Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 736 - 760 of 1886
(JNS) — As the Biden administration prepares to take on major international issues of the day, a debate has emerged within the American Jewish community over whether the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism should be adopted into law. A group of left-wing Jewish and Israeli groups issued a joint statement last week in opposition to adopting the definition, claiming that doing so would silence criticism of Israel. The collection of groups — known as the Progressive Israel Network — include Ameinu, America...
Since the publication more than half a century ago of a landmark article that referenced the "vanishing American Jew," it's been hard to shake that idea as the dominant narrative of American Jewish life. Yet the U.S. Jewish community is the largest in the world, with an estimated 7 million Jews - slightly more than Israel's 6.8 million. And despite a low birthrate, American Jews actually are growing in number, primarily due to three factors: immigration, intermarriage and education. Over the pas...
(JTA) — In the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump awarded clemency to more than a dozen Jews who had been convicted of crimes — but not Sheldon Silver, the disgraced former New York State Assembly speaker. Silver was not on the list of 143 people granted clemency, a traditional act for outgoing presidents. That means the former Democratic power broker will continue serving a prison term on corruption charges. The New York Times reported that Trump abandoned a plan to give clemency to Silver at the urging of New York Republicans and...
(JNS) — Several nominees for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s national security team acknowledged on Tuesday that the United States isn’t ready to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. On Tuesday morning, Avril Haines, nominee for the director of national intelligence, remarked that Biden said that the United States would re-enter the JCPOA “if Iran comes back into compliance,” but things are “a long ways from that.” She also told the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence...
(JTA) — Among the flurry of actions Joe Biden took on his very first day as president are several with special resonance for Jewish voters. Biden reportedly plans to issue several executive orders and multiple legislation proposals shortly after he is inaugurated on Wednesday. Many will reverse the policies of the Trump administration. Biden will reportedly seek to rejoin the Paris climate accord, enact new measures aimed at combating the coronavirus pandemic (including a mask mandate in federal government buildings) and extend pandemic limits...
(JNS) - Following a district-wide recount, Republican Iowa State Sen. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won one of the closest races for a federal office in American history, defeating fellow state Sen. Rita Hart, a Democrat, by just six votes in the state's 2nd Congressional District in the Nov. 3 election for the U.S. House of Representatives to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack. Miller-Meeks, 65, an ophthalmologist who won on her fourth try running for Congress, served as a nurse and...
(JTA) — 70 Faces Media, the publisher of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, has acquired the New York Jewish Week brand. In a deal completed late last month, the 45-year-old Jewish Week will join the growing stable of brands at 70 Faces Media, which also publishes Alma, Kveller, My Jewish Learning and JTA Hebrew. The Jewish Week will retain a focus on Jewish New York, while drawing on 70 Faces Media’s experience and resources as North America’s largest and most diverse Jewish media organ...
By Sean Savage (JNS) - Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the fallout from the 2020 election, anti-Semitism continued to morph and grow during 2020. While the school year for many students consisted of online or hybrid learning, anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist attacks on Jewish and pro-Israel students increased precisely because of more Internet usage, albeit in new forms. The switch to remote learning brought new challenges for individuals, social groups and organizations of all kinds as...
(JTA) — When someone threw rocks a couple months ago at the doors of a Chabad center in Atlanta, the glass didn’t shatter. That’s because earlier in the year, local Chabad leaders decided to reevaluate their security following an incident with a trespasser. Neil Rabinovitz, a former 22-year veteran of the FBI who now works as community security director for the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta, visited the site and performed a security assessment. He determined that the building needed to add more security cameras, change its system for loc...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA) — There are 37 Jewish members of the 117th Congress, which was sworn in last week amid the trauma of an insurrection spurred by President Donald Trump. Of the 37, there are 10 in the Senate and 27 in the House of Representatives — 25 Democrats and two Republicans. All 10 Jewish senators caucus with the Democrats. (Overall, there are 435 members of the House and 100 members of the Senate.) With Democrats taking both Senate seats in last week’s election in Georgia, Democrats will have 50 seats, and when Kamala Harr...
(JTA) — Two days after his election to the Senate helped tip the balance of power in Washington, Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff found another historical echo in his victory. In a Twitter thread, Ossoff described his trajectory from a teenage intern for John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and civil rights hero who died last year, to U.S. senator. “And now a Jewish man he mentored and a Black man who was his pastor have been elected to represent the State of Georgia in the U.S. Senate,” Ossoff said. “I know Congressman Lewis is looking down on us t...
The following is a detailed, complete, and accurate account of a phone call I did not have with now President Joe Biden — he was president elect at the time. The other day, my phone rang. Halfway into the third ring, I answered. “Hello?” “Please hold for the president elect,” replied the voice on the other end. I hadn’t recognized the incoming caller’s number but answered anyway. My immediate thought was that a friend joking with me, or a telemarketer using a new scheme. Before I could think too much more about it, another voice came on. “Hi...
(JTA) - Heshy Tischler, the pro-Trump provocateur of Orthodox Brooklyn, wasn't at the U.S. capitol when a mob stormed it Wednesday - but not because he didn't want to be. Tischler was one of a throng of Orthodox Jews who traveled down to D.C. to join mass protests of the election results Wednesday. He had left the city before the protest turned into an insurrection that drove members of Congress and the vice president into hiding, and in which a woman was killed. But that afternoon, unaware...
