Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS)-When you drive into Israel's Sha'ar HaNegev Region in the northwestern Negev, the fields are burnt and black. The trees are broken, and the smell of acrid smoke stings the eyes and nose. "It is a very upsetting view," said Zeev Meidan, general manager of the Israeli Honey Council. Meidan, who in the past was employed as a beekeeper at the area's Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, has been spending extra time in the southern district to support the region's honey farmers, many of whom have been the... Full story
EFRAT, West Bank (JTA)-Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee laid bricks in a new neighborhood in this settlement in a ceremony Wednesday that took its language and cues from Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" rhetoric. During the ceremony in Efrat's Tamar neighborhood, organizers distributed red caps bearing the slogan "Build Israel Great Again" and spoke of how thankful they were for the president's support. Leaders of the Yesha Council, which represents the settlement movement,... Full story
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Hillel International announced that former Israeli Justice Minister and Member of Knesset Dr. Yossi Beilin has been elected to serve as chair of the board of Hillel Israel, a volunteer position. His appointment was unanimously approved by the Board of Directors of Hillel Israel. In addition to his extensive public service career, Beilin is the visionary of the Birthright Israel program, which has brought more than 650,000 young Diaspora Jews to Israel for 10-day educational... Full story
(JTA)-It's been a dizzying few weeks for South African model and actress Shashi Naidoo, who transformed herself from a harsh critic of the Palestinians to what some are calling a "cover girl" for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. It all began in an Instagram post last month, when Naidoo called Gaza a "s***hole" and accused Palestinian leaders of diverting aid in order to feed its "ambition to annihilate Israel." She explained that she was defending a South African record producer w... Full story
(JNS)-The Israeli Defense Forces said it launched an airstrike on Wednesday night, killing seven terrorists from the Islamic State who had infiltrated Israeli territory in the Golan Heights along the Syrian border. According to the IDF, Israel had been tracking the seven armed suspects from the Islamic State terror group in the southern Golan Heights near the area of the triangle of Israel, Jordan and the demilitarized zone of Syria when the Israeli Air Force aircraft struck them. IDF Spokesman... Full story
(JTA)-It's been nearly three years since Jeremy Corbyn became the leader of Britain's Labour Party, and he has riled British Jews more than any other politician in recent history. Last week, Great Britain's three leading Jewish newspapers united in publishing a front-page editorial warning that a Corbyn premiership would constitute an "existential threat to Jewish life in this country." In May, the previous president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said Corbyn has "anti-Semitic views"... Full story
(JTA)-The election of former cricket star Imran Khan as Pakistan's new prime minister has raised eyebrows across the globe. He has promised a "new Pakistan," running on a light-on-policy nationalistic anti-corruption platform. Khan "is known for running a team of one, making impulsive decisions, contradicting himself and then using his enormous reserves of self-confidence and charisma to dig himself out," Jeffrey Gettleman wrote in The New York Times. Critics have questioned the legitimacy of... Full story
(Israel Hayom via JNS)—Two Palestinians, a 34-year-old man and a 14-year-old boy, were killed on Friday and 150 were wounded in a riot near the Israel-Gaza Strip border, Palestinian media reported over the weekend. According to the Israeli military, some 7,000 Palestinians took part in border demonstrations. The Israel Defense Forces opened fire to ward off rioters who threw rocks and firebombs, and rolled burning tires at the security fence in attempts to sabotage it. The IDF targeted a Hamas position in Gaza on Friday evening after P... Full story
Northern California Jewish camp cancels final session over forest fires (JTA)—The final summer session of Camp Tawonga in Northern California has been canceled due to smoke from the Ferguson Forest Fire. In a letter to parents also posted on social media, the director of the Jewish camp, Jamie Simon, said that “the U.S. Forest Service, the Tuolumne County Health Department and CAL FIRE all recommend that Camp Tawonga remains closed for at least another week due to unhealthy air quality and volatile fire conditions.” She also said the camp... Full story
DEVENTER, Netherlands (JTA)-Four years ago, Tom Furstenberg proudly carried into his synagogue its first Torah scroll since the Holocaust, when local Nazis destroyed the building's interior. The scroll's introduction in 2014 was an important moment for the Beth Shoshana Masorti community that Furstenberg helped establish in 2010 in this city of nearly 100,000 residents located 60 miles east of the capital Amsterdam. After all, it was proof that Jewish life had finally returned to a place where i... Full story
(JNS)-New legislation introduced in Congress recently is seeking to make American aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the U.N. refugee agency that is solely dedicated to the Palestinian refugees, contingent on reform. According to the legislation, introduced by Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), the "UNRWA Reform and Refugee Support Act would return UNRWA to its original framework and address this false narrative of an inflated refugee population." The bill seeks to make U.S. funding... Full story
(JTA)-Israel will launch a rocket from Florida in a bid to become the fourth country to reach the moon. Israel Aerospace Industries and the nonprofit SpaceIL announced Tuesday that they plan a December launch from Cape Canaveral to land on the moon on Feb. 13. The landing would culminate eight years of collaboration on the $88 million project. Private donations mostly paid for the project, including from the American businessman and Jewish philanthropist Sheldon Adelson. SpaceIL's president,... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)-The heavy stone that fell out of the Western Wall and came crashing down on a platform set aside for egalitarian prayer has been removed for examination and restoration, but the conversation about the reason for its sudden sky dive, including hints of divine intervention, keeps on going. The stone fell on Monday morning, hours after the area had been full of worshippers visiting the wall for Tisha b'Av, 25 hours of intense mourning for the destruction of the two Holy Temples in... Full story
