Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1031 - 1055 of 1886
(JNS)-Up and down the state of California, synagogues, Hebrew schools and Jewish residents are dealing with effects of wildfires that have consumed tens of thousands of acres in recent days, from evacuations to school closures to days with no electricity as authorities try to limit the fire damage and danger. In Northern California, the Torah scrolls from Congregation Beth Ami in Santa Rosa were evacuated from the synagogue on Saturday as winds whipped flames from the Kincade Fire in nearby...
(JNS)—The watchdog group Stopantisemitism.org is calling on the U.S. Department of Education and Georgie State University to keep the “terror-affiliated” Council on American-Islamic Relations off U.S. college campuses. “The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an American front group for the terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Muslim Brotherhoods, is infiltrating the U.S. education system,” said the petition, which already has nearly 2,000 signatures. “Their anti-American agenda is infecting school curriculums, poisoning t...
(JTA)-Since announcing his presidential run in May, Michael Bennet has been polling between zero and 1 percent. He didn't qualify for the latest Democratic debate and he's a long shot to make the next one. The Colorado senator raised only $2.1 million in the third quarter of 2019, less than a tenth of the total brought in by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. But Bennet isn't ready to give up yet, believing he's got what it takes to beat President Donald Trump in 2020. "I'm unconvinced that...
(JTA)-Most of the news surrounding Houston Astros slugger Alex Bregman on Tuesday night focused on his "bat carry"-how he ostentatiously carried his bat down to first base while watching his first inning home run sail over the left field fence before dropping it. He apologized for the move after the game. But the Jewish third baseman's blast was historic, too: It was his fifth in a World Series, setting the all-time record for most World Series home runs by a third baseman. It was his third...
The headlines called it Paradise lost: The northern California town of Paradise, population 27,000, devastated in November 2018 by the so-called Camp Fire, the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California's recorded history. In addition to 86 people killed and 15 injured, the raging fire destroyed 18,804 structures over 240 square miles and took 17 days to get under control. Paradise residents lost homes, friends, relatives, pets and treasured possessions. It takes many professionals...
(JNS)—The American NGO Alums for Campus Fairness released a comprehensive report last week that documents what ACF describes as “systemic anti-Semitism and an ingrained delegitimization of Israel” at Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College. The 33-page dossier documents more than 100 incidents that have made Columbia and Barnard “a hotbed for hate” since the 2016-17 academic year. The catalogue categorized each act into one of these categories: anti-Semitic expressio...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—When it comes to pressuring Israel, Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have a specific plan. The senator from Massachusetts, who has caught up in polling with front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination, now faces intensified scrutiny as a newly viable contender. And what has emerged is that Warren is vague about how she would pressure Israel if she perceives it to be acting contrary to U.S. interests. In a video submitted to this week’s annual conference of J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, Warren offer...
(JTA)-Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will be honored by the World Jewish Congress. Haley will receive the WJC's annual Theodor Herzl Award, recognizing individuals who work to promote Herzl's ideals for a safer, more tolerant world for the Jewish people, WJC said in a statement. In addition, actor, singer, director, and photographer Joel Grey will be presented with the WJC's fourth Teddy Kollek Award for the Advancement of Jewish Culture. World Jewish Congress...
(JTA)—The Tree of Life synagogue building, the site of an attack a year ago that left 11 worshippers dead, will reopen as a “center for Jewish life in the United States.” The Tree of Life Congregation issued a statement to announce its “vision” for the building on Friday. The building, which was home to three different congregations, has not reopened since the Oct. 27, 2019 attack. The attack left the building “unsuitable for worship,” according to the statement. It was in need of serious repair and renovation before the attack took place, i...
(JTA)—Maryland state officials said they will strengthen requirements for Holocaust education in middle schools and high schools. The announcement by State Superintendent Karen Salmon comes days before the one-year anniversary of the shooting by a white supremacist gunman at a Pittsburgh synagogue building that left 11 worshippers dead Among the plans are to teach about the roots of anti-Semitism in middle school social studies classes and deepen instruction about the Holocaust in high school as part of history courses, The Washington Post r...
There is not a new Hanukkah stamp for 2019. The United States Postal Service says the 2018 Hanukkah stamp will be used, again, this year. They also say that the 2018 Hanukkah stamps are already in post offices, left over from last year. There, also, is not a new 2019 “Traditional” (religious) Christmas stamp. Again, the USPS says stock of those stamps are already in post offices. I’m sure every post office will have the Christmas stamps. However many will not have Hanukkah stamps. Past history has shown me this. If your local post office does...
