Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Nearly 80 years after the end of the Holocaust, the world’s oldest hatred continues to rise at alarming rates, despite an increased attempt to stem the tide of hate and the passage of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism by more than 800 entities, including governments worldwide. That is the consensus of a new global study on anti-Semitism from the Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University, released on Wednesday in time for Yom Hashoah. It found that...
Pete Davidson to star in autobiographical comedy series with a Yiddish name By Andrew Lapin (JTA) — Bupkis — meaning nothing, absolutely zilch — is one of those few Yiddish words that have become part of the American lexicon. It’s also the name of Pete Davidson’s new show. The series, which will air on NBC’s Peacock streaming service, Deadline reported on Wednesday, is a “Curb Your Enthusiasm”-style R-rated comedy that “will combine grounded storytelling with absurd elements,” and reflect Davidson’s self-deprecating sense of humor. The title c...
By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) - Their son may be on TV every night, but the parents of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have consistently declined countless requests for interviews about their own lives. The rabbi of their hometown of Kryvyi Rih in Ukraine's east, however, is apparently much more eager to talk about the Zelenskys, who are Jewish. This week, Rabbi Liron Ederi, the Chabad-Lubavitch movement's emissary in the city, spoke at length to an Orthodox newspaper in Israel about his ties...
(New York Jewish Week) - Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the Consulate General of Israel in Manhattan on Wednesday in what was billed as an emergency rally to support Palestinian resistance and liberation "by any means necessary." As dozens of police officers lined up around the area, the protesters began calling to "globalize the intifada." Tensions are high in Israel, where Palestinian rioters have clashed with police on Jerusalem's Temple Mount and Israeli security forces have...
In an interview with CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour about Israel's policies to control violent rioting on the Temple Mount and "settlements" - i.e. Jewish communities - in Judea and Samaria, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett didn't hold back. Pushing the narrative that stalled peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians are the reason for terror and that both sides are caught in a cycle of violence, Amanpour asked Bennett about his efforts on that front. "I object to the notion of 'both sides.'...
(JNS) — The Jewish Federations of North America announced on Monday that it has surpassed its fundraising goal of $50 million for aid to Ukraine. According to a news release, the funds have been allocated to 35 NGOs operating on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring countries. Some of these groups include the Jewish Agency for Israel, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and World ORT, which the release called its core partner groups. The funds are being used to provide housing, clothing, cash assistance, medical attention, m...
(JTA) — Just days before Jews around the world gathered with their families and friends to read the Haggadah as part the Passover holiday, one family of reunited Holocaust survivors filed a lawsuit to reclaim a 700-year-old haggadah that they say was lost to them during the rise of Nazi Germany. Since 1946, the Birds’ Head Haggadah has been in the possession of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem where it has been examined by countless scholars and displayed prominently for millions of visitors who have passed it by. The medieval manuscript fea...
Ukrainian refugees to join March of Living at Auschwitz for first post-COVID commemoration By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — Refugees from Ukraine are scheduled to join the March of the Living commemoration event at Auschwitz. The refugees are among 2,500 people from 25 countries who have signed up for the mission to the former death camp, the first since March of the Living suspended such activities due to COVID-19, the educational group said in a statement. The March brings young people from around the world to Poland and Israel to study the h...
(JTA) - French prosecutors indicted two men for assaulting a Jewish man, Jérémie Cohen, seconds before he ran under the wheels of a tram and was fatally wounded. One of the two suspects, aged 27, is accused of "intentional violence in public." The other one, aged 23, is being charged with "intentional violence which led to involuntary manslaughter," according to a statement Friday by the prosecutor's office of Bobigny, the Paris suburb where the incident occurred on Feb. 16. The indictment d...
(JNS) - Despite Israeli requests for an American-led preparation of a "Plan B" in case of failure of talks to lead to a new Iran nuclear agreement, Washington has yet to formulate such an alternative in a detailed manner, a leading Israeli expert on U.S.-Israeli relations has cautioned. Professor Eytan Gilboa of Bar-Ilan University, who is also a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, also said, however, that good ties between the Israeli and American defense...
(JNS) — Iran is dangerously close to enriching uranium to 90 percent, or military-grade, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said on Monday. Addressing a policy forum hosted by the Washington Institute, Gantz said, “As we know, Iran is continuing its uranium enrichment and expanding its capabilities and they are close to 90 percent enrichment, once they decide to reach it. I understand the need for an agreement, but if an agreement [is not] reached, we must activate Plan B immediately.” On April 6, during an address to 80 ambassadors in Israe...
(JNS) — The Abraham Accords have led to a host of programs to bring together Jews and Muslims. One new project, the Mukhayriq Initiative, is named after a Jewish rabbi who gave his life fighting to defend the Prophet Muhammad at the legendary Battle of Uhud in 625 C.E. The story of the rabbi’s sacrifice—and his close friendship with Muhammed—is known mainly to Islamic scholars, but the founders of the initiative say it reflects a positive, if suppressed, aspect of Muslim-Jewish history. To underscore the importance of the story, coming as it d...
