Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Listening to Hebrew songs is officially frowned upon by many West Bank residents, but interest in learning the language of th e “other society that is very close but still far away” is clearly picking up among Palestinians wishing to understand Israelis. One example is the Mohammed bin Rashid Bin Al-Maktoum School in Al-Bireh, a town adjacent to Ramallah, where many students in grades 7 through 10 are opting to study the Hebrew language. A somewhat strategic explanation for this little-known fact was offered by Samer Nimer, a director of the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—For a trip that U.S. officials had cautioned was not about getting “deliverables,” President Obama’s apparent success during his Middle East trip at getting Israel and Turkey to reconcile has raised some hopes for a breakthrough on another front: Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The question now is whether Obama has the means or the will to push the Palestinians and Israelis back to the negotiating table. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who stayed behind to follow up with I...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Obama had three goals for his first presidential trip to Israel. He wanted to persuade Israelis that the United States is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. He wanted to promote the renewal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, albeit without any specific “deliverables.” Most of all, however, he wanted to charm the pants off the Israeli people. He dropped Hebrew phrases into his speeches. He quoted the Talmud. He invoked the story of Passo...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reversed Israeli policy last Friday, offering an apology to the Turkish people for the deaths of nine Turkish citizens aboard the armed Mavi Marmara flotilla headed toward Gaza in 2010. But that apology may have had less to do with Turkey itself than with guarantees relating to Iran or Syria. “Apologizing to Turkey may clear the deck on one issue to get free reign on other issues,” Dr. Harold Rhode—who worked for 28 years in the Pentagon, including from 1989-90 as the head of the Turkish Desk at the U.S...
HERZLIYA, Israel (JTA)—Four weeks ago, militants in Gaza landed a rocket near the Israeli city of Ashkelon. Three weeks ago, Egypt raised its state of emergency in the Sinai Peninsula, warning of an increase in jihadist activity there. Two weeks ago, a rock thrown by a West Bank Palestinian critically wounded a 3-year-old Israeli girl. And last week, Israel plans to ask the United States for support should it strike Syrian weapons convoys en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Along both its n...
Christianity is the world’s largest religion. And with more than 1 billion members, the Roman Catholic Church is its largest denomination. Anyone who watched the recent installation of Pope Francis I, attended by luminaries from 132 nations, would have taken away the enduring impression of a powerful, influential faith that commands respect even from its detractors. But in other parts of the world, it’s a very different story. In the dusty alleyways of Lahore in Pakistan, or in the choked streets of northern Nigeria’s cities, Christians lead...
Report: ‘Prisoner X’ spy Ben Zygier tipped off Hezbollah SYDNEY (JTA)—The man known as Prisoner X unwittingly leaked classified information to Lebanese authorities, leading to the arrest of two Hezbollah agents who were spying for Israel. Ben Zygier, an Australian-Israeli citizen who was working for the Mossad, botched an attempt to recruit a spy for the agency, according to an expose in Der Spiegel. Zygier was attempting to restore his reputation in the Mossad by attempting to turn an enemy into an ally, according to the magazine. He had b...
SUNNY ISLES BEACH (JTA)—Sitting outside a Starbucks coffee shop in this small city north of Miami Beach, Paul Hariton recalls the dramatic night in 2002 when he and his wife decided to leave their native Venezuela. Leftist leader Hugo Chavez had just returned to power following a failed coup and the Haritons feared the political fallout. “We thought he was gone already,” said Hariton, 56. “We came back from a big opposition demonstration in the city center where several people were shot, i...
THESSALONIKI, Greece (JTA)—Antonis Samaras stood in the pale morning light coming through the stained glass windows of the only Thessaloniki synagogue to survive World War II and vowed, “Never again.” For Greek Jews marking the 70th anniversary of the destruction of this city’s historic Jewish community, the Greek prime minister’s words were long awaited. So was his presence—the first time a sitting Greek premier had set foot in a synagogue in 101 years. “We have to be very careful to re...
(JTA)—Frolicking with her fiance in the cool waters of the Suez Canal, Lilian Abada would never have imagined she was about to experience the first of a string of events that would ultimately lead her to flee her native Egypt for Israel with only one suitcase. When Abada and her future husband, Nisso, emerged from the water that day in 1956, a security agent was waiting for them. The two teenagers were arrested for spying for Israel and interrogated for days. They were released and then r...
With the civil war raging in Syria and Iran’s continued pursuit of its suspected nuclear weapons program, the Hezbollah terrorist group stands as a bridge to those growing threats facing Israel. The Lebanese-based Shi’a terror organization has become one of the most powerful paramilitary organizations in the Middle East. Amid an international effort to stem Hezbollah’s influence and operations, the European Union (EU) continues to pose an obstacle to the unity of that effort through its refus...
After most of Daher Dhudy’s family was murdered in a bloody civil war in Somalia, the teen fled with his only surviving brother on a perilous journey through Egypt, reaching safety only when they crossed the border into Israel. “I never found any racism or discrimination” in Israel, the 27-year-old, who is black and Muslim, told a March 7 gathering at the Rutgers University student center in New Brunswick, N.J. Dhudy spoke of an Israel where he was able to find a safe haven, work, and receive a college scholarship, earning a degree in gover...
