Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the country's recent election has been described as a "political earthquake," while Jewish leaders' immediate reaction was toexpress concern about AfD's views. But what are the broader implications of the party's electoral showing for German Jews and for Israel? In late September, AfD won 12.6 percent of the public vote, in the first time a German far-right party won seats in the country's Bundestag legislature in decades. Chancel...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Trump administration is encouraging the Palestinian Authority to assume control of the Gaza Strip and leaving the door open for a role by Hamas in the subsequent Palestinian government. But if such a move was once seen as a traditional predicate to a two-state solution, top Palestinian leaders are hedging their bets, saying they would not rule out a "one-state" solution in which Palestinians have the same one-person, one-vote rights as Israelis. Israeli leaders have long...
In what turned out to be a timely announcement, dozens of bereaved families Sept. 26 unveiled a new organization that seeks to fight and deter terrorism in the Jewish state. On the same day, a Palestinian terrorist killed three Israelis in the community of Har Adar near Jerusalem. The nascent nonprofit organization, Choosing Life, brings together more than 40 families who have lost relatives in the ongoing Palestinian terror wave that began in 2015. Since the so-called “knife intifada” began in September of that year, 58 people have been kil...
Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein fired following sexual harassment claims (JTA)—Harvey Weinstein was fired from the movie production firm he started following sexual harassment allegations by several women, including actress Ashley Judd. The Weinstein Company’s directors announced the dismissal Sunday, citing “new information about misconduct” by Weinstein, who co-founded the firm in 2005. The board said in a statement that Weinstein’s employment “is terminated, effective immediately.” Last week, The New York Times published an article alleg...
Attacks on Israel's legitimacy were in full flow at the UN General Assembly session in New York City on Wednesday, as Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the 1917 Balfour Declaration-in which Britain announced its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people"-as a "crime against our people," while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani described the Jewish state as "the rogue Zionist regime," in language harking back to the...
It took less than 90 seconds for Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, to make the Palestinian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council squirm in their seats. Just after members from the PLO, Syria, Qatar, North Korea, Pakistan, Venezuela and Iran spoke their vile reasons to disassociate with Israel at United Nations Watch, Yousef spoke in English with clarity and confidence as he called out the PA's human rights abuses of their own people. "Where does your...
MEXICO CITY (JTA)-I was on the 11th floor of an office building here when the ground started moving. There had been a mock evacuation that same day in remembrance of the 1985 earthquake that killed more than 10,000 people, but this was no drill. According to protocol, everyone ran toward the building's columns-structurally the safest place to be in an earthquake. I closed my eyes as the rumbling worsened, focusing on my breath and hugging the concrete structure as ceiling lamps came down,...
At least 59 dead, over 500 wounded in shooting attack in Las Vegas (JTA)—At least 59 people are dead and more than 500 wounded in Las Vegas in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. The attack took place at a country music festival outside the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Strip late Sunday night. The gunman has been identified as Stephen Paddock, 64, who apparently killed himself in a standoff with police. Paddock reportedly shot at the crowd with automatic weapons from a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay at around 10 p.m. w...
In his first address to the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, President Donald Trump made a forceful case against Iran’s behavior in the Middle East and the merits of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by his predecessor Barack Obama. As a presidential candidate, Trump vowed to “rip up” the “disastrous” deal. Yet his administration has not taken any concrete steps to either renegotiate or pull the U.S. out. However, a key deadline looms in mid-October that has led to a flurry of speculation whether the Trump administration may make a ma...
Israel and the U.S. inaugurated the first American military base on Israeli soil on Monday, Sept. 18, which will serve dozens of soldiers operating a missile defense system. The move comes at a time of growing Israeli concerns about archenemy Iran’s development of long-range missiles. Together with the U.S., Israel has developed a multilayered system of defenses against everything from long-range guided missile attacks from Iran to crude rockets fired from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The base’s opening is largely symbolic and isn’t expec...
At a time of warming relations between Israel and Arab states, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held his first public meeting Monday with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. The meeting comes amid speculation of an historic shift in Arab policy towards the Jewish state. During the hour-and-a-half meeting at the Palace Hotel, the leaders engaged in "a comprehensive discussion about the problems of the...
Despite the raging civil war to Israel’s north and east in Syria, the Jewish state’s northern border has remained precariously quiet over the last decade. No stranger to looming threats, Israeli officials are planning and ready for several worst-case scenarios in the north as Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah continue to forge their stranglehold on the region. In a possible war scenario with Hezbollah, the Israeli military can launch a “massive and overwhelming” operation that would effectively “neutralize” a significant part of the Lebanes...
