Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - Wine from a West Bank settlement was on the menu at this year's White House Passover seder on Friday hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Dough Emhoff. But a spokesperson for Harris said the choice should not be construed as a political statement about Israeli settlement in the West Bank. "The wine served at the seder was in no way intended to be an expression of policy," Herbie Ziskind, an adviser to Harris, said in a tweet. The response from the Harris spokesman...
(JTA) - Estelle Harris, the Jewish actress who played George Costanza's mother on the sitcom "Seinfeld," died Saturday at the age of 93. Harris played the role of Estelle Costanza, the always shrill and frequently apoplectic mother to George Costanza, on the sitcom from 1992 until the show's finale in 1998. According to Deadline, the character of George's mother was named Estelle before Harris landed the part - but her name wasn't the only thing Harris shared with her onscreen character. "I'm...
(JTA) - While the Oscars had a moment of silence for Ukraine and various onscreen messages, Sunday night's Grammy Awards went further - with a video address from Ukraine's Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky. "What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people," he said in the prerecorded video. "Our musicians wear body armor instead of tuxedos. "They sing to the wounded. In hospitals," he added. It was a dramatic highlight of the music industry's biggest night and...
(JTA) - The United States Postal Service released a new series of Forever stamps Friday in honor of Shel Silverstein, the Jewish author and illustrator who died in 1999. The stamps commemorate what is perhaps Silverstein's most famous book, "The Giving Tree," which tells the story of the relationship between a boy and a tree. The stamps feature an image of the boy from the story catching an apple with Silverstein's name written below. "The issuance honors the extraordinarily versatile Shel...
(JTA) — Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has joined an international chorus condemning what appears to be mass civilian casualties in areas of Ukraine where Russian troops are pulling out. Lapid’s comments came hours after his ministry downplayed similar condemnation from Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine amid ongoing efforts by Israel to navigate a fine line in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of the horrific images from the city of Bucha near Kiev, from after the Russian a...
(JTA) — A woman was killed at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center in Florida’s Miami-Dade County on Sunday in what police are calling an act of domestic violence. Police said the woman was killed by her husband while she attended her daughter’s swimming lesson. In a statement, the community center said police believed there to be “no known threat to the Jewish community.” That weekend a number of the Greater Orlando Federation and The Roth Family JCC staff members were at the Michael Ann Russell JCC for the Florida JCC Professional...
(JTA) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Israel for its support for his country Sunday, the day after Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett flew to Moscow for a three-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “I am grateful to Israel for their support for Ukraine,” Zelensky said, according to a translation by Sky News published by The Times of Israel. “We need the support of all countries and we were talking about the support we need now and how we are going to cooperate in the future after the war.” Zelensky did not m...
(JTA) — Around 300 Ukrainian Jewish refugees landed in Israel Sunday, among them some 90 orphans between the ages of two and 12, in the first round of what Israeli government officials are expecting to be a wave of thousands in the coming months. They were flown on three planes from Moldova, Romania and Poland. But whether Israel will accept Ukrainian refugees who are not Jewish, and therefore ineligible for Israeli citizenship under the country’s Law of Return, is unclear. The Law of Return allows any Jew who wishes to live in Israel to obt...
(JTA) — In launching Russia’s war on Ukraine last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin cited a purported need for “denazification” of Ukraine, a country whose president is Jewish. “Its goal is to protect people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide … for the last eight years. And for this we will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Putin said in his speech, which was broadcast on state television. Putin was referring to a claim that he has long made, starting as a justification for his 2014 invasion...
(JTA) — Ukraine’s embassy in Israel tried to recruit Israelis to join the Ukrainian fight against Russia in a Facebook post Saturday. “The Embassy has begun the formation of lists of volunteers who wish to participate in combat actions against the Russian aggressor,” the embassy wrote in a Facebook post that was later taken down, according to The Times of Israel. The post asked volunteers to tell coordinators about any “military specialty” they have, something Israelis, most of whom complete mandatory army service after high school, wil...
(JTA) — Israel began allowing unvaccinated tourists to enter the country on March 1 as the county’s COVID case numbers continue to decline, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz announced. Tourists will still need to produce negative PCR tests before and after their flights, while Israelis will only need to take a test upon landing. The more lax rules mean that children under the age of five who are ineligible to be vaccinated can now enter the country. Only fully vaccinated tourists have been allowed in since Jan...
(JTA) - Roblox, a collaborative computer gaming platform for children as young as 7, has faced serious criticism over the years for failing to properly moderate its content - with antisemitism and racism rife, according to multiple reports. Now the platform says it has removed a virtual Nazi concentration camp featuring gas chambers that users could operate. In a report published Saturday, the Daily Mail revealed the existence of the concentration camp game, which included tall watchtowers, gas...
(JTA) — A Jewish woman in Chattanooga, Tennessee, says her child was taught “how to torture a Jew” in a public school Bible class. The woman, Juniper Russo, wrote about the incident in a Facebook post that is no longer public. In it, she alleged that the teacher engaged in “blatant Christian proselytizing” in a Bible history class that was meant to be “non-sectarian.” Hamilton County Schools, the Chattanooga public school district, is investigating the incident. Michael Dzik, president of the Jewish Federation of Chattanooga, told the Jewi...
