Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 305 - 329 of 1890
(JNS) - The White House hosted more than 70 community leaders on March 9, marking the Purim holiday with its first-ever Jewish Women's Forum. Attendees hailed the event-part-mixer, part-holiday celebration and part-Jewish affairs state of the state-for its diversity. The event included both practicing and non-practicing Jewish women who came from across the country, and those present were communal leaders, college students and employees of a range of organizations, attendees told JNS. "It...
(New York Jewish Week) — Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has a new project, a year and a half after resigning amid a flurry of sexual harassment allegations: a pro-Israel organization targeting Democrats. Cuomo delivered the message via video on Monday evening at an event at Carnegie Hall hosted by the World Values Network, the organization led by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach — an author, television personality and onetime Republican congressional candidate. Boteach organized the event in honor of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Upr...
(JNS) — Black and Jewish Denverites will gather on March 15 for a “Denver Dialogue” intended to draw the two communities together in the face of a common enemy: white nationalism. “While African-Americans and American Jews joined forces to fight for civil rights in the 1960s, our relationship otherwise has been characterized by great connection and great divergence,” per an event announcement. Award-winning poet Theo Wilson and educator Evan Weissman will co-moderate the conversation to take place at George Washington High School’s library. Wi...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Four states have presidential primaries that fall on the first day of Passover next year and legislation has been introduced in at least two of them, Maryland and Pennsylvania, to change the date. The four states listed on the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures as having presidential primaries on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 are Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island. Passover starts the previous evening, and traditional Jewish law, or halacha, prohibits writing, driving or the use of e...
(JTA) - Ben Savage, the Jewish actor best known for the 1990s coming of age series "Boy Meets World," is running to replace Adam Schiff, the Jewish Democratic congressman from California who is running for Senate. Savage, 42, is among at least four Democrats running in the primary to replace Schiff in his Los Angeles-area congressional district. His Instagram post on Monday announcing the campaign focused on good governance. "I'm running for Congress because it's time to restore faith in governm...
(JTA) - A new FBI report found that anti-Jewish incidents increased nearly 20% in 2021 relative to 2020, but decreased relative to prior years. The updated FBI statistics released Monday counted 817 anti-Jewish criminal offenses reported by local law enforcement agencies in 2021, up from 683 in 2020 - a year when people largely stayed off the streets for a substantial period due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 numbers, however, represent a 15% decline from 2019, when the FBI reported 963...
(JTA) — Following the failure of Silicon Valley Bank, federal regulators have shuttered Signature Bank, whose chairman, Scott Shay, is a major donor to Jewish causes. The New York-based bank was closed on Sunday, two days after Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse, stoking panic in the markets and assurances from President Joe Biden on Monday that the banking system was safe. Both Signature Bank and Silicon Valley Bank shut down because of depositor runs on their holdings. In Signature’s case, the run was triggered by concerns that the bank was o...
(JTA) — Ohio’s department of education is investigating a homeschooling network that claims public schools are run by “Zionist scum,” teaches kids to say “Sieg Heil” in class and instructs fellow parents not to give their kids “Jewish media content.” These are the more than 2,500 members of the “Dissident Homeschool Network,” a channel on the social network messaging app Telegram. The “dissidents” are a group of Nazi parents who share homeschooling lesson plans extolling the virtues of Hitler and white nationalism — while relying on a popula...
(New York Jewish Week) — American Eagle Outfitters now has a mezuzah on the front door of its flagship Times Square location, courtesy of Chabad, the Hasidic outreach movement. The parchment with Jewish holy text in an oblong metallic case, traditionally a marker of a Jewish home or establishment, was affixed on the apparel brand’s door as part of the recently concluded convention of CTeen, Chabad’s youth group. At a concert in Times Square on Saturday night, thousands of teens from more than 30 countries gathered to sing Jewish songs — and...
(JTA) — A “National Day of Hate” against Jews planned by white supremacists that triggered sweeping warnings from law enforcement and Jewish security officials came and went without significant incident on Saturday. Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the United States had spent the preceding days shoring up their security procedures, reassuring their congregants and requesting extra patrols from local police. Reports from synagogues suggested that the pews were crowded on Shabbat with Jews who said they would not be deterred by hate. In...
(JNS) — Accusations of Islamophobia came almost immediately after the U.S. House of Representatives voted earlier this month to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from its Foreign Affairs Committee. The vote followed repeated promises from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to remove the congresswoman due to her history of antisemitic and anti-Israel remarks. Omar took to CNN’s State of the Union show, saying “it is politically motivated, and in some cases, motivated by the fact that many of these members don’t believe a Muslim refugee...
(Washington, D.C.) — The Israeli-American Coalition for Action, the legislative and policymaking sister organization of the Israeli-American Council, today applauded the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear a challenge to an Arkansas law against boycotting Israel. The high court declined to hear a challenge by the Arkansas Times weekly newspaper and the ACLU, based on the newspaper’s refusal to comply with a state university advertising contract because it required a pledge not to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. A...
