Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA)-A shooting at a Chabad synagogue in Poway, near San Diego, California, has left one person dead and three injured, including a child. Police in Poway detained a white 19-year-old San Diego man in connection with the shooting on the last day of Passover, and hospitals said they were taking in the wounded people. The suspect left an "open letter" prior to the morning attack, law enforcement said. "A man has been detained for questioning in connection with a shooting incident at the Chabad...
(JNS)-At the sixth BDS National Conference on March 16 in Ramallah, the BDS National Committee presented a comprehensive 2019-2020 strategic plan for the movement, focusing on expanding boycott practices, implementing a strict "anti-normalization" policy with Israel and seeking to lobby key international organizations such as the European Union against Israel. Conference workshops were focused on BDS policies, labor sectors and trade unions, normalization standards and BDS efforts in the...
The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida has been awarded a $10 million Orange County Tourism Development Tax grant to build a new museum in downtown Orlando. The award was announced Tuesday, April 23 at the meeting of the Orange County Board of County Commissioners. “We are thrilled and profoundly grateful to the leaders of Orange County and the Tourist Development Tax Review Board for their vision and support. A new museum will reach hundreds of thousands of visitors to our region who increasingly seek more meaningful a...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed back against Sen. Bernie Sanders for calling Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “racist.” The pro-Israel lobby, in a tweet that did not mention the Democratic presidential hopeful by name, said it was counterproductive when American leaders used “name-calling” against their Israeli counterparts. “The U.S.-Israel alliance serves America’s interests,” AIPAC said Tuesday on Twitter. “We benefit from the close bonds between the governments and peoples. Name-calling by pol...
The Dead Sea Scrolls are manuscripts that were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves on the shore of the Dead Sea. These caves were located in Jordan until the Six Day War of 1967 when they came into the possession of Israel. Carbon 14 dating and paleography (the study of the scripts) have determined these scrolls to be about 2000 years old. While some of the scrolls were quite long, most of them have only survived as fragments. Below the caves on the plateau is the settlement of Qumran....
Football defined me. For three years, I was an offensive lineman for the Stetson Hatters Division I football team. We came together every Saturday with one common goal-to win. Our team had 100 players. Early morning practices, roughly 2.5 hours each weekday, were embedded into our weekday routines. Saturday, of course, was game day. When we played in our home stadium, my teammates and I were greeted by the roar of fans dressed in green and white, our school colors. Our away games took us across...
With the large and growing number of seniors living in Lake and Sumpter counties, where the sprawling The Villages development acts as a magnet for retirees, it was only natural that the Orlando Senior Help Desk began receiving more and more calls from those areas. As staff researched and networked to help callers find the answers they sought, it became clear that there is a large and unmet need in that region for the kind of in-depth and compassionate information and referral services that the...
Because her positions on BDS, Israel, and the Jewish people have made Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib a controversial figure among the freshman congressmen and women in the U.S. government, Heritage wanted to take the opportunity to hear and possibly interview her at a recent Emgage Gala, held at the Crown Plaza in Orlando. Emgage is an organization that seeks to “engage, educate and empower Muslim, South Asian and Arab American communities through educational events, voter initiatives, and leadership development for the purpose of creating a c...
(JNS)-With U.S. President Donald Trump nominating Acting U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Jonathan Cohen to be U.S. ambassador to Egypt, the nomination of Kelly Craft, announced in February, might finally be submitted to the Senate in the near future. That would enable the continuation of the administration's pro-Israel agenda at Turtle Bay, which has included calling out the anti-Israel bias long associated with the United Nations, as well as withdrawing from the U.N. Human Rights Council...
(JNS)—Several international funding platforms are severing ties with the BDS organization Samidoun after its purported ties to a Palestinian terrorist group. According to an email obtained by JNS from the International Legal Forum, PayPal said it would “thoroughly review” Samidoun’s account, and that it will “take further action as appropriate in this case.” Following similar complaints, Samidoun’s accounts with both Donorbox and Plaid have been removed. Yifa Segal, director of the International Legal Forum, told JNS that Samidoun is clearly af...
POWAY, California (JTA)-Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who was killed in the attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, is credited with jumping in front of the synagogue's rabbi to shield him from the gunman's bullets. Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of San Diego, is survived by her husband and 22-year-old daughter. "Lori you were a jewel of our community a true Eshet Chayil, a Woman of Valor," her friend Audrey Jacobs, a community activist, wrote in a post on Facebook. "You were always running to do a mitzvah (good...
(JNS)—You didn’t have to be French or Catholic to see the devastating fire at Notre-Dame de Paris as a tragedy for all humanity. The horrifying video of the flames engulfing the 13th-century structure and the iconic spire falling prompted heartfelt laments from a broad cross-section of persons, regardless of background or faith, who saw the great cathedral as a symbol of the best of Western civilization, or as many of them put it, “Judeo-Christian heritage.” Those words used to be considered an anodyne phrase that invoked the shared traditi...
