Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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By Marcus M. Gilban RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA)-Less than one month after Benjamin Netanyahu gained pop star status across Brazil for blending in with the locals during the very first visit of a sitting Israeli prime minister, Israel is making headlines in the land of samba once again. A 130-strong Israeli military and search-and-rescue team landed here on Sunday and has been working against the clock to find survivors of a dam collapse last Friday around a mining operation in a rural area of the Minas...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-There's a new political power in team in Israel, and it hopes to defeat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in upcoming elections. Benny Gantz, a former head of the Israeli army, announced Tuesday that he will combine his new political party, Israel Resilience, with one led by fellow former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Moshe Yaalon. This is a significant partnership: Since its formation last month, and before he issued any kind of political platform, Gantz's party...
Jewish National Fund is once again calling attention to people with special needs and disabilities during Jewish Disabilities Awareness, Acceptance, & Inclusion Month. As part of its focus on improving quality of life for all in Israel, JNF-USA is dedicated to ensuring that no member of Israeli society is left behind. Observed each February, JDAAIM was founded in 2009 by the Jewish Special Education International Consortium to raise awareness and encourage inclusion for people with disabilities and special needs. People with disabilities make...
By Yisrael Medad (JNS)—A new lawsuit has been filed against Airbnb, this time in San Francisco. It alleges that the company, in its decision to delist accommodations owned by Jews in the geographical area of Judea and Samaria, is engaging in an “anti-Jewish Discriminatory Policy enacted by Airbnb [that] was adopted with the incitement and encouragement of Human Rights Watch and other organizations associated with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement.” This suit was filed on behalf of Efrat residents of Eve Harow and her husband, Earl;...
Israel lawmakers cancel visit to Ireland after parliament passes West Bank boycott By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—The speaker of Israel’s Knesset cancelled an official delegation of Israeli lawmakers to Ireland, after its parliament advanced a bill banning the sale of West Bank goods. Yuli Edelstein cancelled the parliamentary delegation on Monday. It was scheduled to travel in March. The Occupied Territories Bill passed on Thursday would ban the import or sale of goods originating in all “occupied territories,” with lawmakers’ discussio...
In a full-scale ceremony on Jan. 16, Rescuers Without Borders founder and president Arie Levy received the Global Impact Award in Tel Aviv, presented by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Levi, one of eight recipients, was given this honor for his international work in the developing world and Tikkun Olam. Since 2016 Rescuers Without Borders has taken their Israeli knowhow, training local people to be medics, and established 16 first response emergency teams throughou...
(JNS)—Worldwide terror attacks decreased by one-third in 2018 compared to 2017, while resulting non-militant fatalities fell by more than one-quarter, according to the annual Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre Global Attack Index, released today by business information provider IHS Markit (Nasdaq: INFO). “Over the course of 2018, JTIC recorded a worldwide total of 15,321 attacks by non-state armed groups, which resulted in a total of 13,483 non-militant fatalities,” said Matthew Henman, head of JTIC. “The attack figure represents a signifi...
(JNS)—Israel will revoke permits issued to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency due to accusations that the organization incites terror against Israel. According to a Hadashot television news report on Saturday, Israel’s National Security Council will revoke UNRWA’s permits to operate schools for Arab residents in eastern Jerusalem. Currently, UNRWA operates seven schools with an estimated 3,000 students in the city. UNRWA will reportedly be allowed to continue running the schools for the remainder of the current school year. Start...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel struck Iranian targets in Syria, hours after an Iranian-made ground-to-ground missile was fired by an Iranian force in Syria at northern Israel. The targets struck by Israel Defense Forces warplanes late on Sunday night include munitions storage sites, an Iranian intelligence site, an Iranian military training camp, and a military site located in the Damascus International Airport, the IDF said. Russia’s defense control center in Syria said that four Syrian soldiers were killed and six wounded in the attacks. Syrian mil...
(Palestinian Media Watch via JNS)—Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas’s adviser on religious affairs has accused Israel and Hamas of planning “an attack against Abbas.” Mahmoud Al-Habbash: “There is suspicious and dangerous coordination between the statements of the occupation state’s leaders and the statements of the Hamas movement’s leaders on all that is connected to an attack on President Mahmoud Abbas.” [Official P.A. daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 14, 2019] Al-Habbash claimed Israel and Hamas share a desire to “assassinate” Abbas....
(JNS)—Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon warned the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday about Iran’s terror network in the Middle East, spending $7 billion annually to threaten Israel. “Iran is exploiting the regime to conduct military operations against Israel, but we will respond with force and remove any threat to our people,” he said at a special session on the latest developments in the Middle East. “The Iranian regime’s obsession with Israel is not just well-known. It is expensive. Seven billion dollars annually ar...
This is part 1 of a four-part series. Just after Christmas it was announced that Israel will be holding early elections on April 9. In the coming months there will be heavy campaigning, countless polls, stunts, pundits’ predictions, and endless projections. Many friends have asked, what will be with Prime Minister Netanyahu, politically and legally, and what should they pray for? Before sharing some of the things to watch and pray for, let me make one projection that is not unique and that all polls are projecting: that the Likud party under P...
