Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Sunday afternoon, April 23, six Holocaust survivors lit candles to commemorate the loss of six million Jews during World War II at the hands of the Third Reich. A seventh candle was lit to honor those who helped rescue and hide Jewish people at their own risk, and their liberators. Shown here are six of the survivors (l-r) Pierre Haskenson, Sonja Marchesano, Henri Goodheim, Helen Greenspun and Abraham Gold. Tess Wise is in the inset shown lighting the first candle. The service was held at... Full story
By Christine DeSouza There are many dedicated people at The Roth Family JCC. How does one select just one to receive the Harriet Weiss JCC Legacy Award? This award was established last year to recognize one person who has paved the way for others and leave a legacy for others to carry the torch for future generations. The award itself was named in honor of its first recipient – Harriet Weiss, who's name is practically synonymous with the JCC 39ers, the main stage theater program and the C... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The Texas House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill banning state entities from dealing with businesses that boycott Israel or its settlements. The bill approved Thursday follows the state Senate’s approval of a similar bill in March by overwhelming numbers. Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign a reconciled version of both bills next month. In statements, pro-Israel groups that lobbied for the bills praised its passage. “The relationship between the Jewish state and the Lone Star State is built upon shared value... Full story
This May, Jewish Academy of Orlando celebrates women at its second annual Lady Luck, A Night Out with the Girls. The school invites all women for a night of fashion, food, wine and live music. "There is no event like this," says Alan Rusonik, head of school. "This event is all about the women." Tuni will be hosting a fashion show featuring local moms. There will be live music playing while the ladies eat, drink, play casino games, pose in the photo booth and shop with some local vendors. "Grab... Full story
A day after convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti wrote a New York Times op-ed that omitted his crimes and terrorist organization membership and sparked scathing rebuke from the international community, the newspaper added a brief editor's note acknowledging the murder and terror-related convictions that led to his imprisonment. The April 16 piece-where the Times referred to Barghouti as a "Palestinian leader and parliamentarian"-was slammed by Israeli officials and Jewish leaders in... Full story
Palestinian terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti was head of the Fatah supreme committee in the West Bank and leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, which between September 2000 and April 2002 carried out thousands of terror attacks against Israel. The following are some of the more heinous terror attacks for which he is responsible: • Jun 12, 2001—The murder of a Greek Orthodox monk on the road to Ma’ale Adumim. • Jan 17, 2002—The shooting attack during a bat mitzvah celebration at a banquet hall in Hadera. Six Israelis were killed in this attack, 26 we... Full story
(JNS.org) A record number of Jews—approximately 1,600—visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the seven-day Passover holiday this year, breaking last year’s record of 1,015 during the same time, according to non-profit organization Yirah. Additionally, a record number of Jewish visits to the Temple Mount in a single day—495—also occurred during the Passover holiday. That exceeds the previous record of 448 visits set during last year’s Sukkot festivities. The highest number of Jewish visits to the Temple Mount was also set during Sukk... Full story
(JNS.org) Newly released United Nations documents reveal that the Allied powers knew about the Jewish Holocaust carried out by Hitler's Nazi regime at least two-and-a-half years earlier than previously thought. As early as December 1942, the United States, the United Kingdom and the former Soviet Union were aware that at least two millions Jews were massacred by the Nazi regime, according to the British media outlet The Independent. And an additional five million Jews were at risk of being murde... Full story
During the spring of 2017, CAMERA sponsored ex-IDF soldier Hen Mazzig to speak on 17 college campuses. On one of his last stops was the University of Central Florida where Knights for Israel hosted Hen to speak about his life, his family, and his service. He began the night speaking about his family background and their journey from Tunisia and Iraq to Israel. His family belonged to the Amazigh tribe in Tunisia and he shared his grandparents’ accounts of the tiny Jewish community within the tribe. He spoke about how his grandmother fled Iraq d... Full story
The Tampa Orlando Pinellas Jewish Foundation will honor all those who have remembered a Tampa or Pinellas Jewish organization with a gift in their wills, trusts, retirement accounts, or life insurance policies. This celebration for the Tampa and Pinellas communities will be on Tuesday evening, May 23, from 5:30 until 7 p.m. at Congregation Ohev Shalom, 613 Concourse Parkway South, Maitland. At TOP, we believe that philanthropy is a family affair, so we’ve planned an evening for all generations. We’ll celebrate with delicious hors d’o... Full story
It is that time of year once again when Heritage Florida Jewish News is putting out feelers for one outstanding person in the Jewish community who has given his or her time or talent or monetary gifts to better the Orlando Jewish community. Nominations for the 2017 Heritage Human Service Award are now being accepted and the award will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando. “For more than 27 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the C... Full story
Celebrating 39 years of commitment to serving the community, JFS Orlando is hosting its annual Spring Brunch on Sunday, May 21, 11 a.m. The event will be held at the historic Dubsdread Ballroom, located at 549 W. Par Street in Orlando. Individual tickets are $118 and sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, contact Amanda Benedit at 407-644-7593 Ext. 227 or amanda.benedit@jfsorlando.org.... Full story
