Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Israeli honeymooner killed, wife injured in zip-line accident in Honduras RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA)—A newly wed Israeli man was killed and his wife seriously injured in a zip-line accident during their honeymoon in Honduras. Egael Tishman, 24, and Shif Fanken, 27, were on a zip line over a treetop canopy near Roatan on the island of Bahia when they crashed into each other on Thursday, according to local media. “The girl stayed halfway on the cable and the guy came from behind and hit her up there,” chief firefighter Wilmer Guerrero told La Prens...
(JTA)—A Ukrainian military prosecutor suggested that Jews seek bloodshed in his country, prompting calls for his dismissal by the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others. Col. Gen. Anatoliy Matios, Ukraine’s chief military prosecutor and a highly decorated officer who also holds the title of deputy prosecutor-general of Ukraine, spoke about at least one Jew in an interview that the Insider magazine published Monday. In it, he named a communist Jewish theoretician, Alexander Parvus, and said the revolution Parvus supported “drenched Slavs with blood...
(JTA)—A town in Estonia unveiled a plaque honoring a Waffen SS officer, spurring protests from the Jewish community. A nonprofit unveiled the plaque in Mustla for the local Nazi collaborator Alfons Rebane, who fought with the Germans against the Russians as part of the Nazi armed force. Across Eastern Europe, collaborators with the Nazis, including perpetrators of the Holocaust, are celebrated as heroes, often for their fight against what many in the region consider Soviet occupation. There is no evidence that Rabane was involved in the m...
COCOA-Standing in the crowd on the day the US Embassy opened in Jerusalem was Theresa Miles, former director of The Sister City Program of Cocoa (Florida), and her family. She was in Israel to celebrate the country's 70th anniversary and enjoy a family reunion with her sons, Jordan and Brandon. She also carried a framed artwork that Rabbi Joel and Tali Fox of B'nai Shira in Cocoa Beach had commissioned Orlando artist Judith Segall to create for the new embassy and to honor Israel's 70th birthday...
Eric Peisner and Vicki Freed Peisner were in Israel last week and had a pleasant surprise as they were approaching the Western Wall. They saw a large entourage of people-Israel soldiers bearing arms and other security-surrounding Prince William. Vicki was quick to think and snapped this picture of the British royalty in this historic moment....
By Sarah N. Stern (JNS) It seems as though Hamas is itching for another war. No less than 45 rockets were fired in recent days from the Gaza Strip into Israel, two of which landed near a community center and one just outside a kindergarten—the second attack on a kindergarten in the last few weeks. Operatives also launched scores of balloons and kites with Molotov cocktails, firebombs, chemicals and other incendiary devices attached to them. So far, these seemingly innocuous instruments have destroyed more than 7,000 acres of agricultural f...
Hamas terrorists launched a barrage of rockets and mortar fire from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities in the south in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage. On Tuesday, Hamas orchestrated the launching of another wave of firebomb-laden kites and balloons that sparked fires. “Moments ago,” the IDF spokesman announced on twitter, “an IDF aircraft targeted a vehicle used by a group of Palestinians who launched arson balloons from the northern Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, as well as an...
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (JTA)-In 2015, a jihadist killed a Jewish guard outside this capital city's main synagogue, where Hannah Bentow was having her bat mitzvah party. Her sense of security as a Jew in Denmark was shattered, she told JTA last week. Bentow and dozens of teenagers stayed inside for long uncertain minutes as police pursued and later killed the man who gunned down the volunteer guard, Dan Uzan. But Bentow said her decision to leave for Israel as soon as she turns 18 was sealed and rea...
HANIA, Crete (JTA)-On Sunday, 263 candles will be lit at a special interfaith memorial service at this lovely city's historic Etz Hayyim synagogue. The names of local Jews who perished during the Holocaust will be read before a delegation that is expected to include Chief Rabbi Gabriel Negrin of Athens, Greek Orthodox and Catholic clergy, and ambassadors from Italy, Germany and Israel. One person who wanted to be here will be missing. His name is Kostas Papadopoulos, who may be the last...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council because of its bias against Israel. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, jointly announced the pullout on June 19. "The Human Rights Council is an exercise in shameless hypocrisy," Pompeo told the media at the State Department. "For too long, the human rights council has been a protector of human rights abusers and a cesspool of...
(JNS)-At New York's John F. Kennedy Airport on Monday night, Birthright Fellow and student leader Ariel Tidhar reported that the American Jewish activist group IfNotNow waylaid their group, as well as four other Taglit Birthright groups trying to check into their flights to Israel. IfNotNow attempts "to end American Jewish support for the occupation," referring to lands administered by Israel after wars, including eastern Jerusalem. Tidhar told JNS, "They set up a table with a sign and snacks, a...
(JNS)—Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, announced on Sunday that it had broken up a major Hamas terrorist cell that was forming in the West Bank Palestinian city of Nablus. The Shin Bet described the cell as unusual in its scope and activities. It was plotting major terrorist atrocities, including suicide bombings, planting bombs and gun attacks targeting Israeli cities and smaller communities. The cell comprised of more than 20 suspected operatives, most of them Hamas members. During counter-terrorist raids to break it up, l...
