Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 952 - 976 of 1886
MIAMI BEACH (JTA)-Palm trees line the entrance to the Cuban Hebrew Congregation, where on a recent Saturday morning, about a dozen elderly people gathered for services. Congregants greeted each other in Spanish inside the building, whose Western facade features an impressive Gaudi-esque wall with irregularly shaped stained glass windows. At the front of the sanctuary, the flag of Cuba hung from a pole beside those of Israel and the United States. Cuban Jews founded this congregation in 1961 as i...
This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA)—More than 50 Jewish community centers in 23 states have received emailed bomb threats since Saturday. None of the threats have been found to be credible, though local law enforcement agencies have been notified. Officials do not know who sent the threats. They targeted Jewish community centers in New York, New Jersey, California, Texas and elsewhere throughout the country. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned from officials familiar with the threats that most of the JCCs affected received identica...
NEW YORK (JTA)-New York City is hoping that a new ad campaign will make Jewish New Yorkers feel comfortable despite a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks. The campaign, launched Wednesday by the city's Commission on Human Rights, consists of four ads each featuring a photograph of a different Jewish New Yorker and a bold proclamation: "Jewish New Yorkers belong here. Anti-Semitism does not." Ads using text only will appear in three Orthodox publications-Hamodia, Jewish Press and Mishpacha Magaz...
(JNS)-Two U.S. Republican House members visited historic and strategic sites in Judea and Samaria days after the creation of a special "deal of the century" committee to begin mapping out Israeli application of sovereignty in the disputed region. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), formerly head of the House Freedom Caucus, was joined by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and head of the Republican Study Committee, and their wives toured Israel this week on a trip organized...
(JNS)-The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign student president has vetoed a BDS resolution that was passed last Thursday by the student government. The bill will now likely be heard again by the student government, where it will need a two-thirds majority to override the president's veto. The resolution called on the university to divest from "companies that profit from human-rights violations in Palestine and other communities globally," as well as from firms that provide weaponry and...
(JNS)-The anti-Israel group IfNotNow approached the leading Democratic presidential candidates in New Hampshire, ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday, to ask if they will skip the annual AIPAC Policy Conference next month-only to get one commitment so far. That commitment was from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who relayed her decision via an answer to a question by a potential constituent at a town hall in Derry on Feb. 6. "I'm an American Jew, and I'm terrified by the unholy alliance...
(JNS)—AIPAC apologized for and removed at least four ads it sponsored on Facebook that slammed “radicals in the Democratic Party.” “We offer our unequivocal apology to the overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress who are rightfully offended by the inaccurate assertion that the poorly worded, inflammatory advertisement implied,” said AIPAC in a statement that it shared on Twitter on Saturday. “We deeply appreciate the broad and reliable support that Democrats in Congress have consistently demonstrated for Israel. The bipartisan...
(JTA)-A group of undergraduate students at Harvard University has formed what they call an "anti-Zionist Jewish organization" that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. The Harvard Jewish Coalition for Peace introduced itself in a public statement posted Monday on Facebook as "a new organization founded in the idea that Jewish liberation is inextricably bound up with the liberation of all people." The group said it will focus on Palestinian solidarity work;...
(JNS)—J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami embraced Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas after the latter made statements at a hotel on Tuesday following his remarks earlier at a U.N. Security Council session, denouncing the Trump administration’s Mideast peace plan. “Absolutely disgusting that @jstreetdotorg’s @JeremyBenAmi would embrace Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas funds terrorists to kill American and Israeli Jews. He is a virulent anti-Semite. Ben Ami isn’t a head of state, he doesn’t have to pretend Abbas is legitimate,” tweeted the Republica...
(JNS)-Former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat, was removed by police from an event earlier this week after interrupting and questioning Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) about her past anti-Semitic remarks. The event at Rutgers University in New Jersey, titled "A Global Crisis: Refugees, Migrants and Asylum Seekers-Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad," was organized by the group Muslims4Peace. "Police just ejected me from an event of @Muslims4Peace at @RutgersU which was a fine event...
(JTA)—One flyer reads “Holocaust = fake news.” Another says “America is not for sale.” And another: “Diversity destroys nations.” These are just a few of the 2,713 pieces of propaganda distributed in the United States by white supremacist groups in 2019, according to a report published Wednesday by the Anti-Defamation League. The flyers, posters and bumper stickers—many using traditional American color schemes and iconography to advance racist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ ideas—appeared in every state except Hawaii and touched hundreds of colle...
(JNS)—Responding to a New York Times survey last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) pledged to reverse U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision in November on Israeli settlements, while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg would keep the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Warren said that “the continued expansion of Israeli settlements and the increasing normalization of proposals for Israel to annex parts or all of the West Bank are the most immediate dangers to the two-state solution.” “I will reverse the Trump administration’s new policy on...