As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan assumed near-dictatorial powers following his dubious victory in a constitutional referendum April 16, Andrew Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina, was marking his sixth month of incarceration inside a Turkish prison. Brunson, who has lived in Turkey with his family for the last 23 years, was the head of the Resurrection Church in the coastal city of Izmir—that is, until he was detained last October on the vague and unsubstantiated charge of “membership in an armed terrorist org... Full story
What is the one value that the Jewish community should care most about? To listen to many who run Jewish organizations and communal philanthropies, the answer is inclusion. At a time when it is difficult to engage young people, maintaining a “big tent” is a sacred concept. Drawing a line and declaring those on the other side to be outside the community is not merely seen as divisive, but as antithetical to the preservation of the community. But the left-wing group that calls itself Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) seems determined to prove tha... Full story
YouTube is one of the marvels of the Electronic age. You can play eight hours of the singers and jazz artists of the 1940s. You can take a Friday and play Yiddish and Israeli music all the way up to Shabbat. And then there are the other sites. Rachel and I were scrolling and typed in “History of the Jews.” The first video that came up was a vile attack on the Jews from some obscure group that shall remain nameless. Basically it said we had a chance given to us by God and blew it by not recognizing the Messiah and then killing Jesus. It the... Full story
In 1998, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. After chemotherapy and the removal of my left lung, have been cancer free for 19 years. Luckily, I am able to say that I am a lung cancer survivor. I am one of the lucky ones, because in our country, every five minutes a woman learns she has lung cancer. And the rate of new cases in women has almost doubled in the last 39 years. Yet getting tested for lung cancer is not a top-of-mind cancer concern for 98 percent of women. For many, early detection is key. Only 16 percent of people are diagnosed at an... Full story
Recently, I had a chance to spend a day with one of my closest friends from law school. Near the end of our time together, he shared the story of the passing of his mother whom I had the pleasure of meeting many decades ago. Towards the end the end of her life, she was hospitalized with pneumonia. The doctor told her oldest son that she would not be able regain her strength unless a feeding tube was inserted. Her son decided against the feeding tube on the grounds that his mother had lived a full life—she was then 96—and that the operation ent... Full story
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... Full story
Two non-Jewish minority communities in Israel, the Druze (a deviant Shi’a Muslim group) and Circassians (Sunni Muslims whose ancestors were exiled to Palestine from the Caucasus), are subject to mandatory conscription to the IDF. Additionally, members of several Bedouin tribes volunteer as well as a growing number of individual Muslim and Christian Arabs. The decision of the first two groups to accept obligatory service in a special “minorities unit” the Israeli military forces was made at their own request. As early as the summer of 1948,... Full story
(JTA)-Strong women are right in actor Jessica Chastain's wheelhouse. There's Maya, the fictional CIA agent in "Zero Dark Thirty," whose work led Seal Team Six to Osama bin Laden; Melissa Lewis, the heroic mission commander who refuses to abandon a teammate in "The Martian," and Elizabeth Sloan, the accept-no-prisoners Washington lobbyist who takes on the gun industry in "Miss Sloan." "I look for characters that challenge the status quo," Chastain, who snagged a Golden Globe for her work in "Zero... Full story
Delaney Jill Rosenblatt, daughter of Seth and Jessica Rosenblatt of Altamonte Springs, will be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah on Saturday, May 6, 2017, at Congregation Beth Am in Longwood. Delaney is in the seventh grade at Teague Middle School where she is a member of the symphonic band, jazz band, bridge club, and National Junior Honor Society. She is also a member of the Lake Brantley Rowing Association. Her hobbies and interests include reading, playing saxophone, spending time with... Full story
Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, is a moment to pause and honor the six million Jews who lost their lives during the Holocaust and reflect on the ways we carry their memory forward in our own lives. As the late Israeli President Shimon Peres once said at Yad Vashem, "The history of the Holocaust is not just a lesson from the past, it is also a lesson for the future." In this spirit, Central Florida Hillel recently hosted two Holocaust survivors, Henri Goodheim and Helen Greenspun, to meet... Full story
Oy vay department!... I watched an entire four hours of Nazi stories on television the other day. So much of it reminded me of Twitler... oops, I meant Hitler. Anti-Semitism all over again?... I received a letter from Rabbi MARVIN HIER, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and pass it along in part: "When I delivered an invocation at the presidential inauguration, I hoped to do my share to help begin to unite a divided country. Afterwards, people of all origins, faiths and... Full story
In the Czech language, Poslední prání translates to last wish. Seventy-five years ago today, in Nazi-occupied Bohemia my Jewish grandfather Arnošt Holzer sat down at his desk in Prague and wrote his Poslední prání in a letter to my father (the date was April 21, 1942). By then, my young physician Dad, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer had fled his native land in 1939 and become a stateless refugee in China. By 1942, he’d made his way to America. Four months before the message was written, the US declared war on Germany, barring father and son from letter... Full story
"The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust," by Amos N. Guiora Consider this dilemma: You are a bystander and witness to a crime. Should your intervention in an attempt to prevent that crime be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough? On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Week, law professor and author Amos. N. Guiora addresses these profoundly important and timely questions in his new book, "The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust," published earlier... Full story
