Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1404 - 1428 of 1886
(JTA)-Days after joining a pro-Israel group, Melissa Landa knew something had gone wrong: She said her mentor stopped working with her, pulling out of a conference presentation just days in advance. Landa didn't know that her mentor, John O'Flahavan, would then stop taking her calls. Or that O'Flahavan would soon dismiss her from teaching the education course she designed. Or that one year later, she would be fired from the college where she had taught for more than a decade. But in the late...
(JTA)-After he managed to bribe three van drivers to load their vehicles with aid supplies and drive him and his crew from the San Juan airport, Eli Rowe felt his humanitarian mission was off to a good start. Gas was scarce in Puerto Rico, but now all the food, medicine and hygienic supplies he had flown over from the mainland was making it into the Caribbean island's capital. Then he laid eyes on the city. It was devastated. "We saw sheer destruction everywhere," said Rowe, the CEO of Jet911,...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Mike Tolkin apologizes for checking his phone as he sits down at a café in this city's Flatiron district. The 32-year-old Democratic New York mayoral hopeful was waiting to hear Tuesday whether he would be allowed to participate in the final primary debate the following day, which would boost his exposure amid an otherwise quiet campaign. Tolkin, a technology entrepreneur and the youngest candidate on the party's ballot to challenge incumbent Bill de Blasio, had not met the...
When researchers at the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America reported earlier this year that public school history textbooks and curricular materials were indoctrinating students against Israel, some high school officials were dismissive. Ruth Goldman, chair of the Newton, Mass. school committee, told the Washington Free Beacon that it is “an old subject” and “had all been taken care of.” She also said the problems cited by CAMERA “happened before my time on the committee.” However, it has since been revealed that she se...
(JTA)-A few weeks ago, Holly Davies was getting ready to homeschool her kids and preparing the family for the High Holidays. When Hurricane Harvey hit, she helped evacuate 150 people from her neighborhood by airboat and shelter nearly 100 people in a local church. Then came the hard part. For the past three weeks, Davies has been leading a force of up to 300 volunteers who have mobilized to repair homes and synagogues in and around the heavily Jewish housing development of Willow Meadows....
(JTA)—Puerto Rico’s three synagogues closed for Rosh Hashanah as Hurricane Maria pummeled the island. The synagogues, all in or nearby San Juan, canceled Wednesday evening services for the Jewish New Year and urged members to stay home, according to The Times of Israel. Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning after causing widespread destruction on the Caribbean island nation of Dominica In Puerto Rico, which has 3.3 million residents, power outages were expected as strong winds ripped trees out of the ground Leaders of the Jew...
(JTA)-Tufts University's Hillel is described as "an organization that supports a white supremacist state" in a student-written guide to activist life at the university. The Tufts University Disorientation Guide offers information on social, spiritual, health and academic resources at the Boston-area university, but singles out Hillel for opprobrium, calling it a "Zionist space" and accusing it of "exploit(ing) black voices for their own pro-Israel agenda." The guide has been widely read and...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—A tweet by President Donald Trump on Friday night, with Houston recovering from Hurricane Harvey and his sister Irma set to ravage Florida, is renewing hope among Jewish groups that have long advocated for emergency assistance to houses of worship. “Churches in Texas should be entitled to reimbursement from FEMA Relief Funds for helping victims of Hurricane Harvey (just like others),” Trump said on Twitter, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Attempts in the past two Congresses to extend FEMA prote...
(JTA)-The Jewish community in Houston has seen "devastating" damage from Hurricane Harvey and could take years to recover, a federation official said. "Recovery like this-it is a disaster larger than Katrina in terms of the amount of water that fell-we're going to have short- and long-term recovery plans, but this is probably going to take us years to get back to where we were," said Taryn Baranowski, the chief marketing officer for the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Seventy-one percent...
(JTA)-As Hurricane Harvey bore down on Houston Friday, Vicki Samuels Levy dashed over to the offices of the Houston Jewish Herald-Voice, took the proofs of this week's newspaper and went to her mother's house. Then mother and daughter spent all night editing the paper. And as the waters rose and they had to be evacuated to a neighbor's house the next day, the proofs were in hand, ready for the printer. "We want to help each other as family members, then we have to stop and do things for the...
Two teams of Israeli aid experts are on their way to Texas to provide vital relief and psychosocial support to the thousands of people who have lost everything in the catastrophic Tropical Storm Harvey. The storm, which first hit Texas on Sunday and continues to plague the beleaguered state with pounding rain, has left nine dead, and tens of thousands of people homeless as flood waters have poured through city streets in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States. The storm is thought...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Bryn Mawr College in suburban Philadelphia said it will place a yearlong "moratorium" on the use of the name of a founder and past president who was a known anti-Semite. The name of the library and great hall are named for M. Carey Thomas, who served as the private college's president from 1894 to 1922. According to biographer Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Thomas prevented the hiring of Jewish teachers at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, and later made sure she was not dealing with...
NEW YORK (JTA)—The mayors of America’s largest cities are launching a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League to combat hate and bigotry. Nearly 200 mayors have joined the agreement, which was announced Friday, since it was first circulated Tuesday night among the U.S. Conference of Mayors. The mayors are agreeing to explicitly condemn racism, white supremacy and bigotry, and to implement educational and public safety programs to safeguard vulnerable populations and discourage discrimination. Signers include the mayors of New York Cit...
