Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2005 - 2029 of 2213
Twenty years after the signing of the fateful Oslo Accords between Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, Knesset Members are heavily debating the merits of the peace process and the two-state solution paradigm. Parliamentarians from both Israel’s left and the right agree that the process has not yielded the results anyone would have hoped for, including the deaths of more than 1,000 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians, and agree that th...
Report: Israel stopped producing nukes in 2004 (JTA)—Israel stopped producing nuclear warheads nine years ago when it reached a stockpile of 80, according to a new report. According to the September-October issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which was released over the weekend, some 125,000 nuclear warheads have been built since 1945—approximately 97 percent by the United States, the Soviet Union and Russia. The report by Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris calculated that Israel began making nuclear warheads in 1967 and pro...
Like the biblical Jacob, U.S. President Barack Obama sees a ladder in his dreams. But instead of God at the top, the American president sees his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The Russian president, with his proposal that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad transfer his chemical weapons stockpile to international hands, will ultimately save Obama from ordering an attack. It’s not clear what is preferable to Obama—Putin’s solution or a “no” vote from Congress. Either way, Obama—regardless of wh...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Jewish groups backing President Obama’s call to strike Syria militarily are citing moral outrage and U.S. national security as primary considerations, but concern for Israel—however muted—also looms large in their thinking. A lingering sensitivity over misrepresentations of the role of the pro-Israel community in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003 kept Jewish groups from weighing in on Syria until it was clear that President Obama was determined to strike. Now that same sensitivity is leading them to downplay any mention of Is...
AIPAC to lobby lawmakers for limited Syria strike (JTA)—AIPAC officials reportedly said the pro-Israel group will lobby U.S. lawmakers to authorize a retaliatory strike on Syria for its alleged use of chemical weapons. The unnamed officials told several media outlets over the weekend that the group would send activists to Capitol Hill this week to garner support for a resolution to launch a limited military strike in retaliation for the Aug. 21 attack by the Syrian government. Investigations have provided mounting evidence that President B...
TEL AVIV (JTA)— Daniela Hayoum arrived at a Tel Aviv post office at 7 a.m. and took a number. The line of people waiting for gas masks was long and Hayoum stepped away to run errands. She returned in the afternoon to find hundreds of Israelis crowding under a hot sun on the building’s wide steps, some holding umbrellas and others food. On the street below, medics treated a woman suffering from the heat. On the sidewalk, men sold cold water and bagels. Hayoum began to push her way through. “Th...
Shira Kaiserman remembers her 2010 Taglit-Birthright Israel trip like it was yesterday. While the New Yorker’s group was visiting Mount Herzl, the guide began to tell them the story of Hannah Senesh, an Israeli national heroine who was caught and killed by the Nazis after parachuting into Europe to help rescue Holocaust refugees in 1944. “As a woman you don’t really hear about a lot of modern-day Jewish women who made such a strong contribution to the Jewish people,” Kaiserman told JNS.org...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Two years ago, Hadassa Margolese became a symbol of resistance to haredi Orthodox domination after she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to tell an Israeli reporter how religious men had spit on her as she walked to school. The report made headlines around the world and cast Margolese into the spotlight as a defender of the rights and values of the Modern Orthodox community in Beit Shemesh, a city of approximately 75,000 just off the main highway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv w...
In a sign of growing economic partnership, Israeli and Chinese transportation authorities have signed an agreement to significantly increase the frequency of passenger flights between their countries. According to the deal, Israel and China can operate 14 regular passenger flights as well as seven cargo flights between the countries. Until now, only Israel’s El Al operated three weekly flights to Beijing, while China’s national airline, Air China, does not provide any flights to Israel. App...
WASHINGTON, DC—Joining presidents and giants of the Civil Rights movement as part of the national commemoration of the March on Washington, Alan van Capelle, CEO of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice, spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, urging his fellow American Jews and all Americans to continue the struggle for civil rights. “The vision Dr. King offered us 50 years ago wasn’t only a dream. It was a call for equality but it was also a demand for justice,” van Capelle said. “We may be closer to equality but we are far f...
As Israeli children begin their school year, one particular requirement for students is taking on a somewhat sudden and newfound sense of urgency—inoculation against polio. The disease, which many in Israel had believed to be completely eradicated for more than two decades, has recently been identified in sewage systems—first in the south and then in the north of the country—during routine testing. Many across Israel are invoking thoughts of a biblical-style plague outbreak, even though no fo...
Israel stands down in wake of Syria threat JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s military sent home many of the reservists called up to deal with the threat from Syria. The decision on Sunday to release the reservists, who remain on alert status, came a day after President Obama said he would seek approval from the U.S. Congress to launch a limited military strike on Syria. Congress reconvenes next week following its summer recess. Citing unnamed Israeli officials, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Obama called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sev...
Temporary Western Wall prayer site comes with mixed gov’t messages JERUSALEM (JTA)—A temporary platform for non-Orthodox prayer was built at Robinson’s Arch adjacent to the Western Wall plaza, Israeli government minister Naftali Bennett said. According to a statement Sunday from Bennett’s office, the platform is meant “as an interim but primary place of worship for Jewish egalitarian and pluralistic prayer services.” The announcement from Bennett, the minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora affairs, came amid mixed messages from government...
