Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1656 - 1680 of 1886
On Friday, Aug. 14, the nearly 100 executive leaders of the Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA) and the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG), the high school leadership fraternity and sorority of BBYO, gathered for their annual International August Executives Conference, where they work together to set the priorities for the Movement for the coming year. One of the motions that passed ensures BBYO continues to be fully gender inclusive and pluralistic. The motion from teens across the BBYO International Order asserts: Young people who genuinely identify as Jew...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Bernie Sanders' best friend is a Zionist who teaches Jewish philosophy, he had a formative experience on a kibbutz and "Saturday Night Live" dubbed him the "old Jew." Still, Sanders can't get away from the inevitable "But where is he on Israel?" question, especially now that the Democratic presidential contender, an Independent senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, has pulled ahead of Hillary Rodham Clinton in New Hampshire, the first primary state. "Do you view your...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The dredging up of the dual loyalty charge-that lawmakers who reject the Iran nuclear agreement and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which is lobbying against it, are more closely aligned with Israel than the United States-illustrates just how tense the debate over the deal has become. The charge came to the fore after Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the highest-ranking Jewish Democrat in the Senate, announced last week that he was opposing the deal reached July 14...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Among the expansive field of 2016 Republican presidential candidates on display in the party's first debates, Donald Trump may be the most closely connected to the Jewish people. Trump is from New York, works in professions saturated with Jews and long has been a vocal supporter of Israel. His daughter and two grandchildren are Jewish, the executive vice president of his organization is Jewish-and Trump certainly has chutzpah. But you won't find Jewish donors of influence in...
(JTA)-Got questions about the Iran nuclear deal? Too bad, if you were an AIPAC activist at a briefing this week with top Obama administration officials. At the briefing Wednesday, Howard Kohr, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's director, stopped the proceedings before his activists could ask questions. Why? And what does the leak of the story mean? Did the Obama administration bigfoot AIPAC and muscle into the pro-Israel group's lobbying session only to disingenuously complain when a...
(JTA)—An Albuquerque, New Mexico, man who made anti-Semitic threats against the Jewish owner of a local Jewish deli pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor hate crime. John Ng, 58, pleaded guilty Aug. 6 and was sentenced to four years probation, according to a news release issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico. The FBI arrested Ng in March 2014 for posting threatening, anti-Semitic notes on the door of the Nosh Jewish Delicatessen and Bakery on two occasions in 2014, on Jan. 22 and Feb. 8. He was charged with “in...
Did jailed Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard’s actions provoke anti-Semitism in the United States? In the days leading up to the July 28 revelation that the U.S. has granted Pollard parole and that he will be released from federal prison on Nov. 20, that charge was made by former State Department counsel Abraham Sofaer. Commenting on then-unconfirmed reports that Pollard would be paroled, Sofaer—who was part of the U.S. team that investigated the Pollard affair in the 1980s—claimed Pollard “created a terrible situation for American Jews who then ob...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Turn off the ads, turn down the noise and read, listen and consult. That's what five key Jewish lawmakers say they are planning for the five to seven weeks they have to contemplate their vote on the Iran nuclear deal. There are 28 Jews in Congress, but seven are undecided and in positions of influence as lawmakers consider an agreement that grants Iran sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear restrictions on its nuclear program. Republicans are mostly against the deal, so the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Call it a double miracle for the pastor who would be president: Mike Huckabee managed to unite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama while grabbing the spotlight from Donald Trump. Netanyahu's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, slammed Huckabee, a Republican candidate for the White House in 2016, for saying that Obama will march Israelis "to the door of the oven" as part of the Iran nuclear deal. And Obama has mocked Huckabee's remarks,...
NEW YORK (JTA)—For the first time in about a century, a rabbi from outside the Lookstein family will lead New York’s storied Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun. The Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side voted last week to hire as its new senior rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, who for two decades has led the Montreal congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem. Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, 83, who has been at the helm of Kehilath Jeshurun since the death of his father, Rabbi Joseph Lookstein, in 1979, will become rabbi emeritus. The 1,100-member shul...
(JTA)-New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was not actually in New York on Wednesday, but the Democrat's influence on the fate of the Iran deal loomed large when several thousand people descended on Times Square to protest the agreement. Many of those demonstrating against the agreement chanted, "Where is Chuck Schumer?" and "Kill this deal." Some who packed the sidewalks along Seventh Avenue also held up signs that urged Schumer to convince Congress members to vote against the deal reached July 14...
(JNS.org) -Jonathan Pollard, who was imprisoned 30 years ago for giving Israel classified information on the U.S., will be a free man Nov. 21. The decision made by the parole board was unanimous. Some U.S. officials in the Obama administration commented that it is hoped that his release would smooth over some of the anger over the pending Iran deal. Pollard is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally. His lawyers Eliot Lauer and Jacques...