NEW YORK (JTA)-After the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, voices abounded calling the demonstration an affront to American values. Rabbi Shai Held called it an attack on God. "One of the most fundamental claims Judaism makes about the world is that every human being on the face of the earth-black and white, male and female-is created in the image of God and is therefore infinitely valuable," Held wrote last week in an essay on CNN.com. "An attack on other people's humanity is by...
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (JTA)-The white supremacists, for all their vaunted purpose, appeared to be disoriented. Some 500 had gathered at a park here Saturday to protest this southern Virginia city's plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the park. Pressured by the American Civil Liberties Union, Charlottesville had allowed the march at Emancipation Park-or Lee Park, the protesters' preferred name. That worked for an hour or so, and then the protesters and counter...
(JTA)-They believe the "white race" is in danger. They believe the United States was built by and for white people and must now embrace fascism. They believe minorities are taking over the country. And they believe an international Jewish conspiracy is behind the threat. These are the people who were rallying in Charlottesville. The "Unite the Right" rally Saturday saw hundreds of people on America's racist fringe converge in defense of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee and brawl...
(JTA)-Is it OK to punch a Nazi in the face? That's the question animating much of the discussion of Saturday's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which quickly devolved into a brawl between rally-goers and a contingent of anti-fascist counterprotesters known as antifa. Following the clashes, a white supremacist rammed his car into the counterprotest, killing Heather Heyer, 32. Leaders and activists across the spectrum have unequivocally condemned the racist, anti-Semitic...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—In an unusual statement, President Donald Trump called his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, “very pro-Israel,” an apparent bid to end a barrage of attacks from the far right that has depicted McMaster as hostile to Israel. “General McMaster and I are working very well together,” Trump said in a message relayed to media outlets late Friday. “He is a good man and very pro-Israel. I am grateful for the work he continues to do serving our country.” McMaster in recent days has removed from the National Security Coun...
KANSAS CITY (JTA)-Bronx-born, Queens-bred attorney Victor Bergman has lived in the Kansas City area for more than four decades-and in all that time, he hadn't found a true New York-style bagel. "Boiled first, glossy crust, soft interior-I really missed it a lot," he said. But here, in a suburban strip mall that shares its parking lot with a Walmart, Bergman's 40 years in the desert may be over: "They've done it," he said, awaiting a fresh-baked dozen. "These are the bagels I grew up with."...
WASHINGTON—Some Jewish Democrats and community activists are concerned at what they see as fresh signs that the party is distancing itself from Israel. The latest controversy began when Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said at a July 22 Town Hall meeting in New York City’s Bronx borough that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “does not have a plan for peace.” Asked by JNS.org to elaborate, Gillibrand declined to reiterate her criticism of Netanyahu. Her senior adviser, Glen Caplin, said only that Gillibrand is “one of the strongest...
Is a "mobilized faction" in the American Jewish community attempting to "censor" dovish views? The president of The Forward newspaper thinks so, but other editors and leaders of some left-of-center Jewish organizations see things differently. The dispute arises from the July 12 episode of the Jewish Broadcasting Service (JBS) television series "L'Chayim," which featured a panel discussion on freedom of speech in the Jewish community. At the center of the discussion was The Forward's decision to...
An award-winning journalist who broke the story of the group of Jewish women ejected from an LGBTQ march in Chicago last month has been reassigned to non-journalistic duties at the paper which ran the original report, the Windy City Times. Gretchen Rachel Hammond-whose June 24 story caused a national storm after she detailed how three women flying Jewish Pride flags embossed with the Star of David were instructed to leave the gathering by organizers from the Dyke March Collective-confirmed to...
Anti-Israel bias in the textbooks used by many American high schools may be to blame for the decrease in sympathy for Israel among young adults. According to the Brand Israel Group, only 54 percent of U.S. college students lean more toward Israel than the Palestinians, down from 73 percent in 2010. The decrease was even sharper among Jewish college students, dropping from 84 percent to 57 percent. “The problem starts in high school,” Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, founder of Hadassah’s Curriculum Watch division, told JNS.org. “There’s no doubt the lack...
It's early morning in the Sardinian countryside and a farmer is milking his sheep while an Orthodox Jewish kosher supervisor looks on. The supervisor, known as a mashgiach, is sleeping in the farmer's barn, and he'll be there all week. Welcome to the world of kosher cheesemaking. The weeklong kosher cheese run in Sardinia is just one of a number of methods that artisanal kosher cheesemaker Brent Delman, owner and founder of The Cheese Guy, uses to manufacture products for kosher consumers who...
When Jeffrey Kriezelman first started feeling the pain in his back, he shrugged it off as the vestige of an old baseball injury. A busy immigration lawyer whose Chicago firm helps immigrants and asylum seekers gain lawful status in the United States, Kriezelman also was an avid athlete who had spent many seasons playing outfield in a men’s senior baseball league. Between sports and long hours at the firm he ran, Kriezelman, in his early 60s, didn’t have time to give pain much thought. But weeks went by and the pain worsened. So Kriezelman cal...
