Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 37
WASHINGTON (JTA)—With its talk of signal books, sketches and photographic negatives, the Espionage Act suggests a period long ago consigned to Cold War-era thrillers. In fact, the law is even older, first drafted in 1917, at a time when secret orders were conveyed by telegraph and semaphore codes were bound in pocket-sized books weighted with lead so they could be thrown overboard at the approach of the enemy. The era also was the beginning of the Red Scare, the belief that the socialist r... Full story
PALMACHIM, Israel (JTA)—As construction workers pass through sandy corridors between huge rectangular buildings at this desalination plant on Israel’s southern coastline, the sound of rushing water resonates from behind a concrete wall. Drawn from deep in the Mediterranean Sea, the water has flowed through pipelines reaching almost 4,000 feet off of Israel’s coast and, once in Israeli soil, buried almost 50 feet underground. Now, it rushes down a tube sending it through a series of filte... Full story
Jewish National Fund announces that Laura Abramson will be the new campaign executive for Orlando. “My passion for Israel began in 1976 after my first trip to Israel for six weeks,” says Abramson. “A lot has changed since then, but there will always be a need to continue to build the infrastructure of the country and to continue to provide assistance to those that are less fortunate with special programs. I am eager to work with JNF to help enhance the quality of life for Israel’s residen... Full story
The streets in the Aleppo neighborhood of Hannano are piled high with garbage. Flies buzz around putrid bags that extend farther than the eye can see. The refuse has not been collected for months nor are there any plans to do so. Garbage collection is merely another casualty in war that has pulverized everything in this country. Throughout rebel controlled Syria, state services have ceased only to be replaced with hardships. From running water to electricity, services taken for granted have stopped operating. Staples such as medicine and baby f... Full story
Was Judaism the first religion of the early Israelites? Based on archeological evidence, scholars believe our ancestors worshiped more than one deity. According to Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch, the biblical text was written to promote a different idea: that the Israelites were to worship only one God. In “From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends” (The Jewish Publication Society), Shinan and Zakovitch show how, before the Bible appeared in written form, numerous oral traditions pre... Full story
THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (JTA)—On a cold winter night in 2008, Wim Kortenoeven was startled by the crackling of a large fire raging near his home on the edge of this city’s last remaining Jewish enclave. Rushing from his apartment, Kortenoeven walked 70 yards and crossed the line separating his Jewish-owned housing project from the predominantly Muslim borough containing what Dutch media have taken to calling the “Sharia triangle”—Sharia referring to Islamic law. On the seam line, he encoun... Full story
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando, the Orlando-based nonprofit, human service agency, announces its partnership with the Fern Park Winn-Dixie in hosting a scan program now through Tuesday, June 11. Fern Park Winn-Dixie customers will be encouraged to make a monetary donation to JFS at check out. Contributions raised during the program will go directly to JFS’ Pearlman Emergency Food Pantry, which positively impacts more than 20,000 Central Florida residents each year. Fern Park Winn-Dixie customers may also contribute nonperishable food... Full story
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations through today for the 2013 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented in August at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando. “For more than 25 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy, and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” says Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Zena Sulkes. The Herit... Full story
The leadership of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando’s Early Childhood Learning Centers returned in March from the JCCs of North America Professional Conference at the Rosen Plaza Hotel, where they studied together in the JCC Association’s new early childhood framework Sheva. More than 80 early childhood leaders, including directors Carol McNally from the Roth JCC’s Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center in Maitland, and Brenda Sher, from the JCC’s Jack & Lee Rosen Southwest Orlando Campus, learned together for five da... Full story
HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. (JTA)—Over the past few weeks, strangers have begun stopping high school computer science teacher Chaim Cohen on the street. A few accuse him of recording them without their knowledge. Even fewer blame him for all of society’s ills. But many just want an answer to a simple question: Is he wearing Google Glass? Cohen is among the approximately 2,000 developers throughout the United States who are trying out the search giant’s much-hyped wearable computer, a futuristic Inter... Full story
My second-favorite joke about Jewish newspapers takes place in New York in the 1930s. Two Jews are sitting on a bench; Leo is reading the Yiddish paper, Morris is reading the Nazi tabloid Der Sturmer. Leo glares at his friend, asking, “How can you read that Nazi rag?” Unabashed, Morris asks, “What’s your Jewish newspaper reporting? In America, there is a depression going on and the Jews are assimilating. In Palestine, the Arabs are killing Jews. In Germany, they’ve taken away all our rights. You read it and just get more and more depressed. “Yo... Full story
JERUSALEM—On the night we arrived in Israel two weeks ago, my wife and I went for a stroll to see the newly renovated train station complex in the center of town. As we walked through the gates and saw the large, enthusiastic crowds, we realized we were entering not only a beautiful addition to the cultural life of the city but a tangible example of the local government’s efforts to keep Jerusalem relevant and appealing to non-Orthodox Israelis and tourists. Indeed, it doesn’t take long for a visitor in this country to sense that tensions betwe... Full story
