Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Netanyahu praises Trump’s defense of Israel as UN General Assembly convenes WASHINGTON (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at the launch of this year’s U.N. General Assembly and praised his “unequivocal” defense of Israel. “I want to say that under President Trump, America’s position towards Israel at the U.N. has been unequivocal, it’s been strong, it’s got both clarity and conviction,” Netanyahu said Monday at a meeting with Trump in New York. “And I want to thank you on behalf of the people... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-The United States will return to Iraq next year a trove of Iraqi Jewish artifacts that lawmakers and Jewish groups have lobbied to keep in this country, a State Department official said. A four-year extension to keep the Iraqi Jewish Archive in the U.S. is set to expire in September 2018, as is funding for maintaining and transporting the items. The materials will then be sent back to Iraq, spokesman Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement sent to JTA on Thursday. Rodriguez said the S... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israel's defense minister reignited the emotional national debate over what price the country should be willing to pay for the return of kidnapped soldiers, particularly the bodies of those who have been killed. Avigdor Liberman said Sunday that Israel must not repeat the "mistake" of the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal, in which it released more than 1,000 Palestinian security prisoners in exchange for the return of its soldier from Hamas. The argument, which never really ends here, was... Full story
A leading Palestinian newspaper published an account on Monday of a tense encounter between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and US President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Ramallah last week. Al-Quds, a Jerusalem-based newspaper that is close to the PA, reported that Kushner had raised the issue of the so-called "martyr payments" made to convicted terrorists and their families-a policy dubbed "pay to slay" that costs the PA more than $300 million annu... Full story
Despite 1,300 years of Muslim Arab rule, Jerusalem was never the capital of an Arab entity, nor was it ever mentioned in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s covenant until Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. Overall, the role of Jerusalem in Islam is best understood as the outcome of political exigencies impacting on religious belief. Mohammed, who founded Islam in 622 CE, was born and raised in present-day Saudi Arabia; he never set foot in Jerusalem. His connection to the city came years after his d... Full story
Hillary Clinton says Bernie Sanders attacks on her led to Trump victory (JTA)—Hillary Clinton blamed attacks against her by Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary for president on her eventual loss in the general election to Donald Trump. In excerpts from Clinton’s forthcoming book “What Happened,” the former secretary of state wrote that the attacks by Sanders, a Vermont senator, caused “lasting damage” and were instrumental in “paving the way for Trump’s Crooked Hillary campaign.” The book is scheduled to be released on Sept. 12, but Cl... Full story
An upcoming “blacklist” of major international companies with business ties to Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and eastern Jerusalem represents yet another attempt by anti-Israel actors in the United Nations to single out and demonize the world’s only Jewish state, experts say. The U.N. Human Rights Council had voted to approve the database of businesses last year, defying objections from the U.S. and Israel. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Prince Zeid bin Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein submitted a draft of the blackli... Full story
(JNS.org)-In the wake of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's ousting, reports detailing his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have started to emerge. Bannon reportedly aggressively petitioned President Donald Trump to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but was blocked by Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair reported Sunday. Trump promised to relocate the embassy during his election campaign in 2016, but he signed a s... Full story
The winner of a Lebanese beauty pageant has been stripped of her title after it was revealed she had visited Israel. Dual Swedish-Lebanese citizen Amanda Hanna, who won the Miss Lebanon Emigrant 2017 competition earlier this month, was told she would be stripped of her title after visiting Israel, using her Swedish passport on an academic trip in 2016. "After communicating our decision with Lebanon's Minister of Tourism, he decided that Hanna should be stripped of her title because her visit to... Full story
Dozens of Houston Jewish community families displaced in ‘catastrophic’ flooding (JTA)—Dozens of Jewish families in Houston were either evacuated or moved to the second floors of their homes due to flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey, the local Jewish Family Service said. Some 150 neighborhood blocks in the city that are home to members of the Jewish community have been damaged in floods as part of the hurricane, the JFS said in a conference call with community leaders, the Texas Jewish Herald-Voice reported. Many of the families affec... Full story
During the last several years, Israel has witnessed the crumbling of its neighborhood as civil wars, internal strife and Islamic extremism have taken hold throughout the Middle East. As the Jewish state’s foes and allies alike face ongoing strife, the Kurdish people of northern Iraq have emerged as a striking source of stability, with the willingness to confront these threats. A century after being denied statehood by European powers after the Ottoman Empire fell, the Kurds are slated to hold a referendum on independence from Iraq Sept. 25. F... Full story
(JNS.org)—Russian military forces have replaced the Syrian regime’s military presence in Daraa and Quneitra in southern Syria, and have built a base in the area, Syrian opposition sources reported this week. The move indicates that Russia intends to create a more permanent military presence near Israel’s northern border, and comes after the implementation of a Syrian cease-fire agreement brokered by the U.S. and Russia in July. The Lebanon-based and Hezbollah-affiliated Al Mayadeen media network corroborated the reports, stating that Russi... Full story
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... Full story
(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... Full story
(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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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,... Full story
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... Full story
(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... Full story
(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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
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... Full story