Barry Manilow tests positive for COVID, will miss NYC debut of his musical ‘Harmony’ By Andrew Silow-Carroll (New York Jewish Week) — Singer Barry Manilow tested positive for COVID-19, preventing him from attending the New York premier of his musical “Harmony.” The show, about a real-life musical group popular in Germany in the years before World War II, opened Wednesday night at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan. “I am heartbroken to say that I have just tested positive for COVID-19 and won’t be able to attend tonight’s ope...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The director of Amnesty International’s U.S. branch apologized to Jewish lawmakers for claiming to speak on behalf of American Jews. “I regret representing the views of the Jewish people,” Paul O’Brien said in a March 25 letter, first reported by Jewish Insider, to all 25 Jewish Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, who had joined to condemn his remarks at a Washington, D.C., luncheon in which he rejected polling that showed the vast majority of U.S. Jews are pro-Israel. “What I should have said,” he added, “is th...
(JNS) — The International March of the Living will resume in person for the first time in two years but with a reduced capacity, due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, and only eight Holocaust survivors participating. Organizers made the announcement last week in the United Kingdom House of Lords. The procession along the path leading from the Auschwitz to Birkenau concentration camps in Poland will take place starting on April 24, a few days before Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), as a tribute to the 6 million Jewis...
(JTA) — When it comes to consuming matzah, the Jews of the former Soviet Union are in a league of their own. At the top of the chart are Azerbaijan’s 8,000 Jews, who this year are expected to consume 10 tons of the unleavened bread cracker that Jews eat on the week of Passover to commemorate their ancestors’ hurried flight out of Egypt. That’s a provision of 2.7 pounds per person – a ratio that’s nearly three times what’s on stock for the average soldier in the Israeli army. In Russia, home to about 155,000 Jews, the rate of consumption i...
(Chabad.org/News via JNS) — They will be in shelters, private homes, refugee camps, synagogues and military bases. But come what may, when night falls on Passover eve on April 15, the Jews of Ukraine will pause to eat matzah and bitter herbs, drink four cups of wine, recall the miracles of the Exodus and look forward to better times. After all, even during the harshest of times — when Stalin’s minions hunted down and shot Jews caught passing on Judaism to the next generation — millions of Soviet Jews, half of whom lived in Ukraine, clung t...
Shooting in downtown Tel Aviv leaves 2 dead, at least 4 in serious condition By Ron Kampeas This is a developing story. (JTA) — At least one gunman shot people at different locations along a downtown Tel Aviv street on Thursday night, leaving what Israeli emergency responders said were at least two people dead and four injured in critical condition. Police said they were in pursuit of at least one gunman, and called on people to stay indoors and stay away from windows. Witnesses described policemen running through the city streets, guns d...
(JNS) - The sight of four Arab foreign ministers - from the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt - accompanied by the U.S. Secretary of State and hosted by an Israeli foreign minister at the first annual Negev Summit at Kibbutz Sde Boker was more than just the fulfillment of founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's vision to make the desert bloom. The summit demonstrates that the 2020 Abraham Accords pave a clear path to the end of the decades-long Arab-Israeli conflict. It also...
Israeli soldiers return fire and kill at least 2 Palestinians in raid as tensions continue to mount By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Israeli soldiers shot and killed at least two Palestinians after being fired at in a raid on a West Bank refugee camp on Thursday, in the latest instance of rapidly escalating tensions across Israel. Troops entered the Jenin camp to arrest suspects allegedly connected to the terror attack that left five Israelis dead in and around Bnei Brak on Tuesday, the Israel Defense Forces said, and to subdue others who were s...
(JTA) — On Feb. 24, two shipping containers laden with 20,000 pounds of shmura matzah were slated to head out of port in Odessa, Ukraine, on their way to Orthodox Jews in the United States. Two hours before they were to be loaded onto a ship, Russia invaded. The shipment was the last of 200,000 pounds of unleavened bread that Ukrainian matzah bakeries shipped to the United States this year, in addition to what they ship to Europe and Israel. Now, technically outside of Ukraine’s customs zon...
(JNS) - For the first time since the signing of the Abraham Accords, an Israeli research book has been published in Abu Dhabi, announced Tel Aviv University. The UAE's largest public research institute, the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, published "Zionism in Arab Discourse" by Professor Uriya Shavit, head of the Religious Studies Program and the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, both at Tel Aviv University. The book is co-authored by Ofir Winter,...
(ISRAEL21c) - On Tuesday, Israel began accepting patients at its humanitarian field hospital in western Ukraine, where it will treat people affected by the war raging in the country. Situated in the western Ukrainian city of Mostyska and called "Shining Star," the 66-bed hospital is set to be open 24/7 and staffed by more than 60 personnel. It will be able to service 150 patients at a time and includes a triage area, an ER ward, men's, women's and children's wards, labor and delivery...
(JNS) - The first organized humanitarian mission of the North American Jewish community for Ukrainians will be far from the last. This past week, a mission organized by the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) traveled to the Ukraine-Poland border to visit with refugees and evaluate needs on the ground. The task is overwhelming, but something the Federations are working on in tight coordination with its global partners. "It was an important and eye-opening experience to go. We had...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited his family’s Holocaust-era history in explaining a matter of U.S. foreign policy on Monday, it was far from the first time he has done so. “One of my responsibilities as Secretary is determining, on behalf of the United States, whether atrocities have been committed,” Blinken, who is Jewish, said Monday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he announced that the Biden administration had determined that the Burmese military had committed genocide against the Rohingy...