Things have never been better for many of us. Europeans are quarreling rather than killing one another. Jews are capable of reaching the top of virtually all professions, with decent housing and no worry about gentlemen’s agreements or restrictive covenants, and safe from plunder and pogroms. Life expectancy and other good stuff are at historic heights in much of the world. No longer do we tell our children and grandchildren to clean their plates because Chinese or Indian children are starving There are problems. South Koreans—at levels of deve... Full story
As we witness the latest attempts to restart the comatose peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, we heard about the recent shutting down of Better Place, a much-ballyhooed Israeli venture that aimed to revolutionize the world of electric cars. It’s hard not to see a poetic link between these two failed ventures—one dreamed of being free of war, the other of being free of oil. The closer you look at them, the more similarities you see. First, they both suffered from the poison of too much hype. It’s not true that all publicity is go... Full story
With the beginning of summer comes a time of reflection. School’s out and summer break is starting, so now is a time when we look back at the past year. And this past year was difficult. It included major natural disasters (tornadoes in Oklahoma, Hurricane Sandy) and human tragedy (Boston Marathon bombing, the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary). We sense that our world is in need of repair. And those of us who think of ourselves as global citizens, as well as Jews, feel called to do something to counteract this chaos. Working to fix our b... Full story
It is so very difficult, indeed utterly unbearable, to sit silently by while Jews, and now the general religious and secular communities, completely misuse and distort the term Tikkun Olam—certainly not intentionally or out of any malice, but rather out of ignorance in the pursuit of virtuous goals and principles which may be applicable to general society and civilization but which have tragically become a poor substitute for authentic religious observance. This repair rhetoric has become an obsession, a catch-all credo. Everything today is T... Full story
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday and Thursday, 8 a.m. 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7 a.m.; Sunday, 8 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., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, JUNE 7 Light Shabbat candles at 8:03... Full story
In three-part harmony, a group of more than 50 people—mostly women, mostly middle-aged and older—began chanting a verse from Leviticus: Aish tamid tukad al hamizbei’ach; lo tichbeh (“Fire always shall be kept burning on the altar; it shall not go out”). They were led by Rabbi Shefa Gold, who added an overlay of harmony, drumming, and the droning sound of an accordion-like “shruti box.” As the chant continued, it grew more intensely spiritual, less self-conscious, louder and more harmonious. For three hours on May 19, Gold led participants... Full story
The script reads like this: Israel treats wounded Syrian refugees in its own hospitals. Syria produces a report alleging an “acute shortage of primary and tertiary health care services” in the Golan Heights region. A United Nations agency, citing the Syrian report rather than acknowledging Israel’s actions, condemns Israel. On the surface, this storyline contains several plot twists, but it is not surprising for Dr. Daniel Pipes, president and founder of the Middle East Forum. “The U.N. is a par... Full story
‘Kitchen (and PR) nightmares’ NEW YORK (JTA)—An unsavory appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” turned out to be a PR nightmare for Samy Bouzaglo, the owner of Amy’s Baking Co. in Scottsdale, Ariz. But the Morocco-born Israeli appears to have bigger problems than sassing a reality show host and becoming entertainingly unhinged on Facebook (and then blaming the crazy posts on hackers). Bouzaglo, who runs Amy’s with his wife, Amy, could be facing deportation—to Israel. He was in... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)—Sabina Faynberg decided recently to visit the grave of her cousin Shalom Schwartzbard on a moshav near the Israeli city of Netanya. Going online to find directions, the Jerusalem woman stumbled upon a “Seeking Kin” column that discussed Schwartzbard, who had murdered Semyon Petliura on a Paris street in 1926. Many Jews of the time had held Petliura responsible for instigating pogroms in Ukraine that killed thousands of their relatives and thus believed the killing was justi... Full story
Shades of Mel Gibson… Television’s Military Channel has been showing many WWII films, mostly in honor of Memorial Day and the week after. One of the series titled “Nazi Collaborators,” shows the gathering of Jews in different cities of the German occupation. In most cases, they were loaded on to railway cars and sent off to concentration camps. You know their fate. Some were lucky enough to survive the war and even make it to Israel! Israel is very special to our people. This fact makes the fol... Full story
How do you spell knaidel? (JTA)—An Indian-American boy won a national spelling contest after correctly spelling a Yiddish-derived word. Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee on May 30 by spelling the word “knaidel,” a traditional Jewish dumpling. Mahankali beat out 10 other finalists in the competition, held in Oxon Hill, Md. He won $30,000 in cash, a $2,500 U.S. savings bond from Merriam-Webster and $2,000 worth of reference works from Encyclop... Full story
Early on in Jodi Picoult’s new novel “The Storyteller” (Atria), Josef Weber comments that Sage Singer doesn’t say much in their grief support group, but when she does speak up, she’s a poet. She answers firmly that she’s no poet, but a baker. His response—“Can a person not be two things at once”—foreshadows this story of Nazis, Holocaust victims, survivors and the second and third generations. “The Storyteller,” which reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list just after it was published, is Picoult’s first novel to touch upon the H... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Dov Lipman has staked his budding political career on his reputation as a moderate haredi Orthodox leader, someone uniquely positioned to broker compromise between Israel’s increasingly polarized secular and religious communities. The problem is that Israel’s haredi leaders say he’s not actually haredi. Once seen as a possible bridge between Israel’s growing haredi community and the secular majority, Lipman, a freshman member of Knesset from the centrist Yesh Atid party, has weath... Full story
