Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 801 - 825 of 1305
(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...
BUDAPEST (JTA) — For the last few months, a lakeside palace linked to a major political scandal in Hungary has been home to Jewish refugees from Ukraine. Just before Passover, six weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Hungarian government signed off on an effort to makes the palace in Balatonőszöd, a resort town on the the lakes of Lake Balaton some 80 miles away from Budapest, kosher for the holiday. Now, the palace will be renovated to accommodate at least 664 people with a kosher kitchen able to feed hundreds more daily, according to a s...
(JTA) — The head of the Jewish Community of Porto, Portugal said that a criminal investigation stemming from the organization’s role in vetting Jews with Sephardic ancestry for Portuguese citizenship amounts to antisemitic persecution by officials. In an unusually harsh letter to lawmakers last week, Gabriel Senderowicz said the probe was perpetrating a “Holocaust against families.” And in a sign of splits among the country’s Jews, a former leader of the Jewish community of Lisbon dismissed Senderowicz’s allegations as baseless and “absurd.” S...
Kosher certification agency sues JetBlue, saying they lied about a kosher snack By Jackie Hajdenberg (JTA) — One of the United States’ largest kosher certifying agencies alleges that JetBlue airlines sold a snack it falsely claimed was certified as kosher. In a lawsuit filed last Thursday, Kof-K said JetBlue put the agency’s hechsher, or rabbinical approval symbol, on an artichoke snack that the agency never certified as kosher. The company that makes the artichoke snack, Elma Farms, was not named in the lawsuit. A JetBlue spokesperson told Reu...
(JTA) - The Jewish Agency's nominating committee recommended Doron Almog, a storied retired general and a longtime advocate for people with disabilities, to lead the body that bridges Israel and the Jewish Diaspora. The nomination Thursday of Almog, 71, now goes to the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors, where it is all but assured of approval. The nomination follows an extended period of consideration since May 2021, when the last chairman of the agency, Isaac Herzog, announced his successful...
(JNS) — Two Biden administration nominees for top posts related to the Middle East came under fire for alleged anti-Israel bias by Senate Republicans in their confirmation hearing on Thursday. The hearing, held in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, comes at a critical time as U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Israel and Saudi Arabia next month while the United States is struggling to repair its frayed relationship with the Arab kingdom amid skyrocketing gas prices. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took issue with Tamara Cofman W...
(JTA) — The global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel has disavowed a controversial website mapping Boston-area Jewish groups a day after lawmakers urged a federal investigation of the project’s potential to be used by extremist groups. The announcement by the BDS movement on Wednesday aimed to distance the group from the Mapping Project, an anonymous collective of Boston-area pro-Palestinian activists. The project lists the names and addresses of Massachusetts Jewish groups, including schools, community funds and syn...
(JTA) — In a live streamed address to students, faculty and staff at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Israel to join the network of countries around the world that have placed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. “We are grateful to your great nation. But we would like to also get support from your government,” Zelensky said. “Tell me, how can you not help the victim of such aggression?” In his address, Zelensky recognized the connected histories of Ukraine and Israel, noting the Ukrai...
From the American Jewish Committee, a global Jewish advocacy organization A new website that claims to show the ties between various Massachusetts institutions and “support for the colonization of Palestine” has raised alarms over its dangerous targeting of the Jewish community. The map, published earlier this month by anonymous supporters of the BDS movement, is being promoted by anti-Israel groups such as Boston BDS and the left-wing nonprofit Massachusetts Peace Action. It claims to illustrate organizations and institutions in Mas...
(JTA) — Just under half of all Democratic senators are seeking the “direct involvement” of the United States in the investigation of the death of a Palestinian journalist who was shot over a month ago while covering an Israeli raid on a West Bank refugee camp. Twenty-four senators signed a letter sent to President Biden Thursday, three weeks prior to his first scheduled state visit to Israel. It is the largest action yet from U.S. lawmakers seeking an independent resolution to the May 11 killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh...
