Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 104
HOF HACARMEL, Israel (JTA)-Few non-Jews and even fewer British soldiers are regarded as highly in Israel as Orde Charles Wingate, a senior officer who became a legend here by shaping Israel's pre-state military. Many Israeli towns have a Wingate street or square, and relatives and others who share his name are often reminded of Israel's debt to him. "I had recognized him as a man of genius, and I hoped he might become a man of destiny," British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wrote to Lorna... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-In the summer of 2011, Yuval Fenta saw two guys tossing a football on the beach in Herzliya. He asked to participate. "You're too small," they responded. A dejected Fenta retreated, but not before hearing them mention an American football league that played in Israel. Seven years later, Fenta has showed them. Now a 21-year-old running back for the Tel Aviv Pioneers, the son of Ethiopian immigrants for the past three seasons has earned the Israel Football League's Offensive Player... Full story
WEST PALM BEACH (JTA)-Sitting on a couch near his locker at the Houston Astros' spring training facility here in mid-March, Alex Bregman is reflecting about an encounter his father had at the World Series last fall. It was in Los Angeles, between innings of the opening game. Sam Bregman was headed for a Dodger Stadium concession stand to grab a nosh wearing his Astros jersey with the No. 2 and his surname stitched on the back-a facsimile of his son's uniform. The young Bregman, a third baseman,... Full story
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... Full story
RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (JTA)-An Israeli soldier clapped football great and Vietnam War veteran Roger Staubach on the shoulder at a soccer field here, telling the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Naval Academy grad that he and his brother serve in the paratroopers. The introduction Thursday evening prompted Staubach to hark back to early June 1967, when he was serving in Vietnam and heard a report on his walkie-talkie that Israel was about to be attacked. Staubach recalled being concerned for... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Unlike the dangerous maritime escapes attempted by some of his fellow Cuban baseball players, the worst Alejandro Eskenazi endured to leave the island nation was a mountain of paperwork. The documents he gathered and the forms he completed took eight months to process, delaying the Havana native's arrival in Israel until last August. But coaching Israeli youngsters in baseball and playing in a league here made the wait worth it for Eskenazi, who is participating in a professional... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA)-The 30 or so people assembled at a shaded gravesite on a cloudy, early Friday morning probably didn't know how much they would be moved. Alongside an open grave, nine men stood to the right of Rabbi Yisrael Motzen, the funeral's officiant. They had responded to Motzen's appeal late the previous afternoon on the Facebook page of his synagogue, Ner Tamid. "Help needed! True mitzvah opportunity! An... Full story
MINNEAPOLIS (JTA)-Minnesota Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer stepped up to an 800-pound gjallarhorn and exhaled with all he had to launch the festivities that officially inaugurated the team's $1.1 billion stadium. Music lovers would have found the deep, uneven sound revolting, but the Nordic instrument is plenty melodic in inspiring Vikings' partisans. The team's owner, Mark Wilf, 54, offered a Jewish take on the gigantic horn. "When we first bought the team, a rabbi in St. Paul said, 'You... Full story
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. (JTA)—The Israeli missile boat Tarshish had just returned home in June 1976 when crew members learned near midnight that they would be heading back to sea two days later for another couple of months. They were going to represent Israel in Operation Sail, the parade of international ships on the Hudson River near New York City to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial on July 4 of that year. The Tarshish and another missile boat, the Yafo, would refuel in Gibraltar, Bermuda... Full story
(JTA)-For many, summer is all about the three B's: baseball, beaches and books. With the weather and pennant races sizzling, two journalists and the mayor of baseball's mythical home village of Cooperstown, New York-all Jewish-have provided their takes about a sport that has captivated them for a long time. The journalists, Hal Bock and Dan Schlossberg, focus on two National League teams: the Chicago Cubs, well-positioned this season to break a 108-year championship drought some consider a... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Noam Efron popped in to an estate sale here recently he just happened across hoping to purchase some watches or gold to resell in his jewelry business. Instead he walked out with a paper treasure: a 12-by-17-inch black-and-white studio photograph of a uniformed soldier he didn't know but realized immediately had fought for Germany in World War I. He paid $9. Within a few weeks Efron, who had become... Full story
NETANYA, Israel (JTA)-Andrea Murez steps on the diving board, adjusts her goggles, swings her long arms and propels herself into the water at the Wingate Institute athletic complex here. Murez is training with a dozen other swimmers. She is the one preparing for the Summer Olympics. The 24-year-old Los Angeles native represented Israel when she hit the pool on Aug. 6 at Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Aquatics Stadium, having immigrated in 2014 after excelling at the Maccabiah Games a year earlier and... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – Discovering a Jewish past of which she was wholly unaware, Danette Devlin of Little Rock, Arkansas, has also found family. Devlin was raised without any religious affiliation. As an adult she attended Catholic and Episcopalian churches seeking a spiritual home. "There were lots of nice people, they were very welcoming, but it just wasn't right. It wasn't me," she said. In 2013, Devlin went online in an effort... Full story
