Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — A bipartisan slate of lawmakers launched a bill that would establish an “integrated air and missile defense capability” joining the United States, Israel and Arab countries in a bid to deter Iran. Senate and House members of the Abraham Accords Caucus rolled out the bill, called the DEFEND Act, in a press conference Thursday outside the Capitol and described it as means of advancing the U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab countries that collectively bear that name. “The full potential of the...
(JTA) — In the summer of 2020, Gabe Kapler, then in his first season as manager of the San Francisco Giants, joined figures across sports in taking a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Now, two years later, Kapler has announced that he will not take the field at all for the anthem out of broad dismay over the United States’ direction, spurred by the mass murder of 19 children at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. “When I was the same age as the children in Uvalde, my father taught me to stand for the pledge of al...
(JTA) - A new super PAC led by "Black and Jewish" leaders has endorsed five Black Democrats who have positions that are friendly to AIPAC, the latest sign that pro-Israel donors are determined to stem erosion of support for Israel among African Americans. In its May 27 launch statement, first reported by Politico, the Urban Empowerment Action PAC does not mention Israel, instead saying that it "will support pragmatic, solutions-oriented congressional candidates dedicated to the educational...
(JTA) — More than half of bankruptcies in the United States are connected to medical debt. For some families in the Chicago area, however, that debt is being erased in accordance with the Jewish law of shmita, the sabbatical year. The Torah’s shmita laws prescribe that, every seven years, all agricultural activity in the Land of Israel is forbidden, and the land must be left fallow. There are many specific rules, including prohibition against plowing, pruning and planting. But a lesser-known custom in observance of the shmita year is the rel...
(JTA) — The Minnesota Republican Party apologized for screening a video that depicted liberal Jewish billionaire George Soros as a puppet master controlling two Jewish Democrats, saying that those responsible were not aware that the imagery had antisemitic connotations. “We understand that the use of imagery depicting Mr. Soros as a puppet-master at our state convention raised concerns that the imagery perpetuated an antisemitic trope,” state GOP chairman David Hann said Thursday in a statement, noting that the Jewish Community Relations Counc...
(JTA) – An unusual scenario played out in Arizona recently: The son of a Jewish woman who fled the Nazis was asked if he wanted to be executed by the same gas the Nazis once used. Frank Atwood, who was convicted of murdering an 8-year-old girl in 1984, has been on death row for decades. For his method of execution he was given the choice between lethal injection, Arizona’s default method, or a gas chamber — which the state had refurbished last year in preparation for possibly killing Atwood and one other death row inmate. Arizona’s intent...
(JNS) - American Jewish organizations are divided in their reception of the new White House press secretary who has a history of taking anti-Israel positions. U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Karine Jean-Pierre, a Haitian American who currently serves as principal deputy press secretary, to be the first Black and LGBTQ person to hold the position. Jean-Pierre is slated to take over for outgoing White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday, though some Jewish organizations are pushing back...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Antisemitism is often not taken seriously until it becomes deadly, said Deborah Lipstadt, the Holocaust scholar whose nomination to be the State Department's antisemitism monitor was delayed as she tangled with Republican senators who were peeved at her criticisms of their side of the aisle. Lipstadt chose the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for her first talk Thursday since her Senate confirmation in March after contentious hearings. She made good on her pledges to skeptical...
(JTA) – The Harvard Crimson’s recent endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement has attracted far more wide-ranging attention than a typical student paper’s editorial page, as faculty and alumni of the Ivy League institution have lined up to denounce the student paper’s op-ed and condemn the shift in Israel discussion on college campuses. In an open letter, more than 100 Harvard faculty members objected to the paper endorsing an academic and financial boycott of the state of Israel, including the school’s former president...
(JNS) — Two leading Jewish conservatives blasted New York City’s Museum of Jewish Heritage–A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on May 6, claiming that museum staff told them they could not hold an event there if Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was invited to speak. The op-ed, titled “Persona Non Grata at a Holocaust Memorial,” was authored by former U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, along with Eric Cohen. They serve as the chairman and CEO, respectively, of the Tikvah Fund, a conservative Jewish think...
(JTA) — The Jewish Telegraphic Agency and our partner sites at 70 Faces Media have answered the question many times over the years, a testament to its persistence in political life and its significance to American Jews: What do Jews believe about abortion? After a new report that the Supreme Court reviewed a majority opinion in February that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the question is relevant yet again. Here’s what we know: American Jews favor abortion rights, more than any other religious group, according to public polling. And tra...
(JTA) — A historically Jewish fraternity at Rutgers University has been the target of multiple cases of antisemitic harassment this week, prompting the school to announce it would be increasing security on campus. Authorities said the university’s AEPi house was first targeted on Friday when protestors exiting a rally for Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-Palestinian university activist group, went to the house and shouted antisemitic rhetoric and spat at the brothers. Rutgers Hillel Interim Executive Director Rabbi Esther Reed told loc...
