Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 643 - 667 of 1886
BOSTON (JTA) - Days after a series of violent acts stunned Greater Boston and threatened its Jewish community, residents are jolted but resolute, vowing to continue taking pride in their Jewish identity. The latest incident occurred on Thursday, when Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed eight times outside of Shaloh House, a Jewish school and synagogue in Brighton, where he teaches. Less than a week prior, on June 26, in Winthrop, a seaside town just north of Boston, a white supremacist who...
(JTA) - At first, Danny Mintz was excited to learn that lawmakers in his state, Louisiana, were considering mandating Holocaust education in public schools. A director at a good-government group called the Louisiana Budget Project, Mintz knew that the local Jewish federation was encouraging his synagogue's board to back the bill. In a state where a notorious Holocaust denier, David Duke, had been the Republican candidate for governor in 1991, clearly there was a need for more Holocaust...
(JTA) - As he ends his tenure as the director of the largest Hillel in the country after 20 years in the post, Andrew Getraer says Jews at Rutgers University face a reality out of Dickens: the best of times and the worst of times. Jewish life at the school, New Jersey's flagship university, is thriving. There are 6,000 Jews on campus, and it's known as a destination for students seeking a vibrant Jewish community with a range of services, religious communities and clubs. But it's also been a...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) - When Michael Beller set out three years ago to get a law passed in Arizona requiring Holocaust education in public schools, the response he got was clear. "People told me this would never happen. They were like, 'Not now, not ever. It will never happen in Arizona.' And that was inside the Jewish community and out," he said. But on Wednesday, it happened. After a rollercoaster ride in the State Legislature - including a debate over a controversial defini...
From June 29th to July 3rd, America’s largest labor union, the National Education Association will vote on two motions attacking Israel: New Business Item 29 and New Business Item 51. NBIs 29 and 51 are part of a larger pattern. In recent weeks, teacher’s union leaders in San Francisco and Seattle passed resolutions endorsing the destructive Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. BDS systematically promotes national origin discrimination against Israelis, as well as antisemitism more broadly. The purpose of the mov...
(JNS) - Deborah S. Isaac was elected president of the American Zionist Movement (AZM), the United States federation of 39 Zionist organizations, at the AZM Biennial National Assembly held virtually on Tuesday with more than 400 participants from 30 states. She becomes the first woman to serve as president of AZM, succeeding Richard D. Heideman of Washington, D.C. Six new organizational members were introduced at the assembly: A Wider Bridge; Coordinating Council for the Jewish Homeland; Dorshei...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A letter from 73 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives, including a number in leadership positions, urges President Joe Biden to make a number of moves to reverse what they call the Trump administration’s “abandonment of longstanding, bipartisan United States policy” on Israeli-Palestinian relations. Among other things, the letter sent Wednesday calls for Biden to firmly consider Israeli settlements illegal and the West Bank occupied, two things the Trump administration stated that it would no longer do. “Make c...
(JTA) — Three days after igniting a social media firestorm by removing an Israeli food truck from a festival, a Philadelphia group has apologized — and vowed to “make up for our mistakes with help from our community.” Eat Up The Borders, which showcases immigrant chefs and international cuisine, said it rejected the charges of antisemitism from around the globe after removing Moshava because of local criticism of the Israeli government. “We want to be very clear that we do not support antisemitism or allow antisemitism in our spaces,...
(JTA) — The Orthodox Union is setting up meetings between members of Congress and Orthodox Jewish constituents who are alarmed by antisemitic incidents since last month’s Israel-Gaza conflict, and by what they see as Congress’ failure to have Israel’s back. “Many in Congress failed to stand up for Israel’s right as a sovereign nation to act in self-defense,” says a page on the umbrella group’s website that facilitates meetings between constituents and their lawmakers. “Further, while the battle between Israel and Hamas raged, we witnessed a sh...
(JNS) - Groups of Jews and other community members in Arizona and Ohio gathered on Sunday to express their concern over the recent rise in anti-Semitism across the country and around the world. In Cincinnati, hundreds attended the "Under the Tent, Standing Against Antisemitism" event to stand in solidarity against Jew-hatred in Ohio and elsewhere. "We join together as Jews and allies to send a strong message that we will not tolerate hate and anti-Semitism in any form," said Gary Greenberg,...
(JNS) - The Jewish United Fund is taking the fight over antisemitism to residents of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs with a major media blitz that included TV ads, billboards, social-media posts and more. The "Stop Antisemitism" media campaign, which launched in late May, is being undertaken because of the rise of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions across the country and in Western Europe. During Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza in mid-May, anti-Semitic attacks soared worldwide and...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Some 5,000 new immigrants from the United States and Canada are scheduled to immigrate to Israel by the end of 2021, according to new data published by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization in conjunction with Israel's Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency for Israel and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund USA. Nefesh B'Nefesh has reported a spike in the number of immigration requests and files opened during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, the o...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A key Supreme Court decision on religious freedoms earned praise from Orthodox Jewish groups, and has more liberal groups breathing a sigh of relief that its scope was narrow. On Thursday, the court issued a unanimous decision overturning Philadelphia’s policy of refusing to work with a Catholic agency that will not place foster children with same-sex parents. Jewish groups had filed friend-of-the-court briefs on both sides of the case, known as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. Orthodox groups, driven by concerns about religio...
