Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Israel21C via JNS) — Regardless of which side of the conflict they’re on, young adults in three Taglit-Birthright Israel groups from Russia and Ukraine cannot return home after their free 10-day trip because of the war. So Birthright Israel has offered them the option to stay in Israel or reunite with their families when possible. The three groups include 26 participants from Ukraine. Sixteen of them were supposed to fly home on Thursday morning, but while they were sitting on planes, bombing began in Kyiv and flights were immediately canceled...
(JTA) — Around 300 Ukrainian Jewish refugees landed in Israel Sunday, among them some 90 orphans between the ages of two and 12, in the first round of what Israeli government officials are expecting to be a wave of thousands in the coming months. They were flown on three planes from Moldova, Romania and Poland. But whether Israel will accept Ukrainian refugees who are not Jewish, and therefore ineligible for Israeli citizenship under the country’s Law of Return, is unclear. The Law of Return allows any Jew who wishes to live in Israel to obt...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — A four-year-old boy from Jerusalem has contracted the first known case of polio in Israel since 1989, the Health Ministry reported on Sunday. A ministry official told Israel Hayom that the child was in a state of weakness and in a condition that could deteriorate to paralysis. According to the ministry, neither the child nor his family had been vaccinated against polio. The Health Ministry thinks that the child from Jerusalem is just one of hundreds or thousands of children who might have been exposed to a mutant s...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In an emotional call with American Jewish leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky characterized the Russian invasion of his country as “pure Nazism.” Zelensky also invoked his Jewishness in an appeal for assistance while speaking Monday via Zoom with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. On the call, Zelensky angrily rejected claims by Russian President Vladimir Putin that Russia launched the war to “denazify” Ukraine, saying that it was the Russians who were acting like Nazis. “This is...
(JNS) - The Sovereignty Movement recently organized a tour of Judea and Samaria for public figures, journalists, social media influencers and others to explore the complexities and dichotomies of life in the region. The Feb. 23 gathering - under the leadership of Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar - focused on explaining the situation on the ground in many areas, including diplomacy, infrastructure, education, environmental issues, employment and quality of life for both Jewish and Arab residents...
(JTA) — Shelter, vital supplies, and escape from besieged cities: these are the keys to survival many Ukrainian Jews are seeking as the Russian invasion enters its second week. Ukrainian and Russian negotiators on Thursday acknowledged a need for humanitarian corridors for civilians, reflecting growing fears about an imminent crisis in multiple major cities under attack. Today, Ukrainian officials said the Russians were not upholding their end of the deal. If those corridors are not established and maintained, Ukrainians across the country c...
TAIPEI (JTA) — Many countries have roundly rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s argument that his attack on Ukraine is needed to achieve the “denazification” of that country. But the argument is alive and well in Chinese state-run media. “Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned in a televised speech a few days ago that the military operation against Ukraine is aimed at protecting the people who have suffered abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years. For this reason, Russia will seek to demilitarize and de-Nazify...
(JNS) — Israel could expect to see the arrival of a total of 15,000 Ukrainians by the end of the month if it continues to allow entry to refugees fleeing their war-torn country at the current pace, Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked told the Cabinet during its weekly Sunday meeting. “Since the outbreak of the war, 2,034 Ukrainian nationals have entered Israel,” she said. “We are on an upward trend.” Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told JNS that Israel is “intent on exhausting every possible option in the hope of hel...
TEL AVIV (JTA) - "You'll be calling until the mashiach comes," one woman responded this week to a frantic query about embassy appointments on a Facebook group for Russians planning to move to Israel. While Russians seeking to make the move, known as aliyah, may not have to wait until the messiah arrives, they are facing extended delays even as their country sinks into crisis because of the war their president, Vladimir Putin, launched last month against neighboring Ukraine. In Moscow and St....
(JTA) — Five years after raising the age limit for Israel tour participants, Birthright Israel is reverting to a policy of funding free trips only to young adults 26 and under. This summer will be the last chance for Jews aged 27 to 32 to participate in Birthright, with the exception of anyone older who had registered for a trip that was canceled because of the pandemic, according to a spokesperson for the nonprofit organization. The trips, designed to give young Jews (mostly Americans) a crash course in Israeli history and culture in the h...
(JTA) - The morning after Russian bombs fell at the site of a 1941 massacre of Ukrainian Jews, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the world's Jews to speak out about what is happening in his country. Russia's attack adjacent to Babyn Yar, the Kyiv site where Nazis and local collaborators executed tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, along with its bombing several days ago of Uman, the Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims visit each year,...
(JTA) - It is nearly 10 p.m. at the emergency refugee shelter in Tomaszow Lubelski, Poland, near the Ukrainian border. It's bitter cold; snowflakes catch in the headlights of the huge tourist bus from Hanover, Germany, as it pulls up at the guard post. Zohar Spivack's bus company, Kings Travel - "the logo is blue and white, and I don't have to tell you why," he said - has been picking up refugees every day since Russia's attacks began. Leaving Warsaw empty after sundown, stopping at shelters...
(JNS) — Avi Zinger was so upset after Ben & Jerry’s pulled the rug out from under him that he never picked up the phone to speak with them. Instead, he’s taking them, and their parent company Unilever, to a U.S. district court. The longtime Israeli manufacturer and distributor of the Vermont-based ice cream company’s products wants his license agreement renewed, and damages for the losses he’s suffered since Ben & Jerry’s succumbed to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, and refused to renew its agreement with Zinger unless he b...