(JTA) – The Harvard Crimson’s recent endorsement of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement has attracted far more wide-ranging attention than a typical student paper’s editorial page, as faculty and alumni of the Ivy League institution have lined up to denounce the student paper’s op-ed and condemn the shift in Israel discussion on college campuses. In an open letter, more than 100 Harvard faculty members objected to the paper endorsing an academic and financial boycott of the state of Israel, including the school’s former president...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden named as his next press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, a former official of the activist MoveOn group who endorsed its call on Democratic presidential candidates to boycott the annual AIPAC conference. Jean-Pierre will be the first Black woman in the job and succeeds Jen Psaki, who has reportedly accepted an offer from MSNBC as a commentator, as the lead voice for the Biden administration with the media. She has been principal deputy press secretary after starting in the Biden administration as a senior a...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Several dozen members of Congress joined Holocaust survivors to mark Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust remembrance day marked by Jewish communities worldwide, by reading out the names of the dead and hearing testimony in the Capitol building on Wednesday morning. Rep. Brad Schneider, a Jewish Illinois Democrat who spearheaded the event, said in remarks that the need to commemorate now was made more acute by the atrocities taking place in Russia’s war against Ukraine. “A million and a half children died in the Holocaust,” Schneid...
(JNS) — About 14,000 Birthright Israel participants from nearly 900 universities and colleges in North America are expected to land in Israel in the coming months as part of Birthright’s summer season. The flights, which begin on May 1, mark Birthright Israel’s long-awaited return after a series of suspensions since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The trips are an opportunity for North American students to have a life-changing experience in Israel with their college friends and meet new people from their campus. They are usually timed...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The good news for Joe Biden is that a majority of U.S. Jews approve of the job he is doing. The bad news is that the number in a new poll, 63 percent, is a sharp double-digit drop from where he was last year. A poll released Wednesday by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats, showed Biden’s approval rating down from 80 percent in a poll by the same organization last July. His disapproval rating this year is at 37 percent, up from 20 percent last July. Both polls were carried out by GBA...
(JTA) - Wine from a West Bank settlement was on the menu at this year's White House Passover seder on Friday hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Dough Emhoff. But a spokesperson for Harris said the choice should not be construed as a political statement about Israeli settlement in the West Bank. "The wine served at the seder was in no way intended to be an expression of policy," Herbie Ziskind, an adviser to Harris, said in a tweet. The response from the Harris spokesman...
(JTA) - A new Boston-based foundation dedicated to Holocaust memory plans to build the city's first Holocaust museum. The Holocaust Legacy Foundation, which couple Jody Kipnis and Todd Ruderman founded after a 2018 March of the Living trip to Auschwitz, announced Thursday that it had purchased a 15,000-square-foot building near Boston Common, on the city's American Independence-themed series of historical markers known as the Freedom Trail. The couple intends to turn it into a museum devoted to...
(JTA) - The United States Postal Service released a new series of Forever stamps Friday in honor of Shel Silverstein, the Jewish author and illustrator who died in 1999. The stamps commemorate what is perhaps Silverstein's most famous book, "The Giving Tree," which tells the story of the relationship between a boy and a tree. The stamps feature an image of the boy from the story catching an apple with Silverstein's name written below. "The issuance honors the extraordinarily versatile Shel...
It has been 77 years since World War II ended, yet the world will never forget the six million Jews and countless other victims who were murdered during the Holocaust. While Jan. 27, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945, is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the people of Israel and Jewish individuals across the globe commemorate the victims annually on Yom HaShoah, the "Day of (Remembrance of) the Holocaust and...
(JTA) – With his livelihood on the line, Rob Lennick texted the wrong Deborah. The CEO of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico, Lennick sent a message asking for support of an extension to his contract. He was also asking for a $30,000 forgivable loan from the federation to pay for the repair of a home he was hoping to purchase. Lennick had meant to reach Deborah Boldt, who was serving on the federation’s board of directors — but he reached Deborah Albrycht, the federation’s human resources officer. What happened next set off a crisis in Jewish...
(New York Jewish Week) - In a rickety warehouse in Long Island City, reached only by a footbridge that crosses underneath the Long Island Expressway, some 80,000 Yiddish books are stacked on shelves in a large, sunlight-filled room that overlooks the Pulaski Bridge, Midtown Manhattan to the west, and Downtown Brooklyn in the distance. This is the CYCO Yiddish Book Center, whose roots date back to 1938, when it began as a space in Manhattan to give Yiddish writers and readers a safe haven just as...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The Senate in a voice vote unanimously confirmed Deborah Lipstadt, the Holocaust scholar who endured delays and a contentious hearing in her nomination to be antisemitism monitor. The vote late Wednesday took mere seconds. "The ayes appear to have it," Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the Wisconsin Democrat who was presiding over the session, said after calling for a vote. "The ayes do have it. The nomination is confirmed." There were no "Nos." It was not clear from the C-Span video,...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden wants to increase federal funding for security for nonprofits from $250 million to $360 million, a key request advanced by Jewish organizations in the wake of attacks on Jewish institutions. Biden included the funding in the homeland security section of the $5.8 trillion federal budget he released Monday. Presidential budgets function as wish lists, and not every component will likely pass congressional muster, but including the request gives its chances of adoption a significant boost. “In prior years, be...
