Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA)-When the 2016 Olympic Games open here on Friday evening, Israel will proudly show off its largest delegation ever, with 47 athletes competing in 17 sports. Among them are golfer Laetitia Beck, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor; Lonah Chemtai, a Kenyan-born marathoner, and Ron Darmon, the first triathlete to represent Israel at the Olympic Games. Israelis and Jews around the world are expected to show their support for the team, which failed to medal in 2012 when the...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-"Lone wolf" terrorism in Europe is making headlines around the world. But in Israel, the phenomenon of angry or troubled individuals taking up arms is old news. Since October, Israelis have endured a wave of violence that has been carried out largely by individual Palestinians without backing from terrorist groups-so much so that some have called this the "lone wolf intifada." As of the end of June, 38 people had been killed and 298 injured by attackers, according to the Shin...
Beginning with the bloody July 14 Bastille Day terror attack in Nice, France that left 84 people dead, Western Europe has seen an unrelenting wave of violence mainly perpetrated by individuals with connections to or sympathies with the Islamic State terror group. These attacks on European soil are now occurring with a near daily frequency, with five different lone-wolf shooting and stabbing terror attacks in Germany in late July, at least three of which were claimed by the Islamic State, as well as the slaying of a Catholic priest in northern...
Boston protestors call on community relations group to retract criticism of Black Lives Matter platform (JTA)—A group of activists demanded the Boston Jewish Community Relations Council retract its recent statement criticizing the Black Lives Matter movement’s platform. According to a statement from the Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow, some 50 people gathered at the council’s Boston offices on Monday to express their support for Black Lives Matter. “We refuse to follow leaders that force us to choose between Jewish community and one of...
“In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us,” Israeli MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) reminded a packed Knesset hall last month during the premier joint meeting of the Knesset Caucus to Fight Delegitimization of Israel and the Christian Allies Caucus. The focus of the event: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and how Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel can work together to quash the economic warfare movement against Israel. “MK Lavie did not complete the quote from the haggadah,” Josh Reinstein, director of the...
A Jewish family in the UK has just three weeks to find a stem cell donor to save their mother's life after discovering her leukaemia has returned. Sharon Berger, 65, of London was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) in 2012, and was told that the only available cure was a stem cell transplant from an unrelated donor. A global search was launched - dubbed the #Spit4Mum campaign - and a matching donor was found within weeks which meant Sharon had an apparently successful transplant in...
KAUNAS, Lithuania (JTA)-In this drab city 55 miles west of Vilnius, there are few heritage sites as mysterious and lovely looking as the Seventh Fort. This 18-acre red-brick bunker complex, which dates to 1882, features massive underground passages that connect its halls and chambers. Above ground, the hilltop fortress is carpeted with lush grass and flowers whose yellow blooms attract bees and songbirds along with families who come here to frolic in the brief Baltic summer. It's also a popular...
Family of ‘The Pianist’ wins suit against book alleging Jewish musician had Nazi ties (JTA)—The family of the late Polish-Jewish man whose story inspired the Academy Award-winning 2002 film “The Pianist” has won on appeal a defamation suit over claims that he was a Nazi collaborator. According to Agence France Press, the widow and son of Wladyslaw Szpilman said Monday they have won their suit against the author and publisher of a 2010 biography of Polish-Jewish singer Wiera Gran. In it, the singer claims Szpilman had worked for the Nazis in...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To the millions of tourists who visit Nice annually, the city in southeast France is an ultimate holiday destination that offers inviting beaches and luxury casinos, stunning architecture and world-class museums. Sandwiched between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, Nice is France’s largest tourist destination after Paris, with 5 million arrivals each year and the country’s second largest domestic airport. Nice sees $1.6 billion in annual tourism revenue -- 40 percent from its region known locally as Côte d’Azur...
(JTA)-When the late Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi attended church on Good Friday, his father would famously cause a scene, storming out when the liturgy came to the anti-Semitic exhortation "Let us also pray for the faithless Jews." Such protest was unusual in 19th-century Austria-Hungary, where anti-Semitism and other forms of racism were de rigueur. But the old count-a personal friend of Zionist legend Theodor Herzl-abhorred such biases in part because his wife,...
Tim Kaine, accepting VP slot, cites Holocaust survivor who died in shooting massacre PHILADELPHIA (JTA)—Sen. Tim Kaine, accepting Hillary Clinton’s invitation to join her as running mate, cited as an inspiration a Holocaust survivor who died protecting others during a shooting massacre. Kaine, D-Va., appeared Saturday with Clinton at Florida International University in Miami a day after she announced her pick. Kaine pledged he would continue to press for gun control and recalled the trauma his state underwent during the Virginia Tech mas...
The names of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher are familiar as prominent symbols of strong female leadership in times when women heads of state were rare. By 2015, however, the number of female leaders of nations reached 19, according to the United Nations. On July 13, British Home Secretary Theresa May joined the club by replacing outgoing U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, becoming the U.K.'s second female prime minister after Thatcher. As...
