Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1197 - 1221 of 1920
(JTA)—Rabbi Mordechai Shain isn’t sure about vaccines. Nearly all of the 400 kids in the school he runs, from 3 months old to eighth-grade teens, are vaccinated. About eight or 10 are not. But he’s skeptical that immunization works at all. “My doctor in shul says everyone should take a flu shot, so a lot of people went,” said Shain, the head of school at the Tenafly Chabad Academy in Northern New Jersey, about 13 miles from Manhattan. “Ninety percent that took a flu shot got flus and the 10 percent didn’t get the flu. … I speak to so many docto...
(JTA)-"This is my anti-Semitic song," Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian-Israeli rapper, said at the opening of a conference on Gaza last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I know it might sound [like] R&B stuff, but don't think of Rihanna when you sing it, don't think of Beyonce," he continued. "Think of Mel Gibson. Go that anti-Semitic. Let's try it together because I need your help. I cannot be anti-Semitic alone." Nafar then launched into "Mama, I fell in love with a Jew," a...
NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS—Taxpayers suing to stop anti-Israel and anti-Semitic history lessons in Newton Public Schools have added to their lawsuit new claims under the First Amendment’s religion clauses. The amended complaint alleges that instructional and educational materials used to teach about the religion of Islam in NPS ninth-grade world history classes have no secular purpose, advance religious beliefs, and coerce participation in religious exercises. As detailed in the extensively-documented 495-page complaint, public school students in...
OCEANSIDE, N.Y. (JTA)-Nine years ago, Ellen Grossman wanted to do something special for her birthday. "I said we've had enough parties and enough pocketbooks and enough jewelry-do something different," the Great Neck resident recalled. So she decided to organize a Passover seder for Holocaust survivors, many of whom who had no actual seder to go to during the holiday. That was in 2011. When the first seder was a success, Grossman decided to keep going. On Wednesday, some 85 guests-Holocaust...
The Zionist Organization of America condemned New York University today for deciding to confer a President’s Service Award on NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, a group with a horrific record of harassing and intimidating Jewish and pro-Israel students. After SJP announced on Facebook that it had been selected to receive a presidential service award, the ZOA repeatedly reached out to NYU officials to confirm the truth of SJP’s announcement. Officials have not responded. The President’s Service Award recognizes student groups...
LAS VEGAS (JTA)—President Donald Trump questioned traditional Jewish support for Democrats in a stem-winding speech to Jewish Republicans. “How did you support President Obama, how did you support the Democrats?” Trump said Saturday addressing the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas. “We didn’t,” the crowd replied, twice. “You guys didn’t, probably you guys in this room didn’t,” he said. Jewish voters have for decades favored Democrats in elections, usually by substantial majorities of about 70 percent. Trump received a h...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Signaling a red line on how far Modern Orthodoxy is prepared to bend to adjust to societal changes, a liberal New York City seminary will not ordain an openly gay student who is engaged to be married and completing his fourth year of rabbinical studies this spring, The Jewish Week has learned. In a statement to The Jewish Week, Yeshivat Chovevei Torah student Daniel Atwood, 27, wrote: “Four years ago I came out as gay during my first year at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School, and it was decided that I w...
In an unprecedented event, hundreds from San Antonio's Jewish community, joined by Jewish leaders from throughout the U.S. and Israel, celebrated and expressed appreciation the past four decades of the ardent Israel support of Pastor John and Diana Hagee. Arguably, this is the first time any Jewish community came together to express true respect and appreciation for a Christian leader. This was not just a once-in-a-generation event, it's the first in any generation. The event was historic for...
Laurie Cardoza-Moore has called on President Trump to have Ilhan Omar's connections to the subversive Muslim Brotherhood thoroughly investigated. "If an organization which seeks the demise of America has managed to infiltrate Congress, it might be time for the commander-in-chief to take action," Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations and show host of the program "Focus On Israel," stated to 4,000 media professionals at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in...
(JNS)—Vice President Mike Pence blasted Democratic freshmen in the House of Representatives on Monday, in addition to certain candidates on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, for the former using “rank anti-Semitic language” and the latter for declining to attend the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) annual policy conference in Washington. At the same time, he touted the Trump administration’s pro-Israel accomplishments, including the United States withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and relocating the U.S. emba...
(JNS)—Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), as part of a series of addressing fundraisers for groups that promote Islamic extremism, appeared at a fundraiser on Sunday, March 24, for a political action committee affiliated with the Council on American Islamic Relations. The private event in California was hosted by CAIR-CA PAC and only allowed the first 100 confirmed guests to attend, according to a screenshot of the meet-and-greet invite acquired by The Washington Free Beacon. “CAIR has a long history of being a vicious anti-Semitic Israel-hating gro...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Rep. Ilhan Omar hit back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after they called out the first-year congresswoman at the AIPAC policy conference for her attacks on the lobby and support for the Israel boycott movement. Pelosi, D-Calif., told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual confab on Tuesday that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel was a form of bigotry. Americans must “be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as po...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The American Israel Public Affairs Committee wants you to know it will not be silenced. “When they try to silence us, we speak up, and when they tell us to sit down, we stand up, we stand up,” Howard Kohr, the Israel lobby’s CEO, said in his set-the-tone speech at the launch Sunday of this year’s annual conference. “We. Stand. Up.” Mort Fridman, AIPAC’s president, picked up the theme that afternoon. “None of us are willing to be silenced or intimidated,” he said. And Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., who has had a long and close rela...