(JNS) — Amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced on Saturday that he had instructed ambassador-designate to Poland Yacov Livne to leave for Warsaw ahead of schedule. “I made the decision … in order to enhance assistance to Israeli citizens crossing the border from Ukraine to Poland and in view of the importance of the events and the central role that Poland plays in them,” Lapid wrote on Twitter. “Since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine, the Israeli embassy in Warsaw, headed by charge d’affaires...
(JNS) - The Jewish Agency for Israel has opened six aliyah-processing stations at Ukrainian borders, the agency said on Saturday night. The stations are located in Poland, Moldova, Romania and Hungary, and are being operated through a collaboration with Nativ and Israel's Foreign Ministry. The ministry asked the agency's emissaries who had been stationed in Lviv to work out of Poland beginning on Saturday. Each day, these emissaries, together with Israel's diplomatic teams, will cross the...
(JTA) - Fleeing Odessa with 300 Jewish orphans, Rabbi Shlomo Baksht was terrified that Russian bombs would hit his convoy's three buses. Twice during the 27-hour trip from the city in Ukraine's south to the Carpathian mountains in its western part, the drivers hired by Baksht's group, Tikva, had to stop and the children needed to leave the bus quickly due to sirens. "Now it's calm and safe," said Baksht, whose 15 counselors and 300 children traveled during Shabbat to reach the Carpathian...
(JTA) — The world has had a crash course on Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days, as the Ukrainian president has galvanized his country against an unprovoked attack by neighboring Russia. The broad strokes of Zelensky’s career have long been known to those who pay attention to Ukrainian politics — or to their spillover effects in American government. He’s young, funny, Jewish and committed to a strong democratic Ukraine, even at the risk of death. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” he reportedly told American authorities this week after they offere...
Zelensky: ‘I don’t feel the Israeli prime minister has wrapped himself in the Ukrainian flag’ By Ron Kampeas (JTA) — Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish Ukrainian president under siege, said he was moved by pictures of Israelis standing in solidarity with his country during the Russian invasion — but not so much the Israeli leadership. “I saw a beautiful picture today,” he said in remarks translated into Hebrew by YNet, the Israeli news outlet that managed to attend Zelensky’s press conference in Kyiv on Thursday. “Jews wrapped in Ukrainian flags b...
(JTA) - Before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, the Hillel chapter in Kharkiv was preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary this spring. In fact, just one week ago, the group working with Jewish students and young adults was advertising a Saturday evening game night. Now, its home has been destroyed, and Hillel International, the network of groups serving Jewish college students, is trying to figure out how to help its 600-plus students and employees in Kharkiv stay safe in their war-torn...
(JTA) — Konstantyn Batozsky believes he is on a list of so-called “neo-Nazis” to be rounded up “Gestapo-style” and “exterminated” by Russian forces seeking to enter Kyiv. Batozsky, a Jew from eastern Ukraine, said he was informed about the “bounty on his head” by Ukrainian intelligence sources. But as a longtime and avowed Ukrainian nationalist who has collaborated with a paramilitary group that has a reputation for including extremists, he knows that it’s people like him that Russian President Vladimir Putin was talking about when he cited...
(JTA) — The morning after Russian bombs fell at the site of a 1941 massacre of Ukrainian Jews, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the world’s Jews to speak out about what is happening in his country. Russia’s attack adjacent to Babyn Yar, the Kyiv site where Nazis and local collaborators executed tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, along with its bombing several days ago of Uman, the Ukrainian city where hundreds of thousands of Jewish pilgrims visit each year, repre...
(JTA) - Four years ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was an actor on the humorous Ukrainian TV show "Servant of the People," starring as an unlikely president of the Eastern European country. Now, he is at the center of the continent's most significant conflict since World War II, framing himself as a possible martyr on the world stage. "This might be the last time you see me alive," he reportedly told European Union leaders on a call about steps the bloc was considering to try to stop Russia's advances t...
(JNS) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition on Feb. 21 of two “breakaway” states in eastern Ukraine and his subsequent dispatch of “peacekeepers” there — considered by Western nations to be an official invasion of the country — has left its citizens and particularly the Jewish communities on edge. Throughout Ukraine, Jewish leaders are watching closely, and many have made contingency plans in the event the situation worsens. Ukraine’s Chief Rabbi Yaakov Bleich told JNS that the Jews “are part of the general community. What’s g...
(JTA) — Ukraine’s embassy in Israel tried to recruit Israelis to join the Ukrainian fight against Russia in a Facebook post Saturday. “The Embassy has begun the formation of lists of volunteers who wish to participate in combat actions against the Russian aggressor,” the embassy wrote in a Facebook post that was later taken down, according to The Times of Israel. The post asked volunteers to tell coordinators about any “military specialty” they have, something Israelis, most of whom complete mandatory army service after high school, wil...
Dan Green, CEO and director general of World ORT, wrote the following news release about the five schools and regional office in Kiev: World ORT has learned with dismay and great concern about the escalation overnight of the security situation in Ukraine. We are in constant contact with our regional office in Kiev and with our five schools and two affiliated schools in Ukraine — Zaporozhe and Odessa in the eastern and southern regions; and Chernivtsi, Kyiv, and Belaya Tserkov in the north and west — and are co-operating fully with our par...
