Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - A new campaign by The Jewish Chronicle calls for a British spy who saved 10,000 Austrian Jews during World War II to be recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Gentile. "It is not about how many lives but this man has received no recognition for quite literally saving Austria's Jewish community-I think it is as simple as that," said historian Helen Fry, who wrote about Col. Thomas Joseph Kendrick in the new biography Spymaster. "That is why I think it is important that people know his...
(JTA) — The award for best feature film at Israel’s Ophir Awards, the country’s top film honor and its automatic nominee for the foreign film category at the Oscars, went to “Let It Be Morning,” a film about an Arab-Israeli man forced to grapple with his identity as both Palestinian and Israeli. But most of the Palestinian stars of the film skipped the award ceremony Tuesday night, calling out what they described as appropriation of a Palestinian story. “In a normal situation, I would feel happiness and recognition for the prize, but to my dism...
(JNS) - Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid inaugurated the Jewish state's embassy in Bahrain on Thursday, a year after the two countries signed the Abraham Accords to normalize ties. "Bahrain, like Israel, encompasses an ancient history along with extraordinary capabilities of the new technological world. Our opportunities are shared, our threats are shared, and they are not far from here," Lapid said in a joint press conference with his Bahraini counterpart, Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin...
London lawmakers reject plan for high-rise building next to historic synagogue By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — City council members in London voted against a controversial plan to build a high-rise building near an 18th-century synagogue. The plan by developers would have replaced a seven-story building adjacent to the Bevis Marks synagogue in central London with a 48-story tower. The plan was rejected on Tuesday in a vote by a vote of 14-7, the BBC reported. The custodians of the synagogue, which today serves the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish c...
BERLIN (JTA) — Last year, as Rabbi Rebecca Blady approached the first anniversary of the Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, she knew she wanted to commemorate it on her own terms. Blady runs Base Hillel Deutschland, an organization for young Jews in Berlin, and was praying in the Halle synagogue on Yom Kippur in 2019 when a gunman attempted to break down the door. The gunman then went on to kill two people nearby, and is now serving a life sentence in prison. Rather than suffice with the state-organized memorial on the a...
(JNS) - "Hands out of your pockets, sir!" barked a U.S. Secret Service agent at a bewildered pedestrian as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett walked down the Fifth Avenue sidewalk in New York City, accompanied by a large entourage of Secret Service and Shin Bet agents, aides and reporters. A long motorcade of Black Secret Service Suburbans and police cars rolled alongside with blue lights flashing, keeping pace with the walkers. It was the eve of Shemini Atzeret, and Bennett had just come...
(JNS)—Demarking a clear distinction between himself and his predecessor, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Monday morning that one of the most dangerous problems in the world today is political polarization. In his first address as prime minister to the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Bennett called polarizations one of two plagues affecting the world at the moment, with the other being the COVID-19 pandemic. “Both the coronavirus and polarization can erode public trust in our institutions. Both can paralyze nations,” he said....
(JTA) — In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett addressed the twin threats of Iran and the coronavirus, in keeping with his quest for a relationship with the international community that is less confrontational than his predecessor’s. Bennett launched his speech Monday morning with a plea to see Israel not as forever entrenched in warfare, but as a contributing member of the international community. Israel, Bennett said at the outset, “is a beacon of democracy, diverse by design, innov...
NEW YORK (JTA) - The first thing Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said, facing a room full of the leaders of the American Jewish community: "I wish my mom were here." The son of American immigrants to Israel, Bennett, like his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, speaks a fluent, nearly accentless English, and spent years living in the United States as both a child and an adult. But in other crucial ways, Bennett sounded different from Netanyahu in his first public address to American Jewish...
(JTA) – At a political rally in Berlin in June, a young Jewish gay man wearing a turquoise kippah launched his campaign to represent one of Germany's most ethnically diverse constituencies in parliament. The man, 34-year-old Marcel Yaron Goldhammer, promised to stoke the "embers of unity, justice and freedom" during his announcement speech in front of about 200 people in the southeastern Berlin neighborhood of Neukolln. But he's not running for a liberal party, or one promoting m...
(JNS) — A number of American Jewish organizations slammed a resolution adopted on Wednesday at a high-level meeting at the U.N. General Assembly that commemorated the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action stemming from a notoriously anti-Semitic World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. “The resolution predictably claimed that the DDPA offered ‘a comprehensive United Nations framework and solid foundation for combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intol...
Jewish security organization opens national command center in Chicago By Ben Sales (JTA) — The Secure Community Network, which coordinates security for Jewish institutions nationwide, has opened a command center in Chicago to monitor antisemitic threats. The center’s main room is a monitoring room with a 16-foot video screen that shows a map and tally of incident reports and potential threats across the country. It is staffed by some 10 people on a daily basis, but can be operational 24 hours a day, as it was over the High Holidays this mon...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Wrapping up the feel-good-fest that marked the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and four Arabs states, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a shout-out to the big guy who started it all. No, not Donald Trump, but Abraham himself. "Abraham, in our Bible, had the temerity to engage God, to argue with God, to ask why, and maybe more important, to ask why not," Blinken said at the virtual get-together Friday that marked...
