Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

They escaped destruction by the Nazis, survived communism, and found their ways to new homes. This is a story of three Torahs that all have their roots in long-gone Czechoslovakian synagogues. Up...

My mother loved Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin. She would have loved Melanie Gall. My husband, Larry, and I first became acquainted with Melanie Gall, a Canadian chanteuse, in 2019, through our friend...

“Fradel’s Story,” my third book since 2016, is especially sweet as it was co-written with my mother, Frances Cohen. Ever since I could remember, my mother was the family storyteller. Give her an...

So much has been written about the Holocaust. But have we really learned from the past? Millions of words later, we are facing a terrifying upswing in anti-Semitism. What can we do? We can keep...

She is NOT wearing an underwire. And so are many other women. Yes, we have expunged our Exquisite Forms, ousted our Olgas and wiped out our Warners. Instead, we have traded our confining, pokey...

How will I celebrate a milestone birthday during the pandemic? That hoped-for week away with my family is out. A party at my home is out. Heck, my husband, Larry, and I can't even head to my favorite...

When I was six years old, I loved summer storms. As the sky turned dark, the thunder clapped, and the lighting shot across the sky, I would watch from the safety of our living room window. My mother...

Some day-hopefully in the near future-the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us. Medical interventions to those infected will alleviate  the pain, suffering, and deaths. A vaccine may be developed...

By Marilyn Shapiro Purim is around the corner, and not far behind are costumes and dancing and Purim shpiels and groggers and hamantashen. And, for some, alcohol. According to the Talmud, it is one's...

The murder of eleven Jews while they were observing Shabbat occurred in the heart of Mister Rogers's Neighborhood. The Reverend Fred Rogers and his wife Joanne owned a home and raised their two sons i...

Ten years ago this week, my father and I spent our last Father's Day together. My mother and he had moved up to an independent living facility in Upstate New York four miles from me. Two years later,...

In the classic movie "Dirty Dancing," Jack Weston's character Max Kellerman, the owner of the fictional Catskill resort, laments the changes down the road. "[I]t all seems to be ending. You think...

Butterflies. Beautiful butterflies. Blue. Yellow. Even black and white. I am so enthralled by them. But butterflies have a greater meaning to me than just their beauty. In 1993, I read a book called...

Two years ago, Peter and Margaret Hunter, friends from England, visited us in our home in Kissimmee, Florida. They brought two bottles of Moet Chandon Brut Champagne, which we tucked away for a...