Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The Israeli government’s passage of legislation that authorizes egalitarian prayer in a soon-to-be-created 9,700-square-foot, NIS 35 million ($8.85 million) section adjacent to the southern part of the Western Wall (Kotel in Hebrew) has been called groundbreaking, empowering, dramatic, and unprecedented. The section could be ready in as soon as a few months or up to two years from now. “This is a fair and creative solution,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the 15-5 vote on the measure by his cabinet. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, presi...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg pens passionate farewell to Antonin Scalia WASHINGTON (JTA)—Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an impassioned tribute to Justice Antonin Scalia, her longtime ideological opposite and close friend who died over the weekend. Ginsburg, perhaps the Supreme Court’s most liberal justice, and Scalia, who with Clarence Thomas was its most conservative member, often clashed in tart dissents, depending on which side was prevailing in the opinion. In a statement released to the media on Sunday, a day after Scalia, 79, die...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Israel’s government approved a compromise to expand the non-Orthodox Jewish prayer section of the Western Wall, putting to rest the decades-long fight between Women of the Wall and Israel’s haredi Orthodox religious establishment. The deal achieves what had been an elusive goal: an interdenominational consensus on Judaism’s holiest site with official recognition. The non-Orthodox prayer section at the wall will become much larger and more accessible. But haredi control of the Orthodox section will also be solidified, though...
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org)-The Israeli Foreign Ministry slammed CBS News on Wednesday over its report on a terrorist attack near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, which carried a headline reading, "3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on." The Palestinians identified in the headline were actually the terrorists who carried out the attack, which killed 19-year-old Israeli Border Police officer Hadar Cohen. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon blasted the media outlet's "gall"...
Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org)—A senior Hamas official warned Wednesday that the Palestinian terrorist group’s efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip’s terror tunnel grid are advancing rapidly, and that some tunnels dug under the border already run deep into Israeli territory. “Israeli technology will not be able to stop the resistance as long as Hamas exists,” Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Oman-based Alwatan News. “Even if Israel is able to uncover a tunnel, or two, or 10, they [the tunnels] run deep under Israel, beyond Gaza, into...
RAANANA, Israel (JTA)-Before she traded her native France for Israel, Catherine Berdah ran a successful drug store in an affluent suburb on the eastern edge of Paris. A 50-year-old pharmacist with a master's degree in business and decades of experience, Berdah earned over $6,000 per month and presided over an expanding business with 14 employees. But Berdah sold out last year and moved with her husband and two teenage daughters to this central Israeli city because she feared for their future in...
(JNS.org)- On International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published a video titled "Are The Dark Ages Over," expressing doubt whether the Holocaust took place and complaining about European nations' ban on Holocaust denial. Khamenei laments that the Holocaust denial bans are not justified by European laws regarding free speech. In the video, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research...
Knesset foreign affairs chief: Ex-settler leader will not be Israel’s envoy to Brazil JERUSALEM (JTA)—Former settler leader Dani Dayan will not become Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, a top Israeli government official reportedly said. “We needn’t delude ourselves; Dani Dayan will not be the ambassador to Brazil. We condemn Brazil’s behavior,” Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Sunday during a committee discussion on Brazil’s refusal to accept Dayan’s credentials, the Times of Israel reported. Ha...
While Germany takes pride in confronting its Holocaust past and maintaining a strong relationship with Israel, the European nation's recent influx of more than a million Middle East migrants-many originating in countries like Syria and Iraq, which have deeply rooted anti-Israel and anti-Semitic cultures-has generated fear among German Jews that the refugees will undermine their safety. In October, an official German state intelligence document leaked to the German weekly newspaper Welt am...
B’nai B’rith International condemns the recent remarks of U.N Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. During a session earlier today Ban spoke to the U.N. Security Council stating, “It is human nature to react to occupation, which often serves as a potent incubator of hate and extremism.” This speech is an unacceptable rationalization of terrorism, and Palestinian violence is not a “natural reaction” to Israeli policies. It is, sadly, an easily foreseeable consequence of continuous Palestinian incitement to hatred against Israel, Israelis and Jews in...
The U.S. and U.K. have reportedly been spying on Israel for the past 18 years, watching for a potential strike on Iran and keeping tabs on Israel’s drone technology. U.S. and British intelligence “secretly tapped into live video feeds from Israeli drones and fighter jets, monitoring military operations in Gaza, watching for a potential strike against Iran, and keeping tabs on the drone technology Israel exports around the world,” The Intercept revealed in a breaking news feature on Friday. Under a classified program code-named “Anarchist,” Isra...
Non-Orthodox, Diaspora leaders and Netanyahu praise Western Wall compromise JERUSALEM (JTA)—A chorus of non-Orthodox and Diaspora leaders praised the landmark interdenominational compromise on the Western Wall. The compromise will expand the wall’s egalitarian section and place it under the authority of a pluralist committee while solidifying haredi Orthodox control over the site’s traditional, Orthodox section. Women of the Wall, the women’s prayer group that holds monthly services in the Orthodox section, will move to the non-Ort...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process a year ago has led to an accelerating war of words over Israeli settlements, with Israel accusing its growing chorus of foreign critics of prejudging the final terms of a peace deal at best-and anti-Semitism at worst. The battle heated up this week with the release of a report by Human Rights Watch arguing that doing business with West Bank settlements reinforces Israel's presence there and contributes to human rights abuses. The report comes a day after the European Union,...
