Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - The Trump administration issued an urgent warning for U.S. citizens to leave Iran immediately, as protests in the country continue to intensify. The virtual U.S. Embassy for Iran instructed Americans to "leave Iran now" and develop exit plans that do not depend on government assistance. Officials warned demonstrations are escalating and could turn violent, leading to arrests and injuries, and said that "U.S. nationals are at significant risk of questioning, arrest and detention."...
Part I Jan. 16, marked the anniversary of the day in 1979 when Iran's Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, was forced to flee Iran with his family, including his then teenage son and Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi. This year, the date will be marked at the height of protests that have been taking place for over three weeks, the largest and most widespread protests in Iran against the Islamic Republic. Iranians across Iran and expatriates around the world are more hopeful and inspired by these protests than...
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center invites the community to join together to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Presented in partnership with The National WWII Museum, this program centers on what Allied liberators encountered when they entered Nazi concentration camps at the end of World War II. The featured guest speaker is Michael S. Bell, PhD., executive director of the Institute for the Study of War and Democracy at The National WWII Museum. The program will explore how soldiers first...
Services at Congregation Shalom Aleichem in Kissimmee, Florida, were almost done. Marilyn Glaser, the president, had completed the announcements, and our "rabbi" was about to lead us in Adom Olam. I rose to make an announcement. "I think we need to do a Shehecheyanu blessing in honor of Asher driving himself to services tonight. He's finally old enough to make the trip on his own!" "Great idea," said Glaser. We recited the prayer in honor of living to this moment, and then even sang "Simon Tov,...
Jewish Pavilion Senior Services hosted a highly successful Sponsors Breakfast on Thursday morning, Jan. 15, at 8:30 a.m. at Legacy Pointe. The event brought together 30 board members, sponsors, and community leaders for an inspiring gathering focused on collaboration and shared dedication to supporting seniors throughout the Orlando area. The breakfast created a warm and welcoming atmosphere where attendees enjoyed meaningful conversation, relationship-building, and productive networking....
On Jan. 12, Dick & Dottie's Place, in partnership with Sage Catering, reopened with free coffee for everyone. The little coffee shop in the lobby of the Roth JCC offers a full kosher menu of slow-drip coffee, cappuccinos, lattes, delicious pastries and much more....
Temple Israel is offering a new, half-day camp running June 1-5 from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. It will be packed with traditional camp activities and hands-on fun for kids entering kindergarten through fifth grade, all through the lens of Judaism and Israeli culture. Groups will be grades K-1, 2-3, and 4-5, with a minimum of six kids per group. If less than six children per age group register, we will contact you to see if you would prefer your child join another age group or retract their registration. Activities include cooking, scavenger hunts, arts &...
Film producer Gloria Z. Greenfield will be present at the screening of “A Collective Descent into Evil” at Congregation Ohev Shalom on Jan. 29. In this film top scholars, analysts and journalists uncover the ideologies and strategies driving the barbaric enemies of Jews and Israel and Western civilization. They clarify what is at stake and what must be done to defeat these evil forces. Greenfield is known for five previous documentary films, “The Case for Israel,” “The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the ideological War Against the West,” “U...
When a member of the Jewish community passes from this world, the way they are escorted to their final rest speaks volumes about the values of that community. Recently in Orlando, JOIN Orlando had the privilege and responsibility of facilitating the funeral and burial of Harold Cohen, ensuring he was laid to rest with the dignity and honor every Jew deserves. Mr. Cohen was a quiet presence in the community and, at the time of his passing, had no immediate family living locally. His niece, who shared a close and meaningful relationship with...
(JNS) — Kibbutz Be’eri has decided to keep as is one of the homes burned in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on southern Israel as a testimony to the horrors of the worst single-day attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The move by the community, located five miles from the Gaza Strip, to move on and demolish the rest of the homes destroyed in the attack is opposed by some bereaved families, but is seen as an attempt to move on and rebuild. The house selected is on the edge of the community and belongs to a family that was abr...
(JNS) — Israeli authorities on Tuesday began demolishing UNRWA’s headquarters in Jerusalem, after a new law banning the organization’s operations in Israel took effect. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hailed the move as a “historic day, a holiday, a very important day for governance,” saying the government was finally expelling “terror supporters … with everything they built here” and vowing that “this is what will be done to every terror supporter.” Yisrael Beiteinu MK Yulia Malinovsky, who played a leading role in introducing the...
(JNS) — Yitzhak Wasserlauf, Israel’s minister for the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience, said Sunday that security agencies had identified attempts by Hezbollah to gain a foothold in Upper Galilee city of Kiryat Shmona through apartment purchases by Arab citizens of the Jewish state. “Hezbollah used Israeli Arabs to purchase apartments in Kiryat Shmona during the war in order to try to take control of the city from within,” the minister said behind closed doors at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, according to Hebrew media reports....
(JNS) — A landmark natural gas deal with Israel is a “strictly commercial” arrangement with no political dimensions, Egypt said on Thursday. The Egyptian government reaction, which came the day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the $34 billion, 15-year agreement—the biggest gas sale in Israel’s history—is seen as Cairo’s attempt to shield itself from Arab criticism over the mammoth agreement with the Jewish state. “The deal is a purely commercial transaction concluded exclusively on the basis of economic and investment...
