Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Washington Jewish Week via JTA) — Federal and international law enforcement agencies are investigating the theft of $7.5 million from the United Jewish Endowment Fund, an arm of The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and diverted to international accounts. The theft was discovered on Aug. 4, but made known to the federation’s board on Wednesday after federal law enforcement lifted a blackout on the information, federation CEO Gil Preuss said. Preuss said the funds were taken from a single organization’s fund managed by the United Jewis...
(JNS) — Several left-wing Jewish groups have filed a petition to initiate the removal of the Zionist Organization of America from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston in the latest battle being waged between ZOA and liberal members of American Jewish community. The petition — filed by 21 JCRC Council members, including 11 representatives from the Workmen’s Circle, J Street, Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action, Jewish Labor Committee, Keshet, New Israel Fund and Women of Reform Judaism — claims that rhetoric used by ZOA...
(JTA) - Like many synagogues, Temple B'nai Hayim used to rely on the High Holiday season to survive financially. The small Conservative synagogue in Southern California would receive the lion's share of its revenue in the run-up to the holidays: Members sent in their annual dues, which included entry to High Holiday services, and non-members purchased tickets just for the High Holidays. But with the option of holding regular in-person High Holiday services off the table due to the coronavirus,...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — The Alliance for Academic Freedom, which describes itself as a group of more than 120 progressive and liberal academic scholars, have announced their support for Rose Ritch, who resigned from her position as USC student vice president earlier this month. In an Aug. 24 statement titled “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been a Zionist?” the AAF noted that then-student president Truman Fritz faced calls for impeachment in June over allegedly racially insensitive remarks; Ritch also faced calls for impeachment for being...
(JTA) — Kamala Harris, the California senator who is the Democratic vice presidential nominee, told Jewish supporters that Joe Biden, the presidential nominee, would not place any conditions on US aid to Israel. “Joe has made it clear he will not tie security assistance to any political decisions that Israel makes and I couldn’t agree more,” Harris said Wednesday in a call arranged by the Biden campaign for Jewish donors. “The Biden Harris administration will sustain our unbreakable commitment to Israel’s security, including the unprecedented m...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, highlighted President Donald Trump’s Israel policies to make the case he has advanced a robust foreign policy. Haley depicted Joe Biden, the former vice president, and President Barack Obama as practicing a foreign policy of “weakness,” including their administration’s dealings with Iran. “Obama and Biden let Iran get away with murder and literally sent them a plane full of cash,” Haley said. “President Trump did the right thing and ripped up the Iran nuclear deal...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was among the victims of a gunman who attacked a high school in Parkland, Florida, delivered remarks at the opening night of the Republican convention. Pollack, who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, has praised the president in the past for emphasizing school safety instead of gun control. “The president did what he said he would do,” Pollack, who is Jewish, said Monday. “He took action. He formed the School Safety Commission that issued dozens of recommendations to make schools safe....
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Lee Zeldin, the Jewish Long Island Republican congressman, made the case for President Donald Trump by talking up his own service to his constituents and telling a harrowing personal story. In getting a good word in for himself, Zeldin's pitch for Trump Wednesday night was affecting and also typical of the genre: He described the premature birth of his twins, and how the expertise of the medical staff who saved them engendered an affection that helped spur him to ask Trump...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - There were rabbis, there were arguments, there was fretting over the future, there was mishpacha, but snacks you had to bring yourself. The first virtual convention, held by Democrats online because of the coronavirus pandemic, had many of the same Jewish moments as real-life conventions of the past. They included both rabbinic invocations from the main stage and side rooms with hobnobbing among Jews from across the country, even if those rooms lacked kosher nosh this time aro...
(JTA) — In early June, as anti-racism protests swept the country in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha, Wisconsin, signed onto an interfaith letter supporting peaceful protest and condemning “a broken societal system which disproportionately affects communities of color.” This week, Kenosha became an epicenter of renewed protest after a police officer shot a Black man, Jacob Blake, seven times in the back. And on Wednesday night, the 93-year-old synagogue’s driveway was graffitied with the words ...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Gabby Giffords, the Jewish former congresswoman who became a leader in the gun control movement after being shot by an assailant in the head in 2011, opened the third night of the Democratic convention with an appeal to elect Joe Biden president. "We can let the shooting continue or we can act," Giffords said in a recorded video that opened the proceedings Wednesday at the convention, held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. "We can protect our families, our...
(JNS) - The Democratic National Convention hosted an imam from an Islamic extremist institution on Sunday. Noman Hussain, imam of ISM Brookfield in Wisconsin, was one of the religious leaders who took part in the convention's "Interfaith Welcome Service." Hussain is a scholar at the Texas-based Qalam Institute, whose officials have advocated "the use of female sex slaves, the killing of adulterers, and incite hatred against Jews and other non-Muslims," according to the Middle East Forum. One of...