ROME (JTA)—When the white smoke rose last week at the Vatican, signaling to the world that the College of Cardinals had chosen a new pope, Catholics weren’t the only ones waiting with bated breath. Jews, too, were eager to see whether the new pontiff would be someone familiar with their concerns. Would he be a non-European unfamiliar with the Jewish people and the weighty legacy of the Holocaust? Would he carry on the legacy of his immediate predecessors and work to further Jewish-Catholic relat...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—He’s had to bite a few bullets to get there, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lead Israel’s next government. Barring a last-minute surprise, Israel’s new governing coalition was to be sworn in this week: a center-right grouping of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud-Beiteinu faction, the centrist Yesh Atid party, the religious nationalist Jewish Home party, the center-left Hatnua led by Tzipi Livni and the tiny, centrist Kadima. In total, the coalition will include 7...
AIRPORT CITY, Israel (JTA)—An Israeli soldier sits in an office chair in an air-conditioned metal chamber staring at two screens side by side. One shows a map with a moving dot. The other displays a video feed. Next to the soldier are three more identical stations. The soldier isn’t an air traffic controller but a pilot, and his aircraft is called an unmanned aerial system, more commonly known as a drone. Welcome to the next generation of the Israeli Air Force. Israel long has relied on sup...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted nearly 400 Gaza rockets last November alone, with an 85 percent success rate, amid the Israel Defense Forces’ Operation Pillar of Defense. But the brains behind the system isn’t resting on his laurels. “I’m realistic, so I’m not putting all the eggs in one system, [even though] it had much success,” IDF Brig. Gen. Dr. Danny Gold, who had the initial idea for the Iron Dome, said in an interview with JNS.org at the 2013 Americ...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Unlike most economists, Manuel Trajtenberg does not spend his days cloistered in university classrooms and think tanks far from the public eye. The Tel Aviv University professor gained attention in 2011, in the aftermath of massive social protests that gripped Israel, when he led a high-profile committee that recommended a series of wide-ranging economic reforms for the country. Now as chairman of the Israeli Council of Higher Education, the charismatic Trajtenberg has taken up a...
Last week’s invasion of locusts from Egypt offered adventurous home cooks an opportunity to try something new for dinner last week—locusts, which most rabbis say are kosher, can be prepared many different ways. “You can sauté them like shrimp with garlic, baby cherry tomatoes, lemon and saffron,” Moshe Basson, owner and chef of the Eucalyptus restaurant in Jerusalem that specializes in Biblical foods, told The Media Line. “You can make them like french fries, or you can poach them like lobster, roll them in egg yolk, chickpea flour and spices...
CARACAS, Venezuela (JTA)—Students at the Ma’or HaTorah yeshiva in Caracas knew something was afoot Tuesday [March 5] afternoon when bodyguards driving bullet-proof vehicles started showing up unexpectedly at the gate, whisking teenagers from wealthy families to the safety of their homes. “After the second and third came, we realized this was serious,” Aron Misadon, a 16-year-old student at the school, told JTA on March 6. “At that point they closed the school and we all ran home.” That someth...
(JTA)—For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran. There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search for evidence in the high-profile murder case of a prosecutor. There were the demands by President Hugo Chavez when war broke out between Israel and Hamas in December 2008 that his country’s Jews rebuke Israel for its con...
MAJDAL SHAMS, Israel (JTA)—At first glance, the identification cards of young Druze men looked identical to those of any Israeli, with a number, photo, name and address. The only difference is the citizenship line: Instead of listing “Israeli,” most of the Druze cards are blank. “If someone takes citizenship, he’s labeled as an extremist,” said Wafa Abusela, 19, sitting with his friends in a cafe in Majdal Shams, a Druze city in the northwest corner of the Golan Heights. “People won’t talk to hi...
AMMAN, Jodan—There’s more to the Red Sea city of Aqaba than pristine waters and breathtaking coral reefs. The liberalized duty-free area is seeking to become the gateway of commerce in the region, Jordanian officials say. The Aqaba Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), which runs the port city independent of the government, has signed several agreements worth a total of some $500 million to expand the port’s handling capacity. To be completed in 2015, the port project is expected to pave the way for turning Aqaba into a solid transit hub servi...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Palestinians were marching, rocks were flying, tires were burning and prisoners were hunger-striking. Prompted by accusations that Israel was responsible for the death of a Palestinian detainee while in an Israeli prison, West Bank Palestinians erupted last month in a wave of riots on a scale not seen since October 2000, when Palestinian civil unrest heralded the start of the bloody second intifada that would last five years. There are some strong parallels between February 2...
ROME (JTA)—Pope Benedict XVI’s eight-year reign as head of the world’s 1 billion Catholics sometimes was a bumpy one for the Vatican’s relations with Israel and the wider Jewish community. But it was also a period in which relations were consolidated and fervent pledges made to continue interfaith dialogue and bilateral cooperation. Both elements were evident in the tributes that flowed from Jewish leaders following the surprise announcement Monday that due to his advanced age and weakeni...
RAMALLAH—Six-month-old Muhamad Al-Zaben is already a celebrity among Palestinians, the so-called “Freedom Ambassador”. He is the result of smuggled sperm his father Ammar transferred to his mother Dalal during a prison visit in 2006. Now a Palestinian fertility specialist says four other Palestinian women have become pregnant using similar secret methods, as security prisoners and their wives find a way to become parents while the father is still behind bars. Faced with a ban against conjugal visits, the prisoners, accused of attacks against Is...