(JTA) - Activists on the Jewish left celebrated over the weekend as Emma Saltzberg, a Jewish activist who helped co-found the Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow, extended a "Jeopardy!" winning streak that has some comparing her to the game show's most successful contestants. Saltzberg took the lead for three episodes in a row and earned a total of $54,199 in prize money. Saltzberg, a consultant who lives in Brooklyn, is a senior fellow at Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, according...
(JTA) — The first thing to know about the Yeshiva Har Torah Twitter account is that, contrary to the account’s bio, the head of school does know about the account. And he has given it his blessing. “I don’t think the school is attracting kids because of its Twitter account,” said Rabbi Gary Menchel, head of the Modern Orthodox day school in eastern Queens, New York. “But I think, ultimately, anything we can do to broaden that experience, and engage people in the yeshiva experience is a positive thing.” And engage people have. While the sch...
(JTA) — Whoopi Goldberg apologized for upsetting people by starting a debate on Monday over whether the Holocaust was “about race,” writing that she is “sorry for the hurt I have caused.” But in an appearance that aired that same night on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” she elaborated on some of her views on the Holocaust. On “The View,” a show that Goldberg co-hosts, she said “the Holocaust isn’t about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.” As she explained in an apology that she tweeted that evening, and on Colbert’s sho...
(JTA) — In Orlando, neo-Nazis yelled antisemitic slurs from a highway overpass. In Chicago, a Jewish school and a synagogue were vandalized. In Washington, D.C., a man was arrested and charged with spray painting swastikas on a train station. The turbulent weekend — which also included a rally in Ottawa against COVID-19 vaccine mandates that featured swastikas — comes just a few weeks after the hostage situation at a Texas synagogue left American Jews feeling vulnerable in their synagogues. A video of the Orlando rally that spread on socia...
(JTA) - A full-page advertisement in The New York Times on Saturday paid for by the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity urged athletes and corporate sponsors to "walk away" from the Olympic Games, set to begin next month in Beijing, to protest China's persecution of the Uighurs. "We urge the athletes and the sponsoring corporations to walk away from these games unless Beijing takes steps to reunite Uyghur families. And we urge the world's citizens to embrace the cause of this persecuted...
(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) - Bob Saget, the comedian and actor famous for playing a wholesome sitcom father figure but who never lost his flair for raunchy comedy, has died at 65. Saget died shortly after performing in Orlando, where he had delivered a show with his trademark mashup of dark humor and dad jokes that he first developed while misbehaving in Hebrew school. Saget was found dead in his hotel room in Orlando. The cause of his death is unknown but police do not suspect drugs or foul play. Beth Shalom...
(JTA) — In recent years, some “Harry Potter” fans have reconsidered their love for the series in light of the controversy surrounding its author J.K. Rowling, who has been criticized for comments about the transgender community. But after the release of an HBO special last week that celebrates the “Harry Potter” movies’ 20th anniversary, some are critiquing the series for a different reason: the inclusion of goblin characters that run the wizarding world’s bank. In the “Harry Potter” world, Gringott’s Bank, the bank that serves wizards and wher...
(JTA) - Desmond Tutu, the archbishop who identified closely with the historical suffering of the Jewish people in his forceful advocacy against apartheid in South Africa, died Sunday at age 90. Tutu, the first Black archbishop of Cape Town, used his role as a church leader to bring religion into the fight against apartheid, South Africa's repressive system of racial segregation. Advocating for nonviolence and, later, restorative justice, Tutu gained renown far beyond South Africa, earning a...
(JTA) — Israel’s Ashkenazi chief rabbi called for victims of sexual abuse to bring complaints to the “relevant authorities,” saying “there is an obligation to complain to the authorities in charge of these issues, and not hide it,” according to the site Israel National News. The comments from Rabbi David Lau Wednesday came after Lau was criticized for visiting the family of Chaim Walder, the Israeli haredi Orthodox author of children’s books who was recently accused by dozens of young women of sexual abuse, as they sat shiva for Walder follow...
(JTA) - Chaim Walder, an Israeli haredi Orthodox children's book author who was accused last month of sexual abuse by several teenage girls, was found dead Monday in an apparent suicide. His body was found in a cemetery in Petah Tikva, in central Israel, after a passerby heard a gunshot and called police, according to Israeli news reports. Walder's death came a day after the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that a rabbinical court in Safed had heard testimony from 22 young women about alleged...
(JTA) — Shimon Peres will soon receive a major honor for a non-New Yorker: the late Israeli prime minister will have a New York City street corner named in his honor. The intersection of West 95th Street and Riverside Drive will be renamed “Shimon Peres Place” after the New York City Council approved nearly 200 new street names last week to honor various people. The news was reported by Patch. Peres, who died in 2016, served three times as Israel’s prime minister in addition to serving as president of the country from 2007 to 2014. In 1949, h...
