Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 8 of 8
TAIPEI (JTA) - For a few years eight decades ago, Shanghai was home to an outpost of what would become BBYO, the global Jewish youth movement. At the time, the Chinese city was a refuge for Jews fleeing Europe. Fifteen German Jewish teens created an Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter in June 1941, but when they left Asia after the war, the youth movement ended, too. Now, the network of small but significant Jewish communities scattered across Asia has resurrected BBYO's presence on the continent. About...
TAIPEI, Taiwan (JTA) — Growing up as a Bukharian Jew in China, Uriah was always told by his parents to hide his Jewishness in public and to try to assimilate into the greater Chinese population. Uriah — who asked to be identified only by his Hebrew name to ensure the safety of his family — said that when he began publicly talking about his Jewish identity, people told him that he would “never be one of us [Han Chinese].” But Uriah had never felt physically or personally threatened until the aftermath of Oct. 7, when Hamas killed over 1,400 Isr...
TAIPEI (JTA) - Ho Feng-Shan, the Chinese diplomat stationed in Vienna who helped thousands of Jews escape from Europe during World War II, never met Adolf Eichmann. But in "Night Angels," a novel based on his life, Feng-Shan comes face to face with Eichmann several times - and his wife Grace's Jewish tutor, Lola, tries to kill the architect of the Holocaust. That detail is one of many that has spurred Ho Manli, Feng-Shan's daughter, to speak out against "Night Angels," the fourth novel by the...
(JTA) — Heirs of a German-Jewish banker are suing a Japanese insurance company for the return of one of Vincent van Gogh’s famed “Sunflowers” paintings or at least $750 million in punitive damages. In December, Julius H. Schoeps, Britt-Marie Enhoerning and Florence Von Kesselstatt, heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, filed a 98-page complaint with an Illinois federal court alleging that Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was forced to sell the painting in 1934 as the result of “racially exclusionary Nazi policies and concomitant coercion calculate...
YILAN, Taiwan (JTA) - It was a cool spring day in Yilan, a town on Taiwan's northeast coast known for its picturesque rice fields and delicious spring onions. On a concrete clearing beneath a bridge that doubled as a dance floor, against a cloudy mountainous backdrop dotted with white cranes, about 10 Taiwanese adults danced expertly to classic Israeli folk music - songs such as "Hinei Matov," "David Melech Yisrael," "Sulam Yaakov" - and other folk tunes from around the world. Altogether, over...
TAIPEI (JTA) — Many countries have roundly rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s argument that his attack on Ukraine is needed to achieve the “denazification” of that country. But the argument is alive and well in Chinese state-run media. “Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned in a televised speech a few days ago that the military operation against Ukraine is aimed at protecting the people who have suffered abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years. For this reason, Russia will seek to demilitarize and de-Nazify...
(JTA) — Leaders of the New Hampshire House of Representatives released a statement last week condemning antisemitism after a state lawmaker tweeted in support of Palestinians using a slogan many deem to be antisemitic. Speaker of the House Sherman Packard, a Republican, and House Democratic leader Renny Cushing wrote in a joint statement Thursday that “any form of bigotry — anti-Semitism, racism, bigotry — has no place in our society” and “it is unacceptable that any member of this historic legislative body is involved in perpetuatin...
(JTA) - In 1955, theater director Jerome Robbins approached writer Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein with a new idea for a Broadway musical: a contemporary retelling of "Romeo and Juliet," set among warring gangs of Jews and Catholics on New York City's Lower East Side. It would be called "East Side Story," and it would take place at the turn of the 20th century during the holidays of Easter and Passover. But something wasn't working. The writers wondered if all they were doing was...
