Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - Could the new owner of Ben & Jerry's Israeli business interests rename a flavor "Judea and Samaria"? Avi Zinger, who bought the company's Hebrew and Arabic branding from parent company Unilever last month, recently told an Israeli news outlet that he had the right to do so, and even proposed renaming "Chunky Monkey" to the biblical name for the West Bank. And that threat, Ben & Jerry's lawyers say, is reason enough why the sale shouldn't legally go through. "If Ben & Jerry's wanted to pr...
The judge who signed the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago warrant is facing violent antisemitic threats By Madeline Fixler (JTA) — Bruce Reinhart, the federal judge in Florida who signed the warrant allowing the FBI to raid former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Tuesday, has been hit with a wave of antisemitic threats online. The outburst has appeared on right-wing social media platforms and message boards, where users have published the judge’s name, address and personal information. Threats have been directed at his children and supposed fami...
(JNS) — Shortly after Cairo helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an Egyptian diplomat let loose a barrage on Israel on the international stage. At Monday afternoon’s emergency session at the U.N. Security Council, Egyptian Ambassador to the United Nations Osama Abdel Khalek surprisingly tore into Israel, hours after his Israeli counterpart praised Egypt for mediating a halt of violence. Abdel Khalek made no mention of PIJ during his speech, labeling all Gazans killed in the weekend’s clashes as “martyrs,” with...
(JNS) — Despite repeated refrains by Biden administration officials that negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal cannot go on indefinitely, which the U.S. president himself reiterated during the Israel leg of his Middle East trip in mid-July, Washington has refused to set a deadline for ending talks even though they appear to be on life support and are possibly unsalvagable given Tehran’s recent claims that it could easily build a bomb. Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Dem...
(JNS) — Attempts at mediation in the lawsuit filed by the board of ice-cream maker Ben & Jerry’s against its parent company Unilever for transferring the rights to produce its ice-cream in Israel to an Israeli distributor have failed. According to the New York Post, an attorney from Ben & Jerry’s wrote a letter to U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter asking to restore the company’s request for a preliminary injunction, as no agreement could be reached between the two sides to settle the case out of court. Another letter, from attorneys represe...
(JTA) — When Benjamin Netanyahu, then Israel’s prime minister, failed to meet his own deadline to announce a plan to annex portions of the West Bank during the summer of 2020, it wasn’t just his usual critics and advocates for the prompt creation of a Palestinian state who breathed a sigh of relief. The missed deadline was also a relief to insiders at the Trump White House, who knew that annexation would derail their ambitious effort to make peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, the very afternoon of the annexation deadlin...
Trial over ‘dissolution’ of Jewish Agency activities in Russia set for Aug. 19 (JNS) — A Moscow court on Thursday set an Aug. 19 trial date that could result in the “dissolution” of the Jewish Agency’s activities in Russia, even as an Israeli delegation was in the Russian capital in a bid to resolve an issue that has created a major diplomatic spat between the two countries. The Russian Justice Ministry earlier this month sent a letter to the Jewish Agency outlining a list of demands that created the legal basis for Thursday’s initial heari...
(JNS) - The Jewish Agency, which helps Jews immigrate to Israel, stands on shaky ground in Russia, as a Moscow court is set to hold a trial on its dissolution August 19. Even though it's operating under a cloud of uncertainty, and immigration to Israel has skyrocketed, the Agency continues to operate business as usual, JNS has learned from a government source familiar with the matter. Since the outbreak of the war on Ukraine in February, 19,100 Russians have immigrated to Israel, a leap from...
(JNS) — The Jewish Federations of North America has announced the launch of a Ukrainian Resettlement Grant Initiative to support refugees seeking safety in the United States. The new funding is in addition to the more than $70 million that JFNA has already pledged to help resettle refugees from Ukraine abroad. “The Jewish people have been refugees in so many countries, yet we have been blessed with freedom and protection in the United States,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of JFNA. “Supporting refugees and vulnerable populat...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has instructed the country’s Foreign Ministry to prepare a series of political measures against Russia to be implemented in the event it closes the Russian branch of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a nonprofit organization that promotes immigration to Israel. Although Moscow gave no reason for shuttering the agency’s offices, officials have said it is possibly due to Israel’s stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Lawmakers met on Sunday to discuss the matter, during which some even...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has implemented measures that could turn the P.A. into a dictatorship, according to a new report, published just two weeks before the 29th anniversary of the signing of the Oslo Accords. The report was authored by Israeli NGO Palestinian Media Watch, which has followed developments in the P.A. virtually since its inception in 1994. Over the past four years, the report states, “Abbas has made decisions and implemented fundamental changes to the Palestinian political system, the...
(JTA) - The Auburn University men's basketball team will travel to Israel this weekend for a 10-day Birthright-style trip, likely the first of its kind for a full Division I college or professional team. Coined "Birthright for College Basketball," the trip will feature some of Israel's most famous historical and tourist sites - from the Western Wall and the Dead Sea to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum - plus three exhibition games against teams of players from the top echelon of Israeli...
(JTA) - The director of a major international art exhibition has resigned after a work that included caricatures of Jews and Israelis ignited a reckoning over antisemitism. The scandal leaves Documenta - a sweeping, decentralized exhibition staged every five years in Kassel, Germany - on uncertain territory for the future. Documenta announced that the Anne Frank Education Center in Frankfurt, would review all of the work in the exhibition, but the center's director said announced on Friday that...
