Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The Israeli government reopened the Temple Mount complex to Muslims and members of other faiths Sunday with strict new security measures, in the wake of last Friday's attack near the flashpoint holy site, in which Arab terrorists killed two Israeli Druze police officers. Israeli defense experts who specialize in understanding radical Islamic culture stress that such attacks are likely to occur again. "For many years, there has been the motivation to create an apocalypse between Islam and...
There is a broad consensus among American Jewish leaders in support of Israel's use of metal detectors to intercept terrorists on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations "supports taking the necessary and appropriate steps to assure security for all and to protect the sanctity of these holy sites," the umbrella group's executive vice chairman and CEO, Malcolm Hoenlein, told JNS.org. Herbert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement, said, "If the authorities responsible for...
A Palestinian terrorist fatally stabbed an Israeli father and two of his adult children last Friday night in the Samaria community of Halamish, amid escalating tension over Jerusalem's Temple Mount. The terror attack in Halamish came on the heels of a Palestinian-incited "day of rage," in which riots erupted after Friday prayers in response to the installation of metal detectors at the entrance gates to the Temple Mount. Israel bolstered security following the July 14 Arab terror attack that...
(JNS.org) Anti-Israel demonstrations were held across the Muslim world Thursday and Friday to protest Israel's decision to implement metal detectors at the Temple Mount, following the July 14 terror attack that killed two Israeli police officers near the holy site. In Jordan's capital of Amman Friday, thousands of protesters organized by Islamist groups took to the streets to decry the security measures. "With our soul, with our blood, we will sacrifice ourselves for you, Al-Aqsa," they...
(JNS.org)-Vice President Mike Pence said Monday that relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is only a matter of time. "I promise you that the day will come when President Donald Trump moves the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It is not a question of if, it is only when," Pence told the 12th annual Christians United for Israel summit in Washington, D.C. Pence said he and Trump "stand without apology for Israel today," and touted the president's trip to Israel in May....
JERUSALEM (JTA)-When Nedal Sader first heard the crackle of automatic weapon fire Friday morning, he couldn't believe it was coming from the Temple Mount. As a Muslim, he regarded the complex just outside his apartment as a sacred and peaceful place. He prayed there nearly every week. But as a seasoned first responder, he knew what gunshots sounded like echoing off the stones of the Old City. He finished dressing, threw on his medic's jacket and raced to the scene. Sader, a 37-year-old nurse and...
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-In a country where sex toys are displayed in shop windows and television commercials often feature nudity, a picture of a clothed, heterosexual couple kissing may not seem like the stuff of scandal. But precisely such an image-part of a poster campaign celebrating diversity in the Netherlands-has triggered acrimonious debate, charges of racism, acts of vandalism and even threats by those who found it offensive. The reason: The women pictured in a series of posters were wearing...
Two Israeli policemen in their 20s were critically wounded in the Old City of Jerusalem Friday morning when three Palestinian terrorists opened fire near the entrance to the Temple Mount. Two other victims were lightly injured. Police shot and killed all three assailants. Nidal Seder, a United Hatzalah volunteer who lives in the Old City, was the first to arrive at the scene, according to the emergency medical services organization. "I began performing CPR on one of the victims near the [Al...
Mayim Bialik, a star on the CBS hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," launched a witty new video campaign this week for SodaStream, succeeding actress Scarlett Johansson as the official pitchwoman for the Israeli beverage carbonation company. Bialik, a self-described "observant-ish" Jew and a doctorate-holding neuroscientist, is uniquely suited for the new SodaStream promotion. In the video, the actress finds herself in the year 2136 working as a research scientist, deeply consumed in the study of...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israel has already defeated the Palestinians. All that's left is for them to surrender. That, at least, was an argument being made in Jerusalem last week. Led by the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, pro-Israel leaders and analysts gathered here to highlight local support for their aim of reframing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict internationally. "After more than a century, the conflict is really over," Daniel Pipes, the forum's president told JTA. "As an American, I would...
(JTA)-The Israeli chief rabbinate says that its list of foreign rabbis has been misconstrued, and that the list does not imply that those rabbis cannot be trusted to vouch for the Jewish identities of their followers. On Saturday, JTA reported on a list of some 160 rabbis whose efforts to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants were rejected by Israel's haredi Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate. In order to get married in Israel, immigrants must provide the rabbinate proof of their Jewish...
A meeting between Trump’s negotiating team and Palestinian officials took place in Jerusalem instead of Ramallah because of the PA’s refusal to host the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In an unusual occurrence, United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended a meeting with Palestinian Authority officials alongside President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Tuesday, July 11. Explaining the unexpected inclusion of Friedman, a senior White House officia...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Liberal American Jews are feeling thwarted in their years-long campaign for the right to pray as they wish at the Western Wall. Long frustrated that the plaza in front of the wall is run as an Orthodox synagogue, they were doubly incensed when Israel's political establishment scrapped an agreement that would have boosted access to their own space nearby. Meanwhile, another group of Jewish worshippers has gained public approval and political traction by setting their sights a bit...
