Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 145
(JTA) — Former NBA star Charles Barkley slammed NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who is Jewish, for not suspending Brooklyn Nets All-Star Kyrie Irving after he promoted an antisemitic film on his Twitter account. “I think Adam should have suspended him. First of all, Adam’s Jewish. You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion,” Barkley said, referencing Irving’s contract, during a Tuesday night segment of the popular “NBA on TNT” panels that airs on the network before, during and after game broadcasts. The NBA has “suspended peop...
(JTA) - Speaking on the phone from an empty balcony in the Longacre Theater in New York, several hours before a preview performance of his latest play, Tom Stoppard said the show is "one that people like to talk to me about." "Leopoldstadt," which officially hits Broadway on Sunday after an award-winning London debut in 2019, follows multiple generations of a Jewish family in Vienna from the turn of the 20th century through World War II and formation of the state of Israel. Audience members in t...
(JTA) - Days after defending their decision to play in Tel Aviv, the hometown of their bass player, the indie folk rock band Big Thief canceled two scheduled Israel shows, writing that they "oppose the illegal occupation and the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people." Last week, the Grammy-nominated band had announced two shows at Tel Aviv's Barby venue in July, and said that they would donate the gig profits to NGOs that aid Palestinian children. They also noted that they wanted to...
(JTA) — More than half of bankruptcies in the United States are connected to medical debt. For some families in the Chicago area, however, that debt is being erased in accordance with the Jewish law of shmita, the sabbatical year. The Torah’s shmita laws prescribe that, every seven years, all agricultural activity in the Land of Israel is forbidden, and the land must be left fallow. There are many specific rules, including prohibition against plowing, pruning and planting. But a lesser-known custom in observance of the shmita year is the rel...
(JTA) - "The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem" has made headlines as one of the Israeli TV industry's most elaborate and expensive productions ever. The series, which follows a family of Spanish Sephardic Jews living in Jerusalem through different decades of the early 20th century, also features Ladino - the centuries-old language sometimes referred to as Judeo-Spanish that combines medieval Spanish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish, Greek, Arabic and other influences. Ladino, spoken by Jewish communities...
(JTA) - Let's get one thing out of the way: Elon Musk is not Jewish. But his acquisition of Twitter comes amid longstanding problems with antisemitism and hate speech on the platform - and Jewish users fear his free-speech orientation could make things worse. Musk's purchase of the social media company, for a reported $44 billion, will likely take months to complete and could be derailed in any number of ways. And while the serial entrepreneur is known for acting quickly and decisively - sometim...
(JTA) — The Temple Mount is closed to Jewish visitors “until further notice,” the organization that coordinates visits by Jews said on April 23, after a fresh round of clashes between Israeli police and Muslim worshippers at the Jerusalem holy site’s Al-Aqsa Mosque. The move was expected to last through Ramadan, but the Temple Mount Administration’s language suggests the ban could last longer, according to the Jerusalem Post. The Administration — separate from the Waqf, the Muslim authority that controls the site — is a joint steering comm...
(JTA) - Before Russian troops invaded Ukraine, the Hillel chapter in Kharkiv was preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary this spring. In fact, just one week ago, the group working with Jewish students and young adults was advertising a Saturday evening game night. Now, its home has been destroyed, and Hillel International, the network of groups serving Jewish college students, is trying to figure out how to help its 600-plus students and employees in Kharkiv stay safe in their war-torn...
(JTA) - Four years ago, Volodymyr Zelensky was an actor on the humorous Ukrainian TV show "Servant of the People," starring as an unlikely president of the Eastern European country. Now, he is at the center of the continent's most significant conflict since World War II, framing himself as a possible martyr on the world stage. "This might be the last time you see me alive," he reportedly told European Union leaders on a call about steps the bloc was considering to try to stop Russia's advances t...
(JTA) - Nikki Fried, the outspoken Jewish Democratic candidate running for governor in Florida, compared her rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis, to Hitler in an interview, prompting DeSantis supporters to defend his record on Jewish issues. Fried, Florida's current agriculture commissioner and a former marijuana lobbyist with ties to the state's Jewish community, made the comparison in an NPR interview on Friday. "He is doing everything possible to take power away from local governments, taking away...
(JTA) - Golden Globes fans may have noticed something different this year: The annual entertainment awards were not announced on TV, and not for COVID-19 reasons. NBC dropped the broadcast over the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's diversity problem - none of the 87 members of the Globes' awards body are Black. (The one celebrity to release a video referencing involvement in the awards this year was Jewish actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who highlighted the HFPA's charity efforts.) But the...
(JTA) — Two weeks ago, Delta Airlines pilot Alexander Kahn flew hundreds of Afghan refugees from Germany to Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., as part of a U.S. government partnership with commercial airlines. It had extra special meaning for Kahn, as he told CNN, for a few reasons — first and foremost, his own father was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the U.S. in similar fashion. “I’m the son of an immigrant in the United States, my father was a Holocaust survivor, he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp by Patton’s T...
(JTA) - "Jeopardy!" is getting its first-ever Jewish host as Sony Pictures Television announced that actress Mayim Bialik will host some of the game show's new prime time specials. Following longtime host Alex Trebek's death last fall, Bialik served as one of the show's celebrity guest hosts for two weeks in June. In her new role, the star of "The Big Bang Theory" will host new spin-off series, including a college tournament next year. Mike Richards, one of the show's executive producers, will...