(JTA)-Bernie Sanders was one of only two Democratic presidential candidates to address the Islamic Society of North America Convention in August, the largest annual gathering of Muslim Americans in the country. Organizers invited the 10 highest-polling contenders at the time to the Houston event, but the Vermont senator and Julian Castro were the only ones to accept. Sanders received loud applause and a standing ovation for a speech that repeatedly invoked his refugee father's flight from...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-More than eight in 10 American Jews say that anti-Semitism has spiked in recent years and even more believe it is a problem in the United States, according to an American Jewish Committee survey. Nearly three-quarters of respondents strongly disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling anti-Semitism and significantly more see the extreme political right as more of a serious threat to them than the extreme political left. The telephone survey of 1,283 Jewish adults...
(JTA)-People across the United States and around the world will join together virtually on the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue building in suburban Pittsburgh. The virtual commemoration, called "Pause with Pittsburgh," is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Oct. 27. The moment of solidarity and remembrance for the 11 people who were killed during the attack will include, for those in North America, a text including a video with the mourning prayer and a link to Pittsburgh's...
(JNS)—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) say they plan on endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The three freshmen congresswomen are scheduled to officially make the endorsement at a rally for Sanders on Saturday in New York. “Bernie is leading a working-class movement to defeat Donald Trump that transcends generation, ethnicity, and geography,” said Omar in a statement to NPR. “That is why he is fighting to cancel all stu...
(JNS)-A recent presentation during a mandatory meeting for the residential living team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that was replete with anti-Semitic references has come under fire from the pro-Israel community, with the school's chancellor denouncing the incident. Titled "Palestine & Great Return March: Palestinian Resistance to 70 Years of Israeli Terror," the slideshow presentation included libelous statements with one of the slides headlined "Brief History of the...
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (JTA)-The fourth Democratic presidential debate revealed fissures among the candidates on whether to keep U.S. troops in the Middle East. The 12 hopefuls on the stage Tuesday night at Otterbein University in this Columbus suburb were unanimous in describing President Donald Trump's pullout of American troops from Syria as catastrophic for the Kurds, U.S. allies in the war against the Islamic State who are now at the mercy of Turkish forces who invaded northern Syria following...
SARASOTA, Florida (JTA)-Most American Jewish day schools go all in on Chanukah, in part to remind their students that Jews have a winter holiday of their own. But when December rolls around at the Hershorin Schiff Community Day School in southwestern Florida, you're almost as likely to see kids drawing Christmas trees as menorahs or dreidels. That's because the school asks its students to design their own holiday plates-and almost half the students at this Jewish day school are not Jewish....
NEW YORK (JTA)—In the past seven years, the American Jewish population has grown 10 percent. It remains a population that is mostly liberal, college educated and overwhelmingly white. And it’s not getting any younger. This is all according to a new American Jewish population estimate of the 48 contiguous U.S. states put out by Brandeis University’s Steinhardt Social Research Institute. The center published similar studies in 2012 and 2015. “The cynicism about American Judaism, and this belief that we are a shrinking population, we are a vanis...
B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman has issued the following statement: The heavenly gates are closed; the book of life is inscribed. Another judgment day has passed. And Jonathan Pollard, a convict who spent 30 years in prison for spying on behalf of Israel, remains prohibited from returning to his adopted country—the Jewish state. Sure, he’s been released from prison since 2015. His parole requires him to stay in his New York home from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., to submit any computer he uses for inspection, and to wear a GPS dev...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Here's the sad paradox of the shooting nearly one year ago at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue: The killing of 11 worshippers, the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history, hit a community that was one of the best prepared to handle such an assault. In the year or so prior to the attack, Jewish community security officials had run dozens of training sessions that reached as many as 5,000 Pittsburgh Jewish residents. Many of the Tree of Life congregants knew not to stay in place...
(JNS)—Members of Congress spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives last week to recount their experiences of an “untold story of hope and opportunity” they encountered in Israel in August as part of a congressional tour sponsored by the U.S.-Israel Education Association. “We saw firsthand Israelis and Palestinians working together to promote peace and harmony... Many of the Palestinians were making between three and four times what they would otherwise earn if they did not have this opportunity to have this integrated busines...
(JNS)—U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other Democratic members of Congress and elected officials plan to address the annual J Street National Conference later this month, also featuring speakers from anti-Israel organizations including IfNotNow, the New Israel Fund, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) national and central councils. Schumer and Pelosi are frequent speakers at the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, o...
By Ellie Rudee (JNS)—“Direct pressure” by donors is the most likely way to induce the United Nations Relief and Works Agency to change, former UNRWA general counsel James Lindsay told JNS as the 74th session of the U.N. General Assembly came to a close last week in New York. Speaking from Geneva, Lindsay—the only former senior UNRWA official ever to have written a thorough critique of the agency, which is tasked with serving 5.6 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, eastern Jerusalem, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan—told JNS that whil...
NEW YORK (JTA)—The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed to 250 reported through the same period in 2018, according to Deputy Inspector Mark Molinari, who heads the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force. Molinari said 52 percent of the reported hate crimes, or 163, have targeted Jews. Over the same period last year, the NYPD rep...