(JNS) — The British Broadcasting Corporation recently asked British Jews whether Israel’s actions in Gaza were responsible for the terrorist attack in Bondi, Australia. The watchdog organization CAMERA rightly criticized this absurd line of questioning. How could random Jews in London possibly bear responsibility for the tactical decisions of a government thousands of miles away, let alone for the heinous actions of a terrorist in yet another country? Yet in our rush to defend ourselves against this inappropriate premise, the Jewish community o...
(JNS) — In a New Year only days old, one story resonated loudly with me: an item about a swastika discovered etched on the wall of the boys’ locker room at the U.N. International School in New York. As reported in JNS, the school’s director sent a letter to parents and supporters of the school in which he rightly termed the matter antisemitic and unacceptable, and which causes “real harm, particularly to our Jewish students, families, faculty and staff … .” In the past couple of years, if you Google “swastika” and “classrooms,” t...
(JNS) — Tucker Carlson has been won over by Qatar. He now touts the country to his millions of social media followers and, no doubt, to his friends in the White House. Some people get a lot of money from Qatar to do that sort of work. Four former congressmen, including two Democrats and two Republicans, are each getting paid $80,000 a month to lobby for Qatar. American universities get pallets of money from Qatar, too—perhaps as much as $100 billion since 2000—to teach students anti-Jewish, anti-American propaganda in their classrooms. And Carl...
(JNS) — A conversation titled “The Jewish Tent at a Crossroads,” held at B’nai Jeshurun, a synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, on Jan. 6 featured Rabbi Jill Jacobs (T’ruah); Esther Sperber, the founder of Smol Emuni US, a self-described movement of Orthodox Jews committed to justice, equality and dignity for Jews and Palestinians; far-left journalist Peter Beinart; and Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove (Park Avenue Synagogue). It was moderated by Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. A year ago, K...
(JNS) — For decades, victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism have been told to be patient. We were told the regime was permanent. That the Islamic Republic of Iran was too entrenched, too ruthless and too strategically important to ever be held fully accountable. Courts might rule in our favor, we were advised, but enforcement was another matter entirely. Justice, if it came at all, would come slowly—if ever. Now, as the Iranian regime shows visible signs of strain, victims are watching events unfold with something closer to quiet vigilance tha...
(JNS) — Israeli television anchors repeat the same message: There is no immediate alarm. Shelters will open if needed. Hospitals are ready. Experts even joke that life will continue as usual—drink a glass of water, go down to the shelter, return to work. Iran has fierce ballistic missiles, but after tasting Israeli air power during the 12-day war, the ayatollahs may think twice. More importantly, had Israel not seized its destiny after Oct. 7, 2023—confronting Hamas, Hezbollah and ultimately Iran alongside the United States—it is hard to imag...
(JNS) — It feels necessary, due to political pressure, to accuse the Jewish state publicly of committing “genocide” in Gaza even though that charge is untrue, a New England legislator told JNS on background. “I don’t think that ‘genocide’ is a term that can be used in the moment, in the fog of war,” the legislator told JNS. But there has been “so much mounting pressure” after lawmakers in the legislator’s state began accusing Israel of “genocide,” the lawmaker said. “Nobody was going to engage with me, or even talk to me, or not just throw me i...
(JNS) — David Cunio, one of the Israelis abducted by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, gives a harrowing account of his nearly two years in Hamas captivity in Gaza, describing starvation, psychological torment, underground imprisonment and the struggle to survive for the sake of his family. In an interview aired on Channel 12, Cunio detailed his abduction alongside his wife, Sharon, their twin daughters Yuli and Emma, and other family members, as well as the brutal conditions he endured during 738 days in Hamas captivity. The ordeal began in t...
When the federal buildings in Washington, D.C., finally empty out and the capital quiets down for the night, Howard Lutnick is often still working. Colleagues in the administration say he routinely puts in 19-hour days, a stamina that belies his being in his mid-60s. Recently, Lutnick remarked publicly on President Trump’s famously short sleep schedule — about four to five hours a night — expressing admiration for the president’s constitution and noting that he himself needs closer to six. But for Lutnick, this relentless pace reflects somethi...
Lighting a candle may feel harmless, after all, how could something called “Vanilla Dream” or “Ocean Breeze” cause harm? But depending on how they’re made, some candles release: • Soot: tiny particles that can settle on your skin and in your lungs • VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds): invisible fumes that may irritate your skin or breathing • Synthetic Fragrances: often derived from chemicals that can trigger sensitivity, allergies, or skin damage over time When burned in small or poorly ventilated rooms, these particles can build up and in...
(JNS) - The wind cuts down from the Mount of Olives as three Jewish men named Cohen hunch their shoulders against the cold and start up the wooden ramp to the Temple Mount, breath clouding in the Jerusalem air. In a scene that could stand in for countless real family journeys, their grandparents' stories trace lines through Poland, Tunisia and Iran, but here the paths merge: walking the worn stone their Israelite forefathers once crossed in white linen, lips shaping the same psalms those...