Israel takes 5th place in Bloomberg ranking of world’s most innovative nations By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel moved up to fifth place in the 2019 Bloomberg Innovation Index, an annual ranking of the world’s 60 most innovative countries. The index, unveiled Tuesday, reviews dozens of criteria using seven metrics, including research and development spending, manufacturing capability and concentration of high-tech public companies. Israel was ranked 10th in 2018. The United States finished eighth after being 11th last year. South Korea...
(JTA)—Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Florida would take action against Airbnb for its decision to remove listings of rooms and homes for rent in West Bank Jewish settlements. Airbnb announced in November 2018 that it would remove the listings of some 200 apartments and homes for rent in Jewish settlements in the West Bank, but not in Palestinian communities, and said that it consulted with experts to learn about the historical disputes in the region in order to make a decision about whether it should be doing business in “the occupied ter...
(JTA)-New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is the winner of the $1 million Genesis Prize, the so-called Jewish Nobel. Kraft, 77, will be giving the money "to initiatives combating anti-Semitism and other forms of prejudice as well as attempts to de-legitimize the State of Israel," according to a statement. Genesis Prize chairman and co-founder Stan Polovets in the announcement Wednesday called the Jewish-American NFL owner and businessman "one of the world's most generous philanthropists...
ATHENS-In a small, nondescript classroom in Greece's capital city, 10 Jewish eighth-graders study a biblical text about Jacob and Esau under the guidance of Rivkah Carl, a Jewish teacher from Teaneck, New Jersey. The students chatter loudly in Greek among themselves, though the language of instruction is English. In an adjacent classroom, nine kids-each wearing headphones and sitting in front of computer monitors-listen as their Israeli instructor teaches them Hebrew. But this is no Jewish...
IKEA Israel to open fifth store in Tel Aviv (JNS)—The Swedish furniture and home accessories chain IKEA will open its fifth store in Israel later this year in Tel Aviv. The store will have just 21,500 square feet of floor space. It will focus on kitchens, reported Globes on Thursday. IKEA’s largest Israeli store, in Rishon Lezion, is 366,000 square feet and was opened in 2010, but not before the first one in the country opened in 2001 near Netanya. The other megastores are in Kiryat Arba, opened in 2014, and Beersheva, opened in 2018. IKEA is a...
(JNS)-This time six years ago, Israel completed its high-tech border fence with Egypt, marking the start of a transformation in the situation along this restive frontier. With its network radars and cameras, the obstacle-dubbed "Hourglass" by the Israeli Defense Ministry-issues alerts to Israel Defense Forces units regarding suspicious movements. The barrier has almost completely stopped the mass movement of illegal migration from Africa, Dr. Ofer Israeli, a geostrategist and international...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli politics looks like a big mess right now. In the past few weeks, three new parties have been launched and one party has kicked out a former partner. More changes are likely, too. It probably will get messier still if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted before national elections are held on April 9. The latest polls show 12 to 14 parties entering the new Knesset, many with the bare minimum of four seats. (The Knesset has 120 seats.) That would be up from 10 in t...
(JNS)-Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) called on the U.S. Department of Justice to end funding for the Nation of Islam. The Washington Examiner first reported this development and the funding of "at least $364,500 in contracts and awards" from the DOJ and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons between fiscal 2008 and fiscal 2019. "The fact that hard-earned American tax dollars are being funded to this extremist group is not only unacceptable, it's downright immoral," the congressman wrote in a letter on Monday...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas again called on the United States to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel is stepping up its campaign for international recognition of its claim to the strategic plateau. A joint statement by the two Republican senators came on the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, to recognize Israel’s claim to the Golan. Israel captured the heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and a...
Students from a World ORT Kadima Mada Youth Village in Israel scored a historic "first" after their peace-making efforts were acknowledged at a major international forum. A short film, "Peace for Israel," made by teenagers from the Kfar Silver Youth Village, was screened at a UNESCO conference in Paris last month. The 90-second video on the use of drones and robots for peace, which was created by the students at the height of the conflict on the Gaza border in 2018, was selected as one of 10...
Netanyahu wants to face his accusers on TV By Marcy Oster JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants a chance to take on his accusers on live television. Speaking Monday night, the prime minister said that during investigations into the corruption cases against him he “demanded a face-to-face confrontation with states’ witnesses.” He said he was denied several times. “Today I repeat that demand, and as far as I am concerned it should be on live television,” Netanyahu said. His statement was carried live on Israel’s ma...
(JNS)-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo slammed the Obama administration's Mideast policies, which were outlined in a similar venue almost a decade ago, and touted their reversal under U.S. President Donald Trump, saying that "America is a force for good in the Middle East." Without mentioning former President Barack Obama by name, he said at the American University in Cairo: "It was here, in this city, another American stood before you. He told you that radical Islamist terrorism does not...
(JNS)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pressed U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton on Sunday for the United States to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The prime minister raised the issue with U.S. President Donald Trump and did so on again with Bolton, who is in Israel as part of a trip that also includes visiting Turkey on Monday. “When you’re there, you’ll be able to understand perfectly why we’ll never leave the Golan Heights and why it’s important that all countries recognize Israel’s sovereignty o...
