Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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TEL AVIV (JTA)-This government was supposed to be different. During the last election campaign in 2012, Israelis seemed to tire of the existential issues that have plagued the country for decades. Barely anyone talked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Long-simmering social tensions over the rising cost of living and the economic burdens of the underemployed haredi Orthodox community were going to finally get their due. The Knesset's arrivistes-former television personality Yair Lapid and...
The following is a speech by Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor delivered to the UN General Assembly on Nov. 24. Ambassador Prosor is Israel's permanent representative to the United Nations. Mr. President, I stand before the world as a proud representative of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast aside. The fact of...
Settlements or Jewish communities? West Bank or Judea and Samaria? East Jerusalem or eastern Jerusalem? Those are some of the language choices that journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are faced with each day-and those choices should not be taken lightly, experts say. "It's the terminology that actually defines the conflict and defines what you think about the conflict," says Ari Briggs, director of Regavim, an Israeli NGO that works on legal land use issues. "Whereas...
(JNS.org) The national unity government signed by Hamas and Fatah last spring has ended, according to a Hamas spokesman. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the six-month unity government has expired and that negotiations between the two Palestinian factions should resume, Ma’an News reported. However, Faisal Abu Shala, a senior Fatah official, disputed Hamas’ claim that the interim government would expire after six months, saying, “If the Hamas movement has retracted the reconciliation agreement and the termination of rivalry that is a...
Syria says Israeli planes hit military sites near Damascus JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Syrian military claimed that Israeli planes attacked military sites near Damascus. The attacks, also reported on Syrian television, took place on Sunday night, the military said, according to a report by the Syrian state news agency, SANA. Israeli planes are reported to have hit several military facilities near Damascus International Airport and in Dimas, located north of Damascus near the border with Lebanon. Syrian state television reports said that there were no c...
As international negotiators departed Vienna with a final deal on Iran's nuclear program still elusive, the commander of the widely-feared Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) threatened to eliminate the State of Israel by "conquering Palestine." Fars news agency, an official mouthpiece of the Iranian regime, reported that Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the Commander of the IRGC, declared in Tehran that "Americans have very clearly surrendered to Iran's might and this is obvious in their...
JERUSALEM-U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro visited the Har Nof Synagogue in Jerusalem, the scene of the Nov. 18 terror attack. The ambassador prayed in memory of all of the victims of the attack, including saying the Kaddish prayer for the departed and for peace. At the conclusion of the prayer service, the ambassador received a first-hand account of the terror attack from United Hatzalah emergency responders who were first on scene. After witnessing first-hand the scene of the terror...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Two factors make congressional intervention on Iran almost inevitable: The inability of nuclear negotiators to reach a deal by the deadline and the Republican sweep of midterm elections on Nov. 4. The talks, centered on the status of Iran’s nuclear program, were extended from Monday’s deadline to June 30. Meanwhile, the pro-Israel community, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is seeking support for proposed legislation that would insert Congress into the process. “It is now essential that Congress take up...
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Mahmoud Abbas whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused of incitement has said the Jewish state practices genocide and called the temporary closure of the Temple Mount after a terrorist attack a "declaration of war." Yet virtually no one in Washington wants Abbas to do anything but what he's done for nine years: be president of the Palestinian Authority. For that matter, neither does Netanyahu. That means the $500 million annually that the Palestinian A...
Canadian-Israeli woman fighting with Kurds reportedly captured by ISIS JERUSALEM (JTA)—A Canadian-Israeli Jewish woman who joined Kurdish forces in their fight against the Islamic State reportedly was taken captive by the jihadist group. The capture of Gillian Rosenberg, 31, and several other female fighters was reported on blogs and Islamist websites, the Israeli media reported. Rosenberg reportedly was captured by jihadists near the Syrian city of Kobani in recent days. Israeli intelligence and security services did not verify the reports t...
By Ben Sales TEL AVIV (JTA)-They all lived on the same street. They had all moved there from abroad. They were all rabbis. They all prayed at the same synagogue. And it was at that Jerusalem synagogue that they were all murdered on Tuesday morning. Mosheh Twersky, 59; Kalman Levine, 55; Aryeh Kupinsky, 43; and Avraham Goldberg, 68, were killed when two Palestinian cousins from eastern Jerusalem entered Bnei Torah Kehillat Yaakov, in the haredi Orthodox neighborhood of Har Nof, wielding a gun...
In the wake of a terrorist attack on the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood on Tuesday morning-which killed five people, including three American citizens, and wounded at least seven other Jewish worshippers-Western media organizations rushed to downplay the culpability of the Palestinian terrorists in the attack. The U.K.-based newspaper The Guardian published a Reuters story about the attack that was originally headlined "Palestinians kill four in Jerusalem...
(JTA)-Even amid the unceasing horrors of Sierra Leone's Ebola epidemic, it was a case that stood out. A 5-year-old boy had been found in his home in a remote village, the lone survivor in a house riddled with the corpses of family members. He needed to be extracted; the bodies needed to be buried. The operator who took the call at the Freetown hotline that coordinates the dispatch of ambulances, police and burial teams was shaken. Enter IsraAid. The lone Israeli or Jewish disaster relief organiz...
