Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Paraguay made history on Monday when it moved its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, just days after the US and Guatemala made the same move. Paraguay's President Horacio Cartes, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and several heads of state from both countries were present at the momentous ceremony. At the ceremony, Netanyahu lauded Cartes as "a great friend of Israel and a great personal friend of mine. You're an unbelievable friend, and I have to say that this...
The Beitar Jerusalem soccer team has announced that it has begun the process to add President Donald Trump's name to its club title in honor of his actions on behalf of Israel and his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Beitar Jerusalem owner Eli Tabib said Sunday that he is renaming the team "Beitar Trump Jerusalem" to thank the American president for moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the capital. "For 70 years, Jerusalem awaited international recognition, until President Donald...
(JNS)—Knesset Christian Allies Caucus held an event in the Knesset’s Jerusalem Hall on Wednesday, celebrating both the U.S. and Guatemalan embassy moves from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Members of Israel’s parliament and Christian leaders gathered to talk about their commonalities, shared support and the future of the Jewish state. The KCAC works to build direct lines of communication, cooperation and coordination, between the Knesset and Christian leaders around the world. The Israeli branch of KCAC has 19 members of Knesset from seven polit...
(JTA)-Josef Kopf survived Sobibor by killing a guard and staging the first successful escape from that death camp in Poland, where the Nazis murdered 250,000 Jews. But Kopf, whose unlikely escape in 1943 preceded by several months a full-scale uprising at Sobibor, did not live to see Nazi Germany's defeat. After the liberation in 1944, he returned to his hometown of Turobin to reclaim some possessions-and was never seen or heard from again. "We always assumed Josef was killed by a local, but we...
(JNS)-Some 50 percent of air-defense batteries belonging to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad have been destroyed after they fired on Israel Air Force jets in recent months during multiple operations, a senior air-force source said on Wednesday. The officer was speaking to reporters during an international air conference hosted in Israel, which brought together commanders from 20 foreign air-force establishments to discuss professional and operational matters with the IAF....
Philip Roth won’t be having a Jewish funeral NEW YORK (JTA)—Philip Roth forbade any Jewish rituals from being performed at his funeral. The prolific Jewish-American author, who died on Tuesday at the age of 85, will be buried on Monday at the Bard College Cemetery, his biographer, Blake Bailey, told JTA. Roth had originally looked into being buried next to his parents at the Gomel Chesed Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey, Bailey said in a phone interview on Friday. However, the area surrounding the Jewish burial ground had in recent years bec...
(JNS)-A great deal of ink has been spilled writing about the growing partisan divide in Washington, D.C. In fact, one of the few remaining bipartisan issues has been support for Israel. But even so, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that only 27 percent of Democrats sympathize with Israel over the situation regarding the Palestinians, compared to a whopping 79 percent of Republicans. The dichotomy was on full display this week in reaction to the opening of the new U.S. embassy in...
(JNS)-The transfer of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14 has spurred interest from several countries considering similar moves. Guatemala followed suit just two days later on May 16, and Paraguay and reportedly Honduras are planning to join their lead. The Czech Republic may break with European Union policy and relocate its embassy to the capital city as well. In late April, Czech President Miloš Zeman announced a "three stage" plan to relocate the country's embassy from Tel...
The fate of Israel and, specifically, the reunification of Jerusalem were decided 50 years ago at Ammunition Hill. As Israel mourns the fallen on Remembrance Day, Jewish National Fund-USA ensures that the legacy of every name on its Wall of Honor won't be forgotten "In that warm and beautiful land, does evil reign and do calamities happen, too?" So wrote Israel's national poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik in his poem El Hatzipor (To the Bird) in 1892. It was these words that stuck in the mind both at...
By World Israel News Guatemala made history on Wednesday when it moved its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, two days after the US made the same move. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and several heads of state from both countries were present at the momentous ceremony. "It is not a coincidence that Guatemala is opening its embassy in Jerusalem two days after the US. You are always among the first," Netanyahu said....
(ISRAEL21c)-Throughout her 25 years of life, Netta Barzilai was told over and over that she wasn't pretty enough or smart enough or skinny enough to accomplish what she wanted in life. Last night she proved them all wrong. Smart, sassy, zaftig Barzilai did Israel proud, winning the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest in Lisbon as the representative of her country. This was the first time Israel has won the competition in 20 years. "Mazal tov, Israel!" shouted Eurovision officials at the post-contest...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-As he strolled on his leafy, narrow street overlooking what is now the United States Embassy in Israel, Ben Katz stepped back to dodge the side-view mirror of an oncoming truck, which had jutted onto the sidewalk. A few hundred feet past Katz's garden apartment, four security guards lounged under a tent. Below them, adjacent to a walking path leading to a small park, was the U.S. diplomatic compound that, on Monday, became the embassy. "For practical purposes, it's a question of...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Despite growing condemnation for the deaths of 60 Palestinians on the Gaza border yesterday, Israel defended its military's actions as an act of self-defense in the face of a mass attack. "We didn't want it to happen, but we understood these were Hamas' intentions," Dani Dayan, Israel's consul general in New York, told reporters Tuesday. "We are not going away. We will defend our border. We will defend our population. If they invade Israeli communities, we will have to take much...
