Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 711 - 735 of 1886
(JTA) - Jewish groups are rallying in support of Asian Americans following a string of murders Tuesday at massage parlors in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six Asians. Police in Georgia say the 21-year-old suspect may have been motivated by hatred of women and not anti-Asian bigotry. But in the wake of reports of rising levels of anti-Asian harassment and violence amid the coronavirus pandemic, the attack is likely to exacerbate the community's fear regardless of the alleged...
StandWithUs is disappointed that California’s K-12 Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum was approved without the reasonable changes called for by so many people across the state. The State Board of Education voted for the final version unanimously, despite massive numbers of comments asking for edits before and during the March, 18th meeting. As local school districts consider the ESMC and other ethnic studies curricula, StandWithUs will fight relentlessly to ensure these courses humanize and do not harm the Jewish community. “Despite many imp...
(JTA) — One year after COVID-19 first walloped Jewish communities in the United States, a scientific study has confirmed something that many in the communities have long believed: gatherings during the week of Purim served as super-spreader events. A paper published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open, a peer-review journal that is open to the public, concludes that the coronavirus was spreading widely in Orthodox communities across the country last spring around that Jewish holiday — before public hea...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Some five years after being snubbed for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, Merrick Garland is the new U.S. attorney general. In a 70-30 vote Wednesday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Garland as the country's top law enforcer. He becomes the fifth Jewish member of President Joe Biden's Cabinet. Twenty Republicans joined the Democrats in backing Garland, reflecting consensus support for the federal judge. In 2016, when former President Barack Obama tapped Garland for the Supreme...
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With collaboration continuing to play a critical role in delivering impact across synergistic organizations, BBYO and Moishe House are partnering to learn from and leverage their similar operating models to better reach and inspire young Jews. The critical decades of a young person’s life following the bar/bat mitzvah age are defined by many transitions, explorations, and relationships. Research has shown that one of the defining threads throughout these years are meaningful connections between peers and mentors as they sha...
(JTA) — Purim is perhaps the happiest Jewish holiday of the year. It can also be distressing, as adults and young people use the spirit of relative abandon to indulge in binge drinking and other irresponsible behaviors. Make no mistake: Substance use and binge drinking are of great concern to yeshiva high school administrators. We have acknowledged that substance use exists in our community and must be addressed. But without solid data, we’ve been left to guess about our students’ behavior and the challenges they face. Some of that data is no...
(JTA) — Jewish groups are criticizing NBC for airing an offensive portrayal of an Orthodox Jew on one of its medical dramas. The objectionable storyline occurred on an episode of “Nurses,” a Canadian hour-long drama following a group of nurses in a Toronto hospital. In the episode, a young Hasidic patient is told he will need a bone graft to heal his broken leg, leading his devout father to recoil at the possibility of a “dead goyim leg from anyone. An Arab, a woman.” The incident occurs in the series’ eighth episode, “Achilles Heel,” which...
(JTA) - When Ed Stafman was designing the signs he hoped his supporters would plant on their lawns, he debated between two: "Elect Rabbi Ed" or "Elect Ed Stafman." He settled on the version with his last name. After all, he said, "Everyone knows me as Rabbi Ed." Until the election in November, "everyone" meant the people in and around Bozeman, Montana, the thriving college town where Stafman led Congregation Beth Shalom for a decade and remains active in interfaith and social justice...
(JNS) — A Jewish student at Tufts University who claims that he has been the subject months-long campaign of anti-Semitic intimidation, harassment and discrimination is calling on the university to intervene. Max Price, a junior who is a member of the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ), which is tasked with fact-checking and removing bias student government legislation, has been outspoken against an SJP proposal to include its “Deadly Exchange Campaign” referendum in the student election ballot. “Mr. Price has been subjected to anti-Se...
(JTA) — A school board member in Lowell, Massachusetts, called a former school district leader a “kike” on live television, spurring calls for his resignation. Bob Hoey should step down from the Lowell School Committee, the mayor of the Boston suburb said. “We lost the kike, oh, I mean, the Jewish guy,” Hoey said Wednesday morning on “City Life,” a news opinion show, according to video posted by the local Jewish Journal. “I hate to say it, but that’s what people used to say behind his back.” Hoey, an elected official in the city of 111,000, wa...
(JNS) - On any given day, people coming into the Kosher Palate in Dallas do so know they are going to be spending money on groceries or prepared foods. This past week, however, hundreds of people were treated to free hot meals made by the staff of the supermarket/catering company amid a week of brutally cold winter weather. "My husband being the kind of guy he is, he likes to feed people, and he said there are people who are at home and no way to get hot food, so we have to feed them," said...
(JTA) — President Joe Biden, saying domestic terrorism was the “greatest threat” in America and white supremacists are the “most dangerous people,” pledged to focus his Justice Department on the rise of white supremacy. Biden, in Milwaukee on Tuesday at his first town hall as president, fielded a question from Joel Berkowitz, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, about what Berkowitz termed the “ongoing threat” from white supremacists in the wake of the Jan. 6 raid on the U.S. Capitol. A number of far-right groups and figures w...
