Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Nikki Haley throws a party for nations that didn’t oppose US Jerusalem stance at UN (JTA)—To thank the 65 countries that did not support a resolution condemning President Donald Trump’s position on Jerusalem, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, invited her counterparts from those states to a reception. Haley extended the invitation Thursday hours after the General Assembly passed a resolution condemning Trump’s Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, the nrg news site reported. Nine countries voted against t...
(JNS)—The Trump administration said Sunday that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is “walking away” from peace talks after PA President Mahmoud Abbas declined to meet with Vice President Mike Pence during his upcoming Middle East visit this month. “It’s unfortunate that the Palestinian Authority is walking away again from an opportunity to discuss the future of the region,” stated Jarrod Agen, Pence’s deputy chief of staff. The Trump administration “remains undeterred in its efforts to help achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians an...
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-Two weeks ago, a 29-year-old man waving a Palestinian flag smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant with a wooden club, stealing an Israeli flag there. Police arrested the suspect on the spot The Dec. 7 incident, which occurred the day after President Donald Trump declared that the United States officially recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, triggered an outpouring of condemnations by Dutch leaders. Prime Minister Mark Rutte called it "terrible," and 15 lawmakers ate...
BOSTON-Rabbi Rick Jacobs used his pulpit to compare the difficulties between Israel and Reform Jews to those of Joseph and his brothers in last week's Torah portion of Vayeshev. It was a huge congregation Jacobs was addressing: the record-breaking 6,000 Reform Jews gathered in Boston for the Union for Reform Judaism's 74th North American Biennial General Assembly. But it was President Donald Trump's announcement that the U.S. has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and will be moving its...
It could be argued that Israel might not exist today were it not for Eliahu "Eli" Cohen, who was executed as a spy in Syria in 1965-but not before passing on information that likely saved his country. Over 50 years later, Avraham Cohen, is still trying to get his brother's remains returned. Avraham Cohen, Eli Cohen's last surviving sibling, will be speaking at Nate's Shul as part of a larger presentation on the historical and ongoing issue. It's something he's been doing in Israel for many...
Foreign ministers from India, Russia and China notably refrained from recognizing 'East Jerusalem' as the capital of Palestine at their annual meeting in New Delhi this week-seven days after the US recognized the holy city as the capital of Israel. The decision not to restate the position on Jerusalem long-held by all three countries was in marked contrast to their joint call at last year's meeting in Moscow for a "sovereign, independent, viable and united State of Palestine, with East...
(JNS) An Israeli security guard is in serious condition after a Palestinian terrorist stabbed him in the heart on Sunday at the entrance to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station. Graphic security footage of the incident shows the 24-year-old terrorist, Yassin Abu al-Qur'a, removing his coat at the station's entrance and then suddenly drawing a large knife and plunging it directly into 46-year-old security guard Asher Elmaliach's heart. After attempting to flee the scene, the terrorist was quickly...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Ilan Mengistu knows his pitch to rescue his brother, Avera, should be a no-brainer to Jews-"pidyon shvuyim," the redemption of the hostage, is among the greatest of commandments. But Mengistu also knows that the story he has to tell is not the straightforward narrative longed for by those who would do good: Avera was not a soldier, nor was he captured exactly. He crossed into the Gaza Strip of his own volition. Mengistu came to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., last week with...
PARIS (JTA)-When Jerry Levy's family opened one of the first gourmet kosher meat shops in France, they had some of the country's best-laid business plans. Hailing from a long line of Jewish butchers in their native Algeria, they had the expertise and diligence in 1977 to cater to the changing needs of their growing community, where tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants from North Africa like them were developing both the appetite for quality-and the means to pay for it. Four decades on, the...
Mother, 3 children killed in Hanukkah house fire flown to Israel for burial NEW YORK (JTA)—The bodies of a woman and her three children killed in a house fire were flown to Israel after a crowd of mourners proved too large and distraught for a memorial ceremony to be held in Brooklyn. The New York Post reported Tuesday that hundreds of bereaved members of the Orthodox community gathered outside Congregation Sheves Achim in East Flatbush on Monday evening to mourn Aliza Azan, 39, and her children. “Unable to enter the synagogue,” the Post repor...
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-Henny Goudeketting, a 95-year-old Holocaust survivor, is ailing and preparing to leave the world. Goudeketting, who was sterilized in Nazi medical experiments at Auschwitz, has neither children nor other relatives to care for her. Now, after multiple infections and recurrent falls, she's readying to say goodbye. "It's kind of strange," Goudeketting told JTA. "I know I have no future and I'm ready to die, but I'm still afraid of actually dying." The Amsterdam native returned to...
Israel's leadership and Jews from around the world celebrated President Donald Trump's statement that the US officially recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and that plans to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem are in motion. The US "finally acknowledge[s] the obvious: that Jerusalem is Israel's capital. This is nothing more, or less, than a recognition of reality. It is also the right thing to do. It's something that has to be done," Trump stated at the White House on...
