Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) — Or ben Sima Geula. I’ve said that name every time I prayed, three times a day, for the last six months. At some point during Or Levy’s 491-day captivity, my son’s school — in an attempt to personalize the names of the unfathomable 250 hostages—gave each child a person to pray for. Our youngest returned from school with a passport-sized image of Or that has lived in our home since. “Aba, will you pray for him?” my son asked me. Of course, I agreed. In the latest hostage-prisoner exchange, Or and two others came home—well, what...
(JNS) — On Saturday, as Sagui Dekel-Chen, his face marked by suffering, buried it in the blonde hair of his wife—whispering the name of their new daughter, Shahar-Mazal, born as he languished in captivity—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shattered a long-standing stereotype. For years, he had been accused of prioritizing war over the lives of hostages. But in a decisive move, he chose the hostages. This time, Netanyahu had not only the backing of U.S. President Donald Trump to resume a full-scale war against Hamas but also his activ...
(JNS) — President Donald Trump’s call to move the Arab population in Gaza to Egypt, Jordan and other countries is a winning strategy. He is the first president to come up with a realistic and humane solution to one of the world’s greatest and most vexing problems. The Arab world, with all its riches and oil wealth, has purposefully kept Gaza poor, underdeveloped and a hotbed of Muslim hatred of Israel and the West for its own selfish reasons. Had the money that was poured into Gaza for the building of tunnels and weaponry to attack Israe...
(JNS) — Hope or despair? Solutions or causes? History or revisionism? At its core, these are the questions being debated as U.S. President Donald Trump brings a wrecking ball to the conventional wisdom of the Palestinian question. The president’s specific policy prescriptions for resettling the residents of Gaza or undertaking an American effort to build condos on the Mediterranean coast are utterly irrelevant. What matters is that he is trying to change the lens through which the world views the Palestinian question and, in so doing, give hop...
(JNS) — As I viewed the recent press conference with Jordanian King Abdullah II and President Donald Trump, I couldn’t help but reflect on the history of Jordan and the king’s namesake and great-grandfather, Abdullah I. After Jordan illegally conquered Judea and Samaria, including the eastern portion of Jerusalem, in 1948, it sought to legitimize its conquest of these areas, which it proceeded to rename the West Bank of Jordan. On Dec. 1, 1948, it organized a conference in the town of Jericho that was attended by representatives of numerous con...
(JNS) — For decades, Palestinian activists and their Western enablers have pushed the narrative that resettling Gazans is an unthinkable crime. The irony? Hundreds of thousands of Jews, including my own family, were expelled from Arab lands, and no one lifted a finger to help. There were no global protests, no calls about a “right of return,” no international aid agencies keeping us in permanent refugee limbo. We weren’t given the luxury of relocation; we were forced to rebuild from nothing. Now, as Gazans are being handed a golden ticket...
In the past days, I have received a flurry of inquiries asking my thoughts regarding President Trump’s recent statements on Gaza, Israel, and Iran, each asking for my insight: friends, donors to Genesis 123, and journalists. So, what do I think of Trump’s statements and actions on the Middle East? My thoughts reflect that of many Israelis, ranging the gamut from foolish, dangerous, and impossible, to brilliant, bold, and about time. In the Middle East, nuance is like salt, needed to make most things taste a little better. Another dif...
(JNS) — In late February 1945, among the first reports on the horrors of Auschwitz was one by a Polish officer, Lt. Wacław Lipiński, who wrote in the Polpress Bulletin, “Those who have survived don’t look like human beings, they are mere shadows.” Decades later, those words find a chilling echo in the images of three Israeli hostages — Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy — freed on Feb. 8 from Hamas captivity. Emaciated, pale and visibly broken, they emerged as specters of their former selves as they were forced onto a stage in Deir al-Balah...
(JNS) — I have a confession. I know—I’m not Catholic, and you’re not priests, but I’ll share it with you anyway. Each year, when we come to last week’s Torah reading of Beshalach, I am guilty of passing judgment on the people of Moses’s generation. And over the years, many congregants have asked me the same question. They were eyewitnesses to the greatest biblical miracles of all time. They saw the 10 plagues strike Egypt and completely spare the Israelites. They experienced the Exodus from Egypt, a superpower where not a single slave had eve...
(JNS) — Say what you will about former President Joe Biden’s policies, but he was the most knowledgeable U.S. president on the Middle East. Donald Trump, on the other hand, may be among the least informed. Ironically, he is now proposing the one move Biden should have made after the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023—relocating Gaza’s civilians to Egypt and Jordan—that could have saved thousands of Palestinian lives and averted the humanitarian issues. The problem? Trump’s plan is too late, and if implemented...
(JNS) — On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas and other jihadist organizations (what I refer to as “Hamas-plus”) initiated a war against Israel. Shortly thereafter, Israel declared that its military would promptly retrieve the hostages and eradicate those responsible. These goals were not achievable because the actions of Hamas and others were based on a belief system that only the followers of their radical branch of the Muslim religion are entitled to live on this planet. Recent polls indicate that 60 percent of the citizens of Gaza support jihad...