This has been a trying week for America. As Americans, we are all wounded by the targeting of the police force in Dallas and the deaths in St. Paul and Baton Rouge. Now, I know a lot of you might ask, "What can I do?" You can do a lot-right now, this weekend. This weekend, it is on each of us to be a visible force in our communities for non-violence. Join together online, in your neighborhood, in your houses of worship, around your kitchen table. For all of you community leaders, use your...
(JNS.org) A United States Senate report released this week shows that the U.S. State Department sent nearly $350,000 to OneVoice, a group that advocates for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians but was also part of a campaign to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The group received grants from the State Department during 14-month period ending in November 2014, revealed the report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. After the grants ended, OneVoice merged with another Israeli group, Victory...
(JNS.org)-The American social media giant Facebook has closed the account of Hamas politburo member Ezzat al-Rishq for the seventh time. "I condemn Facebook's administration for closing my personal account for the seventh time in a row, and I consider the [decision] bias in favor [of] the occupation and its dictates and against the struggle of our people for the sake of freedom," Rishq, who is a close confidante of Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, said on Twitter, the Jerusalem Post reported. The...
British-Jewish and pro-Israel groups are congratulating Home Secretary Theresa May for winning the leadership of the Conservative Party and replacing outgoing United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron, who resigned following the U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union (EU) in the Brexit referendum last month. May takes over the role after all other candidates for the Conservative leadership exited the race earlier in the week, and after Cameron expedited his resignation to Wednesday, July...
Netanyahu video message to Abbas lists 5 steps toward peace JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent a video message to Mahmoud Abbas listing five steps the Palestinian Authority president can take to help bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians. The message was released last Friday in English. “President Abbas, since over the past several years, you refused to meet me and sit down and negotiate peace, I hope you’ll hear this message,” the message began. Netanyahu called on Abbas to fire his adviser Sultan Abu al...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The conventional wisdom has it that earning the sobriquet "the most right-wing government in Israeli history" does not lead to diplomatic successes. In recent weeks, on the Turkish, Egyptian and African fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is proving the conventional wisdom wrong. How is it that the head of a government beating a hasty retreat from the two-state solution scored a triumphant tour of Africa, hosted a convivial summit with an Egyptian foreign minister for the...
By Cnaan Liphshiz PRESTWICH, England (JTA)-When Yitzchak Horwitz's family opened one of the first Jewish businesses in this leafy suburb of Manchester-a bookstore that also sold Judaica items-it served a small Jewish community that had only recently moved there from the downtown area. "The center was run-down after the war, living conditions deteriorated, we had to get out," said Horwitz, a man in his 80s who runs and owns the Judaica World store that his family opened here in 1960. "A few...
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has criticized the statement issued by the Middle East Quartet (the U.S., the U.N., the European Union & Russia) which, while rightly criticizing Palestinian incitement to hatred and murder as a factor responsible for the non-attainment of peace, also criticizes Israeli "settlement-building"-that is, Jews living and building residential communities in Judea/Samaria-as an obstacle to peace. The report, written by senior diplomats representing the members...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Three months after Israel's Chief Rabbinate rejected his authority to perform conversions, one of America's most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis joined with Natan Sharansky to advance a message: The rabbinate needs to become more open. But not too much more. A widely respected rabbi in New York's Orthodox community, Haskel Lookstein saw his credentials called into question when a conversion he performed was deemed invalid by a rabbinical court in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petach...
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-Growing up in Namibia, Dan Craven would bicycle long distances upon the only two paved roads in his hometown of Omaruru-80 miles heading north to Otjiwarongo and 45 miles south to Karibib. Cycling on what he calls the "tar roads" is how he fell in love with the sport; plus Craven acknowledges he wasn't very good at soccer or rugby. He took to the road after seeing a poster promoting a triathlon, which encompasses bicycling, swimming and running. While competing for the...
LONDON (JTA)- For two years, in her travels around the English capital, Natalie Pitimson has toted a library bag emblazoned with a word in Yiddish. "The word 'schlep' written on the side perfectly describes my regular hour-long trek through central London," Pitimson, a senior sociology lecturer at the University of Brighton, wrote on her blog. She had encountered no unpleasant incidents over the bag, whose slogan "reminds me of growing up in a lively Jewish family where such phrases littered...
Five hundred Jews gathered Tuesday morning by the entrance to the Temple Mount, to ascend in memory of Hallel Yaffa Ariel, a teenage girl who was stabbed to death by a Palestinian on June 30. In a YouTube video released last week, Amihai Ariel, Hallel's father called on the Jewish nation to join himself and his family on the Temple Mount on Tuesday for a memorial ceremony. Rina Ariel, Hallel's mother, wrote a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his diplomatic trip to...
(JTA)—The families of five American citizens killed in terror attacks in Israel are suing Facebook for $1 billion, accusing the social network of providing material support to Hamas for its incitement and violence. Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, an advocacy organization based in Israel, filed the lawsuit Sunday night in Manhattan federal court. The suit alleges that Facebook is violating the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act by assisting terror groups such as Hamas in “recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fea...
