Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1423 - 1447 of 1886
WASHINGTON—Some Jewish Democrats and community activists are concerned at what they see as fresh signs that the party is distancing itself from Israel. The latest controversy began when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at a July 22 Town Hall meeting in New York City’s Bronx borough that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “does not have a plan for peace.” Asked by JNS.org to elaborate, Gillibrand declined to reiterate her criticism of Netanyahu. Her senior adviser, Glen Caplin, said only that Gillibrand is “one of the strongest...
Is a "mobilized faction" in the American Jewish community attempting to "censor" dovish views? The president of The Forward newspaper thinks so, but other editors and leaders of some left-of-center Jewish organizations see things differently. The dispute arises from the July 12 episode of the Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS) television series "L'Chayim," which featured a panel discussion on freedom of speech in the Jewish community. At the center of the discussion was The Forward's decision to...
An award-winning journalist who broke the story of the group of Jewish women ejected from an LGBTQ march in Chicago last month has been reassigned to non-journalistic duties at the paper which ran the original report, the Windy City Times. Gretchen Rachel Hammond-whose June 24 story caused a national storm after she detailed how three women flying Jewish Pride flags embossed with the Star of David were instructed to leave the gathering by organizers from the Dyke March Collective-confirmed to...
Anti-Israel bias in the textbooks used by many American high schools may be to blame for the decrease in sympathy for Israel among young adults. According to the Brand Israel Group, only 54 percent of U.S. college students lean more toward Israel than the Palestinians, down from 73 percent in 2010. The decrease was even sharper among Jewish college students, dropping from 84 percent to 57 percent. “The problem starts in high school,” Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, founder of Hadassah’s Curriculum Watch division, told JNS.org. “There’s no doubt the lack...
It's early morning in the Sardinian countryside and a farmer is milking his sheep while an Orthodox Jewish kosher supervisor looks on. The supervisor, known as a mashgiach, is sleeping in the farmer's barn, and he'll be there all week. Welcome to the world of kosher cheesemaking. The weeklong kosher cheese run in Sardinia is just one of a number of methods that artisanal kosher cheesemaker Brent Delman, owner and founder of The Cheese Guy, uses to manufacture products for kosher consumers who...
When Jeffrey Kriezelman first started feeling the pain in his back, he shrugged it off as the vestige of an old baseball injury. A busy immigration lawyer whose Chicago firm helps immigrants and asylum seekers gain lawful status in the United States, Kriezelman also was an avid athlete who had spent many seasons playing outfield in a men’s senior baseball league. Between sports and long hours at the firm he ran, Kriezelman, in his early 60s, didn’t have time to give pain much thought. But weeks went by and the pain worsened. So Kriezelman cal...
(JTA)—North Carolina lawmakers passed a bill that would bar the state from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. Both houses of the General Assembly passed the bill last week. Gov. Roy Cooper must sign the measure before it becomes law. It passed the state House of Representatives by a vote of 96-19 and the state Senate by a vote of 45-3. Under the legislation, state institutions must stop contracts with companies that boycott companies or products made in Israel. The bill also prohibits future work with such companies. North C...
(JTA)-The Great Jewish Revolt of 2017. The Bar Kotel Rebellion. The Diaspora Strikes Back. Whatever you call it, last week's clash between American Jewish leaders and the Netanyahu government felt louder, angrier and more significant than previous clashes over pluralism in Israel. That may be because it wasn't only about pluralism. That's not to say that pluralism isn't important in its own right. The non-Orthodox Jewish groups who fought hard for a space and a say at the Western Wall-only to se...
Leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Stephen M. Greenberg, Chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman/CEO, wrote to the parents of the late Otto Warmbier, who tragically died shortly after being returned to the U.S following an extended period of incarceration in the notorious North Korean jails. In their letter to the Warmbiers, the leaders said "We want you know that our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time. The governm...
(JNS.org) Students from San Francisco State University and members of the local Jewish community filed a lawsuit this week, asserting the university has an extensive history of fomenting discrimination against Jewish students. The suit alleges that SFSU and its administrators “knowingly fostered this [anti-Semitic] discrimination and hostile environment, which has been marked by violent threats to the safety of Jewish students on campus.” The California school embraced and systematically supported “anti-Jewish hostility,” with its support...
NEW YORK (JTA)-The vast majority of Reform and Conservative rabbis affiliate as Democrats, according to a new study. The study, published Sunday by Yale University, found that more than 80 percent of Reform rabbis, and about 70 percent of Conservative rabbis, affiliate as Democrats. Both were among the top five most Democratic clergy of the Jewish and Christian denominations in the United States, with Reform rabbis topping the list. Among Orthodox rabbis, nearly 40 percent identify as Democrats...
In a stirring speech at Brandeis University's 66th Commencement on Sunday, May 21, Rosalie Silberman Abella, the first Jewish woman named to the Canadian Supreme Court, reminded graduates of the role they have to play in protecting those who are vulnerable in the world: "Remember the three lessons we were supposed to have learned from the concentration camps of Europe: Indifference is injustice's incubator; it's not just what you stand for, it's what you stand up for; and we can never forget...
