Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - As of Jan. 13, 2,000 protesters have been confirmed killed, according to Iranian authorities, however, other reports claim different figures. Time of Israel reported that The Norway-based organization Iran Human Rights said it had confirmed 648 people killed during the protests, including nine minors, but warned the death toll was likely much higher - "according to some estimates, more than 6,000." Also, Times of Israel reported that the Iran International news site, which is based in...
Steven Eichenblatt enters the Heritage office right on time. He offers his hand and speaks in a soft, relaxed voice as he greets me with a warm, confident smile. I've never met Steven, but many people in Central Florida know him. He appears to be a gregarious, yet humble man - and he is. Ask anyone who knows him. But this outward appearance wasn't always so. As is often said, you can't judge a book by its cover. Does anyone ever really know what goes on inside anyone's head? Or family? Steven...
My name is Marni Mandell, and I’m honored to be stepping into the role of CEO of Shalom Orlando and The Roth Family Jewish Community Center. This role is both professional and deeply personal for me. My family’s roots in the Orlando Jewish community go back generations, and after many years living in Israel, returning to Orlando over the past couple of years has felt like a homecoming. I’m raising my young children here now with my Israeli husband, which makes this work not only about honoring our past, but about shaping a strong, vibra...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that anti-regime protests in Iran could be approaching a critical moment, with the Iranian people poised to “take their fate into their own hands.” “We in Israel identify with the struggle of the Iranian people and their aspiration to liberty and justice,” Netanyahu said, speaking at a 40-signature debate, which the opposition can call once a month and which the prime minister is obliged to attend. “We may be at a critical moment,” he said. The premier stressed in his remarks t...
The morning of Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, promises to sparkle with style and purpose as the Jewish Pavilion Senior Services hosts its highly anticipated annual Fashion Show at Dillard's in Altamonte Mall. More than 200 women are expected to gather for this signature fundraiser that blends elegance with compassion, all in support of seniors living in long-term care. This year's event will proudly honor Samantha Taylor, who leads the marketing and publicity efforts for Jewish Pavilion Senior...
Learn of the practical questions asked of rabbis across Jewish history. Chabad’s in the community are offering an in-person, six-week class on Captivating Cases in Rabbinic Responsa. The classes are: Lesson 1 — The People Who Asked the Questions. Explore five stories from Barcelona, 1300; Algiers, 1450; Modena, 1530; Spain, 1450; and Auchwitz, 1944. Lesson 2 — The Quest for Facts. Do sages make assumptions about how reality works or do they investigate the facts? Lesson 3 — How the Torah Stays Relevant. See inside the process that enables...
On Sunday, Feb. 22, Temple Israel will celebrate Rabbi Joshua Neely’s sweet 16! That’s 16 years of service to the congregation and in the Central Florida community. The festivities will begin in the Roth Social Hall at 5 p.m. and include catered appetizers, dinner, and drinks, as well as music, a photo booth, a slideshow of memories, and more surprises. Free babysitting, dinner, and activities will be provided for children 12 and under while adults enjoy the event until 9:30 p.m. Rabbi Neely is Temple Israel’s longest-serving rabbi and among...
It’s Mah jong madness The annual Maj Madness tournament will be held Jan. 25 at the JCC. Check in, breakfast starts at 915 a.m. and play starts at 10 a.m. The cost is $48, members; and $53, nonmembers. For questions, call Dale Perreault, 407-808-9660 or Julie Bain, 407-492-9890. Author Meet & Greet On Thursday, Jan. 29 at 6:30 p.m., Shalom Orlando will host an Author Meet & Greet, introducing Steven Eichenblatt, author of “Pretend They are Dead: A father’s search for the truth,” and J. Joaquin Fraxedas, author of “Child of the Cloud Forest....
Congregation of Ohev Shalom will host a screening of “A Collective Descent into Evil”, sponsored by ZOA Florida., on Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. This film, by Gloria Z. Greenfield, uncovers the ideologies and strategies driving the barbaric enemies of Jews and Israel, as well as Western civilization. After the viewing, there will be a discussion with the writer and director of the film. Ticket prices are $18 and can be purchased at www.zoa.org/events. COS is located at 613 Concourse Pkwy, Maitland. For more information, contact Allison Zur at azu...
Jewish Pavilion Grief Support Group will once again offer a 5-week Griff Support Group beginning Feb. 26 and continuing through March 26, every Thurday, 10:30 a.m. – noon. Led by Vanessa Stein, LCSW, the meetings will be held at Congregation Ohev Shalom, 613 Concourse Pkwy in Maitland. Please RSVP to the Jewish Pavilion at VanessaStein@jewishpavilion.org or call 407-678-9363....
(JNS) — It takes Wikipedia nearly 7,500 words into its main entry on China to mention the word “genocide,” tucked in a section on “sociopolitical issues and human rights,” and even then, the crowdsourced online encyclopedia hedges. “Since 2017, the Chinese government has been engaged in a harsh crackdown in Xinjiang, with around one million Uyghurs and other ethnic and religion minorities being detained in internment camps aimed at changing the political thinking of detainees, their identities and their religious beliefs, in what some described...
(JNS) — Madrid is prepared to send peacekeeping troops to the Gaza Strip “once the opportunity presents itself, “Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Thursday. “Of course, we have not forgotten Palestine and the Gaza Strip,” Sánchez told a gathering of Spanish ambassadors in Madrid, El País reported. “Spain must actively participate in rebuilding hope in Palestine,” he added. “I will propose to parliament, when the opportunity presents itself, that we send peacekeeping troops to Palestine, once we can see how to advance this task...
