Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 604 - 628 of 1923
(JTA) — The Republican Jewish Coalition’s 2020 conference was one of the last Jewish conferences to be canceled as the pandemic set in: The group had gone so far as to order branded hand sanitizer. Now, it’s one of the first to resume, and it’s doing so amid a great deal of change relevant to the group’s agenda. There was the election of President Joe Biden last fall and the tumultuous transition as Donald Trump exited the White House while remaining a looming figure in the Republican Party. Then there was the death, in January, of Sheldon A...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) — An antisemitic tirade at a school board meeting in suburban Phoenix last week has spurred an extensive response among local officials and Jewish leaders — some of whom say they were distressed that board members did not rebut the comment at the time. During the public comment portion of the meeting of the Chandler Unified School District board, a woman who identified herself as Melanie Rettler spoke for over a minute about critical race theory and vaccines — topics not listed on the meeting agend...
LAS VEGAS (JTA) - The Republican Jewish Coalition conference was about 2022, and also 2024. It was about how a near Republican sweep in state and local races last week revealed a way back to GOP control of the federal government. It was about moving more Jews from D to R. What the conference this weekend was not about, the organizers wanted you to know, was Donald Trump. "It's about the here and now, it's not about President Trump or anybody else," Ari Fleischer, an RJC board member, told...
(JTA) — A third of Jewish college students say they have personally experienced antisemitism in the last year, according to a new survey conducted jointly by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League. The two groups recently announced a partnership aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses; the survey represents one of the first fruits of the relationship. The results add data and texture to the picture of Jewish life on campus that has been built in recent years in large part on anecdotes and firestorms. They suggest that the majority of...
(JTA) - The World Series just ended with the Atlanta Braves winning four to two against the Houston Astros, and there were more Jewish players in this year's edition than there have been in decades. The American League champion Houston Astros, who ousted Chaim Bloom's Boston Red Sox, feature star slugger Alex Bregman. The National League champion Atlanta Braves boast an impressive duo of Jewish play-ers: pitcher Max Fried and outfielder Joc Pederson. (The Astros did not include Jewish backup...
(JTA) — Jewish ace pitcher Max Fried delivered his Atlanta Braves to their first World Championship since 1995 with six shutout innings in Tuesday’s Game 6 of a World Series heralded as the most Jewish in base-ball history. The 27-year-old lefty held the Houston Astros to four hits, overcoming a potentially serious injury to strike out six without surrendering a run or a walk. The game contained what might have been the most Jewish play in any Major League Baseball matchup ever: In the bottom of the second inning, Astros star third baseman Ale...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Sunrise NYC, the local chapter of a national youth environmental group, rejected a decision by the Washington, D.C. chapter to shun cooperation with “Zionist” groups. “Sunrise NYC rejects antisemitism in all its forms, and condemns the choices made by the DC hub,” Sunrise NYC tweeted Friday, aligning itself with a statement made by the national organization. “We stand with our Jewish members and the Jewish community against prejudice, and we will continue to stand arm in arm together during this urgent mome...
(JTA) - Demonstrators posed as the antisemitic white supremacists who led a deadly rally in Virginia in 2017 in a stunt protest against the state's Republican candidate for governor, a sign of the increasing role charges of antisemitism are playing in the close race. The protest Friday against Glenn Youngkin, who is running for governor against former governor Terry McAuliffe, was organized by the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans. Youngkin and other Republicans condemned the...
(JNS) — A Jewish civil-rights group is calling on the University of Massachusetts Boston to investigate an incident that occurred this summer, where pro-Palestinian activists targeted and accosted a journalist over his views on Israel. The event took place on June 24 in front of the Anti-Defamation League’s New England Regional Office in Boston. Dexter Van Zile, a journalist with the watchdog group CAMERA, was “accosted, spat at, shoved, and called a Nazi and a pig solely based on his perceived identity as a Zionist,” by members of the UMass B...
(JTA) — Fear of antisemitism spurred 40 percent of American Jews to change their behavior over the past year, according to a new survey about antisemitism in America. The survey, released Monday, is the latest in an annual series commissioned by the American Jewish Committee to understand how Jewish Americans and the general public experience and perceive antisemitism. A survey of American Jews found that over the last year, 17 percent said they “avoided certain places, events, or situations,” 22 percent avoided making themselves visua...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Washington D.C. branch of a national climate action group turned down a role at a voting rights rally because a “number of Zionist organizations” will be taking part. “Given our commitment to racial justice, self-governance and indigenous sovereignty, we oppose Zionism and any state that enforces its ideology,” Sunrise DC said in a statement it posted Tuesday on Twitter. The group named the National Council of Jewish Women, the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs as...
(JNS) — The pro-Israel student group Maccabee Task Force organized its first three-day conference to help strengthen the relationship between Black and Jewish communities. Roughly 100 people from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) attended the Black Student Leaders Summit, which was held from Oct. 1-3 in Atlanta, where many of the student leaders were based. The goal of the summit was to help re-establish an alliance that has increasingly split in the last decade as a result of politics and various social movements in the U...
(JTA) — The statue of Thomas Jefferson that will be removed from the chambers of the New York City Council at the urging of Black lawmakers was a gift in 1834 from one of the first Jewish officers in the U.S. military. The city’s Public Design Commission decided to remove the statue following complaints from Assemblymen Charles Barron, Councilwoman Inez Barron and others that Jefferson was a slaveholder. The statue, which has stood in the city council’s chambers for over a century, was commissioned by Uriah Phillips Levy, a lifelong fan of Je...
