Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1514 - 1538 of 1920
(JTA)—American Jews are watching the beginning of Donald Trump’s presidency with both fear and hope. Many have expressed worries about some of his supporters’ ties to the so-called “alt-right” movement, whose followers traffic variously in white nationalism, anti-immigration sentiment, anti-Semitism and a disdain for “political correctness.” Those fears intensified when Trump named as his chief strategist Stephen Bannon, the former chairman of Breitbart News, a site Bannon once referred to as a “platform” of the alt-right. Trump’s strongly cons...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-"Cantor Kaufman!" Rabbi Jonah Pesner shouted across the intersection of 3rd and D in Washington's Northwest quadrant, packed sidewalk to sidewalk with women in pink pussycat hats and their male friends. "A song!" Jason Kaufman, the cantor at Beth El in Alexandria, Virginia, draped in a rainbow tallit and in the middle of telling a joke, cocked an eyebrow and pivoted gracefully from the guy hanging with his buddies at Saturday's Women's March on Washington to the religious...
(JTA)-One Jewish group that joined the Women's March on Washington has seen its online donations double since the election of Donald Trump as president. Another has twice as many guests as usual attending its annual conference. A third has seen its social media engagement skyrocket. And after bringing thousands of Jews to the streets on Saturday, they're all asking the same question: What now? A range of liberal Jewish groups took part in the Women's March, which drew more than 3 million people...
Supporters of National Council of Jewish Women and other Jewish organizations come together on the National Mall for the Women's March on Washington, January 21, 2017. Please check out another article for more on the Women's March....
(JTA)—President Donald Trump can appoint his Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner as a White House senior adviser, the Justice Department concluded. In a 14-page opinion issued Friday, the department’s Office of Legal Counsel said that a federal anti-nepotism law passed in 1967 “does not bar this appointment because of the President’s special hiring authority.” The opinion, written by Deputy Assistant Attorney General Daniel Koffsky, is based on a 1978 law that allows the president to appoint White House officials, overriding the nepotism law. The...
Being an Orthodox Jew can cost a pretty penny. There are the premium prices for kosher meat, the two sets of dishes, the mikvah fees. There are expensive lifecycle celebrations like brises and bar mitzvahs, and requisite accessories like tefillin ($1,000). The Jewish holidays have expenses all their own: sukkahs, shmura matzah, big holiday meals with lots of guests-to say nothing of the cost of using up vacation days for the Jewish holy days. Then there are the big-ticket items, like real...
(JTA)-Super Bowl LI (51) will feature teams with Jewish owners for the first time since 2012. Robert Kraft will see his New England Patriots, the American Football Conference champions, in the big game for the seventh time since 2000. He bought the club, which will be making its record ninth Super Bowl appearance, in 1994. Arthur Blank will watch his National Football Conference-winning Atlanta Falcons playing in their second Super Bowl-but the first since the Home Depot founder bought the team...
NEW YORK—A wave of bomb threats Wednesday morning caused 27 Jewish community centers in 17 states to quickly engage in security protocols to ensure the safety of their participants and facilities. Many quickly received the all-clear from local law enforcement, with whom they are working closely, and have resumed regular operations. This is the second time this month that multiple JCCs have received bomb threats in a single day. Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Networks (SCN), said there were bomb threats called in to Jewish c...
(JTA)—Reacting to the inaugural address of President Donald Trump, Jewish groups stuck to their ideological bearings. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations praised the unifying portions of Trump’s speech and called on him to safeguard Israel’s security and other Jewish interests. “We welcome President Trump’s acknowledgement of the need to heal the divisions in our country, to improve the lives of all Americans, to reinforce alliances and to strengthen our security,” the statement said. “We look forward to wo...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Barack Obama got his kishkes back. The president, whose alleged aloofness was the signature flaw cited by his rivals, his critics and at times his friends, ended his presidency with an impassioned appeal for the preservation of democracy-his lower lip trembling, a tear streaking his cheek. For sure, Obama could be emotional, heimishe even-remember his tears while speaking with the parents of the children slain in Newtown, Connecticut, or his singing of "Amazing Grace" during...
(JTA)-A bomb threat is never an inconsequential thing. But 16 in one day is inconceivable-at least it was until Monday, Jan. 9. That's when 16 Jewish community centers in nine states received calls threatening a bomb on site. While the bombs turned out to be hoaxes, the calls themselves were not. They were designed to create a kind of disruptive terror in places that serve as visible community hubs of activity. The JCCs affected stretched from Florida to New Jersey, where the temperature was 11...
NEW YORK (JTA)—The FBI and Department of Homeland Security will be assisting local Jewish community centers in bolstering security after 16 JCCs received bomb threats on the same day. On Wednesday, officials from the FBI and Homeland Security will conduct a conference call with U.S. Jewish communal leaders to discuss Monday’s incidents, what they stem from and how to craft protocols to handle such incidents in the future. Some communities already receive federal grants to provide for security. The bomb threats, none of which appear cre...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Reps. Ed Royce and Eliot Engel are that Capitol Hill rarity: a Republican and a Democrat who truly have each other's back. And nothing unites Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Engel, D-N.Y., its top Democrat, like support for Israel. Not simply Israel-Royce and Engel take their cues on the issue from the mainstream pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Right now, that means...