(JNS)—The decision last week by the U.S. State Department to change its designation of the Golan Heights from “Israeli-occupied” to “Israeli-controlled” in its annual human-rights report comes amid a push for the United States to officially recognize Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, which it captured in the 1967 Six-Day War. Additionally, the report’s section on the West Bank and Gaza did not label those areas as being “occupied” or under “occupation.” The current U.S. policy on who controls the West Bank and Gaza is that the final s...
(JTA)—Two student activists confronted Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the 50 Muslims killed in an attack on a New Zealand mosque and accused her of being a cause of the massacre. New York University students Leen Dweik, who is Muslim, and Rose Asaf, who is Jewish, approached Clinton at the vigil held at the school Friday night. According to The Washington Post, they took issue with Clinton’s recent tweet about Rep. Ilhan Omar, after the Minnesota congresswoman was accused of promoting anti-Semitic tropes in her own tweet. Clinton had res...
(JNS)-Undergraduate students at Brown University are expected to vote on a referendum from March 19-21, calling on the school to divest from Israel. "The #BrownDivest campaign is organized by a coalition of undergraduate students to identify and divest from companies that profit from Israeli violations of human rights," states the referendum. It accuses the university of doing business that "engage in human-rights violations," such as "Boeing, Caterpillar, G4S, Hewlett Packard Enterprise CO,...
(JTA)—Add Beto O’Rourke to the already crowded field of Democratic candidates hoping to unseat President Donald Trump. The El Paso native and former congressman hopes to build on the buzz that accompanied his unsuccessful but oh-so-close campaign against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz in last year’s Texas Senate race. O’Rourke, a Roman Catholic, has clashed at times with the local Jewish community, particularly his vote in 2014 against funding for Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defense system. H...
(JNS)—The Democratic Party has long been viewed by most Jewish Americans as its political home. Influenced by the Jewish people’s long history of persecution, urban lifestyle and generally liberal political outlook, American Jews are some of the most reliable Democratic voters with nearly three of out four Jews supporting Democratic presidential candidates in recent elections. Recently, however, the Democratic Party has begun a demographic and political transformation as increasing numbers of minorities and progressive voters—many spurred on by...
ST. LOUIS (St. Louis Jewish Light via JTA)-A Jewish cemetery in a suburb here has opened a section for the burial of cremated remains and will allow for the burial of non-Jewish, immediate family members of Jews who are buried at the cemetery. The decision by the board governing Beth Shalom Cemetery in Chesterfield is an acknowledgement of two non-traditional trends in Jewish life: More Jews are ignoring the religious taboo against cremation and interfaith marriages have become more prevalent....
WASHINGTON (JTA)—President Donald Trump promoted on his Twitter feed a group founded by Republicans that hopes to draw young Jews away from the Democratic Party. “‘Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party,’” Trump said Tuesday morning on his feed, quoting Elizabeth Pipko, a spokeswoman for “Jexodus,” who appeared the same morning on “Fox and Friends” on the Fox News network. “Jexodus” was launched last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference by Jeff Ballabon, a Republican strategist who advised the Trump presidential ca...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Trump administration ended the policy of referring to the West Bank and the Golan Heights as “occupied” by Israel. The State Department’s annual report on global human rights issues, issued Wednesday, drops the “occupied” language from passages on the West Bank, Golan Heights and Gaza. It refers to the Golan Heights as “Israeli-controlled.” A State Department official argued that the change did not signal a shift in department policy on the territories. Why it matters: The Trump team has broken from precedent established by...
(JNS)—The student government at Columbia University rejected a referendum on Sunday night calling on the school to support the movement to boycott Israel. After a four-hour intense meeting consisting of more than 150 onlookers, the Columbia College Student Council failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to pass the BDS proposal, similar to one in 2017 that also proved unsuccessful. “Students worked very hard to defeat this BDS campaign and should be commended for their work. Columbia/Barnard Hillel will continue to invest in con...
(JNS)—John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 on Monday. Despite having led a state with a relatively small Jewish community, Hickenlooper has a wide-ranging relationship with the Jewish state, including two trips to Israel as the leader of the Centennial State between 2011 and 2019. During his first 100 days in office, Hickenlooper, 67, organized a meeting between 65 Israeli and Colorado water officials to share ideas surrounding water problems and m...
(JNS)—Twelve pro-Israel groups delivered a letter on Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), urging for the removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the committee amid the Minnesota congresswoman’s latest anti-Semitic remarks. “Speaker Pelosi, you demonstrated wisdom and leadership in rebuking Rep. Omar on February 11 following her use of anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Chairman Engel, your reaction to the classic anti-Semitic trope of the charge of ‘dual loyalty’ about Ame...
(JTA)-John Hickenlooper is the latest Democrat who thinks he can win back the White House in 2020. The former Colorado governor and self-described "extreme moderate" announced his candidacy on Monday and is holding his first campaign rally this week. "Ultimately I'm running for president because I believe that not only can I beat Donald Trump, but that I am the person that can bring people together on the other side and actually get stuff done," he said on "Good Morning America." During his...
