Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(My Jewish Learning) - In the Hebrew Bible, the word shalom, usually translated as peace, means more than the absence of conflict; it connotes a secure sense of well-being and wholeness (the latter is perhaps the best literal definition). The word appears hundreds of times in the Bible, in all kinds of contexts: individuals, cities, nations and even the whole world at various points seek peace and, in the words of the psalmist, pursue it. In fact, the rabbis even taught that Shalom is one of...
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center will present two multi-media genocide exhibits “Finding Kalman” and “Never Again—Again.” This will be the world premiere of “Never Again—Again.” The exhibits will open with a reception from 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, March 23rd. The public is invited to meet with the exhibit creators — filmmaker Laurie Weisman and artist Roz Jacobs. “Finding Kalman” is a multi-media exhibit featuring art and film to tell a powerful story of a family’s love and los...
(JTA) - Chaim Topol won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of an immigrant to Israel, stepped off the stage in London to fight for his country and had his sketches of Israeli presidents turned into postage stamps. But the actor was, by far, best known for his embodiment of Tevye the Dairyman in "Fiddler on the Roof," first in the Israeli and London stagings and then in the 1971 movie that brought the musical about poor shtetl Jews to the masses. Topol died March 9 in Tel Aviv at 87, a day after...
(JNS) - The corneas of two Israeli brothers killed in Samaria a week ago Sunday were transplanted into the eyes of four Israelis at Beilinson Medical Center in Petach Tikvah on Wednesday. "I'm so excited. I couldn't have imagined. What a strong family. I'm so looking forward to meeting them already. Just to hug them," said one of the recipients, Ziona Salzberg. Ron Carmeli, another recipient, said: "When this terrible incident happened, I looked at the TV and saw their beautiful, big blue eyes....
On Sunday, March 12, the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, the Casselberry Historical Society and the Seminole County Historical Society erected a marker honoring Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr is most remembered for her acting career, starring in more than two dozen movies. She is not as well remembered as the inventor, with George Antheil, of a secret communication system, patented in 1942. This system was used by the Allied Powers against Nazi Germany during World War II and allowed...
Over the years, Heritage Florida Jewish News has received hundreds of books from various sources. The genre ranges from non-fiction, fiction, history, political, the holidays, and children’s books — all Jewish of course. We have no more room to store these books! If you would like to get a couple or a whole lot, call Chris DeSouza to set up a time to come and peruse the shelves. The books have to be gone by the end of the month, so please call 407-834-8787 or email Chris DeSouza at news@orlandoheritage.com....
The Jewish Pavilion hosted Purim party celebrations with residents at Harbor Chase/ Dr. Phillips & Windsor of Celebration. Costumes, decorations, a play and Hamentachen cookies were enjoyed by all. — Judy Appleton...
(JNS) — Iran has indicated its “readiness” to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, after the U.N. nuclear watchdog last month found uranium enriched to 83.7 percent in the Islamic Republic. IAEA chief Rafael Grossi was in Tehran for two days of high-level meetings that “addressed the importance of taking steps in order to facilitate enhanced cooperation, to expedite as appropriate the resolution of outstanding safeguards issues,” according to a statement released by the parties on Saturday. The statement said that the sides ag...
(JNS) — Israel’s Minister of Justice Yariv Levin met on Wednesday with several prominent public figures who drafted a judicial reform compromise proposal to bridge the gaps between the sides. Levin met with Israeli jurist Yuval Elbashan, high-tech businessman Giora Yaron and former National Security Adviser Giora Eiland, who drafted the proposal. Daniel Friedmann, the former justice minister who was also involved in drafting the compromise, did not attend the meeting. On Tuesday, Levin had responded favorably to the outline, with sources fro...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Four states have presidential primaries that fall on the first day of Passover next year and legislation has been introduced in at least two of them, Maryland and Pennsylvania, to change the date. The four states listed on the website of the National Conference of State Legislatures as having presidential primaries on Tuesday, April 23, 2024 are Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island. Passover starts the previous evening, and traditional Jewish law, or halacha, prohibits writing, driving or the use of e...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized as “unworthy” International Atomic Agency Director Raphael Grossi’s statement a day earlier that any attack Iran’s nuclear program would be illegal. “Against which law?” said Netanyahu at Sunday’s Cabinet meeting. “Is Iran, which openly calls for our destruction, permitted to defend the destructive weapons that would slaughter us? Are we permitted to defend ourselves? It is clear that we are, and it is clear that we will do so.” Rafael Grossi, he said, was “a worthy gentlema...
(JNS) — Don’t expect a flood of Jewish families moving to Arkansas in the wake of the state legislature there passing a bill this week that charts a path towards universal school choice. When Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders affixes her signature to the Arkansas Learns Act, it will make her state the fifth to enact legislation that allows state funds to follow students enabling parents to choose whatever school is the best fit for their children. Arizona was the first state to do so last year and since then West Virginia, Utah and Iowa have als...
