Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — French President Emmanuel Macron has appointed as prime minister Élisabeth Borne, a former cabinet minister whose father, Joseph Bornstein, was a Polish Holocaust survivor who died by suicide when she was 11. Borne, a 61-year-old former Socialist Party politician who previously had served as labor minister, is the second woman to hold the post and one of several people with Jewish roots, including Laurent Fabius and Leon Blum. Joseph Bornstein and his three brothers, Isaac, Albert and Leon, were born to Polish-Jewish immigrants in Be...
(JTA) – General Mills announced Tuesday it would be fully divesting from a business venture in Israel that had operated in an East Jerusalem settlement, in a move pro-Palestinian activists celebrated as the result of their campaign against the food conglomerate. The Minnesota-based company has operated a Pillsbury frozen-food factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone since 2002, in a joint venture with Israeli investment group Bodan Holdings. In a statement, the company said it would sell its majority stake in the venture back to Bodan as part o...
(JTA) - The Palestinian Authority concluded its investigation into the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by accusing Israeli soldiers of deliberately shooting her in the back, a claim that Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said could not be true. "Any claim that the IDF intentionally targets journalists or those uninvolved [in terror] is a crude and blatant lie," Gantz said in a statement after the release of the PA report on Thursday. Israel has maintained that it is...
(JTA) — Among the many Jews on Russia’s latest list of Americans banned entry are three Chabad rabbis, in possible retaliation for Chabad’s decades-long effort to recover texts and artifacts that the Soviets took from the movement. The list of 963 Americans posted Saturday, first reported by Axios, includes three leaders of Chabad’s umbrella body, Agudas Chassidei Chabad. They are Rabbi Avraham Shemtov, the chairman of the executive of the umbrella body, a founder of the Washington office of the movement; Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, the umbrell...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In an unusual public broadside against dozens of Congress members, Israel’s ambassador to Washington said a letter calling for a U.S. investigation into the killing of a Palestinian American journalist was not a “fair” representation of the event. Michael Herzog was responding to a letter sent Thursday by 57 House Democrats to Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, and Christopher Wray, the FBI director. It called for an investigation into the death last week of Shireen Abu Akleh, a venerated Al Jazeera reporter killed...
Israeli-owned eatery in London hit with ‘free Palestine’ graffiti By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — Unidentified individuals spray-painted the words “free Palestine” on the facade of an Israeli-owned cafe in London. The incident, which the owner Michael Levi suspects was an antisemitic hate crime, occurred on May 14 at Michaels Brasserie, the Jewish News of London reported on Tuesday. The graffiti was painted there late at night on a Saturday, the report said. Police arrived at the café and documented the incident and are looking into it, Levi told...
(Israel21c via JNS) - India and Israel seem like a study in contrasts. Some 1.4 billion Indians live in a vast country stretching nearly 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) across at its widest point, while 8.9 million Israelis live in a tiny land no more than 135 kilometers (85 miles) wide. Yet they are bound together by surprising commonalities. For starters, they nearly share a birthday. India gained independence from Great Britain in August 1947 and Israel in May 1948. And each has a proud...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Biden administration is setting the stage to hand ultimate control of America’s health care system and U.S. national sovereignty over to the World Health Organization. On May 22-28, 2022, the 75th World Health Assembly will convene at United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, with delegates from 194 nations, to vote on the Biden administration’s amendments that will hand over national sovereignty and authority to the WHO, which during the COVID pandemic, carried the water bucket for the Chinese Communist Party...
(New York Jewish Week) — A group of Orthodox Jews are demanding an apology from Lufthansa airlines after they were expelled from a flight from New York to Budapest last Tuesday. The travelers say all of the identifiably Orthodox Jews were prevented from boarding a connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany because a group of passengers had allegedly not complied with the German national carrier’s mask regulations on the first leg of the flight. In a video taken by a passenger, a Lufthansa supervisor is seen saying that “everyone has to pay for a c...
The German airline Lufthansa has apologized for an incident last week in which more than 100 Orthodox Jews traveling in separate groups were collectively prevented from boarding a connecting flight in Frankfurt, following a dispute over masking regulations on the first leg of the journey from New York. However, Lufthansa could still face legal consequences after a prominent advocate for the Jewish community accused the airline of violating German laws on equal treatment. In a statement issued on Tuesday, Lufthansa offered an apology “to all t...
(JNS) — The White House is testing a unique solution to the growing Ukraine refugee crisis. The American Jewish community is testing its response. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has launched a direct sponsorship program for Ukrainian refugees called Uniting for Ukraine, which will serve as a major piece of the president’s pledge to accept up to 100,000 refugees in the United States. A new online portal started accepting applications, where individual Americans, as well as private and public organizations, can apply to financiall...
(JTA) - After Russia invaded Ukraine early in the morning of Feb. 24, millions of Ukrainians suddenly had their lives upended. The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous was concerned with 15 of them. That's how many Ukrainians remained alive from the foundation's tally of "Righteous Gentiles," non-Jews who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust 80 years ago. The foundation doles out money to people certified to have helped Jews worldwide each year and had sent the first...