VIENNA (JTA)-An Austrian official's letter is threatening to undermine the central pillar of a controversial court decision that found a Jewish journalist guilty of defrauding the government. On Sept. 9, senior state attorney Martin Windisch wrote that the government "makes no claims" against Stephan Templ, who was sentenced in April to three years in jail for cheating Austria out of half the value of a sanatorium confiscated by the Nazis from one of Templ's relatives. In May, the Austrian...
Iranian Supreme Leader the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is known for his anti-Zionist rhetoric, has issued perhaps his most detailed tirade to date in a Twitter post titled "9 key questions about the elimination of Israel." "Why should & how can #Israel be eliminated? Ayatollah Khamenei's answer to 9 key questions. #HandsOffAlAqsa," read the introduction to Khamenei's tweet, posted Saturday, Nov. 8. The hashtag #HandsOffAlAqsa referred to the recent tensions between Arabs and Jews at the Temple...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—After a gruesome attack by two Palestinian cousins left four dead at a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out one person for blame: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In a statement issued by his office, Abbas denounced the Tuesday morning attack, saying he “condemns the killing of civilians no matter who is doing it.” But over the past few weeks, as a string of violent attacks have unsettled Jerusalemites, Abbas has issued statements some see as encouraging violence against Israe...
Controversial Jewish nation-state bill passes Israeli Cabinet vote JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s Cabinet passed a bill that would identify Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. The measure, which has engendered controversy, advanced in a 14-6 vote on Sunday. It must pass a preliminary reading and two other readings in the Israeli parliament, which will consider the so-called nation-state law on Wednesday. The ministers of the Likud (with the exception of Culture Minister Limor Livnat), Yisrael Beiteinu and Jewish Home parties voted for...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Joe and Bibi? Still buddies. U.S. and Israel? Still allies. Agreement on Iran and the Palestinians? Well. The governments of President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were back on joshing terms this week, but the deep differences that led to recent name-calling exchanges still percolated. Netanyahu and Vice President Joe Biden, as well as top aides in both governments, used back-to-back conferences this weekend to get the message across loud and clear: We love one another. “Ron, you’d better damn well repor...
Taglit-Birthright Israel is currently opening its winter season and preparing for 2015. During the next few months, Taglit-Birthright Israel will bring more than 14,000 young Jews between the ages of 18-26 from around the world to visit Israel as part of the 10-day project. Gidi Mark, the CEO of Taglit- Birthright Israel, “We are thrilled to kick off the winter season, we will continue to expand and deepen the activities among young Diaspora Jews by bringing them to Israel through Taglit- Birthright Israel” The past summer season proved as one...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-It's 3 p.m. on a Thursday and the Jerusalem light rail is packed with secular and religious, Jew and Arab, as it heads east from the city's Central Bus Station. From there it passes some of the city's most crowded venues, stopping at the Mahane Yehuda open market and coursing down Jaffa Street until it hits the city center, where the train cars empty out onto a thoroughfare loud with foot traffic. By the time it reaches the station in the Arab neighborhood of Shuafat, the train...
ISIS beheads American aid worker, an Iraq war veteran (JTA)—The Islamic State jihadist group beheaded an American hostage. In a video posted online Sunday morning on jihadist and social networking sites, the group also known as ISIS and ISIL said it beheaded American aid worker Peter Kassig, who went by the name Abdul-Rahman Kassig after converting to Islam. Kassig, 26, of Indianapolis, was abducted in October 2013 in Syria. He founded a Turkey-based nonprofit group that assists refugees on both sides of the Syria-Turkey border. Kassig s...
A first-hand account of a scene at the hospital. Outside the Swartz Center for Emergency Medicine at Hadassah’s hospitals, TV cameramen are waiting for the blinking lights and sirens of the ambulance. One of the injured is already inside— a young man who had been stabbed by a terrorist. The terrorist, allegedly associated with Islamic jihad, had driven his vehicle into a bus stop, running over 26-year-old Dalia Lemkus. When his minivan hit an obstruction, he jumped out and began stabbing her and others. A security guard from nearby Alon Shv...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-SodaStream, the Israeli at-home seltzer machine company, announced last week that it would be closing its West Bank factory and moving the facility's operations to southern Israel next year. Here's what you need to know about SodaStream, the controversy that has bubbled up in its midst and what the actress Scarlett Johansson has to do with it. What is SodaStream? SodaStream is an Israeli company that makes and sells seltzer machines for home use. Since it was founded in 1991, the...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-The Israeli government has adopted a major reform expected to ease the path to conversion for hundreds of thousands of Israelis now prohibited from marrying in the Jewish state. In the most significant response in decades to the estimated 400,000 Israelis who are not considered Jewish by the Chief Rabbinate, the Cabinet expanded authority for conversion beyond a small group of approved haredi Orthodox courts. Since only Orthodox Jewish marriage is permitted in Israel, such...
Arab-Israelis riot to protest killing by Israel Police JERUSALEM (JTA)—At least 20 Arab-Israelis were arrested during riots in the Arab-Israeli town of Kfar Kana in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of a resident by Israel Police. On Sunday, the Arab-Israeli community declared a nationwide strike to protest the killing last Friday night of Kheir Hamdan, 22. Riots were also taking place in other Arab-Israeli cities. In the face of the riots, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to strip the citizenship of those who call for the d...