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-Growing up in Namibia, Dan Craven would bicycle long distances upon the only two paved roads in his hometown of Omaruru-80 miles heading north to Otjiwarongo and 45 miles south to Karibib. Cycling on what he calls the "tar roads" is how he fell in love with the sport; plus Craven acknowledges he wasn't very good at soccer or rugby. He took to the road after seeing a poster promoting a triathlon, which encompasses bicycling, swimming and running. While competing for the... Full story
HARRISBURG, Pa. (JTA)-Taking a seat on the dugout bench of the Portland Sea Dogs, Nate Freiman politely dismisses the premise that he pines to return to the major leagues. Maybe it's a defense mechanism now that he's two seasons and three organizations removed from his last appearance in the bigs. But Freiman, dripping sweat from pregame batting and fielding practice, projects sincerity in his gratitude for playing baseball professionally-all the more so for his hometown Red Sox's AA affiliate... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. NIR GALIM, Israel (JTA)-On a recent afternoon in a museum in this moshav community near the port city of Ashdod, Hodaya Gadba held up a black-and-white photograph of a three-story building and pronounced, "This was the site of a thrilling episode of the rescue of Jews." Gadba then led visitors on a tour of an exhibition dealing with the subject of the picture: the Glass House, a Budapest factory that housed a... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-As a librarian, Oren Kaplan researches obscure facts and utilizes databases to track down information. So when the Haifa resident read a recent "Seeking Kin" column about someone in his city, Menahem Orenstein, who hoped to locate a long-lost childhood buddy, Kaplan decided to put his experience to work. Within a week, Kaplan had located Orenstein's old friend, David Bak, living in Stockton, California, about... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-"Seeking Kin" offers relationship stories over time. They are stories about the meaningful bonds people share with one another, how ties fade and why they mean enough for someone to strive to rekindle them. So as we celebrate our 100th column, we revisit four people with whom I have formed nice friendships while doing research and a fifth, a friend for three decades, who helps make "Seeking Kin" possible. Three... Full story
(JTA)—Out of baseball after four years playing in the minor leagues, Brent Powers, a Christian from Texas, took a tour of Israel last year with his wife. He was smitten with the country and considered how to return. The Masa Israel Journey will provide his path. Powers and about a dozen American college players will be part of the group’s five-month, baseball-themed program launching in January. Israel’s baseball czar figures their expertise will do wonders for a sport that is growing in popularity, but remains a niche sport in a country where... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-When Brazil native Fabio Rosenfeld brought up launching a search for his grandfather's sister who had survived the Holocaust, I opened my "National Geographic Atlas of the World" to locate her hometown of Reghin. A week later, the surname and the area struck me as familiar, so back to the atlas I went. There was Reghin, in the Transylvania region of Romania and Hungary, near Cluj-Napoca, a town central to a... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-For the Wenders, a family friend's glimpse of their relative Chaim was a case of so close, yet so far. It was in the mid-1930s, when the friend, Israel Yudelson, was visiting prestate Israel. At a Tel Aviv library, he spotted a familiar face. "You look like the Wenders I know back in Atlanta," Yudelson is said to have told the man. "I'm Chaim Wender," he responded. Yudelson did not write down the man's address or... Full story
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-Norm Sherry didn't go ashore in 1952 when the ship that was transporting his U.S. Army infantry division stopped in England, his mother's country of birth. Once in West Germany, Sherry led his division's baseball team to the championship of American military units there. Now 84, Sherry would go on to become a major league catcher, manager and coach. He's still never visited England. Sherry mentioned his... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Jesse Agler was pretty talented as a catcher and pitcher in Little League, yet his parents benched him regularly. That's because the Aglers had a no-baseball-on-Shabbat rule, one cloaked in sports royalty. "It was a source of frustration as a kid, but I appreciated later what they tried to do," said Agler, a 33-year-old radio broadcaster for the San Diego Padres who grew up in South Florida. "It goes back to Koufax making the point about that day, that it's not for baseball." Ag... Full story
(JTA)-As Israeli bicyclist Yoav Bear sped through the end of Stage 2 of the U.S.A. Pro Challenge race at nearly 11,000 feet of elevation in the Colorado Rockies, he thrust his water bottle into the hand of a young spectator clutching an Israeli flag. Bear's gesture made the day, if not the vacation, of the 13-year-old bystander, Ilai Engelhardt, a resident of the northern Israeli town of Avtalion who loves competitive biking. On Tuesday, his American uncle and aunt had brought Ilai to the race,... Full story
BERLIN (JTA)-Seventy-nine summers after Marty Glickman's Olympics uniform was rendered as useless as a jilted bride's wedding dress, his daughter Nancy wore the same uniform to light the cauldron that officially opened the European Maccabi Games here. Her late father's removal from the U.S. track team hours before the 4x100 meter relay in the still-standing stadium across from where the opening ceremony took place Tuesday made Nancy Glickman's act the dramatic climax of a night replete with... Full story
