Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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On Friday, Feb. 22, 500 students, faculty, community members and parents gathered together in the Pegasus Ballroom, the center of campus for Chabad at UCF's seventh annual Mega Shabbat. This was an elegant evening of joy and Jewish pride that brought the entire Jewish campus community together. This event brought out many students for the first time giving them a taste of Shabbat and showing them they have a community on campus they can call their own. For more info about Chabad at UCF visit...
Talented writer, director and producer Kevin O'Neill has written a short-film script about Dachua survivors of the Holocaust. The film, titled "Resemblance," has a different story line than most Holocaust movies. It takes place in a facility for patients with Alzheimer's Disease, most of whom are Jewish, where Dirk Kramer (played by Jordan Woods-Robinson) plays piano. A professional actor, Kramer sees a way that he can use his acting talents at the facility. Most of O'Neill's films are often...
Modeling the latest styles, a group of 11 fashionable supporters of the Jewish Pavilion will sashay down the runway at the Spring into Fashion show at Bloomingdale's Orlando on Tuesday, April 9. The annual showcase of spring fashion trends will honor Friends of the Pavilion member Brenda Fisher Wetmore for her commitment to the organization and efforts on its behalf. Fisher Wetmore has been active in a number of area organizations since she and her first husband, Joe Fisher, moved to Orlando...
The Jewish Family Services’ Restock Challenge food drive is here once again, running from March 15—April 30. The Weiner Family and The Winter Park Wealth Group will generously match $0.50 for every $1 or pound of nonperishable food donated to restock JFS Orlando’s Pearlman Emergency Food Pantry, with a total match up to $10,000. Last year, the Restock Challenge collected enough donations to feed over 800 families. Please consider participating and joining JFS Orlando in fighting hunger in Centr...
Dr. Daniel and Staci Layish hosted a ZOA parlor meeting at their home on Feb. 27, featuring Susan Tuchman Esq., director of ZOA's Center for Law and Justice, and Jake Suster, a senior at UCF who serves as the ZOA Fellow on campus. The topic of the discussion was "Combatting Anti-Semitism: What You Should Know and How You Can Help." There was standing room only for the group that came to learn about the unfortunate reality of anti-Semitism on campus that necessitates tools and strategies to comba...
Celebrate spring and Beethoven’s 250th birthday with a new Northern Lights Concert performed by the Florida Lakes Symphony Orchestra here in the Eustis / Mount Dora area on Thursday, March 21, at the Epiphany Celebration Anglican Church, located at 1724 South Bay Street / Route 19 North, Eustis, FL 32736. https://epiphanycelebration.org/ The Friday, March 22, concert will be held at the Family Christian Center, located at 2500 South US Highway 27 at the corner of Steve’s Road in Clermont, FL 34711. https://www.fcclive.com/ All concerts beg...
Queen Esther meets King David in a Stars Wars-theme musical? What’s going on here! Only in the original, musical parody, “Es-Star Wars- IV,” written and directed by Jules Gelade, could this happen. Known for his biblical parodies, Gelade takes the audience on a unique ride through the galaxy. This hilarious, biblical parody runs 90 minutes and contains 20 musical numbers that will keep your feet tapping and plant a smile on your face that will last the whole trip. Gelade always tells his audience to expect the unexpected and to be prepa...
The Roth Family Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando is gearing up for the 2019 J Ball at 6:30 p.m. March 27 at the Orlando Science Center. This year’s gala will honor Stuart and Jo Ann Farb for their decades of commitment to The Roth Family JCC. Also being honored is Judy Galkin, who will receive the Harriet Weiss JCC Legacy Award. One of the most popular features of the J Ball is the annual Charity Auction, an online silent auction in which attendees bid on items ranging from art to food to travel, with proceeds benefiting The Roth Fami...
(JNS)—John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 on Monday. Despite having led a state with a relatively small Jewish community, Hickenlooper has a wide-ranging relationship with the Jewish state, including two trips to Israel as the leader of the Centennial State between 2011 and 2019. During his first 100 days in office, Hickenlooper, 67, organized a meeting between 65 Israeli and Colorado water officials to share ideas surrounding water problems and m...
(Chabad.org/News via JNS)—One of the chief engineers involved in the creation and post-launch supervision of the moon-bound Israeli spacecraft “Beresheet” is a Chabad-Lubavitch Chassid who overcame Soviet oppression and anti-Semitism to play a leading role in Israel’s public and private space programs. Mathematician and engineer Alexander Friedman, 68, currently enjoys the freedoms and high accolades of a noted Israeli rocket scientist, but was once part of a Soviet-era family forced to pray in silence for fear the neighbors would turn them in...
(JNS)—Twelve pro-Israel groups delivered a letter on Monday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), urging for the removal of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) from the committee amid the Minnesota congresswoman’s latest anti-Semitic remarks. “Speaker Pelosi, you demonstrated wisdom and leadership in rebuking Rep. Omar on February 11 following her use of anti-Semitic stereotypes, and Chairman Engel, your reaction to the classic anti-Semitic trope of the charge of ‘dual loyalty’ about Ame...
(JNS)—The Palestinians have been busy for the past week demonstrating in word and deed that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” will be dead on arrival. In an op-ed on Sunday in the official, Palestinian Authority-controlled daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul, who served as national-affairs adviser to former P.A. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, launched an assault on the White House. While he was at it, he offended all people with special needs. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Al-Ghoul wrote, “Anyone who looks at...