(JNS) — As the 2024 election begins to slide slowly into view, it’s now clear that barring an unforeseen health issue, Joe Biden will be the Democratic nominee for president. But the Republican field has been unusually slow to develop, mainly because most of the GOP potential candidates have been hesitant to be the first to join Donald Trump on the primary landscape. They remember how Trump eviscerated Jeb Bush and others in the early stages of the 2016 campaign, and they clearly see safety in numbers when it comes to confronting the for...
(JNS) — This week, The Guardian quoted the policy director at J Street, Debra Shushan, as saying, “Christian Zionism, particularly of the variety that has become predominant among American evangelical Christians in recent decades, which sees Jewish control and settlement in the entire land of Israel as a requirement for fulfilling their end-times prophecies, has been extremely detrimental to U.S. politics, and U.S. policy toward Israel.” To emphasize the seriousness of this alleged threat, Ms. Shushan went on to note that in America, Chris...
(JNS) — U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides has persisted in interfering in Israel’s internal affairs, egregiously violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Affairs, which requires diplomats to “respect the laws and regulations of the receiving state” and “not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.” While collaborating on foreign matters of mutual interest (such as working together to counter Iran) would be welcome, interfering in Israel’s internal affairs is off limits. Yet Nides regularly makes hostile demands and e...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of North Orlando and Chabad of Altamonte Springs are holding in-person minyans. 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...
(JNS) — The United States expressed support on Tuesday for an Israeli counter-terror operation in Jenin earlier in the day. During the daylight raid, Israeli forces eliminated the terrorist responsible for the murder of two Israelis on Feb. 26, according to the Israel Defense Forces. “Israel, as we have made the point before, has the legitimate right to defend its people and its territory against all forms of aggression, including, of course, those from terrorist groups,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price during a press briefing. “And w...
(JTA) - For tuned-in baseball fans, Jeff Passan is everywhere. As ESPN's senior MLB insider, he frequently breaks some of the sport's biggest news and appears on several of the global sports network's television, radio and podcast programs. After two decades of reporting, can anything make him nervous? There is one athlete who does: Jewish legend Sandy Koufax. "Generally speaking, when I'm talking to people, I'll call them by their first name. He was Mr. Koufax," Passan told the Jewish...
(JTA) - As part of his journey after a tumultuous decade and a half in the spotlight, former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry is speaking at a pro-Israel event in his second career as an evangelical minister. Strawberry, an eight-time MLB All-Star-turned-traveling-preacher, will be a panelist on Thursday at Extending the Branches of Zionism, an event taking place in New York City and organized by the Jewish National Fund-USA focused on support for Israel among non-Jews. The panel will...
(JTA) — The film producer Daniel Dreifuss has only one surviving photo of a distant relative: his grandfather’s cousin, who fought for Germany in World War I and died in combat two days before the war’s end. He has a few more photos of his grandfather, who also wore the German uniform in WWI — only to be rounded up by the Nazis two decades later during Kristallnacht and thrown into a concentration camp, as even the Jews who had fought for their country were not safe from its campaign of race extermination. Dreifuss, who was raised in Brazil aft...
(JTA) – A Holocaust-themed novel by bestselling author Jodi Picoult was among dozens of books removed from a South Florida school district library’s circulation last month, in the latest example of books with Jewish themes getting swept up amid a larger conservative-led effort to police potentially inappropriate material in classrooms. “The Storyteller” was removed from the library last month at a high school in Martin County, a southeast Florida district, owing to a parental complaint. According to a list of removed books published by local me...
(JTA) - Ben Savage, the Jewish actor best known for the 1990s coming of age series "Boy Meets World," is running to replace Adam Schiff, the Jewish Democratic congressman from California who is running for Senate. Savage, 42, is among at least four Democrats running in the primary to replace Schiff in his Los Angeles-area congressional district. His Instagram post on Monday announcing the campaign focused on good governance. "I'm running for Congress because it's time to restore faith in governm...
If an alien spacecraft landed in Dr. Avi Loeb’s backyard tomorrow, he would readily step on, leave his family behind and take off to discover the great beyond. Obviously, he’d be giving up a lot, but it’s for an essential cause, he says: Humans need to explore the possibilities for human life beyond earth. “We know the sun will burn up the surface of the earth within a billion years,” he says. “We won’t be able to stay here.” Loeb, an Israeli-American astrophysicist at Harvard University, shared these thoughts recently in a podcast convers...
KYIV (JTA) — In a historic building in the most industrial part of Podil, the hipster district of Kyiv that once was the heart of the Jewish trading community, a senior and passionate Esther seduces a much younger Ahasuerus. She flirts with the handsome king to the raucous giggling of the audience, which breaks into applause when the Purim shpiel comes to an end. A year and a few days into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Jews in Kyiv and the rest of the country have celebrated Purim in precarious economic and emotional cir...
Exorcism is a ritual of power performed in order to drive an evil spirit, whether demonic or ghostly, from a possessed person, location, or object. The Christian scholar Origen credits Jews with a special talent for exorcising demons (Against Celsus, book 4). The first allusion to exorcism appears in the Bible, in the youth narratives of David (l Samuel). But while the biblical David seemed to be able to effect a temporary expulsion of Saul’s evil spirit using music, the book of Tobit contains the first explicit description of an (informal) e...