(JNS) — Big if true, as they say. “The Trump administration is considering three potential areas for the absorption of refugee Gazans after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. plans to take over the Gaza Strip and relocate those currently there to rebuild the area, N12 reported on Wednesday. “According to the report, the areas being considered are Morocco, Puntland, and Somaliland. “The report noted that what these three countries share in common is a strong need for U.S. support, as Somaliland and Puntland seek international recogni...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump’s statement that resettling Palestinians living in Gaza “could be temporary or long term” has raised many eyebrows. Calling Gaza “literally a demolition site right now,” he said, “I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change …. You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing.” He went on to say, “You know over the centuries it’s had many, many conflicts. And I don’t kn...
(JNS) — The recent ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas are just the latest chapter in a series of high-stakes decisions with unpredictable outcomes. The hostage deal has been a source of both intense joy and extreme apprehension. There have been countless times in the last 16 months that tragedy was supplanted by triumph. The notion that patience is a virtue has never been truer. There is a tendency to jump to conclusions and allow emotions to dominate opinion. The complexities of the situation, including many factors unknown to t...
(JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League was founded 111 years ago to “stop defamation of the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment for all.” It fulfilled that noble purpose for decades, and I was once proud to contribute to the organization. It fought antisemitism and defended Israel and did its best to stay out of divisive partisan politics. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. On Jan. 20, the ADL posted the following on X: “We unequivocally condemn Pres. Trump’s issuance of 1,500 pardons and commuted sentences for Jan 6 insurrect...
(JNS) — Liberal and left-wing adversaries of Israel indulge in an abiding fantasy that one day the Jewish state, which they falsely regard as an ethnostate built upon an ideology of Jewish supremacy, will be replaced by a single state of Palestine. They fancifully believe that it will be a multiethnic democracy granting equal rights to all its citizens, regardless of religion or national origin. As fantasies go, this one has enjoyed a good deal of mileage, surfacing every few years at times of tension in the Middle East and gripping the a...
(JNS) — The ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Hamas terror group went into effect on Jan. 19 and included the release of some of the surviving hostages kidnapped by the terrorist group on Oct. 7, 2023. Three of these victims—Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher—were returned to Israel alive in the first week of the deal. It is to be devoutly hoped that as many as possible will shortly be returned safe and sound to their surviving family members. “Safe and sound,” in this case, is a relative term. We know for a fact that...
(JNS) — The entertainment industry is abuzz as once again, the world awaits the high drama when envelopes are opened, and we find out who will get the Oscars, Grammys and other similar prizes. In between the stars doling out trophies to other stars, the audience is treated to edgy humor and lots of commercials. The winners thank their agents, their studio bosses, and, maybe, their spouses or parents. Even the losers get a generous “everyone wins” gift bag. Washington, on the other hand, has been referred to as “Hollywood for ugly people....
(JNS) — The last few weeks have not been good for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees. They were, therefore, good for humanity as two senior UNRWA staffers indicated in a New York Times article that the U.N. agency will shut operations in Judea and Samaria, and the Gaza Strip. The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman, Yuli Edelstein, welcomed the report. Edelstein’s committee shepherded a new law through the Knesset that declares UNRWA to be a terrorist organization and bans it in Israel. The law is to tak...
(Gatestone Institute via JNS) — Those who think that the Iranian-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas will abandon its jihad to murder Jews and destroy Israel in the aftermath of the recent ceasefire agreement are mistaken. Although the agreement may put an end to the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, it does not, in any way, reflect a shift in the radical and dangerous ideology of the Islamist group, as outlined in its 1988 Covenant. The document quotes Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood organization (of w...
(JNS) — In the realm of cinema, where the boundaries between good and evil are sharply drawn and the villains are unmistakably monstrous, one might imagine a collision as stark and tragic as the one currently unfolding in the Middle East. The reality, however, is far from fiction. The contrast between two societies—one fighting to protect its citizens and the other entrenched in a culture of violence—is painfully evident. The fragile ceasefire brokered to exchange hostages and prisoners has exposed not just a sliver of hope, but also the endur...
Israel is celebrating the release and homecoming of three hostages this past week. At the same time Israel is grieving for the hostages and families that are not on the list of the 33 to be released in this stage of the current deal with Hamas. That’s assuming that Hamas does not violate the deal. It’s expected that at least one third of the hostages to be released in this current six-week phase are already dead. At least their families will have closure. But at such a price. To secure the release of the first three, Israel had to release 90...
(JNS) — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has drawn some fire as a result of his legislative initiative in proposing the “Retiring the Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-Use of Judea and Samaria Act”—for short, the Recognizing Judea and Samaria Bill. In essence, it requires all official U.S. documents and materials to use the historically accurate term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the “West Bank.” Moreover, it calls the term “West Bank” as language that is “politically charged....
(Israel Hayom via JNS) — The deal to bring the hostages home from Gaza carries an immense, largely unspoken price — one that has received far too little attention, if any at all. While some may support it and others oppose it, there exists a third path: acknowledging that this is a poor deal, albeit perhaps unavoidable, while simultaneously shattering the walls of media silence surrounding its dire consequences. These walls bear an unsettling resemblance to the conspiracy of silence that prevailed before the 2011 Gilad Shalit deal (in whi...
As International Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches on Jan. 27, marking 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and the beginning of the end of the Holocaust and WWII, there are stories of inspiration that call to us to be remembered, beyond the horrible facts that most know: six million Jews murdered in the event that defined the word genocide. At Auschwitz alone, 1.1 million people were killed, including 1 million Jews. Throughout Nazi occupied Europe, entire Jewish communities were simply erased. Where there were survivors, like in the...
