Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 45 - 69 of 1890
(JTA) — A man charged with multiple counts in the killing of Detroit synagogue president Samantha Woll has had a murder charge dismissed by the judge in the case. Woll, a 40-year-old Democratic and interfaith activist and president of the Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, was found stabbed to death outside of her home on Oct. 21, 2023. Her killing came just two weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, alarming Jews in Detroit and beyond who feared that she had been the victim of an antisemitic attack. But law enforcement was quick to say tha...
(JTA) — Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor, Josh Shapiro, hasn’t had the easiest week when it comes to, well, being Jewish. So, when it came to speaking publicly about Vice President Kamala Harris and the man she chose over him to be her own running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Shapiro had a point he wanted to make. “I lean on my family and I lean on my faith which calls me to serve,” Shapiro said at a rally Tuesday in his hometown, Philadelphia. “And I am proud of my faith!” Shapiro was among the top two or three contenders that Harris, the D...
(JTA) — J.D. Vance, the Ohio senator who is Donald Trump’s running mate, said he “feels bad” that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish Pennsylvania governor who was in contention to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, has to “run” from being Jewish to get the job. Harris, the vice president who is the Democratic presidential nominee, on Tuesday named Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. Shapiro was in the top two or three in contention and was also subject to a campaign from the progressive left to keep him off the ticket because of his views on Isra...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The White House condemned as “inflammatory” a pledge by Missouri Rep. Cori Bush to AIPAC that she would “tear your kingdom down,” implying that heated rhetoric like hers could inspire political violence. Bush, a member of the “Squad,” the group of far-left Democrats that is harshly critical of Israel, lost a costly primary on Tuesday to St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell. Political action committees allied with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent more than $9 million against Bush, making the election th...
(JNS) — As some 10,000 people braved the summer heat and rain in line to enter Temple University’s Liacouras Center in North Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon for Vice President Kamala Harris’s first event with her newly-announced running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, half a dozen protesters chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” and “Kamala, Kamala, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.” The protesters, some of whom were clad in keffiyehs and masked, used bullhorns and yelled for hours in front of an essentially...
(JNS) — Analysts are still poring over the data from Wesley Bell’s victory over anti-Israel ‘Squad’ member Cori Bush in the Missouri Democratic primary on Tuesday night, but Rabbi A.D. Motzen is sure that the Jewish vote made a difference in Bell’s nearly 7,000-vote margin of victory. “I can’t say with certainty that Jews made up the entire 7,000-vote margin, as we only worked on the Orthodox community,” the national director of government affairs at Agudath Israel of America told JNS. “We also don’t know how many took a Republican ballot—n...
(JTA) — On Oct. 9, as the toll of Hamas’ attack on Israel was still being tallied, Tim Walz stood before a room of Jewish Minnesotans and condemned the invasion of two days earlier. “If you did not find moral clarity on Saturday morning, and you find yourself waiting to think about what you needed to say, you need to reevaluate where you’re at,” the governor said at the event, which was co-hosted by the local Jewish Community Relations Council. Those words resonated with Steve Hunegs, the JCRC’s executive director. He also said they tracke...
(JTA) - Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor who burst into national view after calling Republicans "weird," will be Kamala Harris' running mate on the November Democratic ticket. Multiple outlets reported the choice early Aug.6, hours before Harris was set to appear with her pick at a Philadelphia rally. Harris' decision ends speculation that Josh Shapiro, the Jewish governor of Pennsylvania, could be in line for the role. Walz and Shapiro were reportedly the two final choices narrowed from a...
(JTA) — When he was elected governor of Pennsylvania in 2022, Josh Shapiro declared victory by quoting a famous adage from Pirkei Avot, an ancient code of Jewish ethics. Now, after losing the battle to be Kamala Harris’ running mate, Shapiro has turned to the same adage, attributed to Rabbi Tarfon, a sage who lived nearly 2,000 years ago. “Since I first ran for State Representative 20 years ago, I’ve been called to serve because I want to leave our community, our Commonwealth, and our country better off for our children – and because my faith...
(JTA) — Democratic Rep. Cori Bush, a member of the hardline left-wing “Squad” that is harshly critical of Israel, was defeated in a St. Louis-area primary race by an opponent who attracted millions of dollars in pro-Israel money. The Associated Press called the race for Wesley Bell, the St. Louis County prosecutor, Tuesday night as Bell led Bush 51.2 percent to 45.6 percent with more than 96 percent of the vote counted. It was the second Democratic primary win for pro-Israel political action committees against a member of the Squad. In June, a...
(JTA) - One day after President Joe Biden ended his campaign, leading Democrats have coalesced around Vice President Kamala Harris - and begun speculating about her running mate. At least two Jewish governors are thought to be top contenders. Pennsylvania's Josh Shapiro and Illinois' J.B. Pritzker were both floated as potential presidential candidates when pressure began mounting for Biden to drop out. Now, one of them could join Harris on the ticket if she wins the nomination. Another...