(JTA) — After being blasted by critics for staying in the Israeli prime minister’s residence well over a week past his ousting from the role, Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to leave — in another three weeks. He and his successor, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, released a joint statement Saturday that says Netanyahu will depart by July 10 and until then, no official state meetings will be held there. Netanyahu had stayed in power through a series of close elections over two years and multiple corruption cases that made him the first prime minis...
(JTA) — Motorcyclist Steve Goode is on the way to Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But on a recent phone call from a hotel room, he doesn’t know exactly where he is. “Indiana, in … what the hell town am I in?” he says with a laugh. Turns out he’s in Richmond, Indiana, a few days into a 75-day trek called the Great American Deli Schlep, during which he will stop at 42 Jewish delis across the United States to raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity. He started out at Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessen in his native Chicago,...
(JTA) - If anyone can pull off a bluegrass song about Anne Frank, it's Nefesh Mountain, a husband-and-wife duo from New Jersey that has been a standard-bearer of Jewish bluegrass for years. The group has appeared in Rolling Stone and national bluegrass magazines and worked with some of the most respected bluegrass session players as they have put an Americana spin on Jewish prayers such as "Mi Chamocha" and "Modeh Ani" and released other songs that tap into Jewish traditions. "What we're doing...
(JTA) - Charles Grodin, the deadpan Jewish comic actor who starred in such blockbuster films as "The Heartbreak Kid" and the children's movie "Beethoven," died Tuesday at his home in Wilton, Connecticut. He was 86, and the cause was bone marrow cancer, according to reports. Grodin was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Pittsburgh but became less observant in his adult years, although he and his second wife - in his words, "a nice Jewish girl from Kansas City" - observed holidays at home....
(JTA) — After 11 days of fighting, Israel and Hamas agreed to a “mutual and simultaneous” ceasefire on Thursday that began at 2 a.m. Friday Israel time. Israel’s security cabinet unanimously approved the truce, according to reports, after military officials presented what they deemed the successful outcomes of their campaign. A Hamas official confirmed the news to Reuters on Thursday. Israeli forces “achieved military goals unprecedented in their strength, accuracy and strategic significance in their fight against terror organizations in the Ga...
(JTA) — Steven Spielberg has launched a film foundation called Jewish Story Partners to fund documentaries that “tell stories about a diverse spectrum of Jewish experiences, histories, and cultures.” It’s funded by the Righteous Persons Foundation, which Spielberg and his actress wife Kate Capshaw founded after Spielberg’s experience making “Schindler’s List” in 1993. Two Jewish philanthropies — the Maimonides Fund and the Jim Joseph Foundation — also contributed funds. (Both organizations also help fund 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic...
(JTA) - It was an unusual Academy Awards in several ways. Forced to adapt to social distancing protocols, the ceremony was split into different venues but mostly took place in Los Angeles' Union Station. For only the second time in history, a woman won best director - and the first woman of color at that, as the award went to Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland," which also won best picture. And then there was Glenn Close's meme-able dance to the self-explanatory 1988 song "Da Butt." Also notable: a very...
(JTA) — In the middle of a racy viral Instagram video that preceded his firing from a broadcasting gig at ESPN, NBA legend Paul Pierce spent over a minute lauding the Jewish ritual of a sit-down Shabbat dinner. Pierce is not Jewish, but during the live-streamed video from his house over the weekend — the Hall of Fame finalist gets massaged by scantily clad women and appears to smoke marijuana while flaunting COVID-19 social distancing protocols — he said the family style of meal on the Jewish Sabbath contrasts with his upbringing. At first...
(JTA) - A mere 43 years after her death, Golda Meir is ready for her close-up. Just a month after it was announced that the Israeli star Shira Haas would portray Meir in a TV series, The Hollywood Reporter revealed this week that Oscar winner Helen Mirren would portray Israel's only female prime minister in an upcoming biopic. While Haas, who is best known for her star turn in the miniseries "Unorthodox," is Jewish, Mirren is not. But she did win international acclaim (and the Academy Award) for...
(JTA) - When Maya Katz-Ali saw the ad on Facebook recruiting Asian Jews to participate in a new video project about identity, she scrolled through her list of friends to figure out who might be a good fit. The daughter of a Jewish mother from New York and a Muslim father from India, it didn't occur to Katz-Ali that she fit the bill herself. Though she grew up connected to both parents' cultures - especially the food - she always saw them as distinct. When her mother wanted to hire Indian...
(JTA) - The heartwarming story has been hard to miss: A law professor is shopping at his local grocery store when he sees an elderly woman struggling to get her favorite jam from a high shelf. Why is it her favorite? "I am a Holocaust survivor," she says. "During the war, the family that owns the company hid my family in Paris." Tens of thousands of people - at least - have shared the story since it began circulating on social media this weekend. It has prompted countless people to vow to buy...
(JTA) - Director Steven Spielberg has won the 2021 Genesis Prize, the award nicknamed the "Jewish Nobel." The award, which "honors extraordinary individuals for their outstanding professional achievement, contribution to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values," was announced Wednesday. "Key Jewish themes are often woven into his narratives: importance of identity and belonging, maintaining humanity in a ruthless world, caring for the other, and honoring the moral obligation to do the right...