NEW YORK (JTA)—“Voluntary dues” may sound like an oxymoron, but the idea may soon be coming to a synagogue near you. According to a new study by the UJA-Federation of New York, the number of non-Orthodox synagogues nationwide that have eliminated fixed annual dues has more than doubled in the past two years. Instead of charging a set membership fee, these synagogues are telling congregants to pay what they want—and they’re succeeding. The nearly 60 Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist synagogues that have stopped charging mandatory...
WASHINGTON—Prominent Democrats and major U.S. Jewish organizations are joining President Donald Trump in calling on the Palestinian Authority (PA) to stop making payments to imprisoned terrorists and their families. Trump raised the issued during his May 3 meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, and also referred to it in his May 22 press conference with Abbas in Bethlehem, warning that terrorists should not be “tolerated, funded or rewarded.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) recently intro...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—It’s not quite schadenfreude, but some Jewish organizational officials are sighing in relief at President Donald Trump’s cascade of domestic woes, saying it may present opportunities for their relatively liberal agenda. Domestically, some Jewish groups are welcoming the prospect that scandals and distractions besieging the White House could delay—if not scuttle—what they fear as radical changes in immigration, education and health care. On foreign policy, a president wounded by domestic scandal is working all the harder to...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA)—Bill Clinton consulted with folks who came up with him in Arkansas, George W. Bush preferred Texan veterans of his family’s hard-fought political battles and Barack Obama had his Chicago peeps. Who does the first billionaire president go to when he wants real-deal advice? Other billionaires, naturally. Much has been made of how President Donald Trump has stacked his Cabinet with billionaires, and how he takes off-campus advice from investor Carl Icahn, fellow real estate developer Tom Barrack and media mog...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-"You make us better," James Comey told the Anti-Defamation League in his final public speech as FBI director. Judging from the applause in the conference room at the venerable Mayflower Hotel here, the feeling was mutual. Mired in investigations of the scandals of 2016 (Hillary Clinton's relationship with her email server) and 2017 (Donald Trump's relationship with Russia), not a lot of love ended up being lost between the FBI director and either party. Democrats called for...
(JTA)—The student government at Montclair State University reportedly voted down a resolution calling on the school to boycott Israel. The measure was defeated April 26 by a vote of 11-1, with six abstentions. An earlier survey aimed at gauging student support for the measure found that 64 percent of students at the New Jersey school were opposed. The defeat of the resolution, which was initiated by the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, was commended by the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, which is active on college cam...
(JTA)—All 100 members of the U.S. Senate signed a letter to the leader of the United Nations urging a comprehensive effort to remedy the organization’s “anti-Israel agenda.” The letter, which was sent April 27 to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, praised his recent decision to disavow an anti-Israel report from the U.N.’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and identified four specific areas where further action could be taken to rectify the “unacceptable” treatment of Israel at the world body. The senators urged Guterres to elimi...
(JTA)—The Center for Jewish Life at Princeton University denied space to the local chapter of J Street U for an exhibition created by the left-wing Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence. The J Street U chapter decided to go forward with the exhibit, to be held Tuesday and, in another campus space, despite the possibility of causing a rift with the Center for Jewish Life, or CJL, which is affiliated with Hillel International, the Daily Princetonian student newspaper reported. “We do not take this step lightly,” J Street U Princeton wrote in a state...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-President Donald Trump got the memo on the Holocaust and the Jews. In a barrage of statements this week from the president and his aides, the Trump administration wants you to know, he gets it, he really gets it: The Holocaust describes a genocide committed only against one people, the Jews. It's a radical departure from the first days of the Trump administration, when a statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day omitted any mention of Jews. That was made worse,...
Leading American Jewish groups were quick to praise President Donald Trump’s forthright condemnation of anti-Semitism during a Holocaust commemoration speech. Speaking on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Stephen Greenberg, its chairman and Malcolm Hoenlein, its executive vice chairman/CEO, noted appreciatively that Trump “clearly and forcefully condemned all forms of anti-Semitism, calling out Holocaust denial, threats to Israel’s existence, anti-Semitic discourse and rhetoric and attacks on Jewis...
(JTA)-Anti-Semitic incidents in the United States soared 86 percent in the first three months of 2017 after rising by more than one-third in 2016, according to the Anti-Defamation League. There has been a massive increase in harassment of American Jews, largely since November, and at least 34 incidents linked to the presidential election that month, the ADL said Monday in its annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents. This year has seen preliminary reports of 541 anti-Semitic incidents through...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Texas House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill banning state entities from dealing with businesses that boycott Israel or its settlements. The bill approved Thursday follows the state Senate’s approval of a similar bill in March by overwhelming numbers. Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign a reconciled version of both bills next month. In statements, pro-Israel groups that lobbied for the bills praised its passage. “The relationship between the Jewish state and the Lone Star State is built upon shared value...
NEW YORK (JTA)-At first glance, The New York Times' hiring of another white, Jewish male opinion-page columnist is anything but news. But the arrival of Bret Stephens, formerly the foreign affairs columnist for The Wall Street Journal, may be especially resonant for American Jews. Stephens, 42, is the former editor of The Jerusalem Post, a Pulitzer Prize laureate, and an assertive defender of Israel and its current government's policies. He, along with several other Jewish conservatives, has...
