Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Kinneret's 10th annual 8 Over 80 Gala honors eight remarkable people in our community, each over 80. Shown here are (top row, left to right): Barney Chepenik, Jes Baru, Henry Schilowitz, Harry Lowenstein, and (bottom row, left to right): Joan Forino, Harriet Weiss, Elaine Gamson and Sandi Solomon. Join them on Sunday, March 1, 2020 at Kinneret Apartments. Honor these inspiring older adults by taking out an ad or greeting in Kinneret's Tribute Book. Tickets and sponsorships can be purchased...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The Bernie Sanders campaign has named an insider in both the Jewish and Democratic establishments-entities that the presidential candidate has previously kept at a distance-as its liaison to the Jewish community. The appointment of Joel Rubin, 48, a former Obama administration official with longstanding ties to an array of Jewish groups, was announced Thursday to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Rubin was a co-founder of J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, and...
NEW YORK (JTA)-New York City will launch three initiatives aimed at combating anti-Semitic hate crimes. Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement at a dramatic news conference Sunday afternoon at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library following weeks of anti-Semitic assaults and vandalism that have plagued the city and state. "I don't want people to forget that we've confronted hatred in this city before, we've confronted division," de Blasio said. "We have done it before, and we...
By Jackson Richman (JNS)-The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2020, announced the U.S. Department of Defense. "At the direction of the president, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization," the Pent...
Nonviolence in action in the Palestinian territories: An Evening with Ali Abu Awwad On Tuesday, Jan, 14, 2020, The Roth Family JCC will host Ali Abu Awwad from 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. In 2016, Ali Abu Awwad and Taghyeer Movement co-founders gathered more than 3000 Palestinians in Jericho to share a dream and a vision. "Together, we can build a grassroots movement through nonviolence in action to better Palestinian lives and forge a path to freedom." Since then, village by village, embattled c...
Temple Israel is proud to host Queens College Hillel's a capella group Tizmoret on Tuesday, Jan. 14 from 7 to 8 p.m. The concert will take place in the Roth Social Hall, followed by a dessert reception, where attendees can also meet the performers. Tizmoret draws singers from colleges throughout the New York City area. The professional group performs classic Jewish melodies, American pop music, and contemporary Israeli tunes, which can be heard on their eight CDs and two EPs. Tizmoret has...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The black-Jewish coalition that has fought for civil rights since the 1960s has the city of Atlanta as its nexus. Folks there cite three reasons for this: a substantial African-American population, a relatively large Jewish community and John Lewis. Lewis, 79, the longtime Democratic congressman from Georgia who announced Sunday that he was suffering from stage 4 pancreatic cancer, has been close to Jewish groups for decades. And that longstanding relationship was on full...
(JNS)—The American airstrike assassination of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad early on Friday follows a major miscalculation on the part of Tehran in the decision to up the ante against the United States. While the extent of Iran’s response is not yet clear, military planners in the region, including in Israel, will need to prepare for the most severe scenarios. Even though Iran may seek to launch a calculated retaliation, which would exact a price without going to war, no...
(JTA)—Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer pledged to fight for a quadrupling of funding for federal security grants for nonprofit organizations. It would raise the amount provided by the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $360 million annually from $90 million. The program provides funding to improve the security of nonprofit organizations at risk of being targeted for terror attacks such as synagogues, churches, mosques, schools, Jewish community centers and other faith-based community centers. Schumer, D-N.Y., also called for financial s...
(JNS)—We’re still more than a month away from the first actual votes being cast in the Democratic presidential race. But an analysis piece published on the influential Politico website last week reminded observers of a possibility that many are ignoring: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders could win and ultimately become the nation’s first Jewish president. While generations of American Jews have dreamed of a day when one of their own won the White House, a Sanders’s presidency would actually be an unprecedented nightmare for Israel and Jewish interest...
I remember it was the day after Christmas because I was struck and disappointed that my new friend had to work on Christmas. She was a Christian Israeli Arab and was working with an elderly Jewish philanthropist to counsel him on funding programs that would combat substance abuse in the Arab community. It was my first Christmas in Israel since moving to Israel. Everything was a new experience. We met in a conference room of a Nazareth hotel including Mr. Green, the philanthropist, my new friend as his adviser, representatives of the Arab...
(JNS)—It’s no secret that Jewish kids on college campuses have been subjected to increasingly aggressive and intense intimidation, ranging from the placement of “eviction” notices on the doors of their dorm rooms to faculty members refusing to sign permission slips for students to study abroad in Israel. In an effort to ostracize Jewish students, those who believe in the right of the Jewish people to a homeland are prevented from joining organizations whose progressive values they support. The hostility comes against the backdrop of heighte...
From Nov. 4-8, 2019, I spent four days in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) on an intensive experience meeting with leaders of Palestinian Civil Society. It was an incredibly challenging experience. One of the true highlights was listening to Ali Abu Awwad, the leader of Taghyeer, a Palestinian nonviolence peace movement designed to help Palestinians take responsibility for ensuring their future with their neighbor, the Jewish state of Israel. On Tuesday Jan. 14, at 7:30 p.m., Ali will be speaking at The Roth Family JCC about the Taghyeer...