Galvanized by common threats by Iran and Islamic extremism, Israel and the its fellow Sunni Muslim Arab states have seen an unexpected warming in relations in recent years. However, despite public and closed-door cooperation, Israel still remains deeply unpopular among the so-called “Arab street.” Drawing on its high-tech prowess and unprecedented social media opportunities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has strongly embraced new media channels to reach millions of viewers directly, including in the Arab world. Ofir Gende...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel will send a search and rescue team to Mexico in the wake of a severe earthquake—the second to hit the North American nation in two weeks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the operation and said it would leave for Mexico as soon as possible, his office said Sept. 20 in a statement. More than 200 people have been killed in the 7.1-magnitude earthquake that struck central Mexico on Tuesday afternoon, rocking the capital of Mexico City and causing hundreds of buildings to collapse. In addition, a delegation of 50 Isr...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israel's rabbinical courts in recent years have ramped up their practice of blacklisting citizens they deem not Jewish, internal data released Sunday show. With increasing frequency, the courts have placed Israelis, almost all of them immigrants with Jewish heritage, on lists that prevent them from marrying Jews. The courts argue that they are acting to preserve the coherence of the Jewish people. But critics say the rabbinical courts have stepped outside their legal...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Stressing the chance to show off Israel to the world, Israeli officials joined with their Italian counterparts in announcing Monday that three stages of the prestigious Giro d'Italia cycling race will be held in the country, starting in Jerusalem. It will mark the first time that any leg of cycling's Grand Tour races-the Giro, the Tour de France and the Spanish Vuelta-will take place outside of Europe, and just the 12th time the Giro had gone outside of Italy in its 101-year...
An outdoor concert has just wrapped up for the evening, and Haifa's downtown Turkish Market area is packed with people looking to unwind with a cold beer and a good meal. This would not have been the case just two short years ago, when the area was practically abandoned, rundown, and filled with less than desirable characters. Israel's third-largest city has taken a moment to recalculate and reboot. It is clear that the effort has been successful as locals and visitors flock to the city's...
Leader of far-right German party says Jews have nothing to fear (JTA)—Jews should not fear the strong election showing by the Alternative for Germany, a leader of the populist far-right party said. “There is nothing in our party, in our program, that could disturb the Jewish people who live here in Germany,” co-party head Alexander Gauland told reporters Monday, a day after AfD garnered more than 13 percent of the vote to finish third in German national elections. Gauland also said that he was ready to meet with German Jewish leaders “at a...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative. Despite resistance from her haredi Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm Harvey flooded her native Houston. So on Wednesday evening, Ballin left her husband to watch their five young children and headed to southeast Texas, where she and six other Israeli mental health...
The United Nations has crowned her a "human rights defender," while Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based broadcaster, hails her as a "Palestinian supermom." But Manal Tamimi's links to violence and tweets accusing Jews of "drinking Palestinian blood" are prompting some of her backers to reconsider their support. Tamimi, a 45-year-old mother of four, is a leader of the Popular Resistance Organizing Committee in the town of Nabi Saleh, near the Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled city of Ramallah....
(JTA)-Forty-five years after the murderous PLO attack on Israeli Olympic team members at the 1972 games, a memorial dedicated to the victims opened today in Munich. The memorial-largely realized through the persistent efforts of family members-features the biographies of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a German police officer killed in the attack on panels with texts in German, Hebrew and English. "We wanted to give the victims their identity back in the eyes of the public," Bavarian Minister of Culture Ludwig Spaenle told the media on...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA)—A team of forensic analysts has determined that Alberto Nisman, the special prosecutor who claimed that the president of Argentina covered up Iran’s role in the deadly bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center, was murdered and did not commit suicide, the South American nation’s media are reporting. A new toxicology report on Nisman’s body found traces of the drug ketamine, an anesthetic used on animals, and posited that at least one other person forcefully held him down around the time of his death, the Infobae...
By Gabe Friedman NEW YORK (JTA)—After weary and ravenous American Jews file out of Yom Kippur services, many return home to a similar meal each year to break the fast: typically bagels, lox and assorted accoutrements. For some, it’s an anticipated and tasty tradition. But for others, it can be an anticlimactic end to a day of repentance and hunger. They can look to Jews in many other countries who shun the same old appetizing platter to break their Day of Atonement fasts. Want to switch things up a little this year? Here are some recipes to...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—For many Jews, Nazis are public enemy No. 1, and using Nazi imagery to make a political point is strictly verboten. But some young, right-wing Israelis aren’t buying it. Inspired by the so-called alt-right abroad, their online community makes liberal use of anti-Semitic and Nazi imagery to mock and malign what it sees as the real threat: Israeli and Jewish leftists. “We’re fighting back in a new way,” said Guy Levy, 40, the manager of an advertising office in Beersheba and a member of the community. “Our messages aren’t poli...
Netanyahu praises Trump’s defense of Israel as UN General Assembly convenes WASHINGTON (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump at the launch of this year’s U.N. General Assembly and praised his “unequivocal” defense of Israel. “I want to say that under President Trump, America’s position towards Israel at the U.N. has been unequivocal, it’s been strong, it’s got both clarity and conviction,” Netanyahu said Monday at a meeting with Trump in New York. “And I want to thank you on behalf of the people...
