Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 742 - 766 of 1886
(JTA) — 70 Faces Media, the publisher of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, has acquired the New York Jewish Week brand. In a deal completed late last month, the 45-year-old Jewish Week will join the growing stable of brands at 70 Faces Media, which also publishes Alma, Kveller, My Jewish Learning and JTA Hebrew. The Jewish Week will retain a focus on Jewish New York, while drawing on 70 Faces Media’s experience and resources as North America’s largest and most diverse Jewish media organ...
By Sean Savage (JNS) - Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the fallout from the 2020 election, anti-Semitism continued to morph and grow during 2020. While the school year for many students consisted of online or hybrid learning, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks on Jewish and pro-Israel students increased precisely because of more Internet usage, albeit in new forms. The switch to remote learning brought new challenges for individuals, social groups and organizations of all kinds as...
(JTA) — When someone threw rocks a couple months ago at the doors of a Chabad center in Atlanta, the glass didn’t shatter. That’s because earlier in the year, local Chabad leaders decided to reevaluate their security following an incident with a trespasser. Neil Rabinovitz, a former 22-year veteran of the FBI who now works as community security director for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, visited the site and performed a security assessment. He determined that the building needed to add more security cameras, change its system for loc...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) — There are 37 Jewish members of the 117th Congress, which was sworn in last week amid the trauma of an insurrection spurred by President Donald Trump. Of the 37, there are 10 in the Senate and 27 in the House of Representatives — 25 Democrats and two Republicans. All 10 Jewish senators caucus with the Democrats. (Overall, there are 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate.) With Democrats taking both Senate seats in last week’s election in Georgia, Democrats will have 50 seats, and when Kamala Harr...
(JTA) — Two days after his election to the Senate helped tip the balance of power in Washington, Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff found another historical echo in his victory. In a Twitter thread, Ossoff described his trajectory from a teenage intern for John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and civil rights hero who died last year, to U.S. senator. “And now a Jewish man he mentored and a Black man who was his pastor have been elected to represent the State of Georgia in the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff said. “I know Congressman Lewis is looking down on us t...
The following is a detailed, complete, and accurate account of a phone call I did not have with now President Joe Biden — he was president elect at the time. The other day, my phone rang. Halfway into the third ring, I answered. “Hello?” “Please hold for the president elect,” replied the voice on the other end. I hadn’t recognized the incoming caller’s number but answered anyway. My immediate thought was that a friend joking with me, or a telemarketer using a new scheme. Before I could think too much more about it, another voice came on. “Hi...
(JTA) - Heshy Tischler, the pro-Trump provocateur of Orthodox Brooklyn, wasn't at the U.S. capitol when a mob stormed it Wednesday - but not because he didn't want to be. Tischler was one of a throng of Orthodox Jews who traveled down to D.C. to join mass protests of the election results Wednesday. He had left the city before the protest turned into an insurrection that drove members of Congress and the vice president into hiding, and in which a woman was killed. But that afternoon, unaware...
(New York, NY) — Chairman Arthur Stark, CEO William Daroff and Vice Chair Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, issued the following statement: “Once again, we demand that the Palestinian Authority stop encouraging and incentivizing terror through its reprehensible pay-to-slay policies rewarding acts of terror against Israelis by financially compensating perpetrators and their families with so-called martyr payments. Palestinian leadership is going to extraordinary lengths to continue the...
(JTA) — A federal court of appeals ruled that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s capacity limits on houses of worship in areas with rising COVID-19 cases constituted a violation of religious liberty. The ruling on Monday comes after a Supreme Court injunction last month blocking Cuomo from enforcing the rules until the lower court could reevaluate an earlier ruling that upheld state guidelines limiting synagogue attendance to 10 or 25 people. The case, brought by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy org...
(JTA) - There's no way to tally all those we lost in 2020, a year when we mourned even our ability to carry out time-tested rituals of grief. Among those who died this year were some of the Jewish world's most famous and influential pillars in a range of industries, realms of thought and areas of activism - from the pioneer jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the moral thought leader Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to the Modern Orthodox rabbi Norman Lamm to the influential LGBTQ activist Larry Kramer. But many...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — The pro-Israel educational organization StandWithUs sent a letter to the University of California Merced on Dec. 24 calling on it to take action against professor Abbas Ghassemi over his use of “anti-Semitic statements and images on social media.” StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein, Saidoff legal department director Yael Lerman and Center for Combating Antisemitism head Carly Gammill wrote to UC Merced Chancellor Dr. Juan Sanchez Munoz and professor emeritus Dr. Thomas Peterson that Ghassemi has issue...
(JTA) - After an Orthodox-owned health clinic appeared to be administering COVID-19 vaccines to members of the public contrary to state guidelines, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the investigation would be referred to the state attorney general's office and that vaccine-related fraud would come with consequences. "We will not tolerate any fraud in the vaccination process," Cuomo said at a news conference Monday. "Anyone who engages in fraud is going to be held accountable." His comments come...
