Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS)-More than 10,000 Jewish and non-Jewish youth from 40 countries and dozens of Holocaust survivors and dignitaries from around the globe participated in the 31st annual International March of the Living, which began on Thursday, May 2. The nearly two-mile march from Auschwitz to Birkenau is a tribute to all victims of the Holocaust and a call for an end to anti-Semitism. For the first time, the event's main ceremony recalled Greek Jewry, which was almost completely annihilated by the Nazis a...
Last month a Jewish student who attends a charter school was given a reading assignment to prepare ninth graders for the Florida Reading FSA on inference of cultural experiences. Upon reading the excerpts, the student became extremely uncomfortable and fearful. He shared his experience with his parents, Eric and Wendy Nissan of Winter Park. When Wendy read the excerpts, she, too, was shaken by what her son was reading in the classroom. What concerned her was the content in the excerpts that...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Despite Monday morning’s cease-fire, which ended two days of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, the “campaign is not over,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. “Over the last two days we struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad with great force,” Netanyahu said. “We hit over 350 targets. We struck at terrorist leaders and operatives and we destroyed terrorist buildings. The campaign is not over and it demands patience and sagacity. We are prepared to continue. The goal has been—and remains—ensurin...
(JNS)—The Florida Senate unanimously passed an anti-Semitism bill previously passed unanimously by the Florida House, which adopts the U.S. State Department definition of anti-Semitism and mandates that discrimination against Jewish people be considered similar to acts of racial discrimination in Florida’s public-education institutions. Passed by a vote of 26-0, the bill moves to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it into law. Jewish and pro-Israel groups applauded the bill’s passage. “We praise them for recognizing the need to...
Jewish Academy of Orlando presents Junie B. Jones-The Musical. This full-scale musical production will be presented one night only on May 23, at 7 p.m. at the Wayne Densch Performing Arts Center in Sanford. This high-energy show is based on Barbara Park's best-selling children's books. It follows the sassy but always endearing Junie B. Jones, played by JAO fifth grader Sophia Scheinberg, as she takes on the trials and tribulations of first grade, from best pal drama to getting her first pair of...
Nurture. That is something we want our children to learn how to do. At Orlando Torah Academy, the first grade is getting a hands-on lesson on how to nurture as well as protect. As part of their science curriculum, the first graders have studied life cycles in nature. Students have learned about life cycles of plants and bean seeds to see firsthand how roots, stems, and leaves develop. They also studied butterfly, fish, and frog life cycles. Their studies culminated with learning about the life...
The month of May contains happy, joyous celebrations coupled with sad reflective memorials. Shortly after commemorating our deliverance from Egyptian bondage during Passover, we remember the 6 million who perished in the Shoah. Yom Hashoah occured on May 2 this year. Yom HaZikaron, Israel Memorial Day and Yom HaAtzmaut, Israel Independence Day, followed shortly after on May 8 and 9. On Sunday, May 19, “A Salute to Israel” will take place at The Mayflower of Winter Park, celebrating 71 years of Israeli Independence. This musical and edu...
POWAY, Calif. (JTA)-"Those who are standing can remain standing," Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein joked, a nod to the standing-room-only crowd that had packed Chabad of Poway for Friday night services. For many of those who filled the sanctuary, showing up was an act of faith, of solidarity, of defiance just six days after a gunman entered the synagogue, killing one and injuring three, including the rabbi. Goldstein dedicated this "Shabbat of healing" to Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, who was killed in the...
(JNS)-As they do every year on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Israelis across the country stood at silent attention on Thursday morning as sirens wailed. On Wednesday evening, as Holocaust Remembrance Day began, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin were on hand at the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem to lay a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the course of World War II. At Yad Vashem, six torches were lit by...
(JNS)-The founding rabbi of Chabad of Poway in Southern California spoke at the White House on Thursday, less than a week after his synagogue was attacked, with one woman killed and three others injured. Chabad Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein talked about facing the shooter, 19-year-old John Earnest, even if he got killed. He said that the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, taught to fight darkness with light. "It was that moment that I made a decision: No matter what happens to me, I'm...
(JTA)—On the Shabbat morning of April 27, a 19-year-old with a gun killed Lori Gilbert-Kaye and injured several others at the Chabad of Poway outside of San Diego. But before the sun had set and observant Jews were able to see the news, another teenager decided to take action. The 15-year-old, who asked to be identified only by his first name, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that while he had “never been to Poway,” and doesn’t personally subscribe to the rules of Shabbat, he didn’t want to waste any time in helping raise money. “I though...
(JNS)—In response to the publication of an anti-Semitic cartoon in last Thursday’s International New York Times, protesters gathered outside the Manhattan office of the “Gray Lady” on Monday evening to demand that those responsible for the blatant display of Jew-hatred be fired. Among the speakers at the rally were former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind and eminent law professor Alan Dershowitz, both Jewish Democrats. Hikind led the crowd in chanting, “Shame on The New York Times.” Dershowitz decried the paper’s bias against Israel, and i...