Israeli soldier who shot downed Palestinian moving to house arrest JERUSALEM (JTA)—Elor Azaria, the Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter for shooting a downed Palestinian terrorist, will be released to house arrest. Azaria, who was convicted in January and sentenced in February, has been confined to the closed Nachshonim military base since being arrested in March 2016. However, his military service is ending Thursday and he must leave the base. A military court ruled Monday that Azaria will go to house arrest. He will be required to remai...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Carmel Shama HaCohen, Israel’s ambassador to UNESCO, is second to none in his admiration for the Trump administration’s United Nations envoy, Nikki Haley. In fact, he’d like to clone her. Shama HaCohen appreciated Haley’s efforts in trying to head off last week’s vote by UNESCO’s Heritage Committee naming Hebron’s Old City an endangered heritage site. And he believes the joint U.S.-Israeli bid to kill a resolution Israel saw as one-sided might have succeeded had a U.S. official of Haley’s caliber been onsite in Krakow, where...
An upcoming vote by the United Nations cultural body UNESCO on whether to declare Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs as an endangered Palestinian heritage site is the latest example of "narrative warfare" against Israel and Jews, legal experts say. As part of an ongoing Palestinian-engineered diplomatic campaign, an "emergency resolution" UNESCO presented to its World Heritage Committee claims Israel is causing "irreversible negative effect on the integrity, authenticity and/or the distinctive...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-An internal Palestinian dispute has left Gaza's nearly 2 million Palestinian residents dangerously vulnerable to a heat wave, but Israel could get burned, too. The West Bank Palestinian Authority has recently spearheaded a sharp reduction of electricity to the coastal enclave with Israel's cooperation, resulting in the exacerbation of Gaza's already dire humanitarian crisis and hints of new alliances that could lead to new military conflict with Israel. The electricity cuts are...
Former Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) student-athletes Adam Greenberg (University of Illinois, 2010), Zev Halikman (Florida Atlantic University, 2017), David Melnick (Northwestern University, 2011) and Ory Tasman(Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2016/University of Central Florida women's collegiate club coach) comprise nearly a quarter of the total roster that the United States will send to compete in Open Men's Water Polo competition at the 20th World Maccabiah Games on July...
Building off the last few years of rumors and reports regarding clandestine relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, mainly motivated by their shared concerns over Iran's nuclear program and destabilizing regional activities, two recent developments highlight a potential route for Israel to firm up support within the Arab world. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi ratified a treaty to hand over two strategic islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's King Salman...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Haredi Orthodox Jews agree with their non-Orthodox brethren on one thing: The future of the Jewish people is at stake in the debate raging over who controls the Western Wall and conversion in Israel. Other than that, though, there is little common ground. According to Nachum Eisenstein, the chief rabbi of eastern Jerusalem's haredi Maalot Dafna neighborhood, Reform and Conservative Judaism threaten to undermine the survival of the Jewish people. "The reason why Judaism is the...
While Israeli government ministers in recent weeks have dueled over the acceptance of Palestinian "refugees" in a possible future Palestinian state, experts say the Arab world continues to refuse to take responsibility for the issue. "Unfortunately, responsibility is something which Arabs do not believe in, and therefore they demand that Israel solves a problem which they created," said Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a research associate at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies...
Israeli soldier injured in suspected Palestinian car ramming, knife attack JERUSALEM (JTA)—An Israeli soldier was moderately wounded after a suspected car ramming and knife attack in the West Bank. The attack took place Monday afternoon near the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, the IDF said. The alleged attacker was shot by Israeli forces. He was treated at the scene by Israel Defense Forces medical personnel. The attacker, who was not immediately identified, later died at the scene, the Palestinian Maan news agency reported. The Palestinian d...
WESTERBORK, Netherlands (JTA)-Nothing about the footage that Rudolf Breslauer filmed here on May 30, 1944, suggests that it was taken inside one of Europe's largest Nazi concentration camps. In the film by Breslauer, a German-Jewish inmate of the Westerbork camp in Holland's northeast, prisoners are seen playing soccer enthusiastically in team uniforms, complete with a referee in a special outfit. A middle-aged man wearing a suit and a boy who may have been his grandson stroll cheerfully in the...
RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA)-Danny Janel first noticed Allison Silfen's smile in July 2013. They were hanging out with other athletes in a hotel room a few evenings after arriving in Israel. He was smitten. She had already noticed him on the flight over. Half asleep, Silfen creaked open her eyes just as Janel stepped to the rear of the airplane to don tefillin. "I spotted a good-looking Jewish guy," Silfen remembered of that first glimpse. Janel and Silfen had come here to play for the basketball...
(JNS.org) U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed the U.N. Security Council Thursday for its inaction on Iran, which she says has "repeatedly and deliberately violated" sanctions. "The Security Council has failed to even take minimal steps to respond to these violations," Haley told a council briefing on Iran. "We must show Iran that we will not tolerate their egregious flaunting of U.N. resolutions." Jeffery Feltman, the U.N.'s under-secretary-general for political affairs,...
