Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 1897
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — There are 34 Jews in the incoming Congress, with a 35th likely to join in April. Should that candidate, Florida State Sen. Randy Fine, win his special election in Florida, that would mean no change in numbers overall between the outgoing Congress and the incoming one: The House Jewish delegation will drop from 26 to 25, but the number of Jewish senators will increase from nine to a minyan. Dig a little deeper, though, and there are some changes — both in terms of new challenges and new opportunities for the Jewish class...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, is ready to relinquish his title as Senate majority leader, but the most senior Jewish elected official in U.S. history will get to remain the leader of what will be a minority caucus in the next Congress. Senate Democrats reelected Schumer as their leader on Tuesday, a validation after a tough election for the party, which lost control of the White House and the Senate and failed to regain the U.S. House of Representatives. Schumer was unopposed and the vote was unanimous. As of...
(JNS) — The University of Michigan Central Student Government voted 30-7 on Tuesday to impeach Alifa Chowdhury and Elias Atkinson, its president and vice president respectively, on five combined charges, the Michigan Daily, a student paper, reported. Chowdhury was impeached for incitement of violence against the student government, cybertheft of student government property and dereliction of duty, while Atkinson was impeached for inciting violence and dereliction of duty, per the paper. The Central Student Government voted that Chowdhury’s Oct...
(JNS) — Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both Democratic Georgia senators, are facing a backlash from the Atlanta-area Jewish community over their votes to halt certain arms sales to Israel. AIPAC, the Atlanta JCRC and the local Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee chapters joined 46 other Jewish organizations, including more than 20 Atlanta synagogues, in a letter to the senators on Thursday condemning their votes. “Your vote demonstrates that your commitment to Israel’s security is not ironclad,” the organizations wrote....
(JTA) — A number of progressive Jewish groups are backing an effort by Sen. Bernie Sanders to block arms sales to Israel. The effort, a collection of several resolutions, is unlikely to pass in the closely divided Senate but could split Democratic lawmakers. The push is driving a wedge among Jewish organizations in the lead-up to Wednesday’s vote: A group of centrist and right-wing pro-Israel groups oppose the bills. But large liberal Jewish organizations have offered support, signaling those groups’ growing criticism of how Israel is opera...
(JNS) — Donald Trump announced Saturday that attorney Will Scharf will join his White House team. “I am pleased to announce that William Owen Scharf will serve as assistant to the president and White House staff secretary,” the president-elect said in a statement published by his transition team. According to Trump, “Will is a highly skilled attorney who will be a crucial part of my White House team. He has played a key role in defeating the Election Interference and Lawfare waged against me, including by winning the Historic Immunity Decisio...
(JNS) — President-elect Donald Trump and his new administration are “uniquely positioned” to stabilize the Middle East, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said. “President Trump has strategically surrounded himself with a team of seasoned leaders who possess a deep understanding of the Middle East’s complex dynamics and the grave threats Israel faces from its enemies,” Haskel told JNS. “Supported by this powerhouse team, President Trump is uniquely positioned to stabilize the region and secure a better, more prosperous future—one th...
(JNS) — President-elect Donald Trump named Howard Lutnick, the Jewish billionaire and chair and CEO of the global finance firm Cantor Fitzgerald, as his nominee for U.S. commerce secretary on Tuesday. Trump stated that Lutnick, the co-chair of his transition team, “will lead our tariff and trade agenda, with additional direct responsibility for the Office of the United States Trade Representative.” “Another outstanding addition to President Donald Trump’s America first team,” wrote Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), Trump’s pick for U.S. envoy to...
(JNS) — Jewish patients coming to the University of California, San Francisco for medical care are hiding their identity, a senior faculty member at the school told the Washington Free Beacon. The professor added that the public school has “contributed to an erosion of professionalism” and a “loss of the centering of the patient-physician relationship” with its activist teaching, per the Free Beacon. The publication reported that a required, six-week medical “justice and advocacy” workshop taught that an anti-Israel protest on Nov. 16, 2023...
(JNS) — A poll of Jewish voters in the 2024 election suggests that President-elect Donald Trump made modest gains among Jews over his Democratic opponent Vice President Kamala Harris. The non-partisan Jewish Electorate Institute published the responses from a national survey of 1,000 Jewish respondents taken between Oct. 30 and Nov. 8. It found that 71 percent of Jewish voters went for Harris and 26 percent voted for Trump. “Jewish voters continue to support Democratic candidates by a substantial margin, while Republicans have made modest gai...
(JTA) - Pam Bondi, who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to be his attorney general, said last year that campus protesters who express support for Hamas should face FBI questioning. Trump named Bondi, who served as Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, on Nov. 21. The nomination came after his first pick, former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew following meetings with Republican senators, who apparently made clear that allegations of sexual predation and drug use, which he has...
(JNS) — Several Democratic senators told JNS on Wednesday night that the significant number of their colleagues who voted for an Israeli arms embargo weren’t representative of the party. Republicans in the upper chamber said the figure—up to 19 on one measure—represented the Democrats’ abandonment of a key ally. Asked how decisive an issue the votes on the three resolutions of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), which would have banned the transfer of certain categories of weapons to Israel, were for his party, Cory Booker (D-N. J.) said, “When you...
