Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1654 - 1678 of 1920
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Members of the Obama administration’s national security team will travel to Israel next week to advance talks on a new U.S. defense assistance package to the country. “A U.S. delegation will be traveling to Jerusalem next week for the next round of talks,” a senior administration official said Wednesday in an e-mail to JTA, confirming a report that first appeared in Haaretz. Israel and the United States are negotiating a memorandum of understanding that would extend for another 10 years the current aid package, due to expire...
On Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015, the United States Congress presented the Monuments men and women, of all 14 nations, with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States. George Washington received the first medal. (A partial list of recipients is provided below.) Normally only two Congressional Gold Medals are awarded each year, due in part to the rigorous review and approval process that requires two-thirds consent of both houses of Congress. Nine years of...
StandWithUs (SWU) is placing a billboard on University Boulevard east of Forsyth Road beginning the week of Jan. 25, 2016 for four weeks. The billboard reminds commuters of the benefits of the US-Israel relationship which "creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in America." The SWU billboard counters an anti-Israel one on University Boulevard between Forsyth and Semoran boulevards initiated and paid for by StopTheBlankCheck.org and IfAmericansKnew.org. It asks, "$10 Million a Day to Israel? Our...
On Dec. 21, 2015, Florida became the fifth state in the nation to introduce a landmark resolution to confront the anti-Semitic BDS movement. Building on the nationwide momentum created by Tennessee, legislators in Florida have decided to confront this growing threat as well in 2016. Numerous efforts have increased to boycott Israeli political leaders and businesses. Also, the number of anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish and pro-Israel students on university campuses continues to grow nationwide and in Florida specifically. Parents, students...
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week)-Alarmed by what they called "Orwellian efforts" to link Israel with a multitude of free-speech issues now roiling American college campuses, a group of influential academics has launched an initiative to combat anti-Semitism and facilitate constructive dialogue about Israel. Led by Mark Yudof, president emeritus of the University of California system, and Kenneth Waltzer, former director of Jewish studies at Michigan State University, the Academic Engagement...
NEW YORK-Repair the World, the only organization devoted exclusively to engaging young Jewish adults as volunteers, has launched a special national campaign, Act for Racial Justice on MLK Weekend. Combining two pillars of Repair's engagement strategy, Act for Racial Justice offers the opportunity to host a Turn The Tables Shabbat Dinner on Jan. 15th (turn-the-tables.org)-resources will help facilitate substantive questions and dialogue-followed by numerous volunteer opportunities throughout the...
(JTA)-Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson is the largest single funder of JNS, a U.S.-based Jewish news service that is the sole distributor of content from his right-wing newspaper Israel Hayom. The Adelson Family Foundation has committed at least $1.2 million to JNS, the daily Forward reported Tuesday, citing publicly available tax documents. The first grant of $300,000, given in 2013, made up 65 percent of JNS revenue that year. Adelson's foundation gave another $450,000 in 2014, and...
WASHINGTON-Hillel International today announced a major new partnership with the Ruderman Family Foundation to promote inclusion for students with disabilities at 550 college campuses across the country and around the world. The $750,000 grant will help Hillel International address practical barriers to participation in its student programs, as well as launch the spiritual, cultural and communal reflection and action necessary to ensure all Hillel communities can be inclusive of all students. Ov...
(JTA)-Since the mass shooting in the California city of San Bernardino, U.S. authorities have been piecing together what might have led Syed Farook and his wife, Tafsheen Malik, to gun down 14 of Farook's colleagues at a holiday party for county health department employees. The attack raises a host of questions. Here are five to consider. 1. In Israel, armed civilians stop terrorist attacks. Should that be a model for America? Opponents of gun regulation argue that attacks like the one in San Be...
Part 1 of a 3-part series. The Republican Jewish Coalition held on Dec. 3, 2015, their 2016 Presidential Candidates Forum, with 13 of the remaining 14 Republican candidates in “one location to talk about the most important issues in the 2016 race.” Naturally, the forum centered on topics especially important to the Jewish Community, including the lately strained topic of U.S./Israel relations. The real frontrunners in the race elicited responses from applause to booing with their points about Israel. First up with the most direct Israel foc...
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Avis car rental agency refused to provide an Israeli businessman with a rental vehicle because of his Israeli identity, the New York Observer reported Sunday. Dov Bergwerk, a senior executive at Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva, said that on Friday he and his wife arrived at the Avis branch on West 76th Street and Broadway in New York City and were planning to join friends for dinner in Westchester. Bergwerk told the Observer he has rented from Avis dozens of times before—but when he handed the agent his...
By Penny Schwartz BOSTON (JTA)-For some 2 1/2 hours, Ezra Schwartz was remembered for his unbridled joy and passion for life, his deep and ever-widening circle of friends, and his athletic prowess as a champion baseball player and adventure-seeking skier. The sanctuary of the Boston-area synagogue was filled to capacity, with an estimated 1,000 mourners sitting and standing, according to the Stanestsky Memorial Chapels, and hundreds more stood on the synagogue grounds outside to hear about the...
