Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1279 - 1303 of 1886
(JNS)-Tens of thousands of students returned to the Westwood campus of University of California, Los Angeles, on Sept. 27 for the first day of classes. However, third-year student Justin Feldman, 20, a political science and Middle Eastern studies double major, wasn't there. Instead, he spent the morning addressing the University of California Board of Regents during its board meeting's public comments section regarding the upcoming eighth annual National Students for Justice in Palestine...
(JNS)—Pro-Israel students at George Washington University have faced a number of challenges from both the BDS movement and anti-Israel groups in recent years. In 2017, the school successfully defeated a BDS resolution; however, last April a new resolution passed. A recently released report by a watchdog group highlights the rampant anti-Semitic and anti-Israel tactics that were used by members of the Students for Justice in Palestine amid the vote. According a recent report by Canary Mission, watchdog website that documents the activities of a...
HOLLYWOOD, FL.—The Israeli-American Council announced the opening of four new regional offices throughout the country: Orlando, Florida; Austin, Texas; Orange County, California, and IAC Midwest (based in Columbus, Ohio). Through its 20 chapters across the country, the organization is expecting to be operating in more than 60 communities in 2019. The rapid expansion of the IAC—which has emerged in recent years as one of America’s fastest growing Jewish organizations—comes ahead of the IAC’s Fifth Annual National Conference, to take place fro...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Two-thirds of Democrats in the Senate and a third of the entire body signed a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to reinstate assistance to the Palestinians, saying the cuts risk exacerbating tensions in the region. “Eliminating funds for programs that provide clean water, food, education, and medical services for Palestinians will exacerbate poverty, fuel extremism, further reduce the chance of a future peace agreement and threaten Israel’s security,” said the letter sent Friday and signed by 34 senators who caucus...
(JNS)—The Trump administration has come under pressure to deny Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas entry into the United States for next week’s annual U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), a group that tracks anti-Semitism and terrorism in Palestinian media, petitioned the White House, as well as the State and Treasury departments, to reject Abbas from stepping foot on American soil in accordance with new federal statutes prohibiting international terrorist leaders from traveling to the United Sta...
(JNS)-A University of Michigan professor who denied a student a letter of recommendation for a semester-long study-abroad program in Israel is standing by his decision, citing his support for the BDS movement. John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the American Culture department, told JNS that this was the first time he rejected a student's request for a letter of recommendation to study abroad anywhere, as he labeled Israel an "apartheid" nation. "I declined to write the letter because...
(JNS)—Students for Justice in Palestine will host its annual national conference in November at the University of California, Los Angeles. Despite the notoriously anti-Semitic rhetoric used by this group, UCLA will be directly facilitating the spreading of SJP’s deplorable and racist ideologies by providing campus grounds for this national summit. There, students under the auspices of “social justice” will be trained how to promote false propaganda about the Arab-Israeli conflict via events and news articles; most importantly, they will be...
SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA)-A Jewish inmate serving life in prison without parole took a step toward freedom Aug. 21 and credited the local Jewish newspaper for the turn of events. James A. White Jr., was sentenced in 1981 for the murder of his wife's ex-husband. Last week, California's Board of Parole Hearings unanimously voted to recommend commutation of his sentence after 37 years behind bars, in part because of the work he has done in establishing a comm...
(Chabad.org/News via JNS)-For the last 11 years, the Lieblich family of Wilmington, N.C., have always held Rosh Hashanah services on both days of the holiday. This year, for the first time ever, they did not have a minyan for the second day because of a looming catastrophic weather threat: Hurricane Florence, which made landfall along the South Carolina, bringing with it massive storm surges and between 30 and 40 inches of rain in some places. "There's a sense of urgency here that I haven't...
MEDFORD, Mass. (JTA)—Pro-Israel students at Tufts University say a new course on Palestine is one-sided and demonizes Israel, and violates the university’s own policies on taking political stances. The course, taught by Thomas Abowd, a faculty member in the American Studies program, was first reported by Jewish News Syndicate. The JNS story sparked a flurry of criticism and concern from the Anti-Defamation League and pro-Israel campus organizations. Titled “Colonizing Palestine,” the course is offered through the liberal arts school...
The Atlanta-based Center for Israel Education and the Emory Institute for the Study of Modern Israel invite Jewish 10th- and 11th-graders to apply to attend the Teen Israel Leadership Institute during the weekend of Oct. 26 to 28. The institute will feature a series of learning activities to expand students' knowledge and understanding of Israel and Zionism while they experience Jewish life on a college campus (Emory University) and forge friendships with peers from across the country. The...
Salmonella in Empire Kosher chicken has led to one death and 17 illnesses, the Centers for Disease Control said. Eight people have been hospitalized. The outbreak of the food-borne infection in the leading kosher chicken seller has shown up in Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to a CDC notice Wednesday afternoon. The death occurred in New York. JTA has reached out to Empire Kosher and to the CDC for comment. The CDC began investigating after the New York state Department of Health reported that several people who were...
