Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 70
(JNS) — The Israel Day on Fifth parade in Manhattan on May 31 made a statement both for who was and was not present, according to Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York. “To all our enemies all around the world, but specifically here in New York City, we are here to stay, we are strong, we are proud and my suggestion to all of these elected officials, who are thinking that we will disappear, the answer is ‘no,’” Akunis told JNS after the parade. “The opposite is the truth,” the...
(JNS) - Hundreds of New Yorkers filled the normally quiet and bucolic Upper East Side street adjacent to Gracie Mansion, the official home of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, on Tuesday evening, chanting "Hey, hey, no, no, Mayor Mamdani's got to go" and "stop Mamdani." Lilly Icikson was among the demonstrators-a group of mostly Jews with a few Muslims and Christians-and handed out stickers, which she prints at home and affixes to light poles and other surfaces outside Gracie Mansion and in...
(JNS) — The UJA-Federation of New York said that it purchased 20,000 bags of Bamba in response to the Park Slope Food Coop’s recent decision to boycott Israeli products. The UJA, the largest Federation in the world, which distributes $275 million in grants annually, described the co-op boycott as “divisive and hate-driven.” Food co-op members voted 67 percent to 31percent to boycott Israeli products. Some 8,400 members, out of 17,000, reportedly voted at the meeting, which was moved online due to security concerns. The Federation said it will...
(JNS) — New York lawmakers rolled a proposal for a 50-foot “buffer zone” around Jewish day schools and community centers into the state budget on Tuesday. Sam Sutton, a Democratic state senator who is Jewish, stated that “after the horrific incident outside Park East Synagogue, I became the first legislator to introduce this proposal.” “Today, buffer zone protections were included in the final state budget,” he said. Noam Abrahams, Sutton’s communications director, told JNS that the proposal was included in the budget bill that’s being discusse...
(JNS) - The Israel parade on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue this year is slated to have a Muslim group marching alongside Jewish organizations in what is believed to be a first time in the parade's 61-year history. It will also be the first time in memory that New York City's mayor will not participate in the parade, which shows support for the Jewish state. The annual event, scheduled this year for May 31, typically has thousands of participants, with groups marching from Jewish day schools,...
(JNS) — The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles forced an Orthodox Jewish woman to remove a religious head covering while posing for a driver’s license, violating state policy and the Constitution, according to a federal law suit filed on April 27. The state didn’t follow its own rules in its demand of Sara Fellig, the Brooklyn resident’s lawyer Emma Lerner Freeman told JNS. “Especially in New York City, which prides itself on being a safe place for people of all faiths, the DMV needs to do better,” the lawyer told JNS. “It must be...
(JNS) — The New York Times is defending its reporting on Israel after one of its star columnists penned an opinion piece which Israel calls one of the worst blood libels ever published and after a freelancer for the paper apparently tried to placate anti-Israel protesters by holding up a paper, upon which he wrote, “Have you read Kristof?” Nicholas Kristof and the paper have drawn widespread criticism for his recent column, in which he accused Israel, among other things, of training dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners. Video footage circulated o...
(JNS) — Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, on Saturday condemned a pro-Palestinian march in New York as “blatant antisemitism disguised as activism,” saying demonstrators chanted slogans calling for Israel’s destruction and to “Globalize the intifada” under a “Nakba Day” banner. In a video posted on X, a woman is heard leading the crowd in the slogan “Resistance is justified when people are occupied,” appearing to condone acts of violent terrorism directed against Israeli civilians and soldiers. According to Getty im...
(JNS) — Most Jewish New Yorkers, 58 percent, think that Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, is doing a poor job, while 32 percent approve of his job performance and 10 percent weren’t sure, according to a survey from the Jewish Majority. Mercury Group, which conducted the poll and surveyed 664 Jewish adults who voted in November in the New York City mayoral election, found that 84% of respondents support the city passing a law creating barrier zones around the doors of houses of worship to prevent harassment and intimidation of wor...
(JNS) — Lindsey Boylan, whom New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed and who has called the Israeli prime minister a “war criminal and a danger to Israel” and accused the Jewish state of “genocide,” conceded the special election in the New York City Council’s third district on Tuesday night. The New York Times reported that Boylan, a Democratic Socialist, called Carl Wilson, a former chief-of-staff to Erik Bottcher, who resigned the council seat to join the state Senate, to concede the race. With 99 percent of votes counted, Wilson appe...
(JNS) — On Oct. 11, 2023, five days after the Hamas-led attacks in southern Israel, Itay Sagi and his unit in the Israeli military went into Gaza to retrieve bodies of Israelis whom the terror organization killed. The unit was ambushed, three soldiers were killed and Sagi was gravely hurt. “My body and my soul were wounded,” Sagi told about 900 people, who filled the Moorish revival sanctuary at Park East Synagogue, an Orthodox congregation in Manhattan, on Monday for a commemoration of Yom Hazikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day. “The images ar...
(JNS) — Members of the Jewish community in New York City gathered on Sunday for an unveiling event of a bench in Central Park commemorating the hostages kidnapped into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel’s south. The bench, named “Hostages Bench,” is also dedicated to those who fought to release the hostages, to those who lost their lives during the Hamas-led invasion into Israel and in the war that ensued since then, to the families of the hostages, and to those who survived captivity, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum’s...
(JNS) — To mark his first 100 days in office, Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, talked about how many potholes he has filled. He should be focusing on mending his relationship with New York City’s Jews, according to Jewish leaders. “Unfortunately, in his first 100 days, Mayor Mamdani has done nothing to allay the concerns I expressed before the election regarding his stance on Israel and the safety of Jewish New Yorkers,” Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, who leads Park Avenue Synagogue, a Conservative congregation on Manhattan’s Upper East Side...
(JNS) - Fred Schoenfeld told an audience of several hundred at Temple Emanu-El on New York City's Upper East Side that he stood before them both as a Holocaust survivor and as "someone who carries the memory of many who are no longer here to speak." "I speak because memory matters," he told the audience on Sunday. "Now that responsibility is shared with you." Schoenfeld was one of several speakers at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust's annual remembrance event...
(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) — Hillel International broke ground at Cornell University on March 8 on a long-planned Jewish student center designed to strengthen campus Jewish life. The campus Hillel has operated since 1952 out of Annabel Taylor Hall, a university building shared with other faith communities. Rabbi Ari Weiss, executive director of the Grinspoon Hillel Center for Jewish Community at the private university in Ithaca, N.Y., told JNS that setting up at Harkavy Hall, a new building, has “been a dream of the Hillel and our community for at least 30 yea...
(JNS) — A Jewish woman, who taught at the United Nations International School in New York for about 30 years, is suing the school, alleging that it ignored her reports of experiencing Jew-hatred on campus and responded by subjecting her to a retaliatory investigation. Robert Weingrad told JNS that his wife, Nadine Sébag, 65, experienced “severe depression” as a result of what she experienced at the school and that she has been suffering from back and muscle issues as well as digestive problems, increased blood pressure and anxiety. “UNIS...
(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...