(Jerusalem Israel) — Gilda Radner is doing flips in her grave. If she were alive, the former star of Saturday Night Live (SNL) who died in 1989, would be crying, but not from laughter. Radner is one of many young comedians who got their start on SNL. She created and became famous for characters including Emily Litella, Roseanne Roseannadanna, Lisa Loopner, and Baba Wawa. Radner was also among a number of Jewish comics whose careers took off on and following SNL. Others include Billy Crystal, Jon Lovitz, Ben Stiller, and comedian-turned-Senator,...
(JTA) — The Democratic Majority for Israel political action committee has made an endorsement in a special congressional election in Ohio, a sign of how Israel tensions within the Democratic Party have not abated since the party’s sweeping wins in November. The PAC affiliated with the pro-Israel group announced Tuesday that it is endorsing Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman who has the backing of the party’s establishment and who has cultivated the mainstream pro-Israel community. The field ahead of the May primary for the speci...
When Israeli-American violinist Itzhak Perlman debuted at Carnegie Hall in 1963, he performed while seated - a consequence of the polio that left him unable to walk without leg braces or crutches since age 4. "I got a standing ovation, but The New York Times reviewer wasn't sure if that was because of the way I played or because of the fact I was sitting down while playing," recalled Perlman, now 75. "That thing followed me for two or three years. Then people got used to me and they stopped...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Nikki Haley has finally and decisively broken with Donald Trump in a move that puts her at the front of the potential Republican presidential pack for moderate conservatives, including pro-Israel Jews who mainly stuck with the party over the past four years because of Trump's foreign policy. After serving as his U.N. ambassador and not taking a stand for months on what his lies about election fraud would mean for his legacy, Haley made the final cut on Friday in a Politico...
(JTA) - The Arizona Jewish Post, a 75-year-old community publication covering the Jewish population of Tucson and southern Arizona, announced it would cease operations effective March 1. The Jewish Community Federation of Southern Arizona, which owns and operates the Post, announced the closure in an email to subscribers this week. The letter cited declines in ad revenue and readership, loss of philanthropic support and the COVID-19 pandemic as factors that contributed to the Post's...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang waded into the debate over the push for secular education at yeshivas, affirming "parental choice" and saying there is a "complete lack of trust" between the haredi Orthodox community and city government. Organizations that oppose government scrutiny of secular education at the Jewish private schools were quick to praise Yang for his comments. "We commend any candidate who affirms the importance of parental choice and who...
United States — Today, the Jewish Future Pledge and The Jewish Federations of North America announced their first cohort of local Jewish Federations for a two-year pilot program to proliferate a culture of legacy giving in communities across North America. The partners originally planned to onboard 10 Federations in the first cohort, but after receiving overwhelming interest in participation, expanded the program to accommodate 11 cities. Cohort Federation communities include Portland, Tidewater (VA), Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Greater M...
(JTA) — The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously rejected an appeal by Holocaust survivors and their heirs who wanted to pursue restitution claims in the United States after failing in the countries where the art was stolen. The opinion published Wednesday, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, agreed with the defense and with the U.S. government, which joined the defense, that allowing the lawsuits to go ahead would contradict international agreements. “As a Nation, we would be surprised — and might even initiate reciprocal action — if a court...
(JTA) - What Donald Trump's lawyer likely wanted: for America to spend this evening talking about how the former president was not responsible for the deadly Jan. 6 raid on the U.S. Capitol. What he got instead: a firestorm of speculation about why he held his hand over his head every time he took a sip of water. David Schoen, one of Trump's impeachment lawyers, already asked (and then withdrew his request) for Trump's trial to pause for the Jewish day of rest. Was the fact that he covered his...
In a landslide vote Thursday the Senate approved a budget resolution amendment making the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem permanent, so that it could not be moved out of Israel's capital in the future. "Pleased the Senate overwhelmingly passed the amendment Senator Hagerty and I introduced to make sure the U.S. Embassy to Israel remains located in Jerusalem, the capital of Israel," tweeted the bill's co-sponsor, Republican Senator Jim Infofe of Oklahoma. "I am proud to introduce legislation to...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Statements and appearances by U.S. officials suggest the Biden administration's emerging Mideast strategy: reassuring Israel while resuming ties with the Palestinians ruptured by President Joe Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump. On Tuesday, the acting ambassador to the United Nations outlined plans to reverse Trump administration policies concerning the Palestinians. "The Biden administration will restore credible U.S. engagement with Palestinians as well as Israelis," Richard...
(JTA) — President-elect Joe Biden filled the months before Inauguration Day lining up a slate of Cabinet secretaries, assistants and advisors, many of them Jewish. Biden’s choices reflect a diverse cross-section of American Jewry and possess expertise gleaned from decades of experience in government, science and medicine and law. Here’s a rundown of the Jewish names you should know as the Biden administration begins. Antony Blinken, secretary of state Blinken, a longtime Biden advisor with an extensive diplomacy resume, is the stepson of a Holo...
(JNS) - The U.S. Senate confirmed Tony Blinken on Tuesday as the 71st U.S. secretary of state. The final tally was 78-22. Blinken, who is Jewish, will succeed Mike Pompeo as America's top diplomat. Blinken previously served as U.S. deputy secretary of state under U.S. President Barack Obama and was a top adviser to Joe Biden during the latter's 2020 presidential campaign. During his nomination hearing last week in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Blinken said that the United...