(JTA)—A Jewish Tulane Medical School student was shot in the stomach while trying to stop the attempted abduction of a woman on a New Orleans street. Peter Gold, 25, a fourth-year medical student, and the son of Gail and Dr. Robert Gold of Longwood, was hospitalized in guarded condition as of last Friday night following the incident in the early-morning hours. The woman was not injured, according to The Times-Picayune. Gold saw the woman being carried to a nearby car against her will at 4 a.m. Friday. He stopped his car and got out to assist th...
(JTA)-Jonathan Pollard, the former Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, was freed from a federal prison in North Carolina. Pollard was released on parole early Friday after serving 30 years of a life sentence for passing classified documents to Israel. His imprisonment has long been a sore point in relations between the United States and Israel. Successive Israeli prime ministers have raised the issue in their meetings with U.S. presidents. In recent years, support in the U....
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Jonathan Pollard, the American spy for Israel sentenced to life in prison in 1987, was released on parole on Saturday, 30 years after his arrest. The former U.S. Navy analyst's exit from a federal prison in Butner, North Carolina (where he reportedly befriended Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff), follows three decades of intrigue that have included charges of anti-Semitism against top U.S. officials, allegations that Pollard offered his services to other countries and his becoming a...
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) President Barack Obama will not intervene to allow Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to travel to Israel after his scheduled parole from federal prison next week, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing Obama administration officials. The terms of Pollard’s release stipulate that he remain in the United States, under supervision, for five years. Obama has the ability to use his executive power to waive that condition and allow Pollard to leave the U.S., but he will not do so, the report said. Last week, top O...
NEW YORK (JTA)-When Joe Lieberman became the first observant Jew with a reasonable chance at being president-after Al Gore named him his vice presidential running mate in 2000-he faced a host of questions about how his Sabbath observance might impact his presidential duties. Now that Ben Carson, a Seventh Day Adventist, has emerged at the top of the polls in the Republican presidential primary, he's facing similar questions about his religion. So far, Carson's faith-which, like Judaism,...
(JTA)—A Jewish expert on biblical archaeology said she knows of no scholar or archaeologist who agrees with Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s theory that Joseph built the Egyptian pyramids. In an email interview with The Associated Press, Jodi Magness, who holds the senior endowed chair in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said scholars and archaeologists are in agreement that the pyramids were built to be royal tombs and not, as Carson says, as grain storage when the biblical Jos...
(JTA)—While the 2013 Pew survey uncovered some disturbing evidence of lower levels of Jewish engagement among young people, the same survey contains several pieces of good news for Reform Jews—5,000 of whom are gathering this week in Orlando, Florida, for the movement’s biennial conference organized by the Union for Reform Judaism. Since 1990, Reform synagogue members not only grew in number, but they held steady on several measures of Jewish engagement, even as their rate of intermarriage soared and the number with predominantly Jewish frien...
Strained ties between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama in recent years have stood in contrast with a warm relationship between Netanyahu and Congress, particularly in the House of Representatives, which has been controlled by Republicans since 2011. Under the leadership of former House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the House has steadfastly approved pro-Israel legislation such as financial support for the Iron Dome missile defense system and majority opposition (but not enough to override a...
(JTA)—The Rabbinical Council of America, the main modern Orthodox rabbinical group, formally adopted a policy prohibiting the ordination or hiring of women rabbis. The policy announced last Friday by the RCA came after a direct vote of its membership, according to the organization. The resolution states: “RCA members with positions in Orthodox institutions may not ordain women into the Orthodox rabbinate, regardless of the title used; or hire or ratify the hiring of a woman into a rabbinic position at an Orthodox institution; or allow a tit...
(JTA)-I interviewed Bernie Sanders a couple years ago when word first circulated that the Vermont senator might seek the presidency. Though he knew about JTA going in-and must have known questions about his Jewish background were coming-he didn't want to get into it. I wrote at the time: "But Sanders is hesitant to draw a connection between his Jewish background and his priorities as a senator. With a series of observations about the Jewish history of rootlessness and oppression, Sanders begins...
(JTA)-Dennis Ross' book about the United States-Israel relationship is about to come out, and it includes a bombshell revelation about tensions between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ross, in a passage excerpted from the book Oct. 8 in Politico, says that Susan Rice, the U.S. national security adviser, was so furious with Netanyahu's angry reaction to news of an acceleration in Iran nuclear talks in November 2013 that she told Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defam...
The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) is proud to announce that the United States Department of Health and Human Services has awarded the organization $12 million over 5 years, pending the availability of federal funds, to advance innovations in person-centered, trauma-informed supportive services for Holocaust survivors. This award will help Jewish organizations and the broader Aging Services Network support the compounded and urgent needs of Holocaust survivors, and ultimately, all aging survivors of trauma. “We are honored and h...
On Friday, Sept. 18, 2015, the Pennsylvania Senate by vote of 49 to 0 passed Resolution No. 136 Session of 2015 Printer’s No. 979. The Resolution condemned economic, social, cultural and other boycotts of Israel and growing incidents of anti-Semitism. The House previously passed a similar Resolution. House Resolution 370 Session of 2015 Printer’s No. 1697 was introduced by Matt Baker of Tioga County. The Senate Resolution was introduced by Senator Stew Greenleaf of Montgomery and Bucks Counties. The Resolutions note the historical fact that the...
