Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1255 - 1279 of 2213
WARSAW, Poland (JTA)—Staffers at the Auschwitz museum found a gold ring hidden in a false bottom of one of the cups on display in the main exhibition. During conservation work on one of the enamel mugs, a double, or false, bottom was discovered, the museum said in a statement this week. Inside the false bottom, the staffers discovered a women’s gold ring and a gold chain. Both items were tested and the lab determined, based on the properties of the gold, they were likely made in Poland between 1921 and 1931. “The hiding of valuable items...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—He was an outspoken politician with little military experience, appointed by a rival and promising to bring a new approach. Current and former officials at the Defense Ministry called his appointment an “enigma,” fretting that “it will take some time until he understands how things work” and that “he’ll have to undergo basic training.” The subject of that criticism wasn’t Avigdor Liberman, the hard-line nationalist with scant army experience who was offered the defense portfolio in a surprise move Wednesday. It was Amir Peretz,...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-On one hand, most Israelis say their financial situation is good and getting better. On the other hand, they're worried they won't be able to provide for their children. On one hand, they want significantly more government spending in a wide range of public services. On the other hand, they say they pay too many taxes. These are among the confused results of a wide-ranging economic survey obtained by JTA ahead of its publication Tuesday by the Israel Democracy Institute think...
Austrian far-right pol’s narrow loss in presidential runoff provides wake-up call, Jewish groups say (JTA)—European Jewish groups reacted with relief to the victory by a left-wing politician over a far-right candidate in Austria’s presidential elections. Alexander van der Bellen, an environmentalist with a pro-refugee agenda, won with 50.3 percent of the vote on Sunday, despite early reports predicting victory for Norbert Hofer of the Austrian Freedom Party party, or FPO, in the runoff, the BBC reported. Hofer had 49.7 percent of the vote....
When it comes to the security situation at Israel's borders in recent years, no border has been more perilous for the Jewish state as its southern boundary with the Gaza Strip. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinian terror group Hamas seized control of the coastal enclave in 2007. Since then, Gaza has given Israel three wars, thousands of rocket attacks, and a network of cross-border terror tunnels that Hamas is now trying to rebuild. Since the conclusion of the...
KRAKOW, Poland-More than 10,000 young adults from 42 countries participated in the 28th Annual March of the Living through Auschwitz-Birkenau, the world's largest Holocaust commemoration. The March brings together both Jews and non-Jews (40-percent of participants) to mark the annual Yom Hashoah-Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day. Included this year were several UCF students and Hillel staff. It was the culmination of a week of events, which included visits to the ghettos, monuments and concentr...
Why should the casual observer care about the seemingly obvious need to prosecute and convict Nazi war criminals, whether it be during the Nuremberg trials of the 1940s or similar proceedings in more recent years? "The Nuremberg trials only convicted the leaders and a relatively small number of people," retired Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told JNS.org. "Even for the trials that occurred thereafter, we're talking about just hundreds of people... and for years they were...
(JNS.org) The United States has announced a $50 million humanitarian aid program for the Gaza Strip. According to U.S. officials, the aid—which will be distributed by the U.S. Agency for International Development in conjunction with Catholic Relief Services—will be dispersed over five years to provide basic humanitarian assistance and create jobs. U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem Donald A. Blume said the effort is meant to address “the dire needs that are obvious in Gaza,” the Associated Press reported. The announcement of U.S. aid comes a...
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is the 10th-most-admired person in the United States, according to the "World's Most Admired 2016" YouGov poll that gauged the popularity of famous people in 30 different countries. U.S. President Barack Obama topped the chart, Pope Francis came in second, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders was sixth, and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump ranked eighth. Netanyahu ranked higher...
Jewish leaders in the United Kingdom have voiced their displeasure with the Labour Party amid an anti-Semitism scandal within its ranks that continues to engulf the country's second-largest party. With the reported suspension of at least 50 Labour members for anti-Semitic comments over the past two months, British-Jewish voters are also indicating that the scandal may have damaged their perception of the liberal party. Although the Labour Party's candidate for London mayor, Sadiq Khan, defeated...
Donald Trump reportedly to get big financial boost from Sheldon Adelson WASHINGTON (JTA)—Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson plans to spend tens of millions of dollars to help elect Donald Trump president, The New York Times reported. Last Friday, the Times quoted two Republicans as saying that Trump and Adelson met last week in New York when Adelson was in the city to attend an event of the World Values Network, a Jewish group he helps fund. Adelson, a Jewish billionaire, Republican mega-giver and pro-Israel philanthropist, said he was ready to s...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-For a leader often accused of not wanting to talk peace with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sure does a lot of talking about wanting to talk to the Palestinians. In a series of three statements this month, Netanyahu repeatedly stressed the need for peace with the Palestinians. He called the peace process one of his highest priorities and hinted that a renewal of talks might be underway. Responding to a question about the peace process on Twitter on...
LONDON (JTA)-Less than two years after he moved his family from Paris to London, David Herz is already feeling at home in the United Kingdom. The co-founder of a communications agency, Herz is among thousands of French Jews who moved across the channel in recent years. He says he immigrated mostly for financial reasons and is enjoying the added benefit of having his teenage children study in English in a good school. Herz, his wife and three kids are part of the vibrant congregation of the...
