Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The board of directors of Central Florida Hillel has chosen Aaron Weil, a seasoned Jewish community professional, as its new executive director and chief executive officer, effective June 10. This decision coincides with the construction of an ultra-modern 20,000-square-foot Hillel facility, scheduled to open in August at the University of Central Florida. With more than 6,000 Jewish undergraduate students, UCF has the second largest Jewish student population of any public university in the...
Professor Yudit Greenberg, Cornell endowed professor of religion and director of the Jewish Studies Program at Rollins College, is presenting a lecture by Dr. Steven Gimbel, a philosopher of science and a distinguished professor. The topic of the lecture is “Einstein’s Jewish Science,” based on Gimbel’s recent book “Einstein’s Jewish Science: Physics at the Intersection of Politics and Religion.” The lecture will be at 11 a.m. Thursday, March 28 at the SunTrust Auditorium in the Crummer Build...
Greg Dawson was the featured presenter at an educational forum on Feb. 21 at the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center in Maitland. His subject was his recently published book, “Judgment Before Nuremberg,” which adds to Holocaust literature by filling a hole in the historical record of World War II: Nazi occupation and terrible crimes committed in Ukraine in the early years of the War. During his visit to a museum in a small town in eastern Ukraine, Dawson saw photos from the era of Nazi occupation in 1941-1943. He was in the tow...
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2013 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented in August at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando. “For more than 25 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy, and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” says Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Zena Sulkes. The Heritage is accep...
MIAMI—Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus life is hosting its Inaugural Florida Texas Hold ’Em Tournament, a fundraising event, at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 29 at The Dezer Collection, 2000 N.E. 146th St., North Miami. For the last eight years, Hillel has hosted an annual Texas Hold ’Em Tournament in New York City each spring. Due to its success, Hillel is expanding this year to an additional event in Florida, hosted jointly by Hillel’s Schusterman International Center (which serves as Hillel’s headquarters) and six Hillels that serve col...
The Roth Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando’s Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center hosted a lively women’s seder March 7 for its entire faculty, as a means of continuing their collective Jewish learning journey. The effort, led by the JCC’s Judaic specialist, Kerry Ben-Evi, reinforced the teachers’ knowledge of Passover and its customs for use in the classroom....
Smiling faces, happy chatter, lively music, sparkling mimosas and delicious food! Old friends and new friends mingled, nibbled, chatted and enjoyed the ambience. It was a delightful way to spend a brisk, almost-spring morning and support the Jewish Pavilion, the Central Florida organization that supports the spirit of belonging and the Jewish identity of the Central Florida seniors. Nancy Ludin, executive director of the Jewish Pavilion, provided opening remarks and introductions to the attendee...
To all those who lived to see America, In fond memory of all those who didn’t. The train was sliding forward, softly and noiselessly. A train is one of those few places where you are mostly left alone, to sleep or meditate or lazily watch the changing stations and faces outside. You are usually too sleepy in the morning or too tired after work to interact, and the whole crowd around you is as sleepy or as tired as you are, strangely united by that slow synchronized motion, in that familiar state of dreamy hibernation. Nothing in life is as t...
Politics does not operate like a Swiss watch. The image is outdated but remains useful. The overwhelming majority of watches are electronic, run by batteries and tiny programs rather than by springs and cog wheels made and assembled by skilled craftsmen in Swiss villages. Word is that more and more people are doing without watches as well as cameras, and relying on telephones that do those jobs and many others. However, the image of something that ticks along in orderly fashion and does its job with modest efficiency is useful in order to...
I was relieved and not at all disappointed last month when neither of the Israeli entries for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards came home with the prize. I felt badly that the two films representing Israel, “The Gatekeepers” and “5 Broken Cameras,” cinematically compelling as they were, took aim at the country’s alleged faults rather than its miraculous accomplishments, sending a skewed message around the world. “The Gatekeepers” explores why the six living former heads of the Shin Bet are critical of Israeli policy, or lack of one, on th...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Probably no more than the top 10 percent of Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jews will ever shop at Pomegranate, the luxury kosher supermarket recently featured by The New York Times columnist David Brooks in a column titled “The Orthodox Surge.” Brooks chose the upscale kosher version of Whole Foods as the fulcrum of an admiring piece on Orthodox Jewish life in America, writing of the Orthodox “sense of collective purpose” and the “external moral order” that governs Orthodox Jewish lives. It’s nice of Brooks to give Orthodox Jews som...
The following is the winner of the Women of Reform Judaism Centennial Essay Competition. CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA)—I cried when I found out our new rabbi was going to be a woman. I was in ninth grade and did not like the thought of change. She would change all of our congregation’s traditions. She would not have the same endearing voice as our previous male rabbi. She must be weird: What kind of woman would want to be a rabbi anyway? Four years later, the woman I loathed in one moment would be the same woman I strive to be like every day. She wou...
This article was the winning entry in NFTY’s 2013 Wendy Blickstein Memorial D’var Torah competition. CINCINNATI (JTA)—What do you do when you get up in the morning? You probably have a morning ritual that you could do with your eyes closed. Take a shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, eat breakfast and make your way off to school without a second thought. Parshat Tetzaveh describes the specialized clothing that Aaron and his sons were to wear for their roles as priests. When I read it, I thought it was very interesting that their cloth...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday and Thursday, 8 a.m. 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7 a.m.; Sunday, 8 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 Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, MARCH 22 Light Shabbat candles 7:20 p....
