Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS)-The second Democratic presidential primary debate on Thursday night barely featured a discussion on Iran, let alone foreign policy. However, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said that, if elected, her "first act will be to engage Iran to stabilize the Middle East and make sure we do not start an unwanted, never-ending war." She also accused U.S. President Donald Trump for being "hell-bent on starting a war with Iran." Whereas Gillibrand said that Iran would be the first country she would...
(JNS)-Suheib Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef and younger brother of "Green Prince" Mosab Yousef, deserted his post in Turkey, flew to an undisclosed Asian country and then gave an interview to an Israeli journalist in which he excoriated the terrorist organization's corruption. Mosab Yousef became know as the "Green Prince" during the decade he worked with Israel's Shin Bet security agency to thwart Hamas terrorist attacks. In the interview, which aired Wednesday on...
(JNS)—Despite multiple raids and a detainment made by the Palestinian Authority against participants of the “Peace to Prosperity” economic workshop in Manama, Bahrain, Ashraf Al-Ghanem says that he will remain strong and courageous. Al-Ghanem is the CEO of Al-Ghanem Furniture Company and a participant in last week’s workshop, making him a target of Palestinian Authority arrests. While he told The Jerusalem Post on Monday that he feared for his life, by Tuesday, Al-Ghanem said, “I feel stronger than yesterday.” His home was one of four raided...
(JNS)—U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) called on the Trump administration on Tuesday to increase pressure on Iran. “We write to urge you to increase pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, in the aftermath of Iran publicly violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action by stockpiling more than 300 kg of low-enriched uranium and threatening further violations within weeks,” stated the letter, which was in response to International Atomic Energy Agency announcing on Monday that Iran has exceeded the ura...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Twenty-five years ago, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the 92-year-old Lubavitcher Rebbe, succumbed to his many ailments and died, to the horror of his Hasidim. Since suffering the first of several devastating strokes on March 2, 1992, while visiting the grave of his late father-in-law and predecessor Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, the Rebbe had been trapped speechless and physically disabled in a failing body. He was widowed and childless, and his Hasidic aides, who now...
(JNS)-Iran has exceeded the uranium enrichment limit under the 2015 nuclear deal, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced on Monday. Tzvi Kahn, senior Iran analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JNS that Iran's aim is to preserve relations with European allies in the face of the Trump administration's maximum pressure campaign against the regime since it withdrew the United States from the agreement in May 2018, reimposing sanctions lifted under it along with enactin...
(JNS)—An exhibition that offers the public a glimpse into the role of faith as a mechanism for survival during the Holocaust opened at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum in Poland on Monday. “Through the Lens of Faith” was arranged and organized by the Amud Aish Memorial Museum in New York, which was founded by the Jewish philanthropists and businessman Elly Kleinman, and works to present the experiences of Holocaust victims and survivors, and how faith helped them persevere. World...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Turning Point USA, a conservative student group that is most notable for its vocal advocacy for President Donald Trump, is hosting a conference here for young Jewish leaders that includes an address by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son Yair. Netanyahu, 27, is one of the more youthful speakers at the three-day Young Jewish Leadership Summit taking place through Wednesday. He's known as a strident defender of his father, who is mired in corruption scandals. The son's...
(JNS)—Josh Block, a former Clinton aide, announced on Monday that he is stepping down after seven years as CEO and president of the nonpartisan educational group The Israel Project. Block announced his departure in a post on the blogging site Medium, mentioning that he notified TIP’s board of directors in June. “It has been an honor to head such a dynamic organization, led by a wonderful board and an amazing chairman, full of talented people who didn’t seek credit or the limelight, but do this work because they grasp the vital nature of ensu...
HAIFA-At the Ruach Tova Health Center in this northern Israeli city, three medical students are hard at work trying to keep up with the steady flow of patients. Nicole Kasher, a third-year student from Los Angeles, reviews patient charts. Galilee native Neta Sagi inventories pharmaceuticals. In a nearby exam room, Leonora Narkis of Petach Tikvah takes a woman's blood pressure. This may look like a typical Israeli medical clinic, but it's actually one of a kind: It's the country's only...
Palestinian Authority arrests then releases Hebron businessman who attended Bahrain summit By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Palestinian Authority arrested and released the next day a Palestinian businessman from the West Bank city of Hebron who attended the United States-sponsored economic summit in Bahrain. Saleh Abu Mayala was arrested on Friday night upon his return home from Bahrain by Palestinian intelligence forces and released by Saturday night, according to reports. A second Palestinian businessman who attended the conference was near...
By Howard Lovy TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (JTA)—The year was 2000, and Michael Steinhardt had just dropped a bombshell that nearly brought an otherwise dignified conference to blows. “I tend, in my dourest moments, to consider both the Reform and Conservative Jews as historic accidents in the 21st century and suspect, before the end of this century, they will have disappeared,” he said. Steinhardt, along with Edgar Bronfman and Charles Schusterman, was in Chicago at a meeting of STAR: Synagogue Transformation and Renewal, which was ostensibly desig...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Days ahead of a workshop where Jared Kushner sought tens of billions of dollars for his Middle East peace plan, the White House unveiled an outline of its economic portion, including proposals, like a Gaza-West Bank travel corridor, that are sure to rattle Israel’s government. The Peace to Prosperity plan authored by a team led by Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and key adviser, was posted Saturday on the White House website. It does not outline the political portion of the peace plan, which the architects say w...
