Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 655 - 679 of 1890
(JTA) — The Orthodox Union is setting up meetings between members of Congress and Orthodox Jewish constituents who are alarmed by antisemitic incidents since last month’s Israel-Gaza conflict, and by what they see as Congress’ failure to have Israel’s back. “Many in Congress failed to stand up for Israel’s right as a sovereign nation to act in self-defense,” says a page on the umbrella group’s website that facilitates meetings between constituents and their lawmakers. “Further, while the battle between Israel and Hamas raged, we witnessed a sh...
(JNS) - Groups of Jews and other community members in Arizona and Ohio gathered on Sunday to express their concern over the recent rise in anti-Semitism across the country and around the world. In Cincinnati, hundreds attended the "Under the Tent, Standing Against Antisemitism" event to stand in solidarity against Jew-hatred in Ohio and elsewhere. "We join together as Jews and allies to send a strong message that we will not tolerate hate and anti-Semitism in any form," said Gary Greenberg,...
(JNS) - The Jewish United Fund is taking the fight over antisemitism to residents of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs with a major media blitz that included TV ads, billboards, social-media posts and more. The "Stop Antisemitism" media campaign, which launched in late May, is being undertaken because of the rise of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions across the country and in Western Europe. During Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza in mid-May, anti-Semitic attacks soared worldwide and...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Some 5,000 new immigrants from the United States and Canada are scheduled to immigrate to Israel by the end of 2021, according to new data published by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization in conjunction with Israel's Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency for Israel and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund USA. Nefesh B'Nefesh has reported a spike in the number of immigration requests and files opened during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, the o...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A key Supreme Court decision on religious freedoms earned praise from Orthodox Jewish groups, and has more liberal groups breathing a sigh of relief that its scope was narrow. On Thursday, the court issued a unanimous decision overturning Philadelphia’s policy of refusing to work with a Catholic agency that will not place foster children with same-sex parents. Jewish groups had filed friend-of-the-court briefs on both sides of the case, known as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. Orthodox groups, driven by concerns about religio...
(JTA) — Organizers of an event celebrating immigrant chefs in Philadelphia removed an Israeli food truck from the lineup, citing “the concerns of community that we love and serve.” But the bid to calm controversy by Eat Up the Borders, the organizer of the event on Sunday, backfired: After announcing the removal, thousands of people replied, with varying levels of vitriol, questioning why the group associated a chef living in Philadelphia to the policies of a country nearly 6,000 miles away. A congressman representing Philadelphia relea...
(JTA) - A team of journalists once employed by the flagship Jewish newspaper in Los Angeles is trying to create an alternative news source for America's second-largest Jewish community. SoCal Jewish News announced itself last month with a GoFundMe campaign and a July 19 target launch date. Without mentioning the 35-year-old Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, the new website emphasizes that it will be different from the Jewish news currently on offer in the city. SoCal Jewish News is...
(JNS) — Pro-Israel America announced 30 congressional endorsements for the 2022 election cycle on Tuesday. The bipartisan PAC endorsed 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans in total, which the group says are “proven leaders on issues related to the U.S.-Israel relationship and who are running for re-election next year.” Pro-Israel America endorsed 12 Senate candidates, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mike Crapo (R-Ind.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Hoeve...
(JTA) — Bestselling authors Elin Hilderbrand and Casey McQuiston removed references to Anne Frank and Israel from their novels this week following an outcry on social media from small subsets of readers. The moves have ignited a storm of controversy in the literary world. The campaigns against the books have been successful despite appearing to be relatively small in size, and originate from wildly different perspectives on Jews and Israel. One takes the authors to task for a joke perceived as antisemitic, while the other objects to the mere m...
(JNS) — A Massachusetts state senator is under fire for comments he made legitimizing Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, as well as a call to replace Israel with a binational state. In a statement posted on his website on May 28, State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who serves the Middlesex and Worcester district, commented on the recent 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, urging “much-needed dialogue around this very serious and consequential conflict.” “Against the backdrop of hundreds of human lives lost over th...
(JNS) — A dozen Jewish Democratic lawmakers have issued a statement strongly condemning recent remarks made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who equated Israeli and U.S. actions to terrorist groups like Hamas and the Taliban. In a tweet on Monday, she wrote: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.” Her tweet also included a link to a video, where she questioned U.S. Secretary of St...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After a dozen Jewish Democrats in Congress asked Rep. Ilhan Omar to clarify remarks in which she grouped Hamas and the Taliban with the United States and Israel, she complied — but not before she got something off her chest. An insinuation in the request that she was covering for terrorists was Islamophobic, Omar said in a tweet, and she exhorted her colleagues to call first next time. “On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations,” Omar said Thursday afterno...
(JNS) - Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters prevented the unloading of an Israeli container ship from Asia at the Port of Oakland, Calif., on Friday, with the cooperation of the local longshoremen's union, which refused to unload the vessel. The protest was sponsored and organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, a pro-Palestinian BDS group operating in the Bay Area. In a Sunday Facebook post, the group, which claimed "thousands" streamed to the protest throughout Friday, praised...