As the British began to dismantle their Mandate (The British Mandate) and leave western Palestine (as Israel was called at the time), Israel’s War of Independence began (Nov. 30, 1947 - May 14, 1948). During the war, Palestinian Arabs became belligerents in the conflict, and by its end, rather than accept a Jewish state after five-and-a-half months of warfare, Palestinian Arabs called upon their brethren from seven surrounding countries to invade and crush the nascent Jewish state. Six thousand Jews—one percent of Israel’s Jewish population—los...
US envoy Jason Greenblatt meets with leaders in Qatar to discuss Gaza relief WASHINGTON (JTA)—U.S. Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt met Wednesday in Qatar with its foreign minister and discussed relief for Gaza, a notable meeting with one of Hamas’ only allies at a time when the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel is exploding with violence. “Met today in Doha, Qatar with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Than,” Greenblatt said Wednesday on his Twitter feed. “We discussed the urgent need for humanitarian relief for Gaza and th...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israeli leaders and citizens responded with euphoria as the Trump administration moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem on Monday, designating a pre-existing consular building as the official U.S. diplomatic mission to the Jewish State. Hundreds of revelers, many wearing Trump's signature red baseball caps commemorating the move, sat on bleachers outside the new embassy in Jerusalem's Arnona neighborhood on Monday afternoon as an honor guard of U.S. Marines paraded the national...
(JNS) In striking more than 50 Iranian military targets within 90 minutes early on Thursday morning, the Israel Defense Force displayed just a sample of its advanced, intelligence-fueled precision firepower, dealing a crushing blow to Iran's assets in Syria. This exchange of fire represents a new, stepped-up phase in the escalating Israeli-Iranian standoff in Syria. Much of Iran's military infrastructure in Syria was destroyed in this wave of strikes, likely leaving the Quds Force-the overseas...
(JNS)-Following an Iranian rocket barrage on Wednesday night, the Israel Defense Forces pounded Syria with significant airstrikes, obliterating dozens of targets associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Overnight on Wednesday, Iran lobbed 20 Grad and Fajr-5 rockets into Israel from the suburbs of Damascus. Four of the rockets were neutralized by the Iron Dome missile-defense system, with the other 16 landing in Syrian territory. In retaliation, Israel struck the rocket launching site....
Iran’s Quds forces launched a barrage of rockets at IDF bases on the Golan Heights in northern Israel on Wednesday night, the first Iranian attack on Israeli soil in history. The assault prompted an extensive Israel Air Force attack on dozens of Iranian targets in Syria. Shortly after midnight, IDF defense systems identified approximately 20 rockets that the Iranian Quds forces had launched at IDF forward posts on the Golan Heights. The majority of the rockets missed their mark and fell in Syria territory, while four were intercepted by the I...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-When war broke out on Israel's northern border in 2006, Avigdor Guy remained calm. He lived in the northern port city of Haifa, but he didn't think the war would hit home-until, that is, it did. "Twelve years ago, they asked me if I was worried, and I said no, of course I'm not worried," Guy said. "And then missiles began to fall in Haifa, and it felt really bad." Now, as fears of a war on Israel's northern border heat up once more, Guy again feels fine. But this time, he says...
(JTA)-President Donald Trump's decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital drew wide international criticism, with 128 countries including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada voting in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning it. But several countries saw Trump's decision in a different light: as an example to follow. Shortly after the United States officially moves its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 14, it will be joined by Guatemala and Paraguay. Both c...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-When President Donald Trump teased and then announced he would be pulling the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal, the next obvious question was, what next? What was Plan B? "Congress has heard nothing about an alternative," Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee said at a hearing on Iran on Tuesday. That was just hours before Trump announced that he was indeed pulling the United States out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal...
Turkey recalls ambassadors to US and Israel amid Gaza violence JTA—Turkey recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Israel after at least 50 Palestinian protesters were reportedly killed at the Gaza border. South Africa also recalled its envoy to Israel earlier on Monday, Agence France-Presse reported. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of “genocide” over the killings in Gaza. Tens of thousands gathered of Palestinians gathered there for protests in the hours before the dedication of the new U.S. embassy in Jerus...
It was the signature deal of Barack Obama’s presidency, and President Trump’s dramatic announcement Tuesday that he was withdrawing from it engendered very sharp reactions from both the former president and his secretary of state, John Kerry, who oversaw the negotiations with Iran. Obama reiterated the main argument he made when Congress was debating in 2015 whether to agree to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the formal name of the nuclear accord. “Without the JCPOA, the United States could eventually be left with a losin...
(JNS)—Reactions from American Jewish and pro-Israel groups poured in following U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision on Tuesday afternoon to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal. Among mainstream Jewish organizations came both strong support and tepid approval for the decision. World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder lauded Trump for his “unmistakable message to Iran that its threats will not be tolerated.” “Iran is a rogue nation ruled by a regime that cannot be trusted to honor its word, and even more so w...