SAN FRANCISCO (J. the Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — When the evacuation orders came last night, Guerneville resident Sonia Tubridy and her daughter packed the car and left, joining a caravan of vehicles fleeing the North Bay area and the fires that threatened to engulf them. Tubridy, cultural director of the Russian River Jewish Community, was among the thousands of people ordered to evacuate from fires burning 46,000 acres across a vast area covering five counties and stretching from Vacaville north to Lake Berryessa and out t...
(JNS) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law on Monday to require an ethnic-studies course requirement for matriculation from California State University, starting with the 2021-22 school year. Spearheaded by the AMCHA Initiative, 90 education, civil-rights and religious groups had called on Newsom to veto the bill, AB-1460. The organizations noted an important distinction between the broad field of ethnic studies — with its goal of understanding and celebrating the contributions of the state and country’s diversity — and the...
(JNS) - Due to global coronavirus pandemic, this year's CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis) student conference was held via Zoom, teaching students how to effectively combat anti-Israel and biased propaganda on college campuses and online. Unable to attend the typical five-day, in-person training session in Boston, more than 100 students from 66 universities in North America, the United Kingdom and Israel joined together virtually earlier this month,...
(JNS) - After denouncing racist, anti-Semitic fliers left around his community earlier this month and then being threatened by a neo-Nazi leader, Rabbi Shlomo Litvin of Lexington, Ky., aims to educate others on what Judaism and anti-Semitism are all about. The trouble began more than a week ago when people in suburban Lexington neighborhoods received fliers urging "Aryan men and women stand up" and said, in part, "Blood and Soil ... Jews will not replace us, Blacks will not replace us, Mexicans...
(JTA) - It's official: Kamala Harris is Joe Biden's choice for vice president. The California senator, who made history Tuesday as the first Black woman to join a major party presidential ticket, is still in her first term. But during several years in public office, the 55-year-old lawmaker's outspoken opinions on a range of issues and her presidential run have given Jewish voters plenty to scrutinize. She is also married to Jewish lawyer Douglas Emhoff, who would become the country's first...
(LOS ANGELES) - StandWithUs announces the launch of its new division, Rabbis United. Rabbis United will enable StandWithUs to connect more closely with rabbis and other Jewish community leaders and their congregations from a variety of denominations and backgrounds in cities around the world. The newest division of StandWithUs will ensure that rabbis and Jewish community leaders have access to community-building tools, including: • A multimedia library of educational materials, programs, s...
By(JTA) — The Reform movement has received a $600,000 multi-year grant to support racial equity, inclusion and diversity work. The Union for Reform Judaism said Wednesday that it had received funding from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to fight racism and back inclusion across its institutions. Reform is the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. The movement will work to recruit a more diverse staff and board with a focus on racial justice, a statement said, while also addressing discrimination against LGBTQ, disabled and l...
(JNS) - Jewish and Israel-related groups expressed mixed reactions to the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, picking Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate. Organizations from the Democratic Majority for Israel to J Street praised the selection of Harris, who would be the first African-American and South Asian to be picked as a running mate for a major-party candidate. She would also be the third woman tapped for the vice-presidenti...
(JTA) - Before the coronavirus pandemic hit New York City, Rabbi Avi Greenstein knew he needed to make a big push to have people in his neighborhood fill out the census. In Borough Park, where Greenstein serves as executive director of the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, only 49.2 percent of residents filled out the census in 2010, the last year it was conducted, compared to 61.9 percent across New York City. Thus the neighborhood, where many Orthodox Jews live, lost out on federal funding...
(JTA) — No matter what happens in Ilhan Omar’s primary today, one thing is clear: Some Jewish voters in Minnesota and across the country will be deeply disappointed. Omar has the support of some local and progressive Jews who are excited about supporting a member of “The Squad,” a quartet of prominent progressive freshmen congresswomen that also includes Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib. But Omar — who represents Minnesota’s 5th District, which includes Minneapolis — has repeatedly angered a large segment of th...
(LOS ANGELES, CA) - StandWithUs is disappointed to learn that a Jewish student at University of Southern California has stepped down from student government as a result of anti-Semitic harassment from her peers. USC student government Vice President Rose Ritch announced her resignation in a statement, writing that she has been "harassed for weeks ... because I openly identify as a Zionist, a supporter of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state." She stated that "an attack on my Zionist...
By Marcy Oster (JTA) — The Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia said it will not work with the local chapter of the NAACP over “an alarming amount of bigoted and anti-Jewish sentiments” on his social media channels and the mosque he leads. Rodney Muhammad “still has yet to fully apologize for his most recent actions,” the federation said in a statement updated earlier this week. The statement also said that while the federation would continue to work with the national office of the NAACP and other local chapters, “our obligation to oppose...
Ronald Scheiman, who tracks the annual Chanukah stamp, stated that there would be a 2020 stamp, the date of issue has not been announced. “However, it should be sometime in October,” he said. The stamp was designed by art director Ethel Kessler with original art by Jing Jing Tsong. The USPS describes the stamp as follows: “The stamp art’s colorful illustration show the nine-branched Hanukkah menorah on the last evening of the holiday. All eight of the candles have been lit, and the child i...
