Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 53
(JNS) — Zohran Mamdani, the New York City mayor, met with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office in November in what he called a “productive” meeting and the president said was a “very productive” conversation. The mayor said he had another “productive” meeting with Trump on Feb. 26. “I had a productive meeting with President Trump this afternoon. I’m looking forward to building more housing in New York City,” he wrote. He shared a photo of himself standing behind a seated Trump in the Oval Office, holding a mock newspaper with the...
(JNS) - The 4,500 Jewish teenagers from all over the world-from Australia to Slovakia to Singapore to Brazil to France to Los Angeles-who had come to Brooklyn, N.Y., for a weekend of inspiration and learning through the Chabad movement, intended to return home on Sunday. A blizzard that paralyzed the city, shutting airports and leading officials to ban cars from the streets, had other ideas. Instead, teens who had never seen snow before had friendly snowball fights outside 770 Eastern Parkway,...
(JNS) — The 4,500 Jewish teenagers from all over the world—from Australia to Slovakia to Singapore to Brazil to France to Los Angeles—who had come to Brooklyn, N.Y., for a weekend of inspiration and learning through the Chabad movement, intended to return home on Sunday. A blizzard that paralyzed the city, shutting airports and leading officials to ban cars from the streets, had other ideas. Instead, teens who had never seen snow before had friendly snowball fights outside 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the international movem...
(JNS) — In a glowing profile of a Palestinian American neurosurgeon building schools and offering hot meals to children in the Gaza Strip, The New York Times inadvertently exposed a far more consequential story than the one it intended to tell. Beneath the “feel good” narrative lies an uncomfortable truth: the curriculum used in Palestinian Authority schools is saturated with anti-Israel incitement, antisemitism and the glorification of violence—an educational framework that has served to indoctrinate generations of young Palestinians with th...
(JNS) — Nearly 15 hours after Jessica Tisch, the New York City Police Department commissioner, decried attacks on police officers in Washington Square Park, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that it was just "kids throwing snowballs." "The NYPD is aware of certain videos taken earlier today in Washington Square Park showing individuals attacking cops. I want to be very clear: The behavior depicted is disgraceful, and it is criminal," Tisch stated at 9:55 p.m. on Monday. "Our detectives are investigating this matter." At 11:46 a.m. on Tuesday, M...
(JNS) - Moshe Davis learned that he was out of a job on Feb. 4 from a public social media post that Phylisa Wisdom was succeeding him as director of the New York City Mayor's Office to Combat Antisemitism. Close to an hour later, his supervisor made it official. He wasn't surprised but was disappointed, he told JNS. Mayor Zohran Mamdani "signaled that they would be taking a different approach that didn't align with mine," Davis said. "I was hoping they wanted to make this office something that...
(JNS) — Anti-Israel groups and left-wing Jewish organizations are rallying to stop Gov. Kathy Hochul and the New York City Council from forwarding proposals that would create buffer zones around houses of worship and educational facilities. While Jewish advocacy groups have come together to back the legislation, PAL-Awda of New York and New Jersey called for “urgent action” on Feb. 8. “Tell your state senator and assemblymember to reject anti-free speech buffer zones.” The group wrote that “Hochul is trying to sneak this through the state budge...
(JNS) — Elaine Grossinger Etess, the third-generation Jewish proprietor of the famed Grossinger’s resort in Liberty, N.Y., in the Catskill Mountains, died on Jan. 27. She was 98 years old. The hotel was part of the famed Borscht Belt, where Jewish residents—many of them from the five boroughs of New York City—would go to unwind with their families amid expansive lawns, swimming pools, exercise and dance classes, day and nighttime activities, and legendary comedy acts, complete with all-you-could-eat kosher food. Etess was the daughter of Harr...
(JNS) — New York City Police Department officers arrested a man who repeatedly rammed a car into an entrance to Chabad world headquarters in Brooklyn on Wednesday night. No injuries reported. The NYPD told JNs that officers responded at around 8:45 p.m. to 770 Eastern Parkway, where they saw a gray Honda sedan which “collided into entrance doors at the bottom of a sloped driveway in front of 770 Eastern Parkway.” “The operator of the vehicle was taken into custody and the investigation remains ongoing,” NYPD said. The department told JNS that...
(JNS) - Many American Jews assume that it's easy to be Jewish in Israel given the ubiquity of Hebrew and history in the Jewish state, where one needn't pay tens of thousands of dollars annually for day school or thousands for synagogue membership to raise children who are knowledgeable about Judaism. But senior Israeli educators told JNS that is not the case. Several Israeli education officials, who spent a week visiting New York schools and synagogues, told JNS that Israeli students aren't...
(JNS) — Community leaders, scholars and Jewish advocacy groups largely welcomed New York City’s announcement of a planned Holocaust memorial to be constructed at Queens Borough Hall. But some cautioned that remembrance alone is insufficient to confront contemporary Jew-hatred. Edward Rothstein, critic-at-large at the Wall Street Journal, told JNS that he doesn’t have specific knowledge of the particular memorial, which Mayor Eric Adams and Donovan Richards, the Queens Borough president, announced last month, but there “is no question that es...
(JNS) — Yeshiva University’s latest IRS Form 990 shows that the school ended fiscal year 2023 deeper in the red than the prior year, as spending again exceeded reported revenue. The filing, which the Commentator, a student paper, reported, lists $394 million in total revenue and $427 million in total expenses, producing a $33 million net loss. The shortfall widened substantially from 2022, when it reported an $8 million loss. Major spending categories included more than $130 million in salaries and wages, more than $116 million in grants and...
