Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JNS.org– The full recording of the emergency call made by one of the kidnapped Israeli teens was released on July 2. On the recording, the murderers can be heard singing in celebration in Arabic, saying “Three!” after gunshots that presumably killed the teens were fired. The 2-minute, 9-second recording was published on the Ynet website. On Tuesday, the first 49 seconds of the call were released by Israeli police. In that portion of the call, a voice, identified as Gilad Shaar by his father, Ofir, says in a whispering voice to police, “They...
“One of the abducted youths put up a serious fight against his captors,” a source connected to the forensic examinations of the bodies of the three teens, told Israel’s Walla News on June 30. The families of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frankel, 16, eulogized their sons in separate ceremonies in their communities, Elad, Talmon, and Nof Ayalon. Yifrach “died a hero,” his grandfather Ezra, said in his eulogy. “He didn’t go like a lamb to the slaughter,” he said, according to The Times of Israel. All three youths had “glorified...
(JTA)—Leaders of the Czech Jewish community criticized a local film festival’s decision to honor actor and director Mel Gibson. Gibson was due to receive a lifetime achievement award last Friday at the Karlovy Vary film festival. But the Czech Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement July 3 that Gibson was unworthy of the honor both because of a 2006 drunken anti-Semitic rant and because of his controversial 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ,” which some critics had called anti-Semitic. The federation called the film “one of...
PARIS (JTA) - On their 40th wedding anniversary, Avital and Natan Sharansky went sightseeing in the City of Lights. But the Sharanskys didn't follow the trail of countless couples who come here to kiss at the Eiffel Tower or slip so-called love locks on bridges over the River Seine. Theirs was an itinerary that demonstrated a different kind of commitment. "Avital is taking me to see all the places where she organized protest rallies for my release," Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Jewish...
‘Several Jewish suspects’ arrested in murder of Palestinian teen JERUSALEM (JTA)—”Several Jewish suspects” have been arrested in connection with the murder of a Palestinian teen, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said. The arrests in the July 2 abduction and murder of Muhammad Abu Khieder in eastern Jerusalem came Sunday morning, according to a Shin Bet statement. The suspects are being questioned, according to the statement, which added, “All other details regarding the investigation are under a judicial gag order.” One of the suspects co...
Israel’s cabinet approved a proposal by Israel’s tourism minister to hire up to 1500 Jordanians to work in hotels in Israel’s Red Sea resort of Eilat. The approval comes amid a growing shortage of workers and as the high summer season begins. “I see this as an important step in Israel-Jordan relations,” Tourism Minister Uzi Landau told The Media Line. “My hope is the Jordanians will come, work and enjoy the people and the salary here.” The workers will all have to be vetted by Israel’s security services. They will enter Israel each morning vi...
The bodies of the three Israeli teenagers-Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16-who'd been kidnapped from a hitchhiking post south of Bethlehem on June 12 were found in a field north of Hebron in Judea-Samaria. Reports started coming in from The Algemeiner, Israel's Channel Two and Channel Ten, CNN, The Jerusalem Post and The Jewish Forward around 1 p.m. EDT on Monday, citing sources in the Israeli military. "They were under a pile of rocks in an open field" between Halhul...
They’re divesting from three companies for the crime of selling products to Israel security forces and Jews in Judea and Samaria. “In no way is this a reflection of our lack of love” for the Jewish people. So assured Heath Rada, the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s moderator, at their annual Assembly on Friday, June 20, 2014, moments after his church voted to divest from three companies. Their crime: selling products to Israel security forces and Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Supporters of divestment erupted in tears when the results were re...
NEW YORK-Taglit-Birthright Israel has passed a significant milestone with the designation of the program's 400,000th participant: Ryan Hunter, 20, a student from Syosset, N.Y. (Long Island). By reaching this milestone, Taglit-Birthright Israel turns a corner and has now provided a free heritage trip to half of the young Jewish adults who are eligible every year. Hunter is the group captain for the 'Amazing Israel Lacrosse' Taglit-Birthright Israel special interest group tour, in which he and...
Almost every day, Nadia Matar, 48, steers her battered white SUV along the hilly roads between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion to visit the soldiers stationed at Shdema. The revival of the small former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) army base located on Israeli-controlled land is one of the concrete achievements of Nadia and Yehudit Katsover, 66, her co-chair in the activist Women in Green movement. But Shdema is just the tip of the iceberg in what the women hope to achieve in the larger battle to shift...
(Israel21c)—As Israel carries on its search for kidnapped teenagers Gil-ad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach, and Naftali Frenkel, Israeli doctors of Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) continue to save the lives of Palestinian children at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. Since the beginning of Operation Brother’s Keeper, five Palestinian children have undergone life-saving heart surgery at Wolfson, eight Palestinian children were admitted, including two urgent cases brought by ambulances from Judea and Samaria and from Gaza, and 15 children are expected to ar...
(JNS.org) The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Combat Engineering Corps uncovered numerous secret underground compartments in Palestinian homes during the course of the ongoing search for three Israeli teens kidnapped in Judea and Samaria. Engineering Corps special forces discovered the secret compartments in various locations, in one case under a washing machine. Israeli troops have also uncovered more than a dozen explosives laboratories, the IDF said. “We were not surprised, but the number [we discovered] is not what you see every day,” an off...
