and Saudi-Israel relations, which Israel strongly supports. Although U.S. President Joe Biden...
Israeli man killed in shooting as West Bank violence continues (JTA) — An Israeli man was killed in a terror attack on Tuesday in the northern West Bank, the latest in a string of violent incidents in the territory this year. The Israel was identified as Meir Tamari, 32, a resident of the nearby settlement of Hermesh. He was shot while driving on a road close to the settlement and was treated by medics before his death was confirmed. Israeli forces have closed off roads in the area in order to find the attacker. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade c...
(JNS) - Thousands of participants from around the world joined the "March of Nations" event in Jerusalem to celebrate Israel's 75th year of independence. The event was organized by March of Life, an initiative founded by Jobst and Charlotte Bittner and the evangelical TOS Ministries from Tübingen, Germany. The southwestern German university town served as the training ground for the Einsatzgruppen, the SS death squads that murdered 700,000 Jews, primarily by shooting, during the Holocaust. Joine...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration said a visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, was “provocative” and cautioned against changes at the contested holy site. Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, which Muslims revere as the Noble Sanctuary, on Sunday morning, and declared that Israel was “in charge” of the sensitive site. The visit came days after Thursday’s annual “Flag March” through Jerusalem’s Old City, a right-wing parade that celebrates Jerusalem Day and perennially featu...
(JNS) — In a seemingly never-ending war of narratives, the Palestinians got center stage on Monday at the United Nations, though Israel was victorious in dwindling the audience down. May 15 marked the first official U.N. “Nakba Day,” per a resolution that the U.N. General Assembly passed in December. In Arabic, the word means “disaster” or “catastrophe,” in relation to the establishment of modern-day Israel on May 14, 1948. The ceremonies took place Monday morning at the United Nations, despite the history of the alleged “catastrophe...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan on Sunday sent a personal letter to all member state representatives urging them not to attend a “Nakba Day” event scheduled for the next day. Erdan characterized as “abominable” the planned event at the U.N. General Assembly in New York that commemorates what the Palestinians call the “catastrophe” of Israel’s establishment in 1948, saying that it destroys the prospects of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It is marked annually on May 15, the day after the nascent Jewish st...
MELBOURNE (JTA) - Jews in Australia have seen their community prosper in many areas, from business to the arts to the highest levels of government. But there is one arena that Aussie Jews have not featured prominently in: Australia's biggest sport, Australian Rules Football. AFL, referred to colloquially as "footy," is a uniquely Aussie sport, which has been played in some form since teams from Melbourne and Geelong first came together in a paddock in East Melbourne in 1858. Professional footy...
