Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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On March 21, Congregation Sinai of Clermont had a special Shabbat service to honor Matthew Cohen, who, along with his late wife Bea, have been Congregation Sinai’s largest benefactors. Cohen has generously contributed the synagogue’s two Torahs, the Ner Talmud and monies to help the congregation refresh their current sanctuary, as well as his donation of many prayer books. The Beatrice Cohen Memorial Fund was set up to help with Congregation Sinai’s children’s education. Cohen and his wife Claire are moving back to Philadelphia and the members...
BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA)-Plucking a violin on an empty stage, an animated scene of Manhattan skyscrapers scrolling behind her pregnant body, the musician, poet and Torah scholar Alicia Jo Rabins begins to sing what sounds like a mystical incantation of sorts. "Bring me your empty jar, I will fill it," she intones. "Where it comes from, I can't tell you, no one knows." Inspired by the biblical story of the prophet Elisha, Rabins, 37, is musing in the broadest possible terms about the crimes of...
AMSTERDAM (JTA)-To millions worldwide, she is a symbol of heroism and a haunting reminder of the dangers of discrimination. But for one Dutch entertainment firm, Anne Frank is a brand name powerful enough to merit millions of dollars of investment. Last week, the Amsterdam-based production company Imagine Nation announced plans to open a huge theater in Amsterdam that will feature only one show: a new play, "ANNE," about the life of the young Jewish diarist. The first production based on the...
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Nancy Glickman was a teenager when she heard the story about her father at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin: Marty Glickman and another Jewish sprinter, Sam Stoller, were replaced as members of the 400-meter relay team for the U.S. squad on the morning of the event. Asking her father about the slight one night, he pulled out his uniform from the bottom drawer of a large dresser to display it. Right...
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Maccabi Tel Aviv reportedly is heading back to the United States this fall for its first exhibition games against NBA teams in five years – but greater developments appear to be in the works for the iconic franchise and Israeli basketball. For one, how about NBA squads making the trans-Atlantic flight to play regular-season games in Israel, and an Israeli club flying the other way to play in North America? First, the exhibitions, which have yet to be confirmed: Tel Aviv will m...
Fifteen seconds. That's how long a resident of Sderot has from the time a Code Red alert is announced until a Palestinian rocket strikes the town or is intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. In other southern Israeli communities, one might have 30 seconds, maybe even a minute. But it's never very long. Israelis fell asleep to sirens March 12 and awoke to sirens March 13 while enduring a barrage of at least 60 rockets launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, the largest...
(JNS.org) In the largest terrorism-related forfeiture in U.S. history, the U.S. government has agreed to distribute the proceeds of the sale of an Iran-linked Manhattan skyscraper and other buildings to the families of the victims of Iranian-sponsored terror attacks. The 36-story skyscraper located on 5th Avenue and West 52nd Street is majority owned by the Alavi Foundation, a non-profit organization that runs Islamic centers and promotes Persian culture. A 2009 lawsuit by the U.S. government claimed that the Alavi Foundation and two minority...
Report: Abbas threatens to dismantle Palestinian Authority JERUSALEM (JTA)—Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reportedly threatened to dismantle the P.A. Citing unnamed Palestinian sources, the Israeli daily Yediot Acharonot wrote Sunday that Abbas was considering the unilateral action, which would leave Israel with full responsibility for the Palestinians living in the West Bank. The action would annul the 1993 Oslo Accords. “A new generation arrives and asks us: ‘What have you done?’ I am now 79 years old, I cannot escape from pa...
NEW YORK (JTA)—When a 2009 Holocaust-era assets conference concluded with a landmark statement of principles on Holocaust restitution, many restitution advocates had high hopes that a corner had been turned in the struggle for survivor justice. The Terezin Declaration, which had the support of 46 countries participating in the conference in the Czech Republic, outlined a set of goals for property restitution. It recognized the advancing age of Holocaust survivors and the imperative of delivering them aid and justice in their final years. ...
NEW YORK (JTA)-The United States is the only industrialized country in the world not to mandate paid maternity leave, and only 11 percent of private-sector American employees have access to it. But a growing list of Jewish nonprofits are now offering or expanding paid maternity leave, the result of a push by Advancing Women Professionals, a communal advocacy group. Persuading scores of Jewish organizations to add paid benefits during a recession was no easy feat. Leaders of many organizations...
(JNS.org)—The Obama administration notified Iran and the United Nations that it would deny a visa to newly appointed Iranian Ambassador to the U.N. Hamid Aboutalebi, who was part of an extremist student group that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979, taking 52 U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days. The administration’s decision comes after the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would bar entry into the U.S. by any proposed U.N. representative who has engaged in espionage or terrorism or who may pose a thr...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Alan Gross did not warn his family he was launching a hunger strike, but hearing the news, they understood why: The U.S. government subcontractor languishing in a Cuban prison feels forgotten. Gross, a 64-year-old Jewish father of two from Potomac, Md., is currently serving a 15-year sentence in Cuba for “crimes against the state.” He was arrested in December 2009 while on a mission to hook up Cuba’s small Jewish community with the Internet. The company he was working for had a contract with the U.S. Agency for Interna...
Carl Sagan fans old and new have been gazing at their televisions in awe as host Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson’s resurrection of the science epic “Cosmos” takes them on a journey from the Big Bang, to microscopic one-celled organisms, to the ascent of man, to beyond the stars and planets. The return of “Cosmos”—which launched in March and runs for 13 episodes on the Fox network, ending June 2—provides an opportune time to remember Sagan, the show’s Jewish creator. An American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, and author, Sagan was born to Refo...