(JNS) — Jewish Democratic Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) is introducing legislation that would make a two-state solution official U.S. policy. Named the “Two-State Solution Act,” it states that “only the outcome of a two-state solution can both ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own,” Politico first reported. It further states that the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, are...
(JTA) — Hundreds of Iraqi civic leaders and activists attended a conference calling for the country to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. But Iraq’s government rejected the call and is now seeking to arrest the leaders of the conference and may also try to arrest other attendees for the crime, under Iraqi law, of aiding and abetting ideas that support Zionism, according to Haaretz. Earlier, governmental leaders had said in a statement that the demand for normalization of ties with Israel “was not representative of the population’s...
(JTA) - A century ago, communists shuttered the synagogues of Tomsk, one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It was a painful blow, especially to the local community of Jewish Cantonists - former soldiers who had been recruited against their will or abducted into the Russian Tsar's army and forbidden from practicing their faith. After many years of forced service and persecution, many of them returned to Judaism in Tomsk, a city of about 500,000. This week, local Jews feel a circle has been...
Netflix renews ‘My Unorthodox Life’ for second season By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Netflix is bringing back “My Unorthodox Life,” the reality series about a formerly Orthodox fashion mogul and her family, the streaming giant announced Monday. No details about the content of season two or any approximate release date were disclosed. The series follows Julia Haart, who left the Orthodox community she grew up in in Monsey, New York, to become CEO of the Elite World Group fashion model agency. Over the course of nine episodes, she and her four chil...
(JTA) — Several Israeli philanthropists have helped bring to Abu Dhabi dozens of asylum seekers, including female athletes, fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The rescue operation led by Aaron G. Frenkel, an aviation professional who had helped airlift thousands of Jews out of the Soviet Union, ended on Sept. 6, as 41 asylum seekers from Afghanistan reached Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress detailed the operation in a statement Sunday. Frenkel, who is the chairman of the Congress, teamed up with the g...
(JNS)- A statue honoring Holocaust victim and teenage Jewish diarist Anne Frank was unveiled in Antigua, Guatemala, earlier this month, reported the San Diego Jewish World. The Anne Frank Children's Human Rights Memorial, which was dedicated on Sept. 3, rests in the San Sebastian Park across the street from the National School for Girls No. 2, Antonio Castro y Escobar. Saint Sebastian was murdered as a youngster by the Romans for being Christian. The site for the statute was chosen by Antigua...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jared Kushner had plenty of folks to praise at an event here last Tuesday marking the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the deals he brokered normalizing relations between Israel and four Arab countries. There were the ambassadors from Israel and two of the Arab lands, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. There were his Trump administration colleagues who worked through the agreement. There were even some Democrats. “I also want to thank Congressman Ted Deutch of Florida for being here today as well as Acting Assista...
LONDON (JTA) — Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz was a teenager when she began to feel Judaism calling her back. Her family had left the synagogue behind, and in the mid-1970s she was living in Cornwall, about as far away from Britain’s Jewish centers as one can. She wrote letters to Jewish institutions and asked them to send her pamphlets. She pored over Jewish entries in the thin pages of an Encyclopedia Britannica. She began deciphering unfamiliar words and learning about Israel. She couldn’t yet visualize all the traditions, and there were thing...
Hundreds of pilgrims to Uman suspected of forging negative COVID tests By Shira Hanau (JTA) — Hundreds of Israelis who traveled to Ukraine for an annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to the grave of a Hasidic rabbi are suspected of using forged negative COVID tests to return to Israel after testing positive for the virus. Tens of thousands of Israelis travel to Uman, Ukraine each year in a pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nachman, the leader of the Breslov branch of Hasidism. The pilgrimage was essentially canceled last year when Israelis were b...
(JTA) - In a significant move, Israel and the United States have set up a joint team at the national security adviser level to contain Iran, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told U.S. Jewish leaders in a Rosh Hashanah call. Bennett and his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu have vehemently opposed negotiating a deal with Iran to contain its nuclear program. But in his first meeting with Bennett last week, President Joe Biden looked to appease Israel's fears by signaling an openness to using a...
(JNS) Algeria’s decision last week to sever diplomatic ties with its neighbor, Morocco, put the spotlight on the strengthening Israeli-Moroccan relations that were born out of the Abraham Accords. Prof. Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, an expert on North Africa and senior fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told JNS that Algeria and Morocco have been “geopolitical and ideological rivals for more than a half-century on the morrow of attaining independence.” The future of Spain’s ex-colony, Western S...
Birthright trips to resume in October without quarantines for the vaccinated By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Birthright Israel is resuming its trips after a month of cancellations over Israeli COVID-19 quarantine rules, the organization announced Thursday. Participants who have been fully vaccinated in the past six months will not have to quarantine on arrival for the trips, which will likely resume Oct. 3. However, they will still be subject to PCR and serological tests upon arrival and wait for the PCR results before beginning the trip. That c...