For most Westerners, Iraq is a foreboding and dangerous place that is filled with extremists and daily violence. Yet as little as 75 years ago Iraq was a vibrant country that was home to many different ethnic and religious minorities, including large Jewish and Christian populations. But the latest round of violence spearheaded by the jihadist terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which is driving through the heart of Iraq to the capital of Baghdad and inflicting...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-At 3:30 Shavuot morning, more than 100 people are seated on folding chairs singing in Yiddish as men walk around with shots of vodka and cups of coffee. Up front, a man in a black frock coat and black hat is belting out the notes, his eyes closed. Except for the live instruments and free mingling of men and women, the scene would have been common in any of the many haredi Orthodox communities of Jerusalem. But in a room at City Hall in Tel Aviv, Israel's historically secular...
The Heritage receives email from Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an Israeli research institute that studies Palestinian society from a broad range of perspectives. Founded in 1996, its director, Itmar Marcus, and associate director, Barbara Crook, and analyst, Nan Jacques Zilberdik, monitor and analyze the Palestinian Authority through its media and schoolbooks. PMW’s major focus is on the messages that the Palestinian leaders, from the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and Hamas, send to the population through the broad range of institutions and i...
This article was written in 2012. (Israel21c)-Mohamed Ashgar is bored. The 11-year-old, who suffers from rheumatic heart disease, has been at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon-south of Tel Aviv-for a week waiting for surgery, but it was delayed because of poor blood test results. Now he just wants to have the operation and get back home quickly to his parents and his four brothers and sisters. His dream when he is finally well again-to go back to school. Ill health has kept him out of class for...
Bodies of kidnapped Israeli teens found in West Bank field JERUSALEM (JTA)—The bodies of three kidnapped Israeli teenagers were found in the West Bank in a field north of Hebron. The families of Gilad Shaar, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach had been notified of the discovery, the Israeli media said at about 8:30 p.m. Monday. The bodies were positively identified. It is believed that the bodies were dumped in haste and covered quickly. The teens reportedly were killed shortly after they were abducted on June 12. The teens were last seen t...
NEW YORK (JTA) – The Reform movement posted a prayer. Chabad asked followers to pledge to do a mitzvah. The Jewish Federations of North America set up a Web page to express solidarity. The disappearance of three Israeli teens in Judea and Samaria last week is being taken as a call to action uniting many disparate elements of the American Jewish community. At synagogues across America spanning the major denominations, Jews recited psalms or offered special prayers for the safe return of the t...
The President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, arrived last Tuesday June 24, on a diplomatic visit to the United States of America for what was his final foreign trip as the president of the State of Israel after a 7-year term in office and over 65 years of public service. During the visit President Peres met with President Obama at the White House and received the Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony attended by House Speaker John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Senate...
(JTA) – When Argentina plays its opening-round matches in the World Cup, Mariano Schlez of Buenos Aires will be screaming his support from the stands. But taking in his home country's matches in Brazil isn't all that will be occupying Schlez for the first fortnight of the monthlong soccer spectacle. Also filling his calendar are 14 "Jewish" events that he and his wife have organized in seven of the host cities. They include Shabbat evening prayers, beach soccer games leading into Saturday n...
Somali militants who murdered 48 people in a Kenyan village as they watched the World Cup went door to door asking residents if they were Muslim or spoke Somali — and shot them dead if either answer was ‘no,’ witnesses revealed. “They came to our house at around 8 p.m. and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims,” Anne Gathigi told the Daily Mail. “My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest.” In a joint statement, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, on behalf of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, and the Chief Rabbi o...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA)—A Dutch Jewish television channel won the first prize for original production at a festival for religious broadcasters from across Europe. The Hilversum-based Joodse Omroep television station plucked the prize for best television production with its nine-part series “Zoek de verschillen” (“Look for the differences”) at the four-day European Festival of Religious Programmes, which ended last week and was held for the 18th time in Holland’s studio city, Hilversum. The program, which examines Jewish communities...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Palestinian village of Battir was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO and put on the List of World Heritage in Danger. UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee on Friday approved the West Bank village, about six miles west of Jerusalem, for inclusion on the lists. Battir is known for its ancient stone farming terraces and an irrigation system established in Roman times that remains in use. It was put on the danger list due to the start of construction of Israel’s security fence. According to the committee, Battir was added “afte...
JERUSALEM (JTA) - An Arab-Israeli Knesset member said the kidnappers of three Israeli teenagers are not terrorists. "They are people that cannot see any way to change their reality, and they are forced to use these means until Israeli society wises up a bit and sees and feels the suffering of the other," Hanin Zoabi of the Balad party said Tuesday in an interview with Tel Aviv Radio. Zoabi participated in the May 2010 flotilla to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip and was punished...
NEW YORK (JTA) - A special panel tasked with examining the governance and strategic vision of the Claims Conference is recommending that the organization shift its long-term focus to Holocaust education and remembrance, JTA has learned. The panel was appointed last year following a scandal involving the Claims Conference's failure to detect a $57 million fraud scheme there that persisted until 2009. It also recommended cutting in half the size of the board's executive committee and the number...