(JTA)—This is the first op-ed in a series of pieces about anti-Semitism and Jewish issues written by 2020 presidential candidates. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has sent five questions on the topic to all of the registered candidates from both parties. 1. Anti-Semitic hate crimes are currently on the rise across the United States. In 2018, there were two deadly shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, violent attacks now regularly plague the Jews of New York City and Jews continue to be the target of most religion-based hate crimes a...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. and 10 minutes before sunset; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 8:15 a.m., 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona—Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy of Orlando—Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Tem...
NEW YORK (JTA)-In the wake of several attacks on Jews in the New York area in recent months, seven House Democrats representing districts of New York City held a news conference to emphasize that they are committed to stamping out anti-Semitism. But in addition to discussing initiatives designed to help decrease anti-Semitic attacks, the lawmakers admitted that finding specific root causes of the recent incidents is proving difficult. Reps. Max Rose, Yvette Clarke, Eliot Engel, Hakeem Jeffries,...
(JNS)—For the most part, Jewish and pro-Israel groups reacted positively to the U.S. elimination of the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force, Maj. Gen, Qassem Soleimani, in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on Thursday. B’nai B’rith International CEO and executive vice president Dan Mariaschin told JNS, “The American strike today was a major step in the war against terror. Soleimani was the chief agent for Iran’s export of terror throughout the region and beyond. Hopefully, this will serve as a strong deterrent to those who wou...
Stories from the Orlando Senior Help Desk Sidney was in a panic. He had taken his wife, Helen, to the mall to go shopping and have some lunch. He paid the bill at the restaurant and turned around. Helen had disappeared. He franticly looked around the area and called her name. He couldn’t find her anywhere. He had just looked away for a moment. How could this happen? He contacted mall security who found her 20 minutes later. Helen had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease eight years earlier. The disease had been progressing, sometimes qui...
Never Again?... Who knew that many years later, despite our efforts and the efforts of others, "Never Again" has morphed into "again and again and again! (I thought that present and future generations would learn the lessons from the great tragedy committed by the Nazis who murdered 6 million Jews back in World War II.) But, so far in the past year of 2019, who could have imagined: That a prominent 84-year-old Holocaust Survivor, whose life has been threatened in Italy, would now need police...
Sixty people gathered on a Wednesday afternoon in December expecting to hear the Chanukah story. Much to everyone’s surprise, Susan Bernstein began speaking about the art of writing the Torah. As the residents of Oakmonte Village in Lake Mary feasted on their bagels, lox and latkes, Bernstein, a program director for the Jewish Pavilion, began to speak. She described the process from the requirements to become a Sofer, the preparation of the parchment, the special ink, the writing and assembly process and the final Torah. She also spoke about t...
(JTA)-Pianist Igor Levit says he has received death threats and is warning about an increase in hate crimes in Germany. The Russian-born musician, 32, whose family immigrated to Germany in 1995, said he received an email in mid-November threatening an assassination attempt against him at a concert in southern Germany. His spokeswoman told the German media that Levit informed the police and then played the concert under tight security. In an essay for the Sunday edition of the Tagesspiegel newspa...
Rabbi Yosef Mendelevich was born in the small Baltic state of Latvia, which was under Soviet occupation, after World War II. Mendelevich received a Soviet education, far removed from his Jewish faith and culture. His father, Moshe, was arrested by the Soviets when Mendelevich was 10 years old. His mother, Chaya Yenta, died soon afterwards. Despite his harsh childhood experiences, Mendelevich found his way to truth and faith and became one of the outstanding leaders of the Jewish revival in the U...
NEW YORK (JTA)-As soon as I got out of a recent screening of "Uncut Gems," I had to share the feelings of sheer cinematic bliss I had just experienced nonstop for two hours. "Just got out of 'Uncut Gems,' the new Adam Sandler movie coming out. He is sooooo good in it," I texted my friend. "Oh cool! What's it about?" she responded. "He plays a sleazy diamond dealer," I said, adding a laughing emoji. "Wow! So he does dramatic movies? Pulling a Steve Carell!" She wasn't exactly living under a...
Brenda Klein, age 81, of Kissimmee, passed away peacefully at her home surrounded by her family on Tuesday, Dec. 24, 2019. Brenda was born in Brooklyn, New York, on Aug. 24, 1938, to the late Samuel and Rose Bloom Ligerman. She attended college and later became a Registered Nurse. In January 1960, in Virginia, she married her late husband, Henry I. Klein, who predeceased her in 2012. Together they raised three children, Todd (Debra) Klein of Clermont, Mindy (Mark) Doolittle of Orlando, and Nancy Klein of Kissimmee, who survive her. They...
(JNS)—The year 2019 consisted of ups and downs for the Jewish and pro-Israel community. Below is a listing of the top six events or themes that shaped news coverage throughout the year (in no particular order). Anti-Semitic attacks From Southern California to Jersey City, Jews were under attack as, in the former, one woman was killed and three people injured during Shabbat-morning services at Chabad of Poway on the last day of Passover on April 27. In the latter, two Chassidic Jews, a store employee and a police officer were shot and killed a...