(JTA)-President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his announcement that he will move the embassy there from Tel Aviv will have a number of consequences for Israelis, Palestinians and the wider region. For Israel, it has finally received from an American president what it has long craved, which is righting the historic wrong of it being the only state whose self-declared capital is not recognized by the rest of the world. Israel's government institutions are...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Hours after ordering preparations for a U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, President Donald Trump delayed moving the diplomatic mission to the city by another six months. Trump signed a proclamation at the White House Wednesday saying the United States sees Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and directing the State Department to start planning an embassy in the city. Soon thereafter, he signed another presidential waiver of a 1995 law requiring the embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Under U.S. President Bill Clinton, Con...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—President Donald Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital may have sent shock waves across the Middle East. But here, in the epicenter of a city where fewer than a million people work, eat, pray and shop, the first day’s reaction was muted. The municipality projected images of the Israeli and American flags side by side on the Old City walls. But in Mahane Yehuda, the bustling produce and everything-else market a few miles into the city’s western side, it was another working day. Jews generally welcomed...
The Hamas terror organization said President Donald Trump's historic recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "opens the gates of hell" and has called for another violent uprising against the Jewish state. "Trump's decision on Jerusalem will not succeed in changing the fact that Jerusalem is Arab Muslim land," a Hamas spokesman said Wednesday following Trump's announcement at the White House. Hamas called for Palestinians to take to the streets in a "Day of Rage" on Friday and "respond with...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel said it expects other countries to follow America’s example and recognize Jerusalem as its capital, even as much of the world decried the U.S. decision to move toward relocating its embassy to the city. Speaking at a diplomatic conference Thursday, a day after the historic shift in U.S. policy, which he welcomed, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was in contact with countries interested in such actions. “We are holding contacts with other countries who will also recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. I have no d...
(JNS.org) The Israeli Air Force allegedly conducted an airstrike Monday night on a “military scientific research center” in the Jamraya area on the outskirts of Damascus, media affiliated with the Syrian regime reported. “Our air defenses are confronting an Israeli missile attack on one of our sites in the Damascus suburbs and three of the targets were downed,” reported the Syrian state news agency SANA. The Hezbollah-affiliated media outlet Al Mayadeen stated that the Israeli military launched six missiles at the site, and that three of the...
(JNS.org) A war along Israel's northern border could be just "weeks" away, according to Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer. Dermer made the comments in a wide-ranging interview published by Politico on Monday, stating that the probability of direct conflict with the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah is "higher than people think because of Iran's continued push through the region." "If Iran is not rolled back in Syria, then the chances of military confrontation are growing. I don't want to...
Israel’s Foreign Ministry recently carried out a comprehensive survey of the citizens of 54 countries about their country’s relations with Israel. The main finding is that in a vast majority of those countries, 47 of 54 of them, most of the people surveyed believe that their country would benefit from links with Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to these finding on Sunday as a “gigantic change.” “What is also interesting is that half of the public in the countries in the Middle East that were reviewed, the assets and strength...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians will be comprehensive and pave the way for stability in the region. That's about all we know concerning Jared Kushner's plan, and he's happy to keep it that way, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior policy adviser said this weekend at a gathering of scholars and policy mavens who deal with the U.S.-Israel relationship. "The best thing about the team is that there's a lot of trust within the team," Kushner said at the...
BUDAPEST (JTA)-At a conference about anti-Semitism in Europe, senior Hungarian officials said the absence of violence against Jews in their country owed to its refusal to admit Muslim immigrants. The assertion, which at least one Jewish expert on anti-Semitism disputed, came amid criticism of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's right-wing government by other European leaders of his immigration policy, and a dispute between the Hungarian leader and some Jewish community leaders who accuse Orban of...
Roy Moore’s wife on anti-Semitism charge: ‘One of our attorneys is a Jew’ WASHINGTON (JTA)—Roy Moore’s wife said she and her husband, the controversial Senate candidate in Alabama, could not be anti-Semitic because they employ a Jewish lawyer. “Fake news will tell you that we don’t care for Jews,” Kayla Moore, her husband, Roy, standing behind her, said Monday night at Moore’s final campaign rally in Midland City, Alabama. “I tell you all this because I’ve seen it all, so I just want to set the record straight while they’re here,” she sa...
(JTA)-When Israeli security guards roughed up the head rabbi of the Reform movement at the Western Wall, ripping his suit jacket and shoving a can of mace in his face, Rabbi Jen Lader had a dilemma: How could she talk about the violence without being boring? Lader, a spiritual leader at Temple Israel in suburban Detroit, had already preached about the Israeli government's apparent disdain for Reform Jews. She had spoken about how Reform Jews cannot marry or perform conversions as they choose in...
With files from the Israel Mission to the UN Israel's Mission to the United Nations, in partnership with the World Jewish Congress, celebrated 70 years since the historic November 29, 1947 United Nations vote on Resolution 181 that called for the establishment of a Jewish State in the Land of Israel. The event, initiated by Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon, took place in the Queens Museum, which served as UN headquarters in 1947 when the vote took place. US Vice President Mike Pence...