By Ron Kampeas WASHINGTON (JTA)—In increasingly strident tones, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling his American friends that the purported moderation of Iran’s new president is a ploy aimed at relieving international pressure and buying the Islamic Republic more time to cross the nuclear threshold. But in ways both subtle and direct, some of those friends—among them some of Israel’s closest allies in Washington—are saying that maybe Hassan Rohani is worth hearing o...
Last Monday, Israel named the first 26 of the 104 Palestinian terrorist prisoners that it agreed to release as a goodwill gesture for the restarting of Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations. But while the Palestinian terrorists will initially earn their freedom in this deal, efforts are under way in the U.S. to bring about the further prosecution of those terrorists whose attacks harmed American citizens in Israel. With the support of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a pro-Israel think tank and policy center in Washington, D.C.,...
Did an Israeli drone cross into Egyptian airspace last weekend and fire a rocket at gunmen in the Sinai Peninsula who were about to launch a strike on Israel? Probably. Will any Israeli or Egyptian official admit it, even off the record? Probably not. The official story coming out of Egypt is that it was the Egyptian military that attacked Jihadists in Sinai, killing five. The Egyptian army, which is presently controlling Egypt after Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi was forced from office, is wary of being seen as too close to Israel...
BERLIN (JTA)—Chancellor Angela Merkel, making the first visit by a German head of state to the Dachau memorial, said it was “a very significant moment for me.” Merkel laid a wreath, visited the concentration camp memorial’s museum and met with survivors on Tuesday. “The memory of these fates fills me with deep sadness and shame,” Merkel said, the German news media reported. Max Mannheimer, 93, a survivor who met with Merkel, praised her visit as a sign “of respect for the former detainees.” Ahead of the visit, critics had accused Merkel...
U.S. nixes Egypt drill over civilian deaths, completes Navy exercise with Israel (JTA)—Israel and the United States concluded a joint military naval exercise as President Obama canceled a U.S.-Egyptian drill due to civilian deaths in Cairo demonstrations. Obama told reporters on Aug. 15 that aid cuts could be coming if Egypt’s military government does not stop its bloody crackdown on protesters and move quickly to new elections, USA Today reported. His statements on Egypt came as Israeli and American vessels were wrapping up their Reliant Mer...
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (JTA)—Sarajevo is a city with a rich multicultural past, but it also bears the scars of war. Take a short walk through the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and you will see the many cemeteries and bullet-riddled walls, which are undergoing restoration. These lay side by side with magnificent churches, mosques and synagogues. For this reason, 100 Jews and Muslims from 39 countries gathered there last month to listen and learn from one another at an interfaith dialogue c...
(JTA)—A few weeks before Poland’s parliament voted last month on whether to overturn a ban on ritual slaughter, Rabbi Menachem Margolin was scheduled to meet the Polish president in an effort to find a solution to the problem. The ban had been imposed in January, when a Polish constitutional court outlawed Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter in response to a petition filed by animal welfare activists. But shortly before Margolin’s meeting was to take place, President Bronislaw Komorowski’s office unexpectedly canceled. Margolin, directo...
NEW YORK—Ninety students from 37 colleges and universities across the country have successfully completed the 2011-2013 Taglit-Birthright Israel Excel Fellowship program, an elite fellowship program beginning with a 10-week business internship in Israel for talented Jewish college sophomores, juniors, and select seniors pursuing careers in business and/or technology. During the all-expense paid program, each Birthright Israel Excel Fellow interns at a prominent, global Israeli company from within a wide range of industries, including f...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel gave the final approval to build 1,200 apartments in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank—a move Palestinian peace negotiators said could destroy chances for peace. Sunday’s announcement comes three days before peace negotiations are set to restart in Jerusalem and on the same day that the special U.S. envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, Martin Indyk, met with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The final approval by Israel’s housing and con...
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA)—Three weeks ago, the Dutch public learned of what appeared to be an unprecedented victory for European advocates of boycotting Israeli products. Four major supermarket chains reportedly declared a boycott of products from the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But the “victory,” as some activists in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement called it, was short lived. Days later, the international supermarket chains Aldi and Hema, along...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Israeli settler leader Dani Dayan has made it his mission over the years to warn members of Congress, particularly Republicans, of the perils of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Dayan has been a regular visitor to Washington, his trips often coinciding with developments in the peace process. During the Annapolis talks in 2007-08, Dayan would watch Israeli officials as they met with the media in the lobby of the venerable Mayflower Hotel, just blocks from the White House, and then move in to offer his own spin. In June, Dayan m...
SANA’A, Yemen – Sam (not his real name), an American photographer and editor for an English-language local newspaper, lives in one of the tall historic buildings in the city. With increased kidnappings of Westerners in Yemen, he has grown more cautious. The number of kidnappings has increased recently, with tribesmen or Al-Qa’ida terrorists using hostages either as bargaining chips for the release of imprisoned members or as a way to get a lucrative ransom. Several foreigners have been abducted this year by either Al-Qa’ida gunmen or disgrun...