(JNS) — The Jewish community in Pasadena, Calif., is experiencing a “mix of emotion” as the one-year anniversary approaches of the Eaton Fire, which broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, and killed 19 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures, including the more than 100-year-old Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center. Melissa Levy, executive director of the Conservative synagogue, told JNS that the community is feeling “resilient and hopeful but also still in a period of mourning.” “It’s a mix of emotion,” she said. “We’re mourning the loss of this re...
(JNS) — Imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti should be put to death over his leading role in the 2000-05 Second Intifada terrorist war against Israel, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said. “Marwan Barghouti should be taken out,” Ben-Gvir declared at a faction meeting of his Otzma Yehudit Party at the Knesset in Jerusalem, responding to a question from JNS about a petition by Alon Liel, a Reichman University lecturer and former Israeli diplomat, calling for the terrorist’s release. “Marwan Barghouti is a murderer, he is a terrori...
(JNS) — I lecture frequently and understand that for many audiences, the experience can feel depressing and overwhelming. Rising antisemitism. Palestinian rejectionism. Terrorism. The ring of regional threats around Israel. I can see it in people’s faces—the quiet sense of helplessness, the feeling that the problems are too vast and the individual too small to matter. No single person can resolve the global challenges confronting the Jewish people. But it’s not true that individuals are powerless. History—and Jewish history, in particula...
(JNS) — The U.S. action in Venezuela has led to a flurry of punditry asserting that the Trump administration is bringing into being a new world order based on the open assertion of raw, great-power state interest, and the emergence of spheres of influence and hegemony. I do think a world of that nature is emerging. But I don’t think Trump is the instigator of it. Rather, he is a product of its emergence. The world is replacing one that has pertained since 1990. It was a place where America enjoyed more or less unrivaled dominance, while its Eur...
(JNS) — Far too often in the past 25 years, the United States has hesitated to stand firmly with Israel at the United Nations, allowing bias and double standards to harden into institutional routine. But that has changed. The Obama-Biden era at the world body is no more. The recent actions of Ambassador Tammy Bruce stand out not only as straightforward but principled. Her remarks at her first U.N. Security Council meeting marked a rare moment of honesty in a forum that has a penchant for reflexively condemning democracies while excusing or i...
(JNS) — Far-right political commentator Candace Owens’s quest to prove that the Mossad killed Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, on Sept. 10 with the help of a TPUSA staffer and Kirk’s widow, Erika, hit a wall. They were booed at TPUSA’s AmericaFest rally when conservative media commentator Ben Shapiro made it clear that they are not proper examples of conservative discourse. Not a minute went by, it seems, until Owens added yet another hit on the Jews — that they controlled the trans-Atlantic slave trade. “Wake up and learn the tr...
(JNS) — Just when it appeared that President Donald Trump’s most dramatic threat was to the Iranian regime on Friday, he announced on Saturday that U.S. forces had conducted large-scale strikes on Venezuela. Even more jaw-dropping was his confirmation that dictator Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been captured and brought to the United States to face trial. The news reverberated far beyond Caracas. This was not merely a symbolic reckoning for a narco-state spiraling into ruin. Nor was it simply overdue justice for a despot who...
(JNS) — Just as countries must have borders to exist, the conservative movement needs to delineate what is beyond the pale, and the latter includes Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who has both denounced core conservative tenets of late and given voice to and failed to denounce antisemites and Holocaust deniers. That was one of the messages Ben Shapiro, a Jewish conservative commentator and Daily Wire cofounder, shared in a Dec. 17 book talk with Kevin Roberts, president of Heritage Foundation. Roberts has drawn criticism after f...
(JNS) - When award-winning journalist and author Yardena Schwartz began researching the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron, she had no idea she was uncovering what she now calls "ground zero" of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Nor did she imagine that nearly a century later, the patterns she identified would reemerge with devastating clarity on Oct. 7, 2023. Her book, "Ghosts of a Holy War," explores how the murder of 67 Jews in Hebron-once considered one of the safest Jewish communities in Mandatory...
(JNS) — Everyone has heard of the unlikely hero — that person who, despite all odds, comes to the rescue in a seemingly herculean way. It can be the mom who, in a burst of adrenaline, partially lifts a car to save a child stuck underneath; a neighbor who puts out a fire while community members are asleep; or a Good Samaritan who jumps into a body of water to rescue a person flailing about. And then, there’s the likely hero — that person trained to do the right thing as a result of career and hap...
Did you know that your nervous system is naturally wired to connect with others to survive and to feel safe and supported? When you’re near someone who is calm and grounded, your body senses it. This natural process is called co-regulation — when two nervous systems connect and help each other feel more at ease. Here’s how connection helps: • It lowers stress levels • It can slow your heart rate • It brings you back to the present moment more quickly Whether it’s a warm hug, sitting quietly next to a friend, sharing a deep breath, or si...
Editor's note: Heritage's beloved Gloria Yousha, who wrote Scene Around for XX years, passed away on Nov. 18, 2022. Since that time, no one has come forward to take on covering the social scene for the paper. Now that may be changing. Steven Cardonick, who writes the "Give a listen..." column is very interested in writing the column. See what you think and hopefully he will be taking on the challenge! Happy New Year! Our gift to you: The renaissance of Gloria Yousha's Scene Around column. May...