(JTA)—Political columnist Matt Bai recently got an old-fashioned Jewish guilt trip for skipping synagogue, and not from his rabbi or his Jewish mother, but from an evangelical Christian politician angling for the White House. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who this week officially joined the jam-packed race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, is an ardent Protestant. But when he sat down with Bai in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday, he went with a JDate-style icebreaker: “Do you go to synagogue?” Bai, who spent years covering politics for the N...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—While the majority of the 151 Jewish federations in North America are withholding judgment on the nuclear deal with Iran, at least eight have come out against it. Rather than taking firm positions, federations are counseling their communities to use Congress’ 60-day review period to learn about the international agreement and share their opinions with elected officials. “There is a plethora of diverse opinions,” said Gregg Roman, community relations council director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. “For Fe...
While the ink dries on the newly signed nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, America's largest pro-Israel organization is seeking to help defeat the agreement in Congress through the work of its nascent office in Washington, DC. San Antonio-based Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which during 10 years of existence has grown to 2.2 million members, is beginning to hire staff for a new entity dubbed the "CUFI Action Fund." Headed by Gary Bauer-the U.S. under secretary of education in...
In a press release dated July 8, the Rabbinical Council of America stated that Reform Jews are Jews. Rabbi Leonard Matanky, president of the RCA, said, “The RCA, representing traditional standards of religious practice and definition of Jewishness, has well-known objections to some of the fundamental tenets of Reform Judaism. There is no question, however, that we certainly embrace all members of the Jewish community. This is clearly the undisputed position of Jewish law. In addition, our late teacher Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik spoke of a c...
Hillel International launched “Hillel College Guide: The Official Hillel Guide to Jewish Life on Campus” this summer, providing unique insights for students and parents on organized Jewish life, Israel programming, the availability of kosher food and the relative size of the Jewish community on campuses across North America. The magazine also includes rankings of what schools Jewish students are choosing. Topping this year’s lists are Rutgers University on the list of public schools and New York University on the list of private schools. Secon...
In the middle of a phone interview with JNS.org on June 26, billionaire real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves his desk to scan the wall of his office for awards he has received from the Jewish community. Trump reads the text of some relevant plaques before returning to his desk. But before this reporter can move on to the next question, Trump eagerly points out that he was the grand marshal of New York City's annual Salute to Israel Parade (now the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The name that keeps coming up when Orthodox Jewish groups consider the consequences of the U.S. Supreme Court decision extending same-sex marriage rights to all states has little to do with Jews or gays. Bob Jones University, the private Protestant college in South Carolina, lost its tax-exempt status in 1983 when the Supreme Court ruled that its policies banning interracial dating on campus were “wholly incompatible with the concepts underlying tax exemption.” Orthodox Jewish organizations, several of which publicly disse...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-How often do you get the opportunity to pack "109 years," #LoveWins and the rainbow colors into 140 characters? That's how the American Jewish Committee celebrated the Supreme Court ruling Friday extending marriage rights to gays throughout the United States. "For 109 years AJC has stood for liberty and human rights," its tweet said. "Today is a happy day for that proud tradition #LoveWins." It was punctuated with a heart emoticon splashed orange, yellow, green blue and p...
By Ron Kampeas NEW YORK (JTA)-At Abe Foxman's farewell, there were the hugs, there were the recollections of the hugs, and there was the sheer diversity of the huggers. Abe likes to hug, and he hugged everyone who came out to the June 17 gala marking his retirement from the Anti-Defamation League after 50 years, the past 28 leading the civil rights agency. So plenty of people got an Abe embrace: About 1,200 were in attendance, necessitating the use of the balconies in the vaulted Waldorf Astoria ballroom. Onstage there were tributes from Jews,...
A University of Missouri (MU) fall 2015 honors tutorial that pro-Israel students felt would promote bigotry and misinformation on their college campus has been cancelled. “Perspectives on Zionism,” which was scheduled to be taught by self-proclaimed “post-Zionist” and “Nakba Jew-in-law” George Smith, was nixed due to no enrollment, according to a June 10 announcement. Yet the catalyst behind the cancelled course—Smith, a tenured biology professor who pushed for a curriculum that the instructor himself said would have included works by anti...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Three leading Jewish organizations—BBYO, Hillel International and Moishe House—are teaming up in a rare and pioneering global initiative to recruit, train and retain top professionals throughout their organizations. Called the Talent Alliance, the novel collaboration links 780 Jewish communal professionals in 37 countries in a global ecosystem designed to promote rising stars in these Jewish non-profits. The initiative is among the first of its kind in both the Jewish and nonprofit sectors. The pilot year of the Talent Allia...
NEW YORK (JTA)-If there's one thing that can be said of longtime Anti-Defamation League leader Abraham Foxman, who is stepping down this month after nearly 30 years at the helm, it's that he never holds back from speaking his mind. In an age of canned, anodyne statements from public figures reticent to say what they really think, Foxman offers an authentic, unabashed voice free of artifice, hesitation or restraint. Foxman also has something else when he speaks: listeners. Though the ADL doesn't...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority in the Supreme Court decision that will keep "Israel" off the passports of Jerusalem-born Americans, begins by calling Jerusalem a "delicate subject." Competing claims to the Holy City were not the only timeworn and sensitive issue the justices contended with in their 6-3 decision on Monday, which upheld the State Department's policy of not allowing Americans born in Jerusalem to list "Israel" as their birthplace. The Supreme...