(New York, NY) — Chairman Arthur Stark, CEO William Daroff and Vice Chair Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, issued the following statement: “Once again, we demand that the Palestinian Authority stop encouraging and incentivizing terror through its reprehensible pay-to-slay policies rewarding acts of terror against Israelis by financially compensating perpetrators and their families with so-called martyr payments. Palestinian leadership is going to extraordinary lengths to continue the...
(JTA) — A federal court of appeals ruled that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s capacity limits on houses of worship in areas with rising COVID-19 cases constituted a violation of religious liberty. The ruling on Monday comes after a Supreme Court injunction last month blocking Cuomo from enforcing the rules until the lower court could reevaluate an earlier ruling that upheld state guidelines limiting synagogue attendance to 10 or 25 people. The case, brought by the Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, an advocacy org...
(JTA) - There's no way to tally all those we lost in 2020, a year when we mourned even our ability to carry out time-tested rituals of grief. Among those who died this year were some of the Jewish world's most famous and influential pillars in a range of industries, realms of thought and areas of activism - from the pioneer jurist Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the moral thought leader Rabbi Jonathan Sacks to the Modern Orthodox rabbi Norman Lamm to the influential LGBTQ activist Larry Kramer. But many...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — The pro-Israel educational organization StandWithUs sent a letter to the University of California Merced on Dec. 24 calling on it to take action against professor Abbas Ghassemi over his use of “anti-Semitic statements and images on social media.” StandWithUs CEO and co-founder Roz Rothstein, Saidoff legal department director Yael Lerman and Center for Combating Antisemitism head Carly Gammill wrote to UC Merced Chancellor Dr. Juan Sanchez Munoz and professor emeritus Dr. Thomas Peterson that Ghassemi has issue...
(JTA) - After an Orthodox-owned health clinic appeared to be administering COVID-19 vaccines to members of the public contrary to state guidelines, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the investigation would be referred to the state attorney general's office and that vaccine-related fraud would come with consequences. "We will not tolerate any fraud in the vaccination process," Cuomo said at a news conference Monday. "Anyone who engages in fraud is going to be held accountable." His comments come...
(JTA) - When David first saw the advertisement on his local Long Island community Whatsapp group inviting people like him and his wife, both over 65, to sign up to get the COVID-19 vaccine, he was skeptical. The ad linked to a nondescript Google form that asked him to answer a few questions and submit insurance information. "At this point I got suspicious. Is this an attempt to steal my identity? A scam?" he said in an email sharing his experience with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. After doing...
(JTA) — Nearly a third of the $900 billion Congress is set to approve in a pandemic relief will go to a new round of payroll protection, and the Jewish Federations of North America is set to reprise the role it played earlier this year and explain how nonprofits can get their share. “We are pulling back together again the team of experts both from within the JFNA and lay leaders who train themselves on the program to offer volunteer support to help fill out forms and connect banks and such,” Eric Fingerhut, the group’s CEO, said in an intervi...
(JNS) — An anti-Semitic cybersecurity attack that took place at a Jewish high school in Long Island, N.Y., on Monday has left students on edge and parents contemplating if they should keep their children at home for the rest of the school year. Anti-Semitic images, threats, slurs and songs were posted on the website of North Shore Hebrew Academy High School in Great Neck. They were also included in emails sent to the school’s parents and students on Monday afternoon. Skyler Askari, 15, a 10th-grader at the private high school, told JNS tha...
(JNS) - Israel's Deni Avdija recently moved from Israel to Washington, found an apartment, met with the media at a Washington Wizards press conference and ate his first meal at Chipotle Mexican Grill. "I really liked the idea of Chipotle. I like to eat healthy. And it was kind of healthy!" Avdija, the 19-year-old Maccabi Tel Aviv phenom, was taken No. 9 overall by the Wizards in the recent NBA Draft. The 6-foot-9 inch, 225-pound forward is excited to play in the NBA and understands what it...
NEW YORK CITY — As the number of Israeli families suffering from financial hardship and related challenges increases dramatically amid the coronavirus pandemic, UJA-Federation of New York announced nearly $3.5 million in new emergency Covid-19 relief grants in Israel. UJA will award grants to several organizations that support the most at-risk Israelis, including children, the newly poor, and struggling small businesses. In addition, the grants will help strengthen Israel’s ability to respond to Covid-related challenges with enhanced lea...
(JNS) - Lisa McClain will join the record-number of Republican women elected this year to the U.S. House of Representatives following her landslide victory over Democrat Kimberly Bizon, 66.3 percent to 33.7 percent, respectively, in Michigan's 10th Congressional District to succeed retiring Republican Rep. Paul Mitchell. "I think America spoke," said McClain in an interview with JNS on Nov. 24, adding that the Republican women elected have "traditional American values." Before being elected to...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to appoint six individuals to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Those named to the council, which is the governing body of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., include David Marchick, who served as the Deputy U.S. Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration; Republican strategist Jeffrey Miller, founder and CEO of Miller Strategies; U.S. International Development Finance Corporation CEO Adam S. Boehler; Miami Beach investor Jimmy Resnick; former U...
