Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry slammed the Israeli government over settlement building, warning that the two-state solution is "in jeopardy," in a lengthy speech Wednesday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly called "almost as unbalanced" as the United Nations Security Council's recent anti-settlement resolution. "If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic, it cannot be both, and it won't ever really be at peace," Kerry said in his speech, which... Full story
By Jacob Kamaras JNS.org President Barack Obama sprang his much-anticipated "December surprise" on Israel at the United Nations, capping off 2016 with a bang as it relates to the Gregorian calendar year's major events surrounding the Jewish state. The following are 10 Israel news storylines that defined this past year: U.N. woes The Obama administration chose to abstain from a Dec. 23 vote on a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction beyond the 1967... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-Emotions are running high following the Obama administration's decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution condemning Israeli settlements. Here are seven questions aimed at making sense of what went down and what it could mean moving forward. 1. Did Obama just double down on failed "settlements first" strategy? Listening to President Barack Obama's aides, the decision to allow Friday's U.N. Security Council resolution to pass was a last-gasp move borne out of... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Ahead of the unknowns a Trump administration will bring to American Middle East policy, the Obama administration allowed a bracing reminder on Friday that the international community does not recognize the validity of Israel's presence in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank. The U.S. abstention on the U.N. Security Council vote last week was hardly unprecedented, but neither was it entirely consistent with recent U.S. policy. The Obama administration did not quite endorse... Full story
NETANYA, Israel (JTA)-One fit young soldier scales a rope. Two others practice hand-to-hand combat. A large group marches across the sand. But those were just the inspirational photographs on the walls. The actual soldiers crowded in the one-room building here on the Orde Wingate army base were mostly paunchy middle-aged officers. On a Tuesday morning before sunrise, several dozen of them stood around in socks and workout gear as they prepared to weigh in for a session of Changes in Shape, the... Full story
Political correctness came under attack in Jerusalem Dec. 19 at a public policy summit convening conservative leaders from Israel, India, the European Parliament and the U.S. Congress. At the same time, the conservatives eagerly looked forward to the “new day” that would accompany Donald Trump’s forthcoming U.S. presidential administration. Joel Anand Samy—co-founder of the International Summit Leaders think tank, which co-hosted the Jerusalem Leaders Summit at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Israel’s capital—emphasized a new battlefront... Full story
Argentine court rules ex-president may have covered up Iranian bombing of Jewish center (JTA)—The appeals court in Buenos Aires has cleared the path to a criminal probe into former Argentine President Cristina Kirchner’s motives in cooperating with Iran on the investigation of the deadly 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center. In a 249-page ruling handed down Thursday, three judges wrote that the evidence presented “does not permit a justified dismissal of possible illicit actions” by Kirchner in connection with a deal between her and her adm... Full story
(JTA)-Aleppo, one of the world's oldest cities and Syria's largest metropolis, is synonymous with one of humanity's cruelest conflicts-now surpassing the siege of Sarajevo as the deadliest and longest-running battle for a city in our time. With an estimated 31,000 deaths, the battle for Aleppo has taken more than double the lives lost in Sarajevo. With total Syrian civilian deaths over the past five years reportedly totaling some 450,000, including 50,000 children, the latest atrocities in... Full story
Citizens of Israel, I would like to reassure you. The resolution that was adopted yesterday at the United Nations is distorted and shameful but we will overcome... it. The resolution determines that the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem is ‘occupied territory.’ This is delusional. The resolution determines that the Western Wall is ‘occupied territory.’ This too is delusional. There is nothing more absurd than calling the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter occupied territory. There is also an attempt here, which will not succeed... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for-and got-the endorsement of one of Obama's fiercest pro-Israel critics. "Dan has always spoken to us, patiently and carefully explaining the administration's position, and he does so with aplomb, with concern, and with intense appreciation of the other side's position," Morton Klein, the Zionist Organization of America president, said at the time. Don't expect... Full story
BERLIN (JTA)-Even before the deadly attack on a Christmas market in Berlin, Jews in Germany were divided in their approach to the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Muslim countries since 2014. Citing a Jewish moral duty to aid the displaced, many Jewish organizations, synagogue groups and individuals have rallied to help the newcomers, including asylum seekers fleeing the civil war in Syria. But some Jews have warned that the influx of immigrants risks importing to Germany the... Full story
UN passes anti-settlement resolution, US abstains JTA—The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States abstaining. The resolution was adopted Friday afternoon with 14 votes in favor and only the U.S. abstention. It called Israeli settlements “a flagrant violation of international law” that damage the prospects of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Sustained applause greeted the passage of the resolution. American presidents have long protected Israel from extreme censu... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-When Northwestern University's student Senate passed a resolution in February 2015 asking the university to divest from six corporations they said contributed to the violation of Palestinians' human rights, freshman Ross Krasner was hurt and surprised. The rhetoric of the measure, portraying Israel as an oppressor, was more extreme than what he had expected. Krasner decided to become more involved with the campus pro-Israel group, Wildcats for Israel, and became its president... Full story
