Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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SAINT-DENIS, France (JTA)-After three firebombs hit the synagogue of this poor and heavily Muslim suburb of Paris, municipal authorities advised the local Jewish community to lower its profile. Like dozens of attacks on French synagogues since 2000, the January 2009 incident at the Chabad House of Saint-Denis, which did not result in any injuries, was believed to have been Islamist extremists' retaliation for Israel's actions-that year against Hamas in Gaza. "We were told by the mayor from the...
Bernie Sanders wins Wyoming, reiterates Israel’s ‘disproportionate’ response in Gaza war (JTA)—The day after his victory in the Wyoming Democratic caucus, Bernie Sanders doubled down on his assertion that Israel’s response in the 2014 Gaza war was “disproportionate.” “Was Israel’s response disproportionate? I think it was,” Sanders, an Independent senator from Vermont, told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Sunday on “State of the Union.” The Democratic presidential candidate complained that public figures were focusing on his init...
(JTA)-In the wake of last week's terror attack in Brussels, Belgians transformed a central square in the capital into an impromptu memorial for the victims. Thirty-five people died Tuesday in a series of suicide bombings at the city's main airport and a subway station. Starting the next day, people gathered in Place de La Bourse and lit candles amid spontaneous singing and guitar playing of French-language songs about peace, along with some Beatles hits for good measure. Locals and foreigners...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-It began as an all-too-common story: A Palestinian assailant in the contested West Bank city of Hebron stabs and wounds an Israeli soldier. Israeli forces shoot him dead. But hours after the incident Thursday, a political and moral firestorm engulfed Israel. A video showed a soldier executing the already incapacitated attacker. One day later, after condemnation from the highest reaches of Israel's government, a second video appeared to show that the attacker might have still...
"Every week there is an attack at the U.N. against Israel," Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon told me at the recent American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference. In the week that followed our interview, the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed a Canadian legal expert who has expressed anti-Israel views to the post of special rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. The UNHRC also adopted a measure that calls for the creation of a database-or what Danon...
NEW YORK—Known as the most coveted season in Israel, spring boasts cool breezes, wild flowers blooming and savings on EL AL Israel Airlines nonstop flights from all USA gateway cities. The special roundtrip airfare is $899 on nonstop flights from New York (JFK/Newark) and Boston for departures from May 11 through June 15, 2016. From Los Angeles, the roundtrip fare is $1,069 and is available for travel May 8-June 7, 2016. (Prices include all taxes & carrier imposed surcharges.) For Matmid as well as Executive and Premium Tier Frequent Flyer C...
UN censors exhibit on Israel set for NY headquarters (JTA)—The United Nations has censored an exhibition about Israel set to go on display at the organization’s headquarters in New York. Three of the 13 panels in the exhibition “Israel Matters,” which is set to open Monday, will be deleted, the U.N. decided over the weekend. The censored panels deemed “inappropriate” are on the subjects of Zionism, Jerusalem and Arab-Israelis. The exhibit was created by Israel’s permanent mission to the United Nations with the organization StandWithUs....
From 1947 to September 1950, 48,818 Yemenite Jews-almost the entire Jewish population in Yemen-flew to freedom in Israel through Operation On Wings of Eagles, better known as Operation Magic Carpet airlift. (See the full story of the airlift in the Feb. 12 issue of the Heritage.) Approximately 14,000 Yemenite Jews remained behind, and then were trapped in Yemen in 1962 after civil war broke out, making it almost impossible to reach the small population. However, over the years, The Jewish...
ANTWERP (JTA)—The hundreds of rifle-toting police and soldiers who patrol Isaac Michaeli’s neighborhood have done little to improve his sense of safety. “When the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing, the soldiers might as well be cardboard cutouts,” he said. A jeweler in his 40s, Michaeli lives with his family in Antwerp’s Jewish quarter, a small neighborhood of 12,000 that is one of the largest haredi communities in Europe. The troops have been assigned to protect the neighborhood, with its 98 Jewish institutions, since May 2...
Political leaders around the globe, including United States presidential candidates from both major parties and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, all had words to say as to what they perceived as the best response to the suicide bombings carried out by Islamic State operatives at a metro station and airport that killed at least 34 people in Brussels, Belgium, on March 22. Netanyahu’s remarks were delivered for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s 2016 Policy Conference on March 22. After “sending his condolences” to the vic...
Sanders sweeps 3 Western states, winning handily WASHINGTON (JTA)—Sen. Bernie Sanders handily won Democratic nominating contests in Washington state, Alaska and Hawaii, narrowing the delegate gap with front-runner Hillary Clinton but still facing a daunting challenge to secure the party’s presidential nod. With the Sanders’ victories on Saturday, Clinton now leads the Vermont Independent in the number of pledged delegates, 1,234 to 956. But his overwhelming wins in all three states could lend his campaign momentum and bring in donations. In Al...
On March 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a surprise announcement that he would withdraw the “main part” of Russian forces from Syria, in an announcement that shocked many of the countries concerned about the ongoing conflict in the country, including Israel. The move by Putin came as Syrian peace talks began this week in Geneva, Switzerland between the Syrian government, and opposition and rebel groups in the wake of a ceasefire announced in late February between Russia and the United States. “I believe that the task put before the d...
(JNS.org) Two 17-year-old Iranian-Jewish teenagers were arrested in Tehran this week after they were caught spray painting the words “Death to Haman” on a building. “Based on the details that came from Iran, the Tehran police promised to release the two boys, both 17, after it was made clear to them that this is not a political act, but a simple Purim prank, but as of now, the boys have not been released,” said an official familiar with the case, according to Maariv. Jewish groups in the U.S. have become involved in advocating for the boys re...