(JNS) — Individuals wearing masks attacked two Jewish students on Nov. 6 as they supported Israel outside the student center at DePaul University in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. The assailants punched Max Long in the face and body while pushing Michael Kaminsky to the ground, resulting in a concussion and a fractured wrist. Long, who has served in the Israel Defense Forces, was there with his friend encouraging dialogue about the Jewish state. In a statement provided to JNS, the Chicago Jewish Alliance described that before the i...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is filling out his national security team with pro-Israel hawks who favor maximum pressure on Iran to stand down from its belligerence in the region. Reports Monday said Trump planned to name two Floridian allies to top jobs: Sen. Marco Rubio will be tapped to be secretary of state, and Rep. Michael Waltz will be his national security adviser. Both men have said Israel should not be prevented from staging a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program. That stance echoes Trump who, before the...
(JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general. As attorney general, Gaetz would head the government department responsible for investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, including antisemitism. Gaetz, 42, was elected to Congress in 2016, where he has represented a district in the Florida Panhandle. Senators from both parties appeared surprised by the nomination, potentially imperiling Gaetz’s chances of securing the job. If he is confirmed to the role by the Senate, he would succeed Merrick Gar...
(JNS) — U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has nominated Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as the nation’s next defense secretary, his transition team announced on Tuesday. “Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice—Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social media platform. Hegseth, 44, has served in Guantanamo...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — As midnight arrived on the East Coast, it appeared increasingly likely that Donald Trump would retake the presidency — a victory that would reshape the United States and that could change its relationship with Israel while ushering in an administration whose domestic priorities do not match those of most American Jews. That victory was confirmed early Wednesday morning when news agencies called Wisconsin for Trump, confirming that he had passed the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win. The tally made clear that Trump...
(JTA) — California voters did what was widely expected and elected Rep. Adam Schiff, a Jewish Democrat, in the senate race to replace the late Dianne Feinstein, another Jewish Democrat, who died while in office last year after serving in the role for more than 30 years. Schiff, who currently represents parts of greater Los Angeles in the U.S. House of Representatives, defeated Steve Garvey, a former star baseball player for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had hoped to beat the odds and become the first Republican to be elected to a statewide o...
(JNS) — A Jewish resident of Oakland, Calif., and his 5-year-old son were aggressively confronted by the owner of a local cafe on Oct. 26 and asked to leave the establishment. The incident was caught on video. Jonathan Hirsch was wearing a baseball cap with a prominent Magen David, or Star of David—a symbol of Judaism and Jewish identity—when he was approached by Abdulrahim Harara, the owner of Jerusalem Coffee House in North Oakland. Harara’s family is from the Gaza Strip. After Israeli forces killed Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar on Oct. 16, he...
(JNS) — Orthodox Jewish parents of children with disabilities have attempted for decades to send their children to Jewish day schools in California. They were denied because while federal funding is available for private schools to provide critical support services, California lawmakers have banned money available for kids with special needs from being used at religious private schools, including Jewish ones. In a 3-0 ruling on Monday, a federal appeals court effectively declared that California is violating federal law. “We easily con...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — With just four days to go before the election, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump have both tried to use Israel as a wedge issue: Trump has said the country will not exist in two years if he is defeated, and Harris’ campaign has called his rhetoric on Israel antisemitic. Trump and Harris do disagree on a range of Israel-related topics, from how Israel should fight its battles to their starkly different visions of America’s role in the world. But there are also key issues where — in the big picture — they agree. Both Harris and...
(JTA) — Speaking at a campaign rally in Georgia on Monday night, Donald Trump said the Kamala Harris campaign was painting him and his supporters as Nazis, a charge he rejected forcefully. “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi,” Trump said to cheers. The comments, which come a week before Election Day, represent an unusual statement by a presidential candidate. They also represent the latest fallout since Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, last week said in on-the-record interviews that Trump had expressed admiration for Hitler...
(JTA) - A new campaign ad for Donald Trump pushes back against Kamala Harris' claim that the former president is a "fascist" by featuring a Holocaust survivor who says Harris is disgracing his murdered family members with the allegation. "Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family," says 94-year-old Jerry Wartski, an Auschwitz survivor and retired New York City real estate investor in the ad released last Friday. "I know more about Hitler...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — A poll commissioned by a Jewish affiliate of the Democratic Party shows Vice President Kamala Harris garnering 71 percent of the Jewish vote in the seven swing states likely to decide the election. The poll released Wednesday by the Jewish Democratic Council of America and conducted from Sept. 26-Oct. 2 showed Donald Trump getting 26 percent of the vote just four weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election. The states include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada. The polling by...
(JTA) — Miriam Adelson has delivered on a pledge she reportedly made at the start of the general election season, donating $100 million to a campaign committee supporting the candidacy of Donald Trump, according to disclosures filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission. The money was distributed to Adelson’s super PAC, Preserve America, which she had seeded earlier this year with $5 million, in a series of installments: $25 million a month in July, August and September and an additional $20 million at the end of September. A major fun...