Gantz says Israel could ‘seriously harm and delay’ Iran’s nuclear program (JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Tuesday that Israel has the capability to cause major damage to Iran’s nuclear program. He also said that plans to revive the 2015 nuclear deal would only delay Iran’s program. “Iran is a global problem,” he said during a Channel 13 conference in Jerusalem. “It is not just Israel’s private problem.” “We are able to seriously harm and delay the nuclear [program],” he added. “We are very unsatisfied with the agreem...
(JNS) - A large cargo of medical and humanitarian aid was recently collected and delivered to Ukraine by the Israeli international humanitarian aid organization IsraAID and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Israel-Ukraine. A total of 31 pallets weighing 9 tons (19,841 pounds) were delivered to the city of Kharkiv on July 6, the Ukrainian embassy in Israel announced on its Facebook page. The cargo contained tourniquets, bandages, occlusive dressings, chest seals, surgical packs, hygiene kits...
(JNS) — In a news release on Monday, the U.S. State Department slammed the Russian government for continuing to compare Ukrainian leaders to Nazis and evoking the Holocaust in its war against Ukraine. The release cited numerous examples of the Russian government and propaganda apparatus justifying its aggression towards Ukraine by invoking World War II imagery. Russia has long claimed that one of its goals in Ukraine was “de-Nazification” with Russian President Vladimir Putin calling the Ukrainian leaders a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Naz...
(JNS) — Nine European governments rejected on Tuesday an Israeli decision to class six Palestinian organizations as terrorist entities. The foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden said in a joint statement that Israel’s October 2021 designation of the Palestinian “civil society organizations” as terrorist organizations was not supported by substantial evidence. “No substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy towards the six Palestini...
(JTA) — Pinchas Goldschmidt, who left Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, is no longer the chief rabbi of Moscow after 30 years with the title. The board of the Moscow Jewish Religious Society voted last month to support a contract extension for Goldschmidt, even though he had been in Israel for some time. But the RBC, a Russian news organization, reported Wednesday that the group, which represents Goldschmidt’s congregation and office, said he no longer had a role there. “The contract has ended. … There is no question of success...
Idaho to gets first ‘mikvah’ as part of $3.5 million Chabad construction project (JNS) — A new $3.5 million construction project at Chabad Lubavitch of Idaho in Boise will include the state’s first Jewish ritual bath, also known as a mikvah, reported the local KTVB 7 news. “This is a tremendous milestone that we are here today to celebrate the groundbreaking of the new Chabad Jewish Center,” said Rabbi Mendel Lifshitz at a ceremony on Wednesday. The center opened in 2004. The Jewish population in Idaho is about 0.1 percent of the state’s tot...
(JNS) — Educational materials produced by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) contain content that encourages jihad, violence and martyrdom, in addition to promoting anti-Semitism, according to an analysis by IMPACT-se. The Israeli NGO—which monitors curricula to assess whether young people are being indoctrinated with hate—focused on materials labeled for use in the Palestinian territories in 2022 that did not appear on UNRWA’s new education portal as is required. Among the example...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - It has become a kind of mantra in Washington and Jerusalem: Integrate much of the Middle East, including Israel, into a single security system to keep Iran in its place. The issue came up as soon as President Joe Biden landed Wednesday at Ben Gurion airport in Israel for his first visit as president and his 10th since 1973. "We will discuss building a new security and economy architecture with the nations of the Middle East, following the Abraham Accords and the achievements...
(JTA) – For many Britons, Boris Johnson's tenure as prime minister will have been defined by scandals like the one that forced him to resign on Thursday. For Jewish Britons, the memories might well include a broken menorah. Elected in 2019, the Conservative Party leader announced Thursday that he would step down after his cabinet collapsed amid his latest scandal - the way Johnson handled the case of a senior official who had been accused of sexual abuse. Johnson has also come under criticism f...
(JTA) — Ben & Jerry’s is not letting go of its West Bank pullout goal without a fight — with its parent company. The iconic ice cream brand has filed a lawsuit against Unilever over its decision last week to sell the Israeli arm of the business to Israel-based franchise, American Quality Products, Ltd., which will continue to sell Ben & Jerry’s in the West Bank. Ben & Jerry’s says that Unilever’s decision was made without the brand’s board’s consent, and wrote in a statement on Tuesday that stopping the sale is necessary to protect “the social...
(JTA) — More than four months into its devastating war against Russia, Ukraine is sending a new message to the world’s Jews: Don’t come here for Rosh Hashanah. Tens of thousands of Jews flood into Uman, a central city that is home to the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 18th-century Jewish luminary, annually for the Jewish new year. Even in the first year of the pandemic, when global travel ground to a halt and the gathering was officially banned, Jewish pilgrims sought to make their way to Uman. This year, their security cannot be guara...
(JTA) - After nearly a year of legal and financial battles, Ben & Jerry's will continue to be made and sold in Israel and the West Bank, as its parent company Unilever announced Tuesday it had reached an agreement with its current Israeli licensee to assume ownership of the brand in the region. Under the terms of the new agreement, Unilever is selling its Israel business interest in the ice cream maker to Israel-based American Quality Products, Ltd., which has owned Ben & Jerry's Israel factorie...