(JNS) — Eric Adams, the outgoing New York City mayor, was asked on Friday during an ABC interview at Gracie Mansion what advice he has for Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect. “You’re the mayor now, and it can’t be merely listening to the extremism of his party, like the Democratic Socialists of America, who never governed anything,” Adams told Bill Ritter, of the network. “You are now the mayor. You have to make tough decisions, and if you believe that you could just push those decisions to the side, it’s not going to happen.” The mayor told ABC...
(JNS) — Dora Pekec, press secretary for Zohran Mamdani, told Jewish Insider on Thursday that the New York City mayor-elect “has discouraged” the language that protesters used outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan the prior night “and will continue to do so.” She added that her boss “believes every New Yorker should be free to enter a house of worship without intimidation, and that these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.” The 200 protesters who reportedly shouted calls for violence agai...
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik announced a run for governor Friday, as the Republican seeks to leverage her elevated profile as a vocal supporter of the Jewish community to a role in higher office. She aims to challenge the Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul, who angered many Jews in New York with her endorsement of New York City's mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, despite his track record of Israel criticism. In an announcement video for Stefanik's gubernatorial run, a narrator notes that she "fought...
A coalition of progressive Jewish organizations is condemning the Anti-Defamation League for what it calls “Islamophobic and racist” attacks on New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. In a statement released Tuesday, the groups criticized the ADL’s creation of a “Mamdani Monitor” to track policies and personnel appointments that the ADL views as threatening Jewish security. The signatories — including New York Jewish Agenda, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, IfNotNow, J Street NYC, Jews for Racial & Economic Justice and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call...
(JNS) — Hours after Zohran Mamdani, an anti-Israel, self-identified socialist, was elected mayor of New York City, the Anti-Defamation League said that it is launching a tip line for city residents to reported Jew-hatred and a “Mamdani monitor.” The latter will be a “public-facing tracker monitoring policies, appointments and actions by the Mamdani administration that impact Jewish community safety and security.” “Drawing from tipline reports as well as enhanced ADL research capabilities, this Mamdani Monitor will provide transparenc...
(JNS) — A poll in the New York City mayoral race released on Monday shows state representative Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, with a double-digit lead in a three-way race against independent, former Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo and the Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. The AARP/Gotham poll of 1,040 likely voters shows Mamdani leading with 43.2% of the vote against Cuomo’s 28.9 percent and Sliwa’s 19.4 percent. But those margins would tighten considerably if either of the trailing candidates were to drop out of the race. “In a head-...
(JNS) — The New York City mayoral race has narrowed to three candidates following incumbent Eric Adams’s decision to drop out on Sunday, but polling suggests that that will do little to increase the odds for former governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa to defeat the Democratic frontrunner, state representative Zohran Mamdani, in the general election in November. Experts told JNS that the political defeat of one of the most philosemitic and pro-Israel mayors in the city’s history at the hands of a self-described socia...
(JNS) — Israeli Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Sunday expressed his gratitude to New York Mayor Eric Adams, after the latter announced he was bowing out of the city’s mayoral race. “Eric Adams chose NYC over his ego, trying to save it from the crazy communist,” Ohana said on X, referring to front runner and anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdani. Adams was polling fourth after Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa, according to the New York Post. Thus his exit from the race improves the chances of Cuomo and Sliwa, conside...
(JNS) — Oziel Vatik, the mayor of the Samaria village of Kedumim, was subjected to harassment and threats in New York while visiting the city as part of an official Yesha Council delegation on Sunday, he told JNS. Vatik told JNS he was holding security consultations by phone following the deadly terrorist attack near Kedumim on Sunday when a woman came up to him and started shouting. “She shouted at me: ‘You’re Israeli, you piece of…’ and other curses in English,” he said, adding: “Out of respect for you, I won’t repeat them.” “Just as i...
Adams is out — but who will get his votes? Mayor Eric Adams quit his reelection bid on Sunday, ending an unpopular, scandal-ridden administration and a longshot campaign to hold onto Grace Mansion. Adams was consistently polling fourth, behind Democratic nominee and frontrunner Zohran Mamdani, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa. But Jews made up an important part of his base. According to a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month, of the 12 percent of voters who favored Adams, 42 percent said they were Jewish. A...
(JNS) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, wrote in The New York Times on Sunday that she is endorsing Zohran Mamdani, a state representative with a long history of denouncing Israel, for New York City mayor, giving the Democratic socialist his most high-profile backing to date. “I didn’t leave my conversations with Mr. Mamdani aligned with him on every issue,” she wrote. “But I am confident that he has the courage, urgency and optimism New York City needs to lead it through the challenges of this moment.” Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo, a fo...
(JNS)— It’s literally a rite of passage, or at least, a rite. For the past five years, Chabad of Bedford in Bedford Corners, N.Y., has held Tashlich in Leonard Park in the nearby village of Mount Kisco, N.Y. This year, however, the Jewish center, which has been directed by Rabbi Arik and Sara Wolf for 22 years—they arrived in 2003—has been denied a permit to use the public property for the Rosh Hashanah tradition, scheduled for Sept. 23. The Tashlich ceremony is one where Jews gather to “cast off” their sins, typically throwing pieces of b...
(JNS) — Unidentified individuals spray-painted “NYT Lies, Gaza Dies” on The New York Times building in Manhattan on Wednesday, with sections of the structure’s doors and windows also daubed with red paint. The incident follows heightened criticism of the newspaper’s coverage of the Gaza conflict. The perpetrators remain unknown. The graffiti appeared hours after The New York Times issued an editor’s note amending its July 24 article, “Gazans are dying of starvation.” Five days after publication, the Times acknowledged that its story reference...