(JTA) - When David first saw the advertisement on his local Long Island community Whatsapp group inviting people like him and his wife, both over 65, to sign up to get the COVID-19 vaccine, he was skeptical. The ad linked to a nondescript Google form that asked him to answer a few questions and submit insurance information. "At this point I got suspicious. Is this an attempt to steal my identity? A scam?" he said in an email sharing his experience with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. After doing...
(JTA) — Nearly a third of the $900 billion Congress is set to approve in a pandemic relief will go to a new round of payroll protection, and the Jewish Federations of North America is set to reprise the role it played earlier this year and explain how nonprofits can get their share. “We are pulling back together again the team of experts both from within the JFNA and lay leaders who train themselves on the program to offer volunteer support to help fill out forms and connect banks and such,” Eric Fingerhut, the group’s CEO, said in an intervi...
(JNS) — An anti-Semitic cybersecurity attack that took place at a Jewish high school in Long Island, N.Y., on Monday has left students on edge and parents contemplating if they should keep their children at home for the rest of the school year. Anti-Semitic images, threats, slurs and songs were posted on the website of North Shore Hebrew Academy High School in Great Neck. They were also included in emails sent to the school’s parents and students on Monday afternoon. Skyler Askari, 15, a 10th-grader at the private high school, told JNS tha...
(JNS) - Israel's Deni Avdija recently moved from Israel to Washington, found an apartment, met with the media at a Washington Wizards press conference and ate his first meal at Chipotle Mexican Grill. "I really liked the idea of Chipotle. I like to eat healthy. And it was kind of healthy!" Avdija, the 19-year-old Maccabi Tel Aviv phenom, was taken No. 9 overall by the Wizards in the recent NBA Draft. The 6-foot-9 inch, 225-pound forward is excited to play in the NBA and understands what it...
NEW YORK CITY — As the number of Israeli families suffering from financial hardship and related challenges increases dramatically amid the coronavirus pandemic, UJA-Federation of New York announced nearly $3.5 million in new emergency Covid-19 relief grants in Israel. UJA will award grants to several organizations that support the most at-risk Israelis, including children, the newly poor, and struggling small businesses. In addition, the grants will help strengthen Israel’s ability to respond to Covid-related challenges with enhanced lea...
(JNS) - Lisa McClain will join the record-number of Republican women elected this year to the U.S. House of Representatives following her landslide victory over Democrat Kimberly Bizon, 66.3 percent to 33.7 percent, respectively, in Michigan's 10th Congressional District to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell. "I think America spoke," said McClain in an interview with JNS on Nov. 24, adding that the Republican women elected have "traditional American values." Before being elected to...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to appoint six individuals to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Those named to the council, which is the governing body of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., include David Marchick, who served as the Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration; Republican strategist Jeffrey Miller, founder and CEO of Miller Strategies; U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Adam S. Boehler; Miami Beach investor Jimmy Resnick; former U...
EAST POULTNEY, Vt. (Bennington Banner via JTA) - The autumn leaves crunched underfoot as Netanel Crispe walked uphill toward the northwest corner of the small cemetery. He stopped and examined a toppled headstone. "The last time I was here this was standing up," he said, regarding the weathered, gray stone. "At least it hasn't broken." Crispe brushed away the leaves to reveal a carving at the top of the stone: two raised hands, the gesture used in the delivery of the Birkat Kohanim, Judaism's...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) - Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called on the Trump administration to declassify a report detailing the current number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving aid from the U.N. Works and Relief Agency for Palestinian Refugees. "Very important that the Trump administration declassify the report that provides a current estimate of the number of Palestinian refugees who are receiving support. This goes to the heart of speaking hard truths in...
(JTA) — The Supreme Court blocked government restrictions on houses of worship imposed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in a late-night ruling Wednesday. Deciding two cases at once — one brought by Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization representing haredi Orthodox Jews, and one brought by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn — the court ruled that restrictions placed on New York’s “red zones” with high COVID test positivity rates unfairly discriminated against houses of worship. The decision, which split 5-4, was the first in which Justi...
(JTA) - In the more than 30 years that Rabbi Chaim Dovid Zwiebel has worked at Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization and advocacy group representing haredi Orthodox Jews, he can't remember a single year where as much of the group's work took place in court. There was the lawsuit challenging New York State for applying different standards on attendance at houses of worship than at businesses. Agudath Israel filed an amicus brief supporting the plaintiffs. There was the case in which Orthodox...
(JNS) A minor league baseball stadium in Lakewood, N.J., served as the outdoor meeting ground for some 500 participants in the JBiz 2020 COVID-19 Business Expo and Conference sponsored by the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. The event held on Nov. 16 was attended by both Jews and non-Jews, and featured a recorded message from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and an address by Mark Zelden, director of the Center for Faith & Opportunity Initiatives, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Several local politicians were also in attendance inclu...
When the first wave of coronavirus infections reached the American South, Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, knew the religious school's classes at his synagogue would have to move online. But he also knew his institution was ill-equipped to make that change. "We are a small congregation – 170 households – and our religious school is generally run by volunteer teachers," Cytron-Walker said. "We don't have a paid religious school director. When COV...
