Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 53
(JTA) — A lavishly illustrated children’s book about a Chinese Jewish family who celebrate both Rosh Hashanah and Lunar New Year is among the top winners of this year’s Sydney Taylor Book Awards for Jewish children’s books. Meanwhile, the publisher of the imprint behind the popular Sammy Spider Jewish holiday books won an award for her lifetime of contributions to Jewish children’s literature. Both prizes were revealed Monday as part of the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards. Michelle Margolis, president of the Association...
BOSTON (JTA) - Jason Greenberg remembers the lavish breakfast spreads Carmela Dan would serve when he and his family visited his cousin at Kibbutz Nir Oz. He relished the shakshuka, salads and bread she prepared to welcome her American family. "She was a great cook," Greenberg, a lawyer in Boston, recalled of those regular visits he has made for more than 30 years. Dan was beloved at Nir Oz, a tight-knit community on the southern border with Gaza that she helped found in 1955. What especially...
WALTHAM, Massachusetts (JTA) — The days before Thanksgiving break were supposed to be packed at Brandeis University’s Hillel: There was a talk on Sunday about sexuality in Judaism, a ceremony for students who participated in a study program and a forum for candidates running to help lead the campus Jewish center. Instead, Hillel canceled everything and instead threw open its doors for students and faculty in need of comfort and support after one of their classmates was killed and dozens more injured in an accident involving a shuttle bus man...
“Four Bam, One Crack, Six Dot.” Generations of Mah Jongg players and their children and grandchildren recognize the names of the small decorated tiles used in the Chinese game that found a devoted American audience among Jewish women. For thousands of Jewish women from the city, the suburbs and the Catskills alike, the weekly Mah Jongg games, with their friendly wagers, were as much a ritual as lighting Friday night Shabbat candles. Nearly synonymous with the playing were the ring jells, Bridge mix, Entenmann’s coffee cake and other iconi...
BOSTON (JTA) — For nearly a month, a small liberal arts college just miles outside of Boston has been roiled by a spate of hate incidents, including antisemitic graffiti and threatening racist language, prompting the school to offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved. The incidents at Curry College, located in Milton, a suburb south of Boston, began Jan. 27, when International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed worldwide, with reports of drawings of swastikas and discriminatory and h...
BOSTON (JTA) – Against a backdrop of disturbing revelations of antisemitic incidents, including many in local schools, Massachusetts lawmakers this week approved a bill that will require genocide education in all public secondary schools. “An Act Concerning Genocide Education,” which also establishes a public-private trust fund to support curriculum development and training for educators, is now at the desk of Republican Gov. Charlie Baker. Once signed, Massachusetts would become the 21st state to require some form of Holocaust education in sec...
(JTA) - Move over, Tevye the dairyman. Make room for Moshkele the thief, the rough and tumble rogue hero from the wrong side of the shtetl in a newly rediscovered work of fiction by Sholom Aleichem. The recent publication of "Moshkele the Thief: A Rediscovered Novel" (Jewish Publication Society/University of Nebraska Press), translated from the original Yiddish and with an introduction by Curt Leviant, marks the first ever English-language translation of the novella by perhaps the most popular a...
BOSTON (JTA) - Days after a series of violent acts stunned Greater Boston and threatened its Jewish community, residents are jolted but resolute, vowing to continue taking pride in their Jewish identity. The latest incident occurred on Thursday, when Chabad Rabbi Shlomo Noginski was stabbed eight times outside of Shaloh House, a Jewish school and synagogue in Brighton, where he teaches. Less than a week prior, on June 26, in Winthrop, a seaside town just north of Boston, a white supremacist who...
BOSTON (JTA) - On the eve of Passover during the Depression, a juggler in ragged clothes is invited into the home of a poor family that has a bare Seder table. It's a poignant scene in "The Passover Guest," the captivating debut picture book by author Susan Kusel, a longtime Judaica librarian who was inspired by a classic Yiddish tale, "The Magician," by I.L. Peretz. By lovely coincidence, readers have that rare opportunity to enjoy another retelling of the beloved story in a new publication of...
BOSTON (JTA) — As a child, Sheryl Haft was captivated by the sounds of her grandparents speaking Yiddish. Sing-songy terms of endearment like “bubbala” and “mamleh shayne” sparked joy when her grandmother used them. Grittier words like “shmendrick” and “kvetch” tickled her funny bone. Now Haft has captured that passion in a new children’s book that puts a delightful Yiddish spin on “Goodnight Moon,” the beloved bedtime classic by Margaret Wise Brown. “Goodnight Bubbala: A Joyful Parody” is set during Chanukah. With bright and lively illustrat...
(JTA) — Five years ago, a plea to rescue a centuries-old synagogue in Ostroh, Ukraine, struck a chord with Hryhoriy Arshynov, a lifelong Jewish resident of the city four hours west of Kyiv. Damaged during the Holocaust, the magnificent 17th-century Maharsha synagogue was used as a warehouse under Soviet rule and endured decades of neglect. With its collapsed roof, it was on the verge of ruin. After reading an article about the synagogue, Arshynov, a civil engineer, stepped up to restore it. Arshynov had devoted years of his life to p...
(JTA) - At a moment when the world could use a dose of hope, along comes Rabbi Yehuda "Yudi" Dukes. In late March, Dukes was hospitalized in New York with COVID-19, a week after the otherwise healthy 38-year-old rabbi took ill at his Long Island home. Dukes spent a whopping four months on a ventilator, including nine weeks on an artificial lung machine. He endured four collapsed lungs, experienced a stroke and underwent a liver biopsy, among other challenges. He is believed to be among the...