Police arrest Palestinian with an axe, suicide note in Samaria (JNS) — A 22-year-old resident of Al-Bireh was arrested on Sunday night after police found an axe in his vehicle, along with a suicide note stating his intention of carrying out a terror attack, police said in a statement. The suspect had been pulled over at Tapuah Junction, just east of Ariel in Judea and Samaria, during a police patrol to “prevent friction and maintain public order,” according to police. An initial investigation found that the suspect had been driving aroun...
(JNS) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday rejected the Biden administration's outline for a deal with Iran. Members voted 86-12 to approve a motion that opposes the lifting of terrorism sanctions on Iran to limit cooperation between it and China. Senators also voted 66-13 to approve a motion to block the delisting of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The lawmakers also demanded that any final deal must address all of Iran's destabilizing activities. The...
(JNS) — The current draft of the Iran nuclear deal should “not be signed under any circumstances,” a former Israeli national security adviser has warned. Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, who served as acting national security adviser to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who was the former head of Israel’s National Security Council, told JNS that the best outcome would be a scenario in which divisions between the Iranians and Americans prevent a signature from going ahead. This is due to the weakness of the proposed arrange...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The political action committee affiliated with AIPAC, the pro-Israel powerhouse lobby, has in less than six months of existence become the biggest pro-Israel PAC, delivering $6 million to 326 candidates. It is also now endorsing 109 of the 147 of the Republicans who refused to affirm President Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021. “The AIPAC PAC is now the largest bipartisan, pro-Israel political action committee in the country — and it is quickly emerging as a leading force in American politics,” the lobby said Wednesday...
(JTA) — The fact that Ukraine’s president is Jewish has hurt the credibility of Russia’s claims that it invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 to “de-Nazify” it. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tried to boost his country’s argument during an interview with an Italian television channel on Sunday, by saying he said he believed Adolf Hitler also had Jewish origins and that Jewish sages say the biggest antisemites are Jewish themselves. Lavrov said this during an interview with Italy’s Channel 4, a commercial broadcaster, according to the simultane...
(New York, NY) - A group of students from the University of Florida arrived in Israel this Monday, marking the first of many Birthright Campus Trips this year. The contingent is one of 28 student groups arriving this week. A total of 14,000 students from nearly 900 universities and colleges in North America are expected to land in Israel in the coming weeks. Birthright Campus Trips are a unique opportunity for North American students to go on a life-changing trip to Israel with their college...
BERLIN (JTA) — Growing up in London had its ups and downs for Jeremy Issacharoff, Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Germany. On one hand, as a schoolboy he was beaten up by skinheads and called a “dirty Jew.” On the other hand, he had long, civilized discussions with Arab and Palestinian classmates at the London School of Economics. Such experiences prepared him for his life as a diplomat: With some people you talk. With others, never. Issacharoff, 67, recently reflected on his 40 years in the Israeli foreign service, days before leaving Germany...
Israel to end COVID-19 tests at Ben-Gurion Airport (JNS) — Israel is planning to end the requirement for travelers arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport to test for COVID-19, Israeli media reported on Tuesday. It comes as more tourists are arriving for the spring season, including Birthright Israel trips. Currently, arriving passengers must take a test at their own expense. New reports by Channel 12 and Walla indicate that the restriction could be lifted in early June. Israel lifted its indoor-mask requirement last month, though the mand...
(JNS) POLAND - A Muslim group including participants from across the Arab world took part for the first time in the International March of the Living, the annual 1.9-mile walk from the concentration camp at Auschwitz to the extermination camp of Birkenau in Poland to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust. The precedent-setting move was the brainchild of Sharaka, an organization of young Israeli and Gulf State leaders formed in the wake of the Abraham Accords. The 18-member delegation,...
(JNS) - Jordan fears it is losing its recognized status as official custodian of Jerusalem's holy Muslim sites, including the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, as Palestinians incited by Hamas, other terror groups and the Palestinian Authority continuously held riots during the Muslim month of Ramadan. In at least one incident, rioters nearly set the Al-Aqsa mosque on fire. Jordan has blamed Israel for the violence and for violating the status quo there. And now, it is demanding total...
(JNS) — An American Jewish Committee survey of U.S. and Israeli Jewish millennials shows that Israel-Diaspora relations remain strong but also indicates points of divergence regarding what role Diaspora Jews should have in influencing Israeli policies, anti-Semitism in the United States and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first-ever parallel survey of Jews, ages 25 to 40, was conducted by YouGov in the United States and Geocartography in Israel for ACCESS, AJC’s young professional program and AJC’s Contemporary Jewish Life Depar...
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – At a time when the horrors of the Holocaust are again on the minds of Europe and the world, an alarming new survey shows widespread misunderstanding - and even real doubts - among a surprisingly large number of Americans regarding the darkest chapter in modern world history. The survey, conducted for the Holocaust Education Resource Council, underscores the need for continued and strengthened education to make sure that genocidal outrage is never again repeated or a...
(JTA) — The 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Vanda Semyonovna Obiedkova died near her home in Mariupol, Ukraine, April 4, while the city was under a devastating Russian attack. Her family believed that her survivor testimony died with her. Obiedkova died, reportedly cold and emaciated, while sheltering in the basement of a store near her home; her daughter and son-in-law fled the city after burying her. The house they shared burned during the attacks, and the VHS tape containing the video testimony Obiedkova had recorded of her Holocaust e...