(JNS) - Anti-Israel protesters violently confronted Capitol Hill police and burned the American flag in front of Union Station on Wednesday afternoon during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hour-long address to Congress. In what the event organizers described as a protest to "Arrest Netanyahu: Surround the Capitol," thousands of attendees rallied at the intersection of Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. In their permit for the event submitted to the U.S. Park Police and...
WASHINGTON — In her first statement on Israel as a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris struck a markedly different tone than President Joe Biden, saying after a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she “will not be silent” in the face of what she called the “devastation” in Gaza. The vice president met on July 25 for 40 minutes with Netanyahu, who had met with Biden earlier in the day for more than an hour. The differences between the public statements made before and after the meetings illustrate where the president...
(JNS) — A report issued by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) reveals how a Biden administration law aimed at reducing inflation plans to provide millions in taxpayer dollars to radical nonprofit entities. “Investment in Radical Activists: A Case Study on the NDN Collective Supported by the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act,” which was released on Tuesday, shows that the far-left group NDN Collective would receive $100 million through the Environmental Protection Agency as part of Democrats’ $1.6 trillion Inflation Reduction Act. The resea...
MILWAUKEE - Shabbos Kestenbaum remembers the first time he felt lonely because he held an unpopular political opinion. The year was 2008, and Kestenbaum was 9 and a student at a Modern Orthodox Jewish day school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, where he lived. In a school journal, he decried the Iraq War and extolled a young senator running for president on a platform of opposing it. "I remember with my dad, we bought a yard sign saying 'Barack Obama' in Hebrew," Kestenbaum recalled in an...
Since 2007, Dan Pollak has been directing operations for the Zionist Organization of America at their Washington, D.C. office where his role is to help educate members of Congress, their staff, and other government officials on the relationship between the United States and Israel as well as on policy issues relating to the Middle East. Pollak is coming to Orlando on Sunday, Aug. 11, to present two topics at two different synagogues. At 1:30 p.m. he will be at the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congre...
(JNS) - The attempt on his life is an opportunity to unify the United States of America, former U.S. President Donald Trump said on Sunday, a day after he was shot in the ear at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. "This is a chance to bring the whole country, even the whole world, together," Trump told the Washington Examiner. Trump also talked to The New York Post about the harrowing experience, saying that he was "supposed to dead" and calling it "surreal." "The doctor at the hospital said he...
(JNS) - The man killed in the assassination attempt on former U.S. president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump was Corey Comperatore, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced on Sunday. Comperatore, 50, was a former volunteer fire chief from the Buffalo Township who loved his family, the governor stated. "Corey died a hero. Corey dove on his family to protect them last night," Shapiro said. "Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing," the Jewish Democrat told...
(New York Jewish Week) — The Democratic Socialists of America dropped its endorsement of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she hosted a panel discussion on antisemitism. The DSA said in a Tuesday statement that it was rescinding its conditional endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez’s reelection campaign after she “conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions” during the discussion she sponsored last month. “This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israe...
(JNS) — Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for unity while paying tribute to the rallygoer who was killed in the attempt on his life. “Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote on his Truth social media platform. “We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness,” he continued. “Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Vandals tore down Israeli hostage posters hanging outside the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat, a week after pro-Palestinian activists used megaphones and drums to protest outside his home in the middle of the night. “My Capitol office was vandalized yesterday in a vile act of hate in which the posters of the more than 100 people still held hostage in Gaza (including 8 Americans) were ripped from the wall, shredded and tossed across the hallway,” Schneider, who is Jewish, posted Friday...
(JTA) — MILWAUKEE — “Beautiful prayer!” the woman shouted out from the floor of the massive Fiserv Forum. The delegate to Donald Trump’s coronation was responding to a benediction led by Leora Levy, a Jewish Republican from Connecticut, to close out the first day of this year’s Republican Party convention. Levy’s comments included one of the rare mentions of Israel on the convention’s first day, as she led a hushed and somber crowd in praying for the release of hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7. “O Lord our God, we pray for the peace of...
(JTA) — MILWAUKEE — Three Jewish organizations dealing with immigration and community relations said they were alarmed by the Republican Party’s plans to launch mass deportations, saying they are steeped in a racist conspiracy theory that at times has veered into antisemitism. The Republican platform, published this week, pledges to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” “President Trump and Republicans will reverse the Democrats’ destructive Open Borders Policies that have allowed criminal gangs and Illegal Alien...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden answered nearly an hour of questions at a potentially make-or-break press conference on Thursday, amid increasing pressure from Democrats for him to withdraw from the 2024 election over concerns about his age and fitness for office. Biden, who began the press conference 57 minutes after its scheduled start time, opened with eight minutes of prepared remarks, which he read from teleprompters, about Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the economy, border security and a potential Israel-Hamas c...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The 2024 Republican Party platform pledges to fight antisemitism and to keep Israel safe. It promises to fight anti-Christian bias as well as “gender insanity.” And it vows, in all-caps, to “DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN.” Parties traditionally publish platforms in election years ahead of their national conventions, as a statement of the party’s values and a wish list of policies should their candidate win the White House. The Republican platform, posted Monday and su...