(JNS)—For years, French daily Le Monde was one of the pillars of France’s large-scale campaign of silence regarding the greatest problem the country, Europe and the West in general have with radical Islam: Faced with increasing violence on the part of large immigrant Arab and Muslim communities in the Parisian suburbs, France’s elites and the local establishment have created an alternate reality in which one cannot call the problem by its name. Terrorism wasn’t really terrorism, but a reflection of an inferiority complex, cultural differences a...
(JNS)—Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), who intends to run for president again in 2020, has added another “pearl” to his library of remarks about Israel, characterizing its right-wing government as “racist.” As with his previous attacks, Sanders didn’t explain his use of one of the worst insults that exist in American and Western discourse. Average onlookers (and there were tens of millions of them because what he said was immediately disseminated via social media and printed in countless newspapers) were expected to simply believe him. The problem...
(JTA)—On April 15, Notre Dame burned. The grief wracked not only Paris and the French nation, but quickly reverberated around the world. Under the gaze of its crumbling gargoyle guards, Notre Dame has witnessed nearly a millennium of Parisian history. Its altar was a site for the weddings of kings and queens. Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor beneath its buttressed ceiling. In 1944, celebrations marked the end of the German occupation. Underneath the stories of heartbreak over a global architectural wonder scarred by flames, h...
(JNS)—Some liberal American Jewish organizations are urging U.S. President Donald Trump to oppose Israeli annexation of any part of Judea and Samaria. Some conservative Jewish organizations are urging the opposite. Good. It’s time we had a full debate in the American Jewish community about this issue. Serious dialogue and a meaningful conversation are long overdue. Unfortunately, the Anti-Defamation League has gotten the conversation off to a poor start by distorting and misrepresenting some of the key facts that need to be considered. In an...
(JNS)—This coming June, upon the conclusion of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Trump administration will supposedly unveil details of its so-called “deal of the century” to bring an end to the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even before its birth, however, many have already been quick to bury the plan. After all, many of the relevant parties aren’t hiding their reservations, some openly declaring they will refuse to accept it. The Palestinians are looking on forlornly as their dream of having all their demands of Israel deliver...
(JNS)—Change.org is apparently censoring a petition by the watchdog group StopAntisemitism.org calling on U.S. Attorney General William Barr and Elan Carr, the U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism, to investigate the Council on American Islamic Relations and its connections to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). The petition is currently not visible to users who search for it on the Change.org site. “There’s no doubt that Tlaib and Omar have close-knit ties with Hamas affiliated CAIR, and we, as co...
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. Tem...
My husband, Larry, was born the week that the State of Israel was born. For the rest of his life, his birthday celebration would be entwined with the founding of a new country. In 1961, Larry’s entire bar/bat mitzvah class and their families participated in a special presentation conducted by Israeli Bond representatives. As a result, Larry’s parents, along with many other families at the presentation, purchased several bonds in honor of their son’s upcoming simcha. While I was writing this article, Larry wondered aloud if Israel Bonds were...
The Kinneret Council on Aging, a non-profit agency that provides ongoing programs and services to residents of Kinneret Apartments, held a Passover Seder that was shared with fellow residents, family and friends. Seder was celebrated at Kinneret on the second night of Passover with over 50 participants. Leading the seder were Emily Block, associate director of Jewish Student Life for Hillel at Rollins College and Sharon Weil, director at Kinneret Council on Aging. The communal seder was steeped...
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (JTA)-I believe in the Jewish people's right to live in our homeland. That profound belief has no bearing on the rights of others to live here as well. There are Palestinians who live and work in the land of Israel, and while I may seldom agree with the positions of their elected officials, the Palestinians are certainly entitled to live their own lives with the same dignity as anyone else. I also believe in peace, and I deeply wish for peace for all of the Jews and Arabs...
I write in advance... (Actually, almost 2 weeks after the event that shook me to the core). In 2006, my late spouse and I visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. (Of course, not for religious purposes, rather because we considered it one of the wonders of the world and because it is more than 8 centuries old.) I hope it will be rebuilt... and soon, so my children and grandchildren can visit. And speaking of Paris... According to the World Jewish Congress, "In Europe, Judaism is once...
Florida Passover guests left in the lurch when program organizer fails to pay resort or vendors By Josefin Dolsten (JTA)—Guests at a Passover program in Florida faced eviction after it emerged the organizer owed at least $75,000 to the resort, vendors and staff. The A Different Pesach program had promised guests would stay in private villas in Orlando with shared communal spaces, including a synagogue tent, and kosher food for the eight days of Passover. But after hundreds of guests arrived, it emerged that program owner Ben Atkin had not paid...