(JTA)—Jewish organizations split along ideological lines in their reactions to Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech criticizing Israeli settlement growth and laying out principles to achieve a two-state solution. Centrist groups were measured in their reactions, criticizing the American decision to abstain last week on a U.N. vote rebuking the settlements while praising Kerry’s commitment to a two-state solution. American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris wrote in an open letter Dec. 28 that he watched the speech “as one who underst...
(JTA)-NORPAC, one of the largest pro-Israel political action committees, praised President-elect Donald Trump's pick for U.S. ambassador to Israel for his "lifetime of pro-Israel advocacy." Congratulating David Friedman on his appointment, NORPAC in a statement called him "an accomplished attorney" with "extensive knowledge of Israel and the Middle East." "His lifetime of pro-Israel advocacy has earned him the trust and respect of the Israeli People, a point which will enable him to best...
JCC Association of North America is applauding the staffs of Jewish (Jan. 9) community centers around the country and expressing gratitude for local law enforcement after JCCs in several states received bomb threats today. David Posner, director of strategic performance at JCC Association of North America, who works closely with local JCCs on security, issued the below statement. “JCC Association thanks federal and local law enforcement for their quick and thorough response today, said David Posner, director of strategic performance at JCC A...
(JTA)—President-elect Donald Trump accused the Obama administration of treating Israel with “total disdain” hours after Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech rebuking the country’s settlement policy and offering his plan for Middle East peace. Trump spoke to reporters on the steps of his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on Dec. 28 in what is being reported as his longest media appearance since winning the election last month. He said Israel is being treated “very, very unfairly.” The incoming U.S. leader sidestepped a question about whether Israe...
(JTA)—Responding to Secretary of State John Kerry’s address on making peace between Israel and the Palestinians, many U.S. lawmakers said they were disappointed by the Obama administration’s decision to abstain on the vote in the U.N. Security Council of a resolution criticizing Israel for settlement building. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the incoming Senate minority leader, said in a statement that Kerry “has emboldened extremists on both sides.” “While Secretary Kerry mentioned Gaza in his speech, he seems to have forgotten the history of...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)-Rabbi Marvin Hier has known Charles and Seryl Kushner-Jared Kushner's parents and Donald Trump's in-laws-for decades. The Hiers and the Kushners have gone to the same kosher for Passover resort, the Arizona Biltmore, over the years. The Kushner family, prominent real estate developers, have also been generous donors to the Simon Wiesenthal Center founded by Hier, which he now serves as dean. But the Los Angeles-based Hier said he was shocked three weeks ago when a Trump aide...
(JTA)—Jewish organizations split along ideological lines in their reactions to Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech criticizing Israeli settlement growth and laying out principles to achieve a two-state solution. Centrist groups were measured in their reactions, criticizing the American decision to abstain last week on a U.N. vote rebuking the settlements while praising Kerry’s commitment to a two-state solution. American Jewish Committee CEO David Harris wrote in an open letter Wednesday that he watched the speech “as one who underst...
(JTA)-Rachel Freier of Brooklyn officially became the first Hasidic woman to be sworn in as a judge in the State of New York. Freier, a mother of six and former lawyer who practiced commercial and residential estate law, was sworn in Thursday as the Civil Court judge in Kings County's 5th judicial district, CBS reported. Freier won in September the vote in the district, which encompasses the Brooklyn communities of Kensington, Sunset Park and Windsor Terrace, among others. The Hasidic performer...
(JTA)—President-elect Donald Trump said a resolution introduced at the United Nations Security Council against Israeli settlements should be vetoed. “As the United States has long maintained, peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians will only come through direct negotiations between the parties, and not through the imposition of terms by the United Nations,” Trump said in an official statement issued Thursday morning, hours after the resolution was introduced by Egypt the previous afternoon. “This puts Israel in a very poor negotia...
Keith Ellison in letter to Conservative rabbis 'regrets' past ties with Farrakhan WASHINGTON (JTA)-In a lengthy letter to the Conservative movement's rabbinical arm, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison said he regretted past positions that have unsettled Jews as he seeks the chairmanship of the Democratic Party. Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, meanwhile, spoke Wednesday with about 50 Jewish Democrats about his own bid to head the Democratic National Committee and reassured them of his bona fides in the area w...
The Central Conference of American Rabbis has announced that Rabbi Cindy Enger will become the Reform Movement's director of Rabbinic Placement, effective July 1, 2017. Rabbi Enger will be the first woman to ever hold the position of director of Rabbinic Placement in any Jewish movement. Rabbi Enger comes to the directorship with a wealth of experience as a congregational and organizational rabbi, a lawyer, and a lay leader. Prior to her ordination from HUC-JIR, she served as an attorney in...
WASHINGTON (JTA) Weird paradoxes have been packed into Chanukah observance forever. It's the holiday about killing infidels that is now celebrated as a victory of religious pluralism. It's the unofficial little Jewish holiday that a U.S. congressman once tried to turn into a major American holiday. It's the Jewish holiday with terrible songs written by Jews competing with the Christian holiday with wonderful songs, also written by Jews. Add this to the ironies: When eight or so Jewish...