(JTA)-A day after witnessing her mother's brutal murder, Dafna Meir's teenage daughter spoke before hundreds who had come to mourn her. Dafna Meir, 38, a mother of six, was stabbed to death on Sunday near the entrance of her West Bank home. "It's hard for me to think we will not laugh together or fight anymore, that you won't accompany me to the IDF induction ceremony, down the aisle, and to the maternity ward," Renana Meir, 17, said at a Jerusalem cemetery, calling her mother her best friend....
The ongoing wave of Palestinian terrorism that has plagued Israel since last fall has also brought to the fore the Palestinians’ frustration with their own leadership. While Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been blamed for inciting violence against Israelis, many Palestinians have become disillusioned with the PA’s corruption and inability to attain statehood. As such, Israeli leaders are increasingly concerned that internal Palestinian dissatisfaction could bring about the PA’s collapse, resulting in a dangerous polit...
Trump retweets compliment from feed that posts fears of ‘white genocide’ WASHINGTON (JTA)—Donald Trump posted a flattering message from a Twitter account that features claims that Jews and others are carrying out a genocide against whites. It was not immediately clear if the Twitter account, @WhiteGenocideTM, is a hoax site or a genuine white supremacy advocacy feed, or some combination of both. The feed in recent weeks has alternated between tweets in support of Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomin...
While the threat of border clashes with Islamic State terrorists fighting in the Syrian civil war has concerned Israeli leaders for some time now, the recruitment of Israeli Arabs to form their own terror cells or launch lone wolf attacks inside of Israel-akin to the Paris and San Bernardino attacks late in 2015-has recently become a more serious threat for the Jewish state. "This is a developing threat for Israel, the possibility that [Islamic State] will take advantage of the new recruits to...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Less than a month after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled a readiness to mend ties with Israel after years of antipathy, a delegation of American Jewish leaders has embarked on a trip to embrace Turkey's longtime rival Greece. Members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are in the midst of a weeklong trip that will take them to Israel, Greece and Cyprus, the disputed Mediterranean island that has been a source of Greek-Turkish...
The ongoing wave of Palestinian terrorism that has plagued Israel since last fall has also brought to the fore the Palestinians' frustration with their own leadership. While Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has been blamed for inciting violence against Israelis, many Palestinians have become disillusioned with the PA's corruption and inability to attain statehood. As such, Israeli leaders are increasingly concerned that internal Palestinian dissatisfaction could bring about...
(JTA)-A French Jewish politician found dead in his home was killed by asphyxiation, the autopsy found. The body of Alain Ghozland, 73, a municipal councilor in the Paris suburb of Creteil, was also reportedly riddled with stab wounds when it was discovered in his apartment Tuesday morning. An unnamed judicial source told the French MetroNews website Wednesday that the cause of death was "traumatic asphyxiation," which he is quoted as saying "confirms the voluntary nature of the homicide." He dec...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Last month, rumors flooded the Internet that former Israeli President Shimon Peres was dead. True to form, the man who tirelessly trumpets his country's high-tech sector took to Facebook to clear the air. "I wish to thank the citizens of Israel for the support, concern and interest, and wish to clarify that the rumors are false," wrote Peres, a Nobel Prize winner. "I'm continuing with my daily schedule as usual to do whatever I can to assist The State of Israel and its citizens."...
Funeral held for West Bank mother of 6 as search for killer moves to 2nd day TEL AVIV (JTA)—Hundreds attended the funeral for the Israeli mother of six who was stabbed to death in her West Bank home as the manhunt continued for her assailant. Dafna Meir, 38, was laid to rest Monday morning at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery in Jerusalem. Among those on hand were Education Minister Naftali Bennett, Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked and opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Meir, a nurse, was stabbed to death in her home the previous day in the Otniel s...
Amid heightened tensions between the two most powerful Muslim nations in the Middle East, experts say the loudest sound might be American silence. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, a Shi'a Muslim dissident who was arrested in 2012 by Saudi authorities, was one of 47 men executed on Jan. 2 by Saudi authorities in the largest mass execution in decades. While nearly all of the 47 men killed had ties with Sunni Muslim terror groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, the inclusion of al-Nimr set off outrage in...
The latest explosion of populist conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia has effectively produced a temporary Middle Eastern Arab alliance with Israel. The common threat of Iran has united the Saudi Arabia aligned Arab world, placing nation after nation on Israel's side in the issue of the security of the Middle East. This security alignment between Israel and the Arabs is besides the Israeli economic and cultural presence that is growing throughout the Arab World and the potential for cooperatio...
PARIS (JTA)-Last year may have been traumatic for France and its Jews, but it was a pretty good one for Rudy Abecassis. In a year that began with the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the subsequent killing of four at a kosher supermarket in Paris, Abecassis, 32, a Marseille-born computer specialist who moved to the Paris region in 2009 to find work, had a good job at a time of rising unemployment. The income was sufficient that his wife, Emilie, was able to quit her secretarial job after the birth of...