NEW YORK—The Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, which serves as New York’s Holocaust Museum, has announced an international fellowship program for scholars, museum curators, artists and Holocaust educators supported by a $1,150,000 grant from The Vivian G. Prins Foundation. Vivian Prins was a successful businessman and entrepreneur who emigrated to the United States in 1938 to escape Nazi Germany. “The Foundation is proud to make this grant in honor of Bronia Brandman, a survivor of Auschwitz and one of the Museum... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)-It's been nearly 50 years since Israel captured eastern Jerusalem, including the Old City, from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. For the past eight years, Nir Barkat has been this city's mayor. On Sunday evening, six months ahead of the "united Jerusalem" jubilee, Barkat received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva University at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, where he gave the keynote speech. A staunch advocate of Israeli control over all of Jerusalem, he thanked... Full story
Israeli intruder charged with assault for breaking into Arizona home, holding child (JTA)—An Israeli man has been arrested in Arizona after he broke into a stranger’s apartment and was found holding the family’s 2-year-old child. The suspect, Oren Aharon Cohen, claimed he did not harm the toddler, whom he had drunkenly thought was “a midget.” An unnamed man in Tempe, Arizona, woke up to a find a stranger holding his crying daughter early morning last Thursday, The Washington Post reported. Cohen, 34, told the homeowner that he was his frien... Full story
Following six days of devastating fires that ravaged Israel, Jewish National Fund (JNF-USA) is stepping up fundraising efforts to raise the many millions of dollars needed to help the nation recover. Since Tuesday, Nov. 22, approximately 10,000 acres of forests have been destroyed by fires. Some 137 people have suffered fire-related injuries. At least 569 homes burned down throughout Israel and in Haifa alone, more than 700 homes were damaged, 37 were destroyed, 400 are uninhabitable, and... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Call them Israel's American volunteer fire brigade. Dozens of firefighters from across the United States put their lives on hold-leaving behind jobs and families-to help subdue the wildfires that swept Israel over the past week. While they all share a love of Israel, only a handful of them are Jewish. "We're just firefighters. When guys hear about a situation like this one, where the Israelis are working as hard as they can, they want to come help," said Billy Hirth, a Protestant... Full story
More than 5,600 Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic rabbinic emissaries and communal leaders from 90 countries, hailing from as far away as Bangkok and Kenya gathered for the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, held in the Queens borough of New York on Nov. 25. The event is considered the largest Jewish gathering in North America. This year's conference carries an added significance as the North American Jewish community marks 75 years since the Lubavitcher Rebbe-Rabbi Menachem M. Schn... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Stephen Bannon recently called Breitbart News "the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America." That will not change with Bannon leaving the far-right news website for the White House, according to Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief. Saying he shares a worldview with Bannon, President-elect Donald Trump's chief White House strategist, Aaron Klein plans to expand the Israel operation, which staunchly backs the Jewish state's political right wing. There is talk of moving... Full story
NYPD sees ‘huge spike’ in hate crimes post-election—Jews targeted most NEW YORK (JTA)—The New York Police Department said it has seen a dramatic rise in hate crimes following the election of Donald Trump, with the majority of incidents directed at Jews. There has been a 115 percent increase in bias crimes in New York City following Election Day, with Jews being targeted in 24 of the 43 incidents during that nearly monthlong period. The anti-Semitic incidents represented a threefold increase from November 2015, The New York Observer reporte... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry signaled in a speech that the Obama administration was still considering action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its final days, although it might fall short of a direct intervention on the issue. There's no way to "force-feed" peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Kerry said in a lengthy speech delivered Tuesday at the Women's Foreign Policy Group conference, but there are "other things we can do" to preserve a two-state... Full story
By Sean Savage JNS.org Improving weather conditions, a massive influx of support from the international community and efforts by Israeli first responders have enabled the Jewish state to get raging wildfires under control. This week’s fires are expected to be among the costliest in Israeli history, with unofficial preliminary estimates projecting about $520 million in damage. The damage to Israeli homes is estimated to be more than $182 million, while destruction to public property such as roads, electrical power systems and other i... Full story
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-Forty years after his reporting exposed one of the worst war criminals in Dutch history, Hans Knoop is still celebrated in his native Netherlands as a hero. On Nov. 23, more than a million television viewers watched a public broadcaster's historical period drama on how Knoop, a Dutch Jewish journalist, unmasked the art collector Pieter Menten in 1976 as a monster who murdered hundreds of Polish Jews and stole their property with help from German Nazis. It was the highest rating f... Full story
ISRAEL21c-Doctors diagnose as many as 60,000 new cases of Parkinson's disease (PD) every year in the United States. Yet diagnosing PD with certainty can take years-long after early signs and symptoms have appeared. The Israeli startup BioShai has a game-changing product on the horizon: PDx, the world's first simple blood test for the early diagnosis of PD. The test results can be combined with clinical data, providing a more accurate diagnosis to help physicians decide on the best course of... Full story