BOSTON (JTA) - More than 350 years ago, a plague took a deadly toll on Hamburg, Germany. As the High Holidays approached, fear and panic set in and many of the city's Jewish families fled. Among them were Glikl and Hayyim Hamel, successful Jewish merchants who left with their three young children, including an 8-week-old daughter. En route to Hayyim's parents, they spent time with relatives in Hanover, where some locals came to suspect their oldest daughter, 4-year-old Tsipor, was infected....
BOSTON (JTA) - In early April, just a few weeks after non-essential businesses in Massachusetts were shut down due to COVID-19, the staff at the Brattle Book Shop noticed that some prominent personalities conducting video interviews from home were seated in front of fairly lackluster bookshelves. So staffers at the legendary 185-year-old antiquarian bookseller in the heart of downtown Boston offered to help them out. In an April 7 Twitter post, they offered their expertise to prospective custome...
SHARON, Mass. (JTA)-When Neil Morris heard the news that his hometown schools were closing for at least two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, his first thought was about the kids who would lose access to their free or reduced lunches. Morris, the owner of A Perfect Taste, a kosher catering company, called his friend and fellow Sharon resident Avi Shemtov, a chef and owner of Simcha, a restaurant here where both grew up. Both are passionate about reducing food waste and curbing food...
AMHERST, Mass. (JTA)-For the second time in six months, several high-profile proponents of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel are sharing a stage at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst-and prompting concern and counteractions from pro-Israel students. Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour, Harvard professor Cornell West and other BDS supporters were due to appear at a Nov. 12 event at the university's main campus titled "Criminalizing Dissent: The attack...
(JTA)-A Rosh Hashanah apple cake bake-off fit for reality television and another installment in the Scarlet and Sam series from the award-winning author Eric A. Kimmel are among the highlights in the crop of new High Holiday books for children. Six engaging and fun reads for kids of all ages seize the spirit of the Jewish holidays and the excitement and anticipation of beginning anew, reflecting on the past, and celebrating the warmth and joy of Jewish traditions with family and friends. Kimmel'...
BOSTON (JTA)-Two anti-Semitic fliers that deny the Holocaust were posted at a Massachusetts synagogue, with reports of similar incidents at synagogues in two other states. Police are investigating what the Anti-Defamation League described as a coordinated campaign by a national online white supremacist group. The fliers at Temple Emanu-El in Marblehead, a town of nearly 20,000 with a sizable Jewish population on the state's North Shore, were discovered Monday morning by a teacher at its...
BOSTON (JTA)-A group of some 1,000 Jewish activists and others brought rush hour traffic to a halt in downtown Boston to protest immigrant detention in the city and across the country. Tuesday's protest followed a similar event Sunday where 36 Jewish activists were arrested during a protest at a New Jersey detention center. Following a rally at the New England Holocaust Memorial, protesters marched through the city's streets to the Suffolk House of Correction, where 18 people were arrested...
BOSTON (JTA)—A rabbi here has asked congregants to consider bringing guns to religious services as a form of protection in response to recent shootings at synagogues across the country. Rabbi Dan Rodkin of Shaloh House in Brighton, a Boston neighborhood with a large number of Russian-speaking Jews, told the public radio station WBUR that the rise in hate crimes across the country and the loss of life at the Chabad at Poway and the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh influenced his thinking. Rodkin fears that increased safety measures i...
BOSTON (JTA)-The Museum of Fine Arts bought two pairs of rare Torah finials, bidding $500,000 for the 17th-century German silver set. The set is considered among the earliest surviving examples of the ritual Torah ornaments. The final sale price exceeded the pre-auction estimate of between $300,000 and $400,000. A second pair, 18th-century English parcel-gilt silver, sold for $187,500, some $7,000 more than the high estimate. The finials, to which are attached tiny crowns and bells, are used to adorn the top handles on a Torah scroll. The two...
For nearly a decade, chef Avi Shemtov has been a pioneer on Boston’s food scene. In 2010, he rolled out The Chubby Chickpea, one of the first food trucks in the city, serving up Israeli-style street food from falafel and chicken shwarma to chickpea fries. Two years ago he launched Tapped Beer Trucks, the area’s first mobile local craft and wine fleet. But the 34-year-old Shemtov has long dreamed of opening a full-service restaurant to offer Boston-area diners a contemporary twist on Sephardic and Israeli dishes inspired by his Tur...
BOSTON (JTA)—A fire outside the suburban Boston home of a rabbi that serves as a Chabad center is being investigated as a possible hate crime. Police in Arlington, Massachusetts, have asked for the public’s help in identifying a person caught on a neighbor’s video camera walking away from the home Saturday night around the time of the fire. Firefighters put out the small fire that burned the shingles off one side of the Center for Jewish Life in Arlington-Belmont, home to Rabbi Avi Bukiet, his wife and their three children. Police and town...
BOSTON (JTA)-Four questions. Four cups of wine. Four types of children. At Passover, the number four figures prominently in the rituals of the seder, the ceremonial holiday meal that can be mesmerizing and mystifying. Four new delightful and brightly illustrated books for young kids will enliven, and help explain, the popular eight-day spring holiday, which this year begins on Friday evening, April 19. One features kids' favorites from the long-running TV series "Sesame Street." A fifth new...
BOSTON (JTA)—Hot off the Jewish press in Vilna in 1877, a dramatic Yiddish romance novel became a surprising success, selling out its first 10,000 copies in Jewish communities across Poland and Russia. It’s not hard to see why. Set in the mid-19th century in the outskirts of the Russian city of Mohilev, Yankev (Jacob) Dinezon’s “The Dark Young Man” had it all: a page-turning, ill-fated modern love story thwarted at every turn by a villainous and sinister in-law; dramatic storytelling that exposed the divide between rich and poor; and the clash...
