Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Palestinian Authority expects the Trump administration to commit to a peace deal endgame before the close of this month and prefers it would be the two-state solution. "We need them to tell us where the hell they are going," Husam Zomlot, the Palestine Liberation Organization envoy to Washington, said Thursday at a meeting in his office with reporters. "It's about time we hear it." Zomlot said a high-level U.S. delegation comprising Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's...
(JTA)—A chuckle tickled my throat as Ruth Thomann, a Swiss hotelier who posted signs urging her “Jewish guests” to shower before entering the pool, assured me that she has “nothing against Jews.” To be clear, I don’t find racism particularly amusing, especially not these days. But there was something comical about how her earnest voice—she was speaking in broken English with a thick Swiss-German accent—contrasted with the glaringly discriminatory character of the laminated signs that she posted in her Paradise Apartments in Arosa hotel nea...
(JTA)—Commenting on deadly attacks in Catalonia, the chief rabbi of that region in Spain said his community is doomed, partly because of radical Islam and the alleged reluctance of authorities to confront it. Rabbi Meir Bar-Hen has been encouraging his congregants to leave Spain, which he called during an interview with JTA a “hub of Islamist terror for all of Europe,” for years before the attacks Thursday and Friday, he said. At least 13 victims and five suspected terrorists were killed in Barcelona and the resort town of Cambrils, 75 miles...
By Cnaan Liphshiz KHATYN, Belarus (JTA)-Even by Soviet standards, the massive memorial complex near Minsk to the victims of Nazi atrocities stands out for its immense scale and ambition. Spread across half a million square feet-roughly the size of 10 football fields-the haunting Khatyn Memorial is essentially a graveyard not for people, but for entire villages wiped out by the Nazis in Belarus. Byelorussia, as it was then known, was one of the few places in Europe where German brutality toward n...
Stephen Bannon reportedly ‘going to war’ against Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner (JTA)—Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon reportedly is “going to war” against several White House targets, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, according to reports. A report Sunday evening in Vanity Fair titled “Steve Bannon Readies His Revenge: The war on Jared Kushner is about to go nuclear,” said that Bannon’s targets in the West Wing are the “globalists,” identified as Ivanka Trump, Kushner and former Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn...
Oftentimes the impact of Israel on the Western world is large enough to amaze even those of us who live here and experience the economic miracle every day. That’s the reaction many of us had this week when the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released foreign direct investment (FDI) data for 2016. The figures show that Israel is the 13th largest source worldwide for foreign direct investment into the U.S. at $55.4 million, roughly equal to that of Belgium, Australia and Sweden. What is even more impressive is that this is an a...
Two prominent U.S. senators are raising questions about an American-funded school in Ramallah that is running an extremist summer camp for Palestinian teens from around the world, many of them Americans. The controversial summer program, called "Go Palestine," is run by the Ramallah Friends School, a 148-year-old Quaker institution in the Palestinian Authority's de facto capital. Its stated mission is to provide Palestinian teens from abroad with "introductions to Palestinian culture, cuisine,...
Neda Amin, an Iranian journalist who was granted political asylum in Israel Sunday, landed in the country on Thursday after disappearing for a few days. Amin, 32, who had been seeking refuge in Turkey over the past three years, was to be extradited to Iran, where she could face the death penalty due to her columns in the Times of Israel Farsi edition. She was shortly detained and then released by Turkish authorities. Israel’s embassy purchased a ticket for her, and she finally landed at Ben-Gurion Airport. Amin was met at the airport by T...
(JTA)-He has a firm grip on the government, but a mounting political scandal might bring him down. Officials from his own party have begun to distance themselves from him, but he remains defiant. Oh, and his son is in trouble, too. Just one more thing Benjamin Netanyahu has in common with President Donald Trump. Except there's a difference: While Trump faces one sprawling scandal, the Russia affair, Israel's prime minister is embroiled in at least two. Police are conducting two additional corrup...
(JTA)—Yisrael Kristal, a Holocaust survivor from Haifa who was recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest man in the world, has died, a month before his 114th birthday. Haaretz reported that Kristal died Friday. Born on Sept. 15, 1903, in the town of Zarnow, Poland, Kristal moved to Lodz in 1920 to work in his family’s candy business. He continued operating the business after the Nazis forced the city’s Jews into a ghetto, where Kristal’s two children died. In 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz, where his wife, whom he had married...
Trump names KKK, white supremacists, neo-Nazis in condemnation of Charlottesville rally WASHINGTON (JTA)—Amid a furor over his delay in denouncing a white supremacists’ rally in specific terms, President Donald Trump condemned the “racist violence” at the Charlottesville event and declared that “racism is evil.” “Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, and other hate groups who are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans,” Trump said Mond...
NEW YORK (JTA)-If Jared Kushner is the only person who can deliver Middle East peace-as his father-in-law Donald Trump said-he comes off as a reluctant savior. In a speech delivered Monday to a group of congressional interns and leaked to the media, Kushner expounded on the Trump administration's efforts to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace. What emerged was an outlook that at once was resolutely pro-Israel and skeptical of the chances of success. "So what do we offer that's unique? I don't...