Israel’s security forces have captured a veteran Hamas terrorist who has been providing a treasure trove of information on Hamas’ terror tunnel network, the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) stated. The Shin Bet’s statement came the same day as Israel announced it had exposed a second terror tunnel running from the Gaza Strip into Israel. The terrorist, Mohammed Atownah, 29, was arrested at the beginning of April as he infiltrated into Israel from Gaza armed with two knives, on his way to murder IDF soldiers and Israeli civilians. Atownah...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Democrats are more than four times as likely as Republicans to say they sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israel, according to a survey published Thursday, and sympathy for the Palestinians among Americans overall is growing. Sympathy for the Palestinians is up most sharply among the youngest American adults, growing threefold over the last decade, the new survey by the Pew Research Center shows. Some 27 percent of millennials say are more sympathetic to the Palestinians than Israel; in 2006 the figure was 9 p...
An Israeli partnership announced that an oil field they have been surveying north of the Dead Sea is estimated to hold seven million barrels of oil, worth NIS 1.2 billion ($321 million). The reservoir, known as Hatrurim, is estimated to contain 7 million barrels of oil, while the high estimate is 11 million barrels. The estimates are given with 100 percent geological certainty of oil being found, since oil has already been produced from the reservoir, in the Halamish drilling, a report published by the companies holding the drilling license...
Anne Frank’s copy of ‘Grimm’s Fairy Tales’ sells for $50,000 (JTA)—A Boston museum has acquired Anne Frank’s personal copy of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales” for $50,000 at auction. The Museum of World War II was the highest bidder last Friday for the 1925 German edition of the book, which features the names of Anne and her sister, Margot, on the title page. The book, which sold at Swann Auction Galleries in New York City, is accompanied by a 1977 letter from the girls’ father, Otto, giving it provenance. It marked the first time in more than 20 years...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-The Israeli Supreme Court decision on Jewish conversion changes almost nothing. But down the line, it could change a lot. Under the March 31 ruling, the state of Israel must recognize Jewish conversions performed in private Orthodox conversion courts not run by its Chief Rabbinate. A network of such courts, called Giyur Kahalacha, or "conversion by Jewish law," began operating last year. The ruling concerned whether three people who had converted in non-Rabbinate courts could...
(JTA)-A British Parliament member who in a 2014 Facebook post called for relocating the entire State of Israel to the United States has been suspended from the Labour Party. Naz Shah, who is Muslim, was suspended Wednesday by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn a day after she resigned from her post as private secretary to the Parliament's shadow chancellor. Pending an investigation, Shah is "unable to take part in any party activity," a Labour spokesman was quoted as saying in the Jewish News. Shah...
Trump says he will try to broker Israeli-Palestinian peace deal (JTA)—Saying he’d “never met a person from Israel that didn’t want to make that deal,” Donald Trump said if elected president he plans to try to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty. “I am going to try and make that deal just because—man, would that be a beauty—if you like deals. I like deals,” the Republican presidential front-runner said at a rally Sunday in Terre Haute ahead of the Indiana primary on Tuesday, according to Jewish Insider. “A lot of my Jewish friends say,...
The U.N. has passed yet another anti-Israel resolution denying historical and archaeological evidence proving a long-existing Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. In blatant disregard of history, archaeology and plain common sense, the executive board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted a resolution on Friday that ignores Jewish historical ties to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall in Jerusalem. With 33 votes in favor, six against, and 17...
By Caleb R. Newton Families from the Druze community of Israel came to the Jewish Academy of Orlando late after Shabbat on April 16, to share their stories of loved ones who died while serving in the Israel Defense Force throughout the past decades in several different conflicts. The families wanted to share their experiences with Central Florida to help build bridges between our communities and to recognize the bridges that are already present. "This...demonstrates the high level of...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-At least 21 people were injured in a bus bombing in Jerusalem, police said, in the first such attack in Israel in years. A city bus exploded and went up in flames Monday evening, April 18, on a major thoroughfare in the southern end of the capital. The blast set a second bus and a car nearby on fire. Two people were seriously injured in the attack, with seven moderately injured and 12 lightly injured. An explosive device was planted in the rear half of the bus, which was stopped...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-During the five-plus years of Syria's civil war, Israel has striven to stay neutral-supporting neither the government of President Bashar Assad nor the rebels, and certainly not the Islamic State. But on one issue, senior Israeli politicians have gladly taken sides: Israel keeping the Golan Heights. Facing reports of an international call for Israel to leave the territory as part of a settlement of the Syrian crisis, the Israeli Cabinet met Sunday on the Golan. The unprecedented...
KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA)-One family lost their son in late July 2014. The other lost theirs on the first of August in the same year. One family has lobbied the United Nations and crossed an ocean in hopes of bringing their son's remains back. The other mostly stays home. One family is sure their son is dead. The other is plagued by uncertainty. But one thing unites the Goldin and Shaul families: Of the 67 sets of Israeli parents who lost sons in the Gaza War two years ago, only theirs have not...