In the past few weeks, the Israeli American Council has witnessed a disturbing rise in antisemitism across the United States. Israeli American and Jewish American students have experienced more and more cases of bias, harassment, and discrimination in their schools. IAC calls on students, parents, or educators that have experienced antisemitism or encountered antisemitic or anti-Zionist content in schools to file a complaint through the SchoolWatch platform. The IAC will bring these complaints to the attention of the school or district to...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Biden administration official said the U.S. government supports restocking Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system after it was depleted by last month’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Dozens of House members from both parties have said they would push Congress to appropriate funds to replenish the system should Israel make the request. Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, was here on Thursday reportedly seeking $1 billion for Iron Dome. In addition to Iron Dome funding, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Ea...
(JNS) — The teachers’ union for the San Francisco school district voted in favor of a resolution on May 19 to boycott Israel The United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), which is affiliated with the largest federation of unions in the United States, the AFL-CIO, is the first K-12 union of public-school teachers in America to officially back BDS. This is also the first time since 2016 that any American union has officially supported the BDS movement, according to The Jewish News of Northern California. The resolution’s last sentence calls...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) - Tucked between a dance school and a '60s retro lounge on a quiet street in Tucson, Arizona, sits a small Middle Eastern and African foods store. But the Al Basha Grocery isn't just a place to get kosher meats and hard-to-find ingredients. "It provides an opportunity for people to see each other as real people and have a normal interaction with people who ordinarily might not interact in their day-to-day lives," said Jesse Davis, a regular Al Basha...
(JTA) — The chancellor of New Jersey’s flagship public university condemned antisemitism and then, following protest from a pro-Palestinian student group, apologized for the condemnation. On Wednesday, the chancellor of Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Christopher J. Molloy, released a statement condemning antisemitism, which spiked across the country during and after the recent fighting in Israel and Gaza. The statement also condemned “all forms of bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, and oppression, in whatever ways they may be ex...
SKOKIE, Ill. (JTA) — After a synagogue in this Chicago suburb was vandalized on May 16 in what police are calling a hate crime, local rabbis could not dwell on the damage: They had to prepare for Shavuot, the two-day Jewish holiday that began that evening. A week later, though, the rabbis were the engine behind a 500-person rally in this heavily Jewish town against antisemitism. Skokie perhaps is best known as the place town where, in 1977, free-speech advocates fought for neo-Nazis to be able to march, only to have the eventual rally be o...
(JTA) — The organization that advises U.S. Jewish communities on security matters said it recorded an 80 percent spike in antisemitic acts in the last month amid Israel’s 11-day war with Hamas. One of the causes, according to the Secure Community Network, was disinformation spread on social media during and since the exchange of rocket fire. “There may be foreign actors spreading information and disinformation, often tied to antisemitic tropes,” Michael Masters, its CEO, said Tuesday in an interview. “We’re seeing a clear rise in the calls f...
(JNS) — The city council of Cambridge, Mass., rejected a resolution supporting the BDS movement. The resolution, Policy Order #109, was voted down after nearly seven-and-a-half hours of public testimony by more than 300 people late Tuesday. The proposed resolution sought to direct the city manager to “review corporate contracts and identify any companies that are in violation of Cambridge’s policy on discrimination, including (but not limited to) Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Hewlett Packard Incorporated over their role in abetting apart...
(JTA) — At least four cases of intimidation or assault against Jews have been reported in the United States since Thursday, in a continuation of what many fear is one of the country’s worst spate in years of antisemitic violence. On Saturday, six men assaulted and punched two Jewish teenagers in Brooklyn on 18th Avenue and Ocean Parkway, reported VINnews. The news site interviewed Mitchel Schwartz, the father of one of the teenagers. One of the men told the teenagers “free Palestine” and made additional references to Israel, the report said. Th...
(JNS) - Snir Dayan and Amit Skornik were hoping for a quiet bagel breakfast last week on a typical day in New York City. But instead, a group of pro-Palestinian protestors tried to punch some holes in them close to 52nd Street and Third Avenue in Manhattan in front of Ess-a-Bagel. It was one of several recent attacks against Jews in New York City by Palestinians or Palestinian supporters, but this time, it turned out a bit differently. Dayan, 27, and Skornik, 26, were trained in Krav Maga, and...
(JTA) — When Ricki moved into her new ground floor apartment in New York City less than a year ago, she felt perfectly comfortable placing a mezuzah on the front door for all who passed through the lobby to see. Today she feels less sanguine about that choice. Ricki hasn’t removed the mezuzah, but she has asked the building’s management to put bars on her windows. And she’s still considering taking down the Jewish symbol. “When I put it up I was really proud of it,” Ricki said, declining to use her last name due to privacy concerns. ...
(JNS) — Inna Vernikov remembers what life was like for families in the former Soviet Union when she was a child. “I remember standing in very long lines with my grandfather—he’d have a ticket so we could get one loaf of bread and one bottle of milk for the entire family,” said Vernikov, who was born in Czernovitz, Ukraine, and immigrated with her family to the United States at the age of 12. Memories like this, the desire to effect change on issues related to crime and New York’s economy, as well as her perception of a parallel between the...