Palestinians are vowing to continue their efforts to prevent Jews from living in large parts of Jerusalem’s Old City, despite a July 31 Israeli court ruling permitting a Jewish purchase of several properties there. The ruling by Judge Gila Kanfi-Steinitz, deputy head of the Jerusalem District Court, capped a 13-year legal struggle over the purchase by Jewish investors of two Arab-run hotels and an unidentified third property, all owned by the Greek Orthodox Church and located in the area of the Old City known as the Christian Quarter. The t...
More than 1,000 Jews braved a searing heat wave Tuesday morning to visit the Temple Mount on Tisha b'Av, the saddest date on the Hebrew calendar, while thousands more sat on the floor-a traditional Jewish sign of mourning-at the Western Wall Plaza to commemorate the destruction of ancient Jerusalem by the Roman Empire in the year 70 CE. More visitors were expected throughout the day. One person, a 15-year-old boy, was lightly wounded when a Muslim worshiper threw a chair at him. He was given...
Jordan’s foreign minister blames the “occupation” for the Temple Mount terror, and threatens even more dangerous crises. As recently as the mid-20th century, when Arabs last controlled parts of Jerusalem, they exhibited no respect for the Holy City. In 1948, when Jordan took control of the eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City, it divided the city for the first time in its 3,000-year history. Under the 1949 armistice agreement with Israel, Jordan pledged to allow free access to all holy places but failed to honor that commi...
The Trump administration has reportedly reached a new contract with the Israeli defense electronics company Elbit Systems to implement advanced security systems on the U.S. border with Mexico, similar to the security technology utilized along Israel's borders. According to reports that emerged last weekend in Hebrew- and English-language Israeli media, an American delegation recently visited Israel to tour the country's borders with the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Delegation members were pitched on a...
Supreme Court orders Netanyahu to release some details of Sheldon Adelson calls JERUSALEM (JTA)—Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must disclose the dates and lengths of the phone conversations he had with billionaire American Sheldon Adelson, publisher of the pro-Netanyahu daily newspaper Israel Hayom. The Supreme Court ruling on Monday was a response to an appeal filed by a reporter for Israel’s Channel 10 and overturns a Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court decision in 2016. The Magistrate’s Court ruling had overturned a decision calling for the rel...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Campaigning last year for the presidency, Donald Trump said the Iran nuclear agreement was the "worst deal" he had ever seen. It was never exactly clear, however, what he intended to do about it: Appearing at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's policy conference in March 2016, Trump said in the same speech that he planned to "dismantle" and "enforce" it. As president, Trump appears to be edging toward dismantling. His administration recertified Iran's adherence to...
Before an Arab terror attack that killed two Israeli policemen ignited the latest wave of tension over the Temple Mount, much of the Jewish world’s attention had focused on an internal Jewish controversy surrounding prayer rights at the adjacent Western Wall. In June, American Judaism’s Reform and Conservative movements as well as other Jewish organizations reacted with outrage to the Israeli government’s decision to cancel the construction of a new egalitarian prayer pavilion at the Western Wall. Yet a mixed-gender prayer facility calle...
On Friday night July 21, Maj. Hanan (full name withheld for security reasons) received word of a gruesome development. A knife-wielding Palestinian terrorist had killed three members of an Israeli family in the settlement of Halamish. The terrorist, a 19-year-old Palestinian from a nearby village, was shot and injured by an Oketz K9 unit soldier, who lived next door. By the time Hanan, who heads the Counter-Terrorism Branch in the IDF's Counter-Terrorism School, arrived at the blood-stained...
Palestinians and Arab Members of Knesset declared "victory" as Israel reversed security measures at the Temple Mount, adding that their struggle for control over the compound also extends to the Western Wall. MK Taleb Abu Arar (Joint List) stressed that "Jews have no rights at al-Aqsa Mosque" and that the Muslims' fight against Israel will continue, regardless of the cabinet decision to remove metal detectors from the entrances to the Temple Mount compound. "This is a proven fact, [even if]...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in discussions with the U.S. administration, has agreed to land swaps with the Palestinian Authority, Channel 2 reported Thursday. The conversations were reportedly held before the current Temple Mount crisis, which began nearly two weeks ago and has led to massive confrontation, violence and deadly terror attacks. Netanyahu's suggestions, made during meetings with Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, senior advisers to President Donald Trump, include...
(JTA)—The White House lauded Israel for dismantling metal detectors near the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem that had spurred violent clashes between Muslims and Israeli police, but Palestinian officials called for sustained protests. “The United States applauds the efforts of Israel to maintain security while reducing tensions in the region,” press secretary Sean Spicer said Tuesday after Israel’s actions earlier in the day. The metal detectors were removed amid an escalation of violent protests in the West Bank and of anti-Israel rhetoric across...
Jewish camp apologizes for flying Palestinian flag (JTA)—A Jewish camp in Washington state apologized after flying a Palestinian flag “as a sign of friendship and acceptance” to visiting Palestinian Muslim and Christian students. Last week, Camp Solomon Schechter hosted members of Kids 4 Peace, a group that includes Christian and Muslim Palestinian children. In a letter sent to parents and supporters following the visit, the camp wrote: “For the sake of a teachable moment, we did raise the Palestinian flag as a sign of friendship and accepta...