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser said in an interview published Sunday that the administration will soon present its Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, with or without input from Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. In an interview published in the Arabic language Al-Qudsnewspaper, Jared Kushner appealed directly to Palestinians and criticized Abbas, who has shunned Washington over its alleged pro-Israel bias, particularly on the fate of Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. The interview came out after a weeklong trip around the reg...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Vanessa, a Venezuelan-American olah, or immigrant, had experienced a hard landing in Israel. Faced with persistent financial problems, she had trouble holding on to an apartment. Turning to the Internet, she found Keep Olim in Israel, an online group dedicated to crowdsourcing solutions for newcomers to the Jewish state. There she found people who were able to help her solve her personal housing crisis. Later, after she underwent surgery, the same group, which boasts 40,000...
(Israel Hayom via JNS)—A Hamas plan to carry out terrorist attacks in Israeli cities has been thwarted, the Shin Bet security agency revealed on Sunday. According to available details, Shin Bet agents, in collaboration with the military and police, uncovered terrorist infrastructure they described as “extraordinary in its size and level of activity” operating in the Nablus area in the West Bank. According to the Shin Bet, the leader of the 20-member cell was paid $100,000 by a Syrian operative to target major Israeli cities. The inves...
(Israel Hayom via JNS)—The collaboration between the European Union and left-wing groups seeking to undermine Israel and the Israel Defense Forces now includes the funding of legal proceedings against IDF soldiers, a watchdog group revealed last week. NGO Monitor, which promotes greater transparency among foreign-funded Israeli nongovernmental organization, claims that the program, to which the European Union has allocated €250,000 ($290,000), was set up at the request of three left-wing groups and is slated to be in place at least until 202...
(JNS)—Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly facing substantial pressure to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump’s top Middle East advisers this week, despite the rift between Washington and Ramallah. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt, will visit Israel, Egypt and Jordan to discuss the upcoming U.S. peace plan for the region. Abbas has rejected the United States as a peace broker in the wake of Trump’s Dec. 6 recogni...
Jared Kushner: Abbas might not have the ability to make a peace deal JERUSALEM (JTA)—In a rare interview with a Palestinian newspaper, Jared Kushner called out Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for not having “the ability” to make peace with Israel. “I do question how much President Abbas has the ability to, or is willing to, lean into finishing a deal,” Kushner told Al-Quds on Sunday, according to a transcript released by the U.S. National Security Council. “He has his talking points, which have not changed in the last 25 years. T...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Amos Yadlin likes talking about the Begin doctrine, which calls for removing existential threats to Israel before they are manifest-maybe because he lived it twice. As an Israeli Air Force pilot, Yadlin flew one of the planes that took out Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981, when Menachem Begin was prime minister. As director of military intelligence in 2007, Yadlin oversaw the operation that eliminated another nuclear reactor, this one in Syria. Watching President Donald Trump sign...
(JNS)-Israeli security forces began destroying the homes of 15 Jewish families in the Netiv Ha'avot neighborhood of Elazar in the Gush Etzion region of Judea on Tuesday, expelling residents who were joined by as many as 3,500 supporters from around Israel who arrived to protest the action. Some 2,500 Israeli police officers were stationed in the suburban residential community just 11 miles southwest of Jerusalem to carry out the court-ordered eviction and demolition of homes the Supreme Court...
NAHAL OZ, Israel (JTA)-Dani Ben David fiddles with his radio, switching between it and his cell phone as he drives through the Beeri Forest, a nature reserve located on the border of Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. As his Jeep jolts over the dirt road, he quickly and calmly jumps between multiple conversations, coordinating efforts to extinguish the multiple fires that have sprung up across his territory. As regional director for the Western Negev for Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish...
(JNS)-Following a video message to the Iranian people by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, thousands of Iranians took to Israel to express their support and love for the Jewish state. According to Israel's Foreign Ministry, the hashtag #WeStandWithIsrael was featured in tens of thousands of tweets written by Iranians who took part in a campaign to separate their opinions of Israel from that of the strongly anti-Israel Iranian regime. Sharona Avginsaz, the Foreign Ministry Persian-langua...
What caused the collapse of Palestinian society? In addition to serious cleavages dating to Ottoman times that existed in local Arab society, it was the absence of an alternative Arab infrastructure after the British pulled out of Mandate Palestine. Because Palestinian Arab society had been so dependent on British civil administration and social services, Britain’s departure left Arab civil servants jobless. As a result, most social services and civil administration ceased to function in the Arab sector, disrupting the flow of essential c...
(JNS)-The tensions between Russia and Iran over Syria have intensified of late, and it appears that the interests of Russia, the United States and Israel are coalescing around limiting both Iran's and Hezbollah's role in Syria. But the question is: How far is Russian President Vladimir Putin willing to go? Israel, which has become increasingly alarmed at Iran's presence north of its border and its Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah's military buildup in Syria, has urged Russia to force Iran out of...
Orthodox Union joins Jewish communal letter opposing family separations (JTA)—The Orthodox Union joined an open letter signed by 26 other Jewish organizations opposing separation of migrants’ families at the border. The decision to sign the letter on Friday came two days after the O.U., an umbrella Orthodox group, hosted Attorney General Jeff Sessions at its annual conference in Washington D.C.,where he spoke to a friendly crowd about protecting religious liberty for houses of worship, and other matters. In May, Sessions’ department insti...