NEW YORK (JTA) — Three rabbis and six Jewish teenagers were among those arrested Monday at a climate protest at the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest investment management company in New York. The demonstration, organized by the Jewish Youth Climate Movement with support from the interfaith organization GreenFaith, demanded the firm stop its investments in and cut ties with companies that fund the fossil fuel industry, which include Enbridge, Inc., Formosa Plastics and Shell. Rabbis Rachel Timoner and Stephanie Kolin of Congregat...
(JTA) — A Jewish man who asked for a new trial on the grounds that the judge who sentenced him to death was antisemitic will be granted a new trial. Randy Halprin, 44, was originally set to be executed on Oct. 10, 2019 but won a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after he alleged that the judge who presided over his 2003 murder trial was biased against Jews and referred to him using antisemitic slurs, including “f—in’ Jew” and “k-ke.” The stay sent Halprin’s case back to Dallas County, where Judge Lela Lawrence Mays heard Halprin’s...
(Israel InSight via JNS) - The Northeast Alabama Cherokee held a ceremony on Sept. 25 in Guntersville, Ala., to establish a relationship with Israel. There, the tribe presented a resolution, unanimously passed by the Tribal Council, recognizing the "sovereign Jewish nation" of Israel, with Jerusalem as its "eternal undivided capital." "We vow our full support in the pursuit of the peace of Jerusalem and the Nation of Israel by whichever means may be necessary," it said. The event, centered...
By (JTA) — Teachers in a Texas school district were told last week that a new state law requiring them to present multiple perspectives about “widely debated and currently controversial” issues meant they needed to make “opposing” views on the Holocaust available to students. NBC News obtained an audio recording of the official, the Carroll Independent School District’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, speaking to the teachers about how to work under the constraints of the new law, known as House Bill 3979. The law was passed...
(JTA) — After months of controversy and tens of thousands of public comments, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed off on legislation that eventually will require students to pass at least one course in ethnic studies in order to graduate from California high schools. Under the law, schools will have to offer at least one class in ethnic studies by 2025, and the graduation requirement will go into effect in 2029. Newsom’s signature on Friday caps an extended debate over the legislation, which was accompanied by a recommended curriculum tha...
(JNS) — For the second year in a row, the Jewish Federations of North America decided to go virtual, condensing its traditional multiple-day General Assembly into a 90-minute online video stream on Sunday due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The conference highlighted the fact that despite an unusual year-and-a-half, JFNA has had more to do than ever in the midst of the COVID crisis and a worldwide rise in anti-Semitism. Multiple speakers noted the goal of strengthening Jewish communities, both in identity and physical security. Despite t...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Jewish Federations of North America is launching a campaign to expand its security program to every federation in the country, an initiative that will cost $54 million. JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut announced the initiative on Monday at the organization’s General Assembly in Washington. The new funding, to be raised over three years, will assist the 101 communities that have faced fundraising obstacles in establishing the security points in their communities so they too can join LiveSecure, a program launched after a spate of...
(Cleveland Jewish News via JNS) — Someone in a vehicle reportedly threw a beer bottle at a 13-year-old Fuchs Mizrachi School student in an Orthodox neighborhood in University Heights, Ohio, and screamed, “F******g Jews, you’re f*****g idiots, Jews,” and then drove away. Naava Prero had just gotten off a public school bus at the corner of Milton and Groveland roads at about 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday when the reported incident took place. As the bus pulled away, another vehicle pulled up to the girl, her mother, Rachel Prero, told the Clevela...
(JNS) — Hillel International has teamed up with the Anti-Defamation League and the Secure Community Network to launch an online portal where college students can report anti-Semitic incidents on their campus and receive immediate support. The creation of ReportCampusHate.org is in response to the growing threats of anti-Semitism on college campuses. Hillel International recorded 244 anti-Semitic incidents on college and university campuses last year, up from 181 the year before. It also comes after a recent survey found that 74 percent of c...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Republican Sen. Rand Paul blocked an expedited vote to approve $1 billion in funding to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system and received swift criticism from an array of pro-Israel groups. Sen. Robert Menendez, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, launched a bid Monday to pass the bill by unanimous consent, a procedure that accelerates passage by minimizing debate. Paul objected, saying he wanted the funding to come out of money earmarked to assist Afghanistan as it recovers from yea...
PITTSBURGH (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) - Tahara, the act of washing and purifying the deceased, is paramount to Jewish burial. So when the pandemic descended on the United States in March 2020, members of a Pittsburgh-based Jewish burial society devoted to the practice made a difficult decision. Given fears of COVID-19 transmission, members of the New Community Chevra Kadisha stopped traveling to funeral homes and performing the sacred act of tahara in person. Instead of physically...
(JTA) — When Rivka Taub Rivera decided to apply for a religious exemption to New York City’s vaccine mandate for teachers, she didn’t turn to the rabbis of Borough Park, the Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn where she lives. Instead, she asked Michoel Green, a Chabad rabbi who has openly opposed vaccination, to submit the required letter from a clergy member. Based in Massachusetts, Green was disaffiliated by a Chabad organization because of his anti-vaccination social media posts and has become a folk hero for some Orthodox Jews who oppos...