(JNS)—After more than six hours of deliberation, the student government at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign passed a BDS resolution in the early hours on Thursday morning that calls on the university to divest from “companies that profit from human-rights violations in Palestine and other communities globally,” as well as from firms that provide weaponry and technology to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a copy of the resolution obtained by JNS ahead of the vote, which includes endorsements from the stude...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA)—A Minnesota congresswoman called AIPAC a “hate group” inciting against her after the Israel lobby featured her in an attack ad. “AIPAC claims to be a bipartisan organization, but its use of hate speech actually makes it a hate group,” U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, a Democrat, said Wednesday in a statement. “By weaponizing anti-Semitism and hate to silence debate, AIPAC is taunting Democrats and mocking our core values.” The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to comment. The lobby removed and apologize...
(JNS)—About 100 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday expressing their “strong disapproval” of his Mideast peace plan, the details of which were released on Jan. 28. The congressional members said the proposal will push the two sides towards additional conflict in that the plan gives the Jewish state a “license to violate international law” by annexing settlements in the West Bank, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Jewish Insider. The letter was spearheaded by Reps....
(JTA)—Bernie Sanders has narrowly won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, racking up additional delegates in his quest to become the nation’s first Jewish president. Sanders, a Vermont senator, was declared the winner late Tuesday with 26% of the vote and more than 90% of precincts reporting. The victory, notched against a crowded field, was a far cry from the decisive win he delivered against Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire in 2016. The victory comes a week after a glitch-filled caucus in Iowa meant that Sanders missed out on becoming the f...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Sen. Elizabeth Warren indicated she would skip the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's conference next month and did not push back against questionable assertions about the lobby from a questioner at a campaign event in New Hampshire. In a sign of how the lobby has become a political lightning rod for Democrats, Warren answered "yeah" when asked if she was planning to skip the conference in Washington in March. "I'm an American Jew and I'm terrified by the unholy alliance that AIPAC is...
(JNS)-The student government at the University of California, Berkeley, erupted into chaos on Monday, delaying a vote on a measure to censure a display by a pro-Palestinian student group. The Associated Students of the University of California Senate's University and External Affairs Committee met to debate student Milton Zerman's resolution titled "Condemning Bears for Palestine for Their Display in Eshleman Hall Glorifying Violent Terrorists." In December, the student group Bears for Palestine...
NEW YORK (JTA)—In a meeting Tuesday with Orthodox Jewish leaders in Brooklyn, U.S. Attorney General William Barr pledged to track and prosecute hate crimes more aggressively on the federal level while also blaming the rise of anti-Semitism on what he called “militant progressivism.” Barr’s concrete proposals for stopping anti-Semitism included an enhanced system for reporting hate crimes, as well as better tracking of white supremacists on social media. He pledged that the Trump administration and his Justice Department would have “zero t...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Democrats running for president have hewed to the party line in criticizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan rolled out by President Donald Trump: Unilateral annexation of settlements is the wrong way to go. The tone was first set by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who each seized on the failure of the Trump administration to include the Palestinians in the peace process and the apparent green light that Israel gets in the plan to extend its law to West Bank settlements. “The pro...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Much of Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign narrative subtly casts her as the anti-Obama, the potential president who will not broker sweetheart deals for big business. That was the subtext—actually it was the overt text—of a buzzy Politico magazine article in September titled “‘Why Are You Pissing In Our Face?’: Inside Warren’s War With the Obama Team.” It chronicled tensions at the beginning of Barack Obama’s first term, when Warren, then a Harvard law professor, was the most prominent critic of the bailout championed...
(JNS)—As synagogues nationwide debate whether to have armed individuals in their building to prevent possible terror attacks, the Secure Community Network has issued new research and scenarios on who might carry arms in a congregation—from trained law-enforcement personnel to congregational members—and how to keep attendees safe. Titled “Firearms and the Faithful: Approaches to Armed Security in Jewish Community,” the 24-page white paper was crafted by SCN—the security arm of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—We ran a story last week on where the top seven Democrats running for president stood on Iran policy. Try as we could, we could not pin down a position for Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who was not included in the last debate, where he might be forced to elaborate a position on one of the burning issues of the day. (He has high enough polling numbers to qualify for a debate, but has not crossed the outside contribution threshold set by the Democratic National Committee because he is bankrolling his own campaign.) T...
(JTA)—Half of American adults are unaware of basic facts regarding Nazism and the Holocaust, including the number of Jews who were killed and how Nazis came to power. Those are some of the findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday, about a week ahead of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The study asked nearly 13,000 respondents, Jewish and non-Jewish adults and teenagers, four questions about the Holocaust. Most knew that the Holocaust took place between 1930 and 1950, and that Nazi ghettos w...
(JNS)—A bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives will be introduced on Monday, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. It will be introduced by Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) and Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), their offices announced on Thursday. The resolution honors the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazi regime and the millions of others whose lives were tragically cut short, many of them from minority groups. The measure also reaffirms t...
