Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — A Pennsylvania man will be charged with terrorism and attempted murder after allegedly firebombing the official residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro, hours after Shapiro and his family hosted a Passover seder there. On Saturday, Shapiro posted a picture of a table set for the seder on social media, with the message, “From the Shapiro family’s Seder table to yours, happy Passover and Chag Pesach Sameach!” On Sunday, he shared that Pennsylvania State Police officers had awoken him and his family at 2 a.m. to alert them that an arsonist had set...
(JTA) — Nearly 1,000 active and retired reservists in Israel’s Air Force have called for their government to strike a deal to release Israeli hostages in exchange for an immediate end to the war in Gaza, arguing that the fighting endangers the captives’ lives as well as innocent civilians. In response, the Air Force said it would dismiss any active-duty reservists who signed the letter, accusing them of using the force’s “brand” to voice their opinion. “Refusal to serve is refusal to serve — even if it implied and in polite language,” Prim...
(JNS) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said that he couldn’t understand why Israel ever gave up the Gaza Strip. During a press conference in the Oval Office on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the president said, “They took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace. How did that work out? Not good.” Netanyahu traveled from Hungary to Washington, D.C., on Sunday for an unplanned visit to resolve a tariff dispute. Referring to Netanyahu, Trump said he knew that “this man” would never have done it. “He w...
(JNS) — I watched Eli Sharabi. An eyewitness to horror. A forced journey through hell. I have no right to claim understanding. How can anyone? Empathy is the only tool of the imagination to relate, but for these hostages, there is no precedent. Hearing him, I ask myself — could I remain this composed? He must be numb. How can he process 491 days of forced and torturous containment? He is now a free man in a deal with the devil. “Where are my wife and daughters?” he asks in the Israel hospital intake room. He learns for the first time that they...
(JNS) — It’s been 18 months since Hamas’s invasion of Israel and the barbaric pogrom that followed. Hamas is still holding and torturing hostages. The Israel Defense Forces is still fighting not just Hamas but also Hamas’s allies, all of them guided and supported by the jihadi regime in Tehran. That’s the bad news. The good news: Painfully but steadily, Israelis have been making progress against enemies who intend not to subjugate but to exterminate them. Israel’s first War of Independence, 1948-49, lasted 20 months. This one will take longer...
(JNS) — Ron Tomer, head of the Manufacturers Association of Israel, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to warn against the “severe consequences” that would result from President Donald Trump’s slated 17 percent tariff on Israeli exports to the United States. Tomer wasn’t alone in his reaction to Trump’s new trade policy. Indeed, since “Liberation Day” was declared on April 2, forecasts of gloom and doom have been rampant, particularly among those whose view of Trump was already dim. One Israeli economist who rejects the hysteria of his...
(JNS) — Jews have long been champions of freedom of speech in the United States, yet they often have not hesitated to advocate canceling speakers who are antisemitic or virulently anti-Israel. Many Jews feel that those who spread hatred against them or Israel should face consequences, but they are frequently uneasy about the mechanisms used to deliver those consequences. This ambivalence was true before Donald Trump returned to the White House but has become more prevalent since his administration began taking aggressive steps against a...
(JNS) — Each year in the weeks leading up to Passover, I sit down with my children, one on one, for something I’ve come to cherish deeply: preparing a personal d’var Torah, or Torah thought, ahead of our family seder. It’s become a quiet tradition in our home—time carved out not for homework or logistics but for Torah. For ideas. As my son, Jake, and I began to think about the topic for this year’s d’var Torah, we turned to the Haggadah for inspiration. What we struck was the proverbial jackpot of ideas, where Torah and family history are i...
(JNS) — The name “West Bank” conjures up visions of a complex and contentious region of the Middle East. As Mike Huckabee’s nomination to be ambassador to Israel nears confirmation and his unapologetically Christian point of view comes to the fore, there’s increasing discussion of the label itself. The time has come to return to the true, historical, biblical names of Judea and Samaria — names that reflect the deep, millennia-old connection between the Jewish people and their ancestral homeland. Last month, House Foreign Affairs Committee c...
MORNING 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 of Orlando — Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Temple Israel — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3...
(JTA) - TEL AVIV - As an American immigrant to Israel, Lital Friedman knows a thing or two about pancakes - including that Israel's crepe-style versions don't often stack up favorably against the fluffy style popular in the United States. But she didn't make the trip from Jerusalem to the American-style pancake pop-up in Tel Aviv's Sarona Market for culinary reasons. She came because Keith Siegel's Pancake House honors the former hostage long known for his Shabbat-morning tradition of making...
(JTA) - Picture a Jew in Miami. Is the person you're thinking of older? Perhaps a retiree from New York - complete with the accent - who lives in a condo on the beach? According to a recent Jewish population study of Miami-Dade County, at least part of that snapshot is becoming outdated. The southeast corner of the Sunshine State is growing - and getting younger. The new document, released Monday and titled "Jewish Miami: A 2024 Community Study," found that the Jewish population of Miami-Dade...
(JNS) - Israeli cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen, whose iconic daily cartoons were published by JNS over the last several years, died at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba on Monday after a lengthy illness at 87. After making aliyah in 1971, the Brooklyn-born Kirschen began sketching his trademark "Dry Bones" cartoons in 1973. The cartoon was internationally syndicated and published in The Jerusalem Post for 50 years, after which Kirschen moved to JNS. The name of Kirschen's comic strip referred to the...