Kinneret residents were treated to a Purim play and celebration thanks to the Kinneret Council on Aging’s programming committee, headed by board volunteer and vice president of programming, Geanne Share. Board members Rhonda Pearlman, Mark Silverberg and Mollie Savage joined KCOA executive administrator Leslie Collin for a play that shared the story of Purim in an interactive and interesting way. Residents were then treated to hamentashen and punch. “Our board is committed to providing Jew...
ST. PETERSBURG—The Florida Holocaust Museum announced the program for its 21st annual To Life event. This year’s theme is The Power of Stories. To Life, held in benefit for the museum, is scheduled for 5:30 p.m.-9 p.m. April 17 at the Mahaffey Theater. The main program will feature renowned film and theater critic Jeffrey Lyons interviewing three-time Tony award winner, Sheldon Harnick. Best known as the acclaimed lyricist for “Fiddler on the Roof,” Harnick also holds the distinguished Pulitzer Prize for “Fiorello!” WFLA-TV news anchor Gayl...
By Richard Ries If you walk into Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer’s office and see a wood carved alligator, you might naturally assume it was made in Florida. However, you’d be guilty of not examining all the evidence. It is in fact one of his favorite souvenirs from a very different state: the State of Israel. With Obama having announced a Middle East trip to include Israel, his first visit as president, I grew curious about Dyer’s own ties to Israel. Sure enough, the mayor of the City Beautiful visit...
Myron N. Blattner, of Altamonte Springs, died on Monday, March 11, 2013. He was 77 years old. A Jacksonville native, Mr. Blattner was born on April 11, 1935, to the late Sidney and Ann Nabin Blattner. He attended area schools and the University of Florida. He moved to the Orlando area from Atlanta in 1974, and among other things, was best known as a successful business broker. He was married to the late Adrienne Blattner, his wife of 40 years, when she passed away in 2007. Mr. Blattner is survived by his son, Marc (Sarah) Blattner of Portland,...
Marcella D. Wolgel of Altamonte Springs, died on Monday, March 11, 2013. She was 84 years old. She was born in St. Louis to the late Abraham and Sarah Komornik Kaner on April 27, 1928. She attended school in Chicago, earning her associate’s degree and becoming a teacher. She was the widow of the late Emanuel Wolgel who passed away in February 2008. Mrs. Wolgel is survived by her son, Phil (Dori) of Altamonte Springs; and her daughters, Sari (Paul) Shifrin of Ann Arbor, Mich., and Nan (Dan) Scott of Ontario; her sister Betty Knussmann of T...
Celebration Jewish Center CJC’s second night Passover seder dinner service will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 26, at Celebration’s Heritage Hall under the spiritual leadership of Rabbi Dr. Richard Cowin. Cowin has selected a Haggadah that will allow for a comprehensive—yet expeditious—seder service. Kosher-style cuisine will be prepared by TooJays Catering of Orlando. The seder dinner buffet menu contains traditional Passover favorites for adults and children—gefilte fish/chopped liver, matzah ball soup, 1/4 roasted chicken, carrot tz...
BOSTON (JTA)—Francine Hermelin Levite and Edgar Bronfman have been using unique versions of the Passover Haggadah for years. Now both have decided to publish their versions of the Exodus story. Hermelin Levite, 43, the mother of three school-aged children, is the author of “My Haggadah: Made it Myself,” (http://madeitmyselfbooks.com), an interactive version for children of the ritual-laden book that is now available on Amazon. Bronfman, 84, the business giant and Jewish philanthropist, offer...
So what else is new?... According to an international agency that studied Israel’s delivery of health care, the agency finds Israel has a quality system overall (again I repeat, what else is new?) but with some improvements needed. The World Jewish Congress Foundation reports (with asides by me) that “the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), of which Israel is a member, dispatched an international team to the Jewish state more than a year ago to investigate hos...
NEW YORK (JTA)—It’s rare that an Orthodox rabbi chooses to omit an important Jewish ritual in his holiday celebrations. But in the spring of 2000, Rabbi Yosef Lipsker cleared his living room of furniture, set up three large dining tables and invited dozens of people to a special seder that included all the standard Passover observances—except for one. “When it comes to seders, everybody thinks of the four cups of wine drunk during the service,” said Lipsker, a consultant at the Caron Treatment...
In millions of Jewish homes across the world each Passover, a special cup of wine is poured and the door is opened for Elijah the prophet. But how did this tradition start? Who is the prophet Elijah and how can modern Jews relate to this Biblical figure? “Passover is the season of redemption and the Prophet Elijah is seen as a redemptive figure in Judaism. The book of Malachi describes how Elijah will return and announce the coming of the Messiah and redeem his people,” Dr. Marc Shapiro, who...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—If the Passover haggadah seems like hieroglyphics to you, it could be a good thing. Though the Israelites left Egypt presumably to escape the ankhs and eyes of Horus of the ancient written language, recently I discovered that hieroglyphics—a system of pictorial characters—had a way of writing me into the haggadah. Considering that on Passover we are commanded to re-enact an event of which we have no memory, perhaps adding some details from the Egyptian point of view might...