(JNS)—Despite bringing together a historic number of Arab states and prominent world leaders, the Bahrain economic conference, which seeks to be the first step in the Trump administration’s efforts to bring peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, has been buffeted and vilified, especially by the Palestinians, who called the Trump plan “dead on arrival” and have boycotted the summit. Senior adviser to and son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump Jared Kushner, who spearheaded the initiative, opened the two-day summit on Tuesday by calling...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak announced Wednesday that he is forming a new political party. At an evening news conference, Barak said he rushed to make the announcement to thwart Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to cancel the Sept. 17 election. “Netanyahu has reached the end” of his political career,” Barak said. “The Netanyahu regime must be felled.” “Bibi, this is your last chance to go home of your own volition,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname. Barak, who did not say what the name of his new party wo...
RAMAT GAN, Israel-Prof. Yitshak Kreiss, director general of Israel's Sheba Medical Center Tel HaShomer, attended the summit in Bahrain, held June 25-26, to discuss economic prospects for the Palestinian people as part of a first step in a potential Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. "I am both privileged and honored to have been personally invited by US. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin to the Peace and Prosperity Workshop in Bahrain," said Prof. Kreiss. Born together with Israel in 1948,...
(JNS)-"Far-right anti-Semitism is on the rise in the United States and Europe, but the response from both Jewish communities and law enforcement agencies has been defensive and case by case, rather than proactive and comprehensive," Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute, told JNS in a recent interview. The threat to freedom in the United States is twofold, said Carmon. On the one hand is the jihadi threat, which manifests in terrorist attacks but is rooted in...
Before the wildfires were extinguished in Israel last month, organizations and communities throughout Israel stepped up to help the more than 3500 people who had been evacuated and displaced from their homes, including residents of Mevo Modiin, a community that was all but completely burned down. Calls to provide clothes and other supplies were responded to so much so that by the next morning, almost as quickly as the fire started and calls were issued to help, people were turned away because...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-After Iran announced that it will abandon further commitments agreed to under the 2015 nuclear deal, President Donald Trump threatened "obliteration" in "some areas" of the country. The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, told the semi-official Fars News Agency on Tuesday that the government will take new action on July 7. He said the other world powers who signed the deal had not done enough to save it in the face of the U.S. pullout last...
By Raphael Ofek (BESA Center via JNS)-IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano confirmed on June 10 that Iran is realizing its threat to increase its rate of uranium enrichment, in direct defiance of the terms of the nuclear agreement of 2015 (JCPOA). On May 7, Tehran threatened that if no solution was found to the problem of U.S. sanctions, it would ignore the restrictions on uranium enrichment placed on it by the nuclear agreement and enrich up to 20 percent. Two weeks later, on May 21, Iranian...
(JNS)-The United Nations General Assembly met on Wednesday to discuss the growing anti-Semitism worldwide, at the initiative of Israel's ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, who has enlisted the support of the United States, Canada and European Union countries. More than 90 countries participated in a discussion that included hundreds of guests from the Jewish community in the United States, Jewish and pro-Israel organizations and many more. "The sounds we heard at Pittsburgh and Poway do not...
Israeli rhythmic gymnast Linoy Ashram takes 2 gold medals at 2019 European Games By Marcy Oster (JTA)—Israeli rhythmic gymnast Linoy Ashram won two gold medals at the 2019 European Games in Minsk, Belarus. She won gold medals in the Ball event and Clubs event, both held on Sunday. She also won a silver medal during competition on Saturday. Arsham, 20, of Tel Aviv, is looking toward representing Israel and winning a medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Americans in Israel warned over planned demonstrations against US and Bahrain summit By M...
(JNS)-Just like "Rome wasn't built in a day," neither was Jerusalem, says Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. As a part of the city's development endeavors, Jerusalem's main entrance will undergo a grand makeover-a million-square-meter project including construction of a new entryway into the city, extension of the light rail and various new towers. Along with such growth, Jerusalem residents can expect associated growing pains since private vehicles will be blocked from entering...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced the establishment of a foundation dedicated to combating anti-Semitism as he accepted the Genesis Prize award in Jerusalem on Thursday. In addition to the $1 million he received along with the prize, Kraft is putting $20 million of his own money toward the project, to be called the Foundation for Social Media Messaging Against Anti-Semitism. It is also receiving funding through two $5 million gifts, one of which was pledged by Rom...
(JNS)—In recent weeks, Iran and its proxies have begun operating under a new directive best described as a policy of controlled escalation. Still, the potential for miscalculation and region-wide conflict has grown considerably. Responding to the chokehold of U.S. sanctions put in place by the Trump administration, Tehran, together with its non-state militias and terrorist entities, initiated a series of aggressive acts throughout the Middle East. These include the targeting of oil tankers in t...