My grandmother, Ida, was a consistent nurturer and protector in my life. Since my parents did not yet have their own place when I was born, her home was my first. And because my mother had surgery and a lengthy hospital stay after my birth, Grandmom started off as my primary caregiver. Family stories have it that Grandmom placed a colorful ribbon in my baby carriage and stroller to ward off evil spirits. And whenever anyone remarked “what a beautiful child” or “look at those dimples!” she wou...
Given that one in five Americans will develop skin cancer by age 70, it’s crucial to understand the basics of skin cancer so you can monitor your own skin for changes. Let’s review the essentials of four types of skin cancer: melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, and Merkel cell carcinoma. The positive news is that early detection and treatment by a dermatologist can often eradicate skin cancer with minimal scarring. In essence, skin cancer occurs when cells in the epidermis, the outer skin layer, grow uncontrollably due to...
This is the conclusion of Simonds' journal of the Orlando delegation of the JLI-Land and Spirit trip to Israel. Day 5 (Friday, March 21) City of David – A walking tour of the area that was the palace for King David, and then the Administration for King Solomon when he built the Temple. Amazing history that included a tour of the tunnel that was used to draw water from the river whenever the city was under siege. In fact, it was through this tunnel that David was able to capture Jerusalem. The s...
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando is proud to announce that the 2025 Kobrin Family Scholarship application is now available. Established in 1990, this college scholarship is awarded to a qualified, full-time, graduating high school student in the Jewish communities of Orange, Osceola or Seminole County who will be attending the University of Central Florida. The scholarship is available in the amount of $2,500 per year for a maximum of four (4) years. Scholarship recipients must maintain a 3.1 GPA each year while at UCF in order to...
The Restock & Rebuild Challenge began on April 7 and runs through May 4. Every donation to Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando during the Restock & Rebuild Challenge is being generously matched dollar for dollar by The Weiner Family and The Winter Park Wealth Group, with a total match of up to $40,000. JFS Orlando continues to meet the increasing needs of our community by food assistance in the Pearlman Pantry to those seeking help coping with the stress of near poverty through JFS’s Counseling services or working to improve their l...
This beautiful time of year is the heart of spring in Israel. Once Purim ends, people fall into a cleaning frenzy. In my yishuv, Susya, you can read the daily messages of people giving away "chometz" starting the day after Purim: "Giving away breadcrumbs, pasta, and cornflakes ... will throw out on Friday. It is sitting in our entranceway," people write. Sometimes a photo is posted with the words "giving away" in Hebrew. And then there are the sales - locally made olive oil in five-kilo...
In parts II, III and IV, four prime ministers — David Ben Gurion, Yitzak Rabin, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon — will be discussed. David Ben Gurion 1948-54; 1955-63 Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, was faced with the decision: Accepting a Jewish State on a portion of historical Palestine, relinquishing the balance to the Palestinian Arabs; or losing U.S. support for the UN’s declaration for creation of the new Jewish State. In lieu of that declaration, the UN would probably have established a Trusteeship over the entire...
Jewish Family Services Orlando programs have helped countless families for decades are in danger of being shuttered and President Philip Flynn III is heartsick. Over 20,000 people each year rely on JFS's Family of Services. These vital programs keep those most vulnerable in the community from homelessness with the Family Stabilization Program, address food insecurity through the Pearlman Food Pantry, provide mental health counseling through the Counseling, Growth, & Development program, and...
(JNS) — Below is the full text of the statement delivered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu alongside U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on April 7, 2025: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Donald. I want to first thank you for inviting me again to the White House. You’ve been a remarkable friend of the State of Israel. You stand by us, you’re standing with us, you’re a great, great champion of our alliance and you actually do things that you say you do. And I think people respect that enormously. I certainly do, and th...
(JNS) — In early March, during a family trip to Tel Azekah near Beit Shemesh, three-and-a-half-year-old Ziv Nitzan from Moshav Ramot Meir stumbled upon an extraordinary piece of history — an ancient scarab amulet dating back approximately 3,800 years. The young girl’s discovery was purely accidental, according to her sister, Omer Nitzan. “We were walking along the path when Ziv bent down and picked up a particular stone,” she said, according to a press release published by the Israel Antiquities Authority. “After rubbing off the sand, we sa...
IDF dismantles kilometer-long Hamas tunnel in Gaza By JNS Staff (JNS) — The IDF announced on Monday that it had destroyed a kilometer-long (0.6 miles) Hamas tunnel in the Beit Lahiya area amid its ongoing operations in northern and central Gaza. Separately, Israeli troops also uncovered a rocket production workshop, as well as launchers, according to the Israel Defense Forces. Dozens of terrorists have been eliminated, the military added. “IDF troops will continue to operate against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip to protect the citiz...
(JTA) - George Orwell disliked peace propaganda as much as he disliked war propaganda. Like war propaganda, he wrote, peace propaganda "concentrates on putting forward a 'case,' obscuring the opponent's point of view and avoiding awkward questions." I spent an Orwellian few days watching new documentaries about Oct. 7 and its aftermath, specifically on how the Hamas attacks in Israel and the fallout from Israel's war in Gaza played out in the United States. "October 8," a film about how American...