Police and Shin Bet: New Duma fire not arson attack by settlers JERUSALEM (JTA)—Arson was not the cause of a fire that damaged the Duma home of a key witness in a deadly attack last year in the same West Bank Palestinian village, police believe. Ibrahim Dawabsheh, the owner of the house, and his wife escaped from the burning home early Sunday morning and were treated in a West Bank hospital for smoke inhalation, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported. He is the key witness to the July 2015 attack that killed his relatives Reham and Saad D...
(JTA)—Iran said a U.S. court ruling last week ordering it to pay more than $10 billion for its alleged role in the 9/11 attacks is “ridiculous.” “This judgement is so ridiculous... more than ever before it damages the credibility of the U.S. judicial system,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hossein Jaber Ansari said, according to Agence France Press. U.S. District Judge George Daniels in New York issued a default judgment Wednesday against Iran for $7.5 billion to the estates and families of people who died at the World Trade Center and Pent...
(JNS.org) The Arab League on Friday designated the Lebanon-based Shi’a Muslim group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. “The resolution of the League’s council [of foreign ministers] includes the designation of Hezbollah as a terrorist group,” a statement by the Arab League said. The 22-member body, which is dominated by Sunni Arab states, voted overwhelmingly in favor of the decision, with only Lebanon and Iraq—which both have significant Shi’a Muslim populations and close relations with Iran—not supporting the resolution. The Arab Leag...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Nearly half of Jewish-Israelis want to expel Arabs from the country. That's one of several findings from a new survey of Israeli attitudes on religion, politics and Jewish identity conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center. Coming just three years after Pew's much-discussed study of Jewish-Americans, the Israel study depicts a country divided by religion and ethnicity, where Jews of opposing religious outlooks rarely associate and marriages that cross the Jewish-Arab divide...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-In a survey that spanned politics, religion and interfaith relations, one statistic stood out: nearly half of Israel's Jews support expelling the country's Arabs. The Pew Research Center's study of Israelis' attitudes, which had its findings released Tuesday, had asked respondents whether they agreed that "Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel." Forty-eight percent of Israeli Jews agreed, while 46 percent did not. Among self-described right-wing Jews, 72 percent...
PETACH TIKVAH, Israel (JTA)-Only after Yonatan Azriaev grabbed the terrorist's arms and threw him against a wall of soft drinks did he think he was about to die. Azriaev, a member of the Breslov Hasidic sect, had been handing out religious pamphlets in the open-air market here when he stepped inside a shop at around 4 p.m. Tuesday hoping to give one to the cashier. Then he felt sharp blows to his back and shoulders. Feeling like he was punched, Azriaev said he figured he was being attacked by...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Deeply concerned about the rising incitement against Jews world wide, B’nai B’rith International has issued the following statement: B’nai B’rith International is outraged over the anti-Semitic attack in Uruguay on 54-year-old David Fremd, an outstanding leader in the Jewish community. Fremd was stabbed more than 10 times and died in Paysandu, Uruguay. One of Fremd’s sons was also stabbed; his injuries are not life-threatening. The assailant, who has been arrested, reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” just prior to the attack....
4 Israeli soldiers injured in 2 West Bank car-ramming and shooting attacks JERUSALEM (JTA)—Four Israeli soldiers were injured in two car-ramming and shooting attacks in the West Bank. Two Palestinians drove into a group of Israeli soldiers early Monday morning at a traffic junction in front of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, then exited the car and opened fire, injuring one soldier, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Soldiers at the scene shot and killed the assailants, the IDF said. The shooters had a pistol and a rifle in their possession. A...
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA)-Despite recent summer temperatures here topping out at 42 degrees Celsius (109 Fahrenheit), Milena Rozenbrah has become accustomed recently to dressing in pants and long sleeves when she leaves home. A Jewish mother in Brazil's second-largest city, Rozenbrah is concerned not for the religious value of tzniut, or modesty, but for Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the feared Zika virus and which has become one of Brazil's national enemies. Brazilians have been in a...
By Alina Dain Sharon JNS.org When navigating to www.bdsguide.com, I'm immediately confronted with a clenched fist on a red banner against a crisp white background, and the matter-of-fact wording that I'm viewing the site in the Safari browser on Mac OS X. As an Apple product, my computer has been provided to me under the direction of CEO Tim Cook, who has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a trip to Israel for the inauguration of one of the company's offices in the Jewish...
NIJKERK, Netherlands (JTA)-As a boy, Pieter van Oordt would often accompany his father, Karel, on the elder van Oordt's weekly shopping excursions specifically seeking out products made in Israel. A Christian Zionist businessman in Amersfoort, some 25 miles east of Amsterdam, Karel van Oordt sought to strengthen the Jewish state economically by purchasing its exports to feed his family of eight. But it wasn't easy. "At the greengrocer, my father asked for Jaffa oranges, but they didn't offer tho...
Ra’anana, Israel—Purim is coming and in addition to reading the Book of Esther, dressing in costumes, and eating a sumptuous meal, Purim wouldn’t be Purim without sending greetings, gifts and giving charity to the poor. Leket Israel, the country’s largest food bank and leading food rescue network, offers a great way to fulfil these obligations—by buying Leket greetings cards to send your loved ones—with all proceeds donated to Leket Israel’s Purim campaign: “Funny looking fruit is no laughing matter... it’s nutritious and should be rescued...