(JTA) — Organizers of an event celebrating immigrant chefs in Philadelphia removed an Israeli food truck from the lineup, citing “the concerns of community that we love and serve.” But the bid to calm controversy by Eat Up the Borders, the organizer of the event on Sunday, backfired: After announcing the removal, thousands of people replied, with varying levels of vitriol, questioning why the group associated a chef living in Philadelphia to the policies of a country nearly 6,000 miles away. A congressman representing Philadelphia relea...
(JTA) - A team of journalists once employed by the flagship Jewish newspaper in Los Angeles is trying to create an alternative news source for America's second-largest Jewish community. SoCal Jewish News announced itself last month with a GoFundMe campaign and a July 19 target launch date. Without mentioning the 35-year-old Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, the new website emphasizes that it will be different from the Jewish news currently on offer in the city. SoCal Jewish News is...
(JNS) — Pro-Israel America announced 30 congressional endorsements for the 2022 election cycle on Tuesday. The bipartisan PAC endorsed 15 Democrats and 15 Republicans in total, which the group says are “proven leaders on issues related to the U.S.-Israel relationship and who are running for re-election next year.” Pro-Israel America endorsed 12 Senate candidates, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Mike Crapo (R-Ind.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Hoeve...
(JTA) — Bestselling authors Elin Hilderbrand and Casey McQuiston removed references to Anne Frank and Israel from their novels this week following an outcry on social media from small subsets of readers. The moves have ignited a storm of controversy in the literary world. The campaigns against the books have been successful despite appearing to be relatively small in size, and originate from wildly different perspectives on Jews and Israel. One takes the authors to task for a joke perceived as antisemitic, while the other objects to the mere m...
(JNS) — A Massachusetts state senator is under fire for comments he made legitimizing Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist organization, as well as a call to replace Israel with a binational state. In a statement posted on his website on May 28, State Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a Democrat who serves the Middlesex and Worcester district, commented on the recent 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, urging “much-needed dialogue around this very serious and consequential conflict.” “Against the backdrop of hundreds of human lives lost over th...
(JNS) — A dozen Jewish Democratic lawmakers have issued a statement strongly condemning recent remarks made by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who equated Israeli and U.S. actions to terrorist groups like Hamas and the Taliban. In a tweet on Monday, she wrote: “We must have the same level of accountability and justice for all victims of crimes against humanity. We have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the U.S., Hamas, Israel, Afghanistan and the Taliban.” Her tweet also included a link to a video, where she questioned U.S. Secretary of St...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After a dozen Jewish Democrats in Congress asked Rep. Ilhan Omar to clarify remarks in which she grouped Hamas and the Taliban with the United States and Israel, she complied — but not before she got something off her chest. An insinuation in the request that she was covering for terrorists was Islamophobic, Omar said in a tweet, and she exhorted her colleagues to call first next time. “On Monday, I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about ongoing International Criminal Court investigations,” Omar said Thursday afterno...
(JNS) - Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters prevented the unloading of an Israeli container ship from Asia at the Port of Oakland, Calif., on Friday, with the cooperation of the local longshoremen's union, which refused to unload the vessel. The protest was sponsored and organized by the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, a pro-Palestinian BDS group operating in the Bay Area. In a Sunday Facebook post, the group, which claimed "thousands" streamed to the protest throughout Friday, praised...
In the past few weeks, the Israeli American Council has witnessed a disturbing rise in antisemitism across the United States. Israeli American and Jewish American students have experienced more and more cases of bias, harassment, and discrimination in their schools. IAC calls on students, parents, or educators that have experienced antisemitism or encountered antisemitic or anti-Zionist content in schools to file a complaint through the SchoolWatch platform. The IAC will bring these complaints to the attention of the school or district to...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A Biden administration official said the U.S. government supports restocking Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system after it was depleted by last month’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza. Dozens of House members from both parties have said they would push Congress to appropriate funds to replenish the system should Israel make the request. Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, was here on Thursday reportedly seeking $1 billion for Iron Dome. In addition to Iron Dome funding, the acting assistant secretary of state for Near Ea...
(JNS) — The teachers’ union for the San Francisco school district voted in favor of a resolution on May 19 to boycott Israel The United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), which is affiliated with the largest federation of unions in the United States, the AFL-CIO, is the first K-12 union of public-school teachers in America to officially back BDS. This is also the first time since 2016 that any American union has officially supported the BDS movement, according to The Jewish News of Northern California. The resolution’s last sentence calls...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) - Tucked between a dance school and a '60s retro lounge on a quiet street in Tucson, Arizona, sits a small Middle Eastern and African foods store. But the Al Basha Grocery isn't just a place to get kosher meats and hard-to-find ingredients. "It provides an opportunity for people to see each other as real people and have a normal interaction with people who ordinarily might not interact in their day-to-day lives," said Jesse Davis, a regular Al Basha...