(JNS)-With the indictment of U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, a grandson of a Black September terrorist who killed 11 members of the Israeli athletic team at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, is likely to go from being a long-shot candidate to upsetting the California Republican this November in what is a heavy conservative congressional district. Campa-Najjar, 28, a practicing Christian born to a Palestinian father and a Mexican mother, has distanced himself from his...
NEWTON, MASSACHUSETTS—On Aug. 9, 2018, the community group Education Without Indoctrination filed a lawsuit against the School Committee of Newton, Massachusetts, in Massachusetts Superior Court on behalf of three Newton taxpayers. The lawsuit claims multiple violations of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law stemming from the school committee’s handling of a burgeoning scandal over anti-Semitic lessons and the promotion of Islamic religious beliefs as objective facts in the public school district’s history classes. In teaching world histo...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic nominee in a surefire congressional district comprising parts of Detroit, believes in a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and says she would vote against military assistance for Israel. Does she represent a trend? Republicans would like you to think so. "This is the Democrat (sic) party," the Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted, attached to a story about Tlaib's view on military aid. Is Tlaib indeed the future of the Democratic...
(JTA)-Dafna Michaelson Jenet traces her political career back to conversations around the Shabbat table as a 14-year-old. She remembers hearing her parents and their friends discuss the challenges facing Cincinnati, where they were living. But the conversations would quickly be forgotten once the day of rest came to an end. "I was distressed by this because I truly believed that they had the answer to the problems that I cared strongly about, that were plaguing our community, and they didn't...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Are Jews too powerful to be considered “victims” of racism? Some progressives think so and have been downplaying accusations of anti-Semitism in light of a debate over prejudice and power. This week, The New York Times took heat for hiring Sarah Jeong, a technology writer, to its editorial board. Some have called her racist against white people, pointing to past tweets in which she proclaimed that “White men are bullshit” and “#CancelWhitePeople.” The debate over her tweets often centered around the very notion of anti-white ra...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic congressional candidate and rising progressive star, was cheered at an event at a Jewish museum that did not touch on Israel or the Jewish community. Ocasio-Cortez appeared at a conference here hosted by the Immigrant Arts Coalition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, participating in a panel focused on women in the arts. While politics did frequently come up, none of the panelists-including Ocasio-Cortez, who has been critical of...
(JNS)-A documentary featuring the notorious Louis Farrakhan will not be available to Netflix customers next month after all, with the media streaming giant citing an "internal miscommunication." "This film will not be released on Netflix. Due to an internal miscommunication, it appeared to be scheduled for release on Netflix, but it is not," a Netflix spokesperson told JNS. "We apologize for any confusion this has caused." The 2014 film, "The Honourable Minister Louis Farrakhan: My Life's...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—David Kustoff, running for re-election in Tennessee’s 8th Congressional District, had three things in his favor: incumbency, a solid Republican district and President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Kustoff was not taking anything for granted, though: In the Republican primary on Thursday, he faced a challenger, George Flinn, who spent more than twice what he has on the campaign and likes to remind voters that he is a “Christian conservative.” Which is notable because Kustoff is Jewish. “It’s unfortunate that someone would try and...
SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA)—Campers and staffers were evacuated from Camp Tawonga in Northern California on Tuesday morning due to potentially harmful smoke from backfires set by firefighters battling the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite National Park. A new crop of 330 campers arrived on Sunday, a day after officials at the Jewish camp were assured by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the U.S. Forest Service that the fire would not impact camp. But on Monday, Tawonga camp officials w...
SAN DIEGO-The Jewish Federation of San Diego County (Federation) has named Michael Jeser as its new CEO. On Aug. 27, Jeser will succeed Michael Sonduck, who retired in June after his 12-year tenure, including six years as CEO, with the organization. Jeser joins San Diego's Federation after serving as director of financial resource development at the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, where he oversaw all aspects of the organization's annual and supplemental fundraising campaigns for three...
(JTA)-Like many heavily Orthodox sections of Brooklyn, Borough Park has been served for decades by an all-male volunteer ambulance corps called Hatzalah. The corps caters to a religious Jewish community with particular needs and customs-including one custom that can increase the tension for patients in already stressful emergency situations. The strict boundaries between men and women are familiar to anyone who has attended an Orthodox synagogue or has read the stories of airplane flights being...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decried the “occupation of Palestine” during a television interview. Appearing July 13 on PBS’s “Firing Line,” Ocasio-Cortez, 28, also described herself as “a firm believer in finding a two-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, upset 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in last month’s primary in New York’s 14th Congressional District, which straddles Queens and the Bronx. Although she has commented...
(JTA)-Kosher observers who pick up their coffee at Starbucks may need to look elsewhere for their caffeine fix. A kosher-certifying agency said it can no longer vouch for the kashrut of many beverages served by the coffee giant. The Star-K agency this week said it was ending a program under which it deemed many Starbucks products permissible without actually certifying them as kosher. Plenty of kosher consumers aren't taking the news lying down: As of Thursday afternoon, more than 7,000 have...