If Jews had “magical powers to control people” as Ilhan Omar says, then she would be gone from Congress, not just the Foreign Affairs Committee because the “magical powers of the Jewish people” would have kicked her keister to the curb. Too bad the Jewish people don’t control others with money and “magical powers”—they wouldn’t have suffered as they have throughout history. Alas, I can’t kick her to the curb, but what has the Democratic Party done? Absolutely nothing. Pelosi has said that Omar’s anti-Semitic remarks were “not intentionally an...
(JNS)—Perhaps you thought Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) had been so thoroughly rebuked by the media and fellow Democrats for her anti-Semitic tweets that her campaign against Israel and its supporters had been put on hold. Maybe you also thought the opprobrium thrown in her direction had both shamed her and caused her colleagues to shun her in the manner that is usually dished out to people caught in open expressions of hate. If so, you were wrong. Omar remains the toast of liberal Washington these days as her prominent placement on the cover of R...
The Jewish community here in Central Florida should make its voice heard concerning the anti-Semitic slurs being spewn about in Congress as well as the appointment of Ilhan Omar to the Foreign Affairs Committee. One community member, Dr. Daniel Layish, has made his voice heard by one congressman. (He said he even got a human being to answer the phone with no waiting.) “Call Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) to encourage him to stay strong in his condemnation of Ilhan Omar,” Layish said. Rep. Engel is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Com...
(JNS)—Why is anti-Semitism now out of control in the West? Jew-hatred, alas, is always with us. The most we can expect is that it is kept down by unequivocal social disapproval. What causes it to explode into an uncontrolled epidemic is the weakening of that powerful social stigma. After the Holocaust, the enormity of that crime was such that anti-Semitism went underground. Any such expressions that did occur were regarded as the province of cranks on the fringes of society who were accordingly shunned. What tells you the Jews are in trouble i...
(JNS)—This July, Argentina’s Jewish community will mark the 25th anniversary of the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were murdered and hundreds more were seriously wounded. It is promising to be a wretched and depressing commemoration, frankly, because there is no reason to expect anything else. On July 18, 1994, a Renault utility truck packed with explosives smashed into the AMIA building in the busy downtown area of the Argentine capital, leaving a scene of absolute carnage in its wake. The bombing, whi...
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. Temple I...
Congregation Sinai will host their annual Purim Pizza Party celebration service on Friday, March 23, starting at 6 p.m. This service will be filled with entertaining music, special foods and a festive party celebration. There will be Purim pizzas, salads, drinks, schpiels, a Megillah reading and groggers for everyone. There will be prizes for the best Purim costumes. Friday night Purim family services will begin at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to the services. The pizza party will have a limit for the first 36 people registered. Purim dinners...
(JNS)-In each episode of "Bubbies Know Best," which premiered Feb. 11 on JLTV, S.J. Mendelson, Linda Rich, and Bunny Gibson interview three potential suitors before picking one to go on a date with their bachelor or bachelorette. The bubbies then watch them-with the help of a live camera-go on a date and afterwards give pointers on what the daters did right and wrong. The Los Angeles-based grandmothers set up singles of all ages, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and sexual preferences. One episode...
Jewish Academy of Orlando first graders completed their annual space unit with the Sun, Moon, and Stars Space Show where each student demonstrated his or her knowledge of the solar system through music, song, and dance. The program included dialogue and songs about gravity, the moon and stars, planets, and the sun. The space unit is incorporated into the school's S.T.E.A.M. initiative that integrates science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics into the curriculum. The multi-faceted...
Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Blackman of Overland Park, Kansas, are delighted to announce the engagement of their daughter, Sarah Rachel Blackman to Neal Louis Cotton, son of Mark Cotton of Fort Lee, N.J., and Charlene Ilkowitz of East Brunswick, N.J. Sarah is an emergency trauma nurse at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, and Neal is a Corporate IT Software Manager for Advent Health in Altamonte Springs. The couple resides in Winter Springs and is planning an early 2020 wedd...
When Dr. Liz Ross joins her fellow women congregants at Congregation Shalom Aleichem on the bima for the blessing over the candles, she pulls the hood of her kuspuk, her traditional Native Alaskan snow dress, over her head. And on her neck, her gold Star of David catches the light of the flickering flames. A business woman, a college professor, and a black belt in karate, Ross also carries with her the love and respect of her double heritage: Judaism and Native Alaskan. Ross will share her knowledge at Congregation Shalom Aleichem in her talk...
Shocking new levels of anti-Semitism... A recent FBI report showed that hate crimes against American Jews rose by 37 percent in 2017. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights released a comprehensive report on discrimination and hate crimes against Jews in the EU, finding that 9 out of 10 European Jews believe that anti-Semitism is getting worse. According to a study commissioned by the World Jewish Congress, an anti-Semitic message is posted to social media every 83 seconds. In 2018 alo...
(JTA)-Participants in a street celebration in the Belgian city of Aalst paraded giant puppets of Orthodox Jews and a rat atop money bags. Dutch Chief Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs condemned the float Sunday at the annual Aalst Carnaval street celebration as "shocking." It contains "typical, anti-Semitic caricatures from 1939," he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The umbrella groups representing Flemish and French-speaking Jews in Belgium, FJO and CCOJB respectively, complained to the federal UNIA wat...