On Thursday, Syrian state media reported that government forces had entered the town of Quneitra on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, reaching Israel's doorstep. According to the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's troops raised the nation's flag on Thursday afternoon. SCMM posted photographs from inside the town, where homes had been left badly damaged since Syria waged war. Several Syrians interviewed Thursday say they don't trust the Syri... Full story
(JTA)—Berlin issued a withering critique of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement that he would not remove Holocaust denial posts from the widely used social platform, stating that such a policy was contrary to German law. “There must be no place for anti-Semitism. This includes verbal and physical attacks on Jews as well as the denial of the Holocaust,” Justice Minister Katarina Barley said. “The latter is also punishable by us and will be strictly prosecuted.” In a statement to Politico Europe, a Justice Ministry spokeswoman... Full story
(MEMRI via JNS)—Speaking on Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV, Islamic cleric Salah Nour cited the anti-Semitic hadith according to which the Muslims would fight the Jews on Judgment Day, and the trees and stones would give up the Jews hiding behind them. He praised the “virtue” of jihad, and said: “Islam will prevail, Allah willing, and the Muslims will rule the entire Earth.” His address aired on June 24.... Full story
Hundreds of family members, friends and acquaintances attended the funeral of Yotam Ovadia, 31, murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in a stabbing attack on Thursday night. Yotam was buried at Har Hamenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem, leaving two young children, Harel and Itai, and his wife Tal. “I don’t know what will happen to me and the children now,” Tal said Saturday, as quoted by Ynet. “I don’t know how to continue to be strong for the children. We were everything to him. The house was his kingdom.” “Yotam was a decent, modest and humble ma... Full story
(JNS)-Quite literally among the booms and billows of black smoke across the nearby Gaza border, deep in Israel's southern Negev Desert, the new community of Shlomit laid a cornerstone and broke ground for their future community center. The new structure will serve not only Shlomit, but the entire Eshkol region in southern Israel. A mere 700 meters from Israel's border with Egypt and just a few kilometers from Gaza, Shlomit and the other budding communities of Halutza are defying the odds and... Full story
(JTA)-When Samuel Green talks about Israel's West Bank security barrier with the Birthright groups he guides, he first explains the Israeli view that the barrier was built to prevent Palestinian terrorists from breaching Israeli territory and that Israelis generally feel it has saved lives. But then he'll talk about what the barrier-which is part wall, part fence-means for Palestinians: How it cuts into West Bank territory, how it has separated people from their farmland, how they see it as an... Full story
Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she plans to spend 5 more years on Supreme Court (JTA)—Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she hopes to remain on the court for another five years. “I’m now 85,” Ginsburg said, according to CNN. “My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years.” Ginsburg made the statement on Sunday night in New York during a discussion following a production of “The Originalist,” a play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia. When asked in Octobe... Full story
(JTA)-Mark Zuckerberg says he wants to give everyone in the world a voice. But what happens when some of those wishing a voice are Holocaust deniers? That question was posed to the Facebook founder in an interview Wednesday with Recode, a tech news site, about the social network giant's role in fighting false news and ensuring the safety of users. Zuckerberg's answer placed two values in tension: On the one hand, he said, Facebook prioritizes allowing people to express themselves-even if, he... Full story
By Ariel Kahana (Israel Hayom via JNS)—Members of the U.S. Congress are demanding the State Department make public a key report that includes precise figures on the number of people who became refugees in the 1948 War of Independence. The existence of the State Department assessment, compiled and classified under the Obama administration, was first disclosed by the Washington Free Beacon six months ago. Lawmakers say the report could impact how the United States views the refugee issue when the actual number of refugees is made public and is s... Full story
(JNS)—In a rather rare judgment, a Jerusalem District Court just issued a lien on two large ships that are part of a Gaza-bound flotilla set to arrive in Israeli waters later this month, with the intent that the sea vessels can be sold, with proceeds going to families of Israeli victims of Hamas-sponsored terror attacks. The strategy to seek a lien on the ships in order to benefit the victims was introduced to the court by the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center’ NGO on behalf of two Israeli families (Weinstein and Gavish) who for years have bee... Full story
(JNS)—A law banning groups grounded in the criticism of Israel Defense Forces’ soldiers and the operations of the IDF passed on Tuesday in the Knesset. Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Shuli Mualem-Refaeli, the Jewish Home Party co-authors of the bill, said the law would also apply to institutions that attempt to delegitimize Israel abroad. The bill passed its second and third reading by a vote of 43-24. It was specifically aimed at Breaking the Silence, an organization that questions the actions and morality of the IDF, particularly in... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—A prominent Jewish philanthropist says he was aggressively questioned by Israeli airport security after going on a Jewish tour of Palestinian areas of the West Bank. Meyer Koplow, chair of Brandeis University’s board of trustees and a longtime donor to pro-Israel causes, was delayed for 30 minutes by a security agent at Ben Gurion International Airport Sunday before being allowed to board his flight. Koplow’s visit to Israel included a trip to the West Bank with Encounter Programs, a nonpartisan organization that brings Jews... Full story