MOSCOW (JTA)—Whether it’s a white supremacist targeting praying Jews, blacks or Muslims, or an Islamic radical committed to killing Christians on Easter Sunday, it has become very trendy to attack houses of worship. In Europe, synagogues unfortunately have been targeted by terrorists for quite some time, including deadly attacks at the Great Synagogue of Vienna in 1981 and the Great Synagogue of Rome in 1982. In the past 15 years, Jewish institutions have been targeted by Muslim radicals in France, Belgium and Denmark. In my own community, on...
The bleeps on the oscilloscope, the respirator assisted breathing and the occasional movement of a leg or an arm are the only evidence that this peaceful old man is engaged in a fierce battle for his life. The fight for life began on a quiet tree-lined street in Central Florida, where the tranquility of a residential neighborhood was shattered by the crashing of an automobile and its unbelted passengers into a magnificent oak tree. The tree, a stately manifestation of nature’s wonders, had sustained life for so many years. She had provided s...
A few months back, I had the opportunity to attend a Shabbat community discussion about the Middle East. Being a new father, it had been a while since engaging in such meaningful dialogue. As my wife and I take our seats with our 1-year-old, I notice a tired, gray-haired father sitting next to his daughter, a college freshman. I smile at the thought of that being us in 18 years. The rabbi turns the topic to the age-old question of Israel’s geographic existence and its right to exist there in the future. He asks the participants to think a...
The horrific shooting attack on the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California has generated a variety of responses and recommendations, from tolerance education to firearms instruction to increasing synagogue attendance as a show of defiance. Remarkably, however, one of the most obvious possible responses to anti-Semitic violence has been almost completely absent from the post-shooting dialogue: Aliyah. Immigration by American Jews to Israel has never been more than a trickle—typically 2,000 to 3,000 annually, less than one-fourth of one percent o...
(JNS)—There are no words for the experience of commemorating the horrific death, together with Holocaust survivors, on the sacred grounds of the Birkenau extermination camp, where more than 1 million Jews were sent to the gas chambers and crematoriums just 75 years ago. March of the Living, over the past 31 years, has brought nearly 300,000 Jews and members of nations around the world to see for themselves the site of one of the most heinous and sophisticated crimes in human history, and to walk the nearly two miles from Auschwitz to B...
Dear friends: I usually don’t express myself on every subject, but the attack today in San Diego is different. This time I want my Jewish brothers and sisters around the world, and especially in the USA, to know that attacks against Jewish people, or against Jewish symbols, anywhere in the world, is hurting us in Israel as is if it was here. True, we have our differences, and yes, we find ourselves many times seeing thing differently—but we are one nation, and we feel the pain of the Jewish community of San Diego today as if it was ours. Few...
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 Isr...
(JTA)—The New York Times editorial board said in an editorial published Tuesday that the newspaper’s publishing of “an appalling political cartoon” is “evidence of a profound danger—not only of anti-Semitism but of numbness to its creep.” The newspaper also acknowledged its own historical contributions to the rise of anti-Semitism. “In the 1930s and the 1940s, The Times was largely silent as anti-Semitism rose up and bathed the world in blood,” it wrote. “That failure still haunts this newspaper.” The editorial said that “anti-Semitic imagery i...
Late winter and early spring, with the festive and fun holidays of Purim and Passover to celebrate, is a very busy time for Jewish Pavilion program directors, who each plan and lead dozens of programs in just a few weeks. For Cantor Lance Rhodes, the Jewish Pavilion's newest program director, beginning his job just before the Purim holiday was a wonderful way to introduce himself to the residents and staffs of the south Orlando facilities he now serves. Part of what made his March beginning so s...
(JNS)-On Holocaust Memorial Day (Yom Hashoah) on May 2, under the theme "Say No to Anti-Semitism," more than 10,000 Jewish and non-Jewish youth from 40 different countries, together with dozens of Holocaust survivors and dignitaries from around the world, participated in the 31st annual International March of the Living to pay tribute to all victims of the Holocaust and call for an end to anti-Semitism. A delegation of U.S. ambassadors and White House representatives, headed by U.S. Ambassador...
KRAKOW, Poland (JTA)-At the age of 93, Holocaust survivor Ed Mosberg is saying his goodbyes to the city of his birth. Flanked by two physicians who accompanied him all the way from New Jersey, Mosberg, who made his fortune in construction after surviving several Nazi concentration camps, traveled here Tuesday as he has done for at least 20 years to participate in the commemorative March of the Living through the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz near Krakow. But suffering from recently diagnosed...
Oops... In one of my columns I wrote about the wonderful Henri Landwirth and his family. However, I neglected to mention his dear sister, Margot Glazer. Please forgive me! Oh boy! It's getting worse... I'm referring to anti-Semitism. Actually, the awful crime that happened today (the day I am writing this column is April 27) at the Altman Family Chabad Synagogue in Poway, California, was, so far as I write this, labeled a hate crime by many, including the Mayor of Poway, (just north of San...
(JTA)—For most of his adult life, Sammy Ghozlan has worked with French authorities fighting crime. Ghozlan, 75, started as a police officer, ascending through the ranks to become a police commissioner in the Paris area. And since 2002 he has headed one of French Jewry’s most prominent watchdog groups. The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, specializes in documenting hate crimes against Jews and helping victims bring offenders to justice. Ghozlan, who moved to Israel in 2015, “generally had confidence in the Frenc...