(JTA) - Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who became a pro-Israel favorite during her two years as the Trump administration's ambassador to the United Nations, announced her bid for the presidency, becoming the first Republican to challenge the former president ahead of 2024. In a video released Tuesday, Haley did not name Donald Trump, but alluded to him as a polarizing figure, emphasizing her efforts as governor at tamping down racial tensions and also suggesting that the Republi...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Jewish Democrat from California who has been in office for more than three decades, will not run in 2024. "I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024, but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year when my term ends," she said Tuesday in a statement. Feinstein, 89, has been in the Senate since 1992 and has been closely watched in recent years because of concerns about her health and declining...
(JTA) — Florida Republican Anna Paulina Luna beat a Jewish Democrat to represent her district in Congress last fall, but she had Jewish ancestry, too — or so she claimed at the time. The freshman representative told Jewish Insider during her campaign that she was “a small fraction Ashkenazi,” in addition to having been “raised as a Messianic Jew by my father.” While mainstream Judaism does not consider Messianic Jews, who believe in the divinity of Jesus, to be Jewish, Luna’s additional claim of...
(JNS) - One interpretation of a mishnah in Chapters of the Fathers is that Jews must prepare answers with which to respond to those who hate Torah scholars. Hating those who cherish the Torah is one sense many readers may get from recent reporting in The New York Times on Orthodox schools. A new, 6-and-a-half-minute Fox News documentary - which Kassy Dillon, a former JNS news editor, reported - turns the camera on Orthodox leaders and scholars. "We resent that the Times are engaged in what...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — One Jewish Democrat wants to replace a fellow Jewish Democrat as California senator. Rep. Adam Schiff, who rose to prominence during Donald Trump’s presidency as one of the top critics of the former president, announced a Senate run on Thursday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is 89 and was first elected to the seat in 1992, has yet to announce she is retiring, but insiders say it is increasingly difficult for her to handle the job. Schiff, a solid pro-Israel Democrat who gets consistent backing from mainstream pro-Israel pol...
(JTA) – A university in Oregon that fired a Jewish professor after he reported several incidents, including purported antisemitic remarks made by its president, has settled with the professor. Linfield University, a private school in McMinnville, will pay $1 million to English professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner for his wrongful termination in 2021. Pollack-Pelzner had accused the school’s president, Miles K. Davis, of making antisemitic remarks in front of him, including jokes about gas chambers and comments on the size of Jewish noses. He was...
(JTA) — Jews made up nearly half of America’s biggest philanthropic donors last year, according to a calculation by Forbes of who gave the most money away in 2022. In a year that saw their fortunes take a hit amid declines in the stock market, America’s 25 “most generous givers” donated a collective $27 billion, up from $20 billion in 2021, for a lifetime total of $196 billion, according to Forbes. They included 12 billionaires with Jewish backgrounds — a dramatic overrepresentation when compared to the proportion of Jews in the overall U.S...
(JTA) — Within two weeks, a series of Bay Area billboards equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism were targeted by activists. In the first incident, an unknown group of culprits wrote “Free Palestine” on them, leading the billboards’ sponsor to replace them and call the graffiti “a hate crime.” The second time they were targeted, a group of Jews took the credit. On Tuesday night, a group of self-proclaimed “anti-Zionist Jews” papered over three billboards paid for by the New Jersey-based group JewBelong. It was a further escalation in a nationa...
(JTA) — A New Jersey synagogue is crediting recent safety improvements after a Molotov cocktail thrown at its door overnight caused little damage. Still, Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield canceled activities on Sunday as the police investigated, marking the second time in recent months that the suburban congregation suspended activities because of an antisemitic incident. Last November, the Reform synagogue of about 500 families near New York City briefly closed its doors while the FBI investigated a “credible threat” against New Jersey synag...
(JNS) — The House of Representatives voted today to oust Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from its Foreign Affairs Committee. The decision followed repeated promises from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to remove her over a history of antisemitic remarks. All but one Republican–218–voted to strip Omar of the assignment, while 211 Democrats backed her. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) voted present. Omar has accused Israel of having “hypnotized the world” and Jews of buying control of Congress. She called Israel an “apartheid state” and likened it to...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Republican Party unanimously condemned as antisemitic Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, saying their beliefs have no place in “any political discourse.” The resolution opposes “all forms of antisemitism, antisemitic statements and any antisemitic elements that seek to infiltrate the Republican Party.” It names West, the rapper and designer now known as Ye, saying he “has repeatedly made statements that are antisemitic, shameful, wrong, offensive, bigoted, and contrary to American and Republican principles.” It also names Fuent...
(JTA) — Second gentleman Doug Emhoff extended his focus on Holocaust remembrance by inviting a Washington, D.C.-area survivor to be his guest at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech Tuesday evening. Ruth Cohen, who survived multiple concentration camps including Auschwitz, joined Emhoff at the annual policy address in Washington. Emhoff first met Cohen last year before International Holocaust Remembrance Day with his wife, Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a press release from the White House. This year, Emhoff spent Int...
WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the CUFI Action Fund released the following statement welcoming the House of Representative’s vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee: “Antisemitism has no place anywhere in America, including and especially in Congress. The CUFI Action Fund welcomes today’s vote to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) from the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “Rep. Omar has a track-record of trafficking in antisemitic tropes and making bigoted claims concerning pro-Israel activists. Moreover, her posit...
