Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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The Genealogy Success Story in this issue tells the sad story of young Froim (on right, in the white hat), a newly arrived immigrant, who died 10 days after his fifth birthday. This was discovered through author Gloria Green's genealogy search at one of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando's workshops. Shown here are Grandmother Hinda (Ida) Schwartzman (in black bow), with daughter Jennette Bayles and four grandchildren. 1909. Read the article on this website....
What do Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alexander Hamilton and Aida have to do with discovering your ancestors? To find out, join other genalogists at the 37th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy from July 23–28 at the Disney World Swan Resort in Orlando, Florida. Henry Louis Gates Jr., host of the PBS hit series "Finding Your Roots," will be the featured speaker on "Genetics and Genealogy in America" on Thursday evening at the conference. Some of the many celebrities that Gates has s...
There will be a demonstration for the International Day of al-Quds at Lake Eola Park this evening from 6 p.m.-8 p.m., sponsored by the Muslim Congress (muslimcongress.org). The flier for the International Day of al-Quds says "Let's stand united with all humans of conscience-be they Jews, Christians, or Muslims-for the sake of haqq (truth) and to show support for the innocent civilian victims of global Zionism, false flag operations, imperialism, occupation, neocolonialism, racism, Islamophobia,...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Eighty percent of Jews live in two countries—Israel and the United States—but Jewish organizations are spending more and more of their money elsewhere. Jewish aid to the developing world—the impoverished set of countries your zayde called the “third world”—has grown quickly in the past couple of decades. What used to be a handful of groups has grown to become a constellation of organizations working on anything from solar power in Rwanda to agricultural sustainability in Nepal. Together, the groups aid millions of people. Jewish...
NEW YORK (JTA)-The vast majority of Reform and Conservative rabbis affiliate as Democrats, according to a new study. The study, published Sunday by Yale University, found that more than 80 percent of Reform rabbis, and about 70 percent of Conservative rabbis, affiliate as Democrats. Both were among the top five most Democratic clergy of the Jewish and Christian denominations in the United States, with Reform rabbis topping the list. Among Orthodox rabbis, nearly 40 percent identify as Democrats...
(JTA)-Before he threw Sarah Halimi to her death from a window of her third-story apartment in Paris, 27-year-old Kobili Traore called his Jewish neighbor "Satan" and cried out for Allah. These and other facts about the April 4 incident that shocked French Jewry are known from testimonies and a recording made by a neighbor, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism watchdog. Years before the attack, Traore called a daughter of his 65-year-old victim, whom he beat...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel’s security cabinet agreed to reduce the amount of electricity Israel supplies to the Gaza Strip at the request of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas said he would reduce by 40 percent how much money the P.A. pays Israel to supply the electricity, with a concurrent reduction in the amount of electricity delivered, Haaretz reported. He reportedly made the decision in order to put pressure on Hamas in Gaza. At the security cabinet meeting on Sunday, Israeli military officials described a worsening eco...
Cocktails. Crowds. And a worthy cause! The Citrus Club Young Executive Board and the Citrus Club of Orlando brought all three together on Tuesday, June 6, hosting its monthly "United for a Purpose" event, benefitting The Jewish Pavilion. Jewish Pavilion Marketing Director Pam Ruben commented, "We are grateful to The Citrus Club for putting on a 'happy hour with a heart,' and were thrilled to be the chosen charity of the month by its Young Executive Board. Special kudos to Carina Gerscovich, as...
While it’s summer vacation at school, Congregation Beth Am is not taking the season off as it hosts Shabbat in the Round and special themed shabbatos services to which the entire community is invited. The CBA sanctuary will be arranged in “the round” with the bima moved to the center of the sanctuary. The Torah will be read from the middle of the congregation where everyone can see the text. The Shaliach Tzibor will conduct services from the midst of the congregation, facing the Ark, where all congregants will face each other with the lay l...
The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s RAISE program offers paid employment opportunities and social skills training to young adults with special needs. Online application for a limited number of fall positions opens on June 26, 2017. RAISE participants work for 6-12 months at five partnering agencies and alongside Vocational Rehabilitation in their community job search process. RAISE builds self-esteem, fosters independence, educates and inspires participants and their families to set new goals, supports and encourages social growth, a...
JFS Orlando is currently recruiting volunteers to assist clients in its computer lab. The computer lab will be offering volunteer shifts Tuesdays, 4 p.m.-7 p.m.; Wednesdays, 2 p.m.-5 p.m.; and Thursdays, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. If you have any interest in volunteering in the computer lab, in any capacity, you will be required to attend an orientation session and complete two online tutorials so that you will be able to properly instruct clients who are applying for government benefits and writing resumes. Additionally, JFS Orlando’s partners at C...
It may very well be that this week was the week that Israel and the U.S. put to rest former president Barack Obama’s policies and positions on Israel and the Palestinians. If so, the move was made despite the best efforts of Obama’s team to convince the Trump administration to maintain them. The details of Obama’s policies and positions have been revealed in recent weeks in a series of articles published in Haaretz regarding Obama’s secretary of state John Kerry’s failed peacemaking efforts, which ended in 2014. The articles reported segments...
The slippery subject of academic freedom has moved into our headlines with a draft code of ethics for universities and their personnel. It is the work of Professor Asa Kasher, a philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University, and the author of the IDF’s code of ethics. He prepared this code at the request of the right of center Minister of Education Naftali Bennett, known for his support of settlers, increasing the importance of Judaism in the lessons of primary and secondary schools, and a frequent criticism of Jews and others who condemn I...
Is there a double standard when it comes to derogatory terms for race? Read no further than the writings of June Chu, dean of students of Pierson College, one of the twelve residential colleges for Yale undergraduates. Chu has written in the “Inside Higher Education” of the need for “cultural sensitivity” and the avoidance of “micro-aggressions” in discussions with minority students. And she describes her job, as a Pierson dean, as supporting students in their “holistic and multifaceted identities.” But apparently that sensitivity onl...
(JTA)—The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has demanded that we all ask ourselves where we stand on questions of climate change, global warming and our collective responsibility for the planet we call home. That the earth has been warming in recent years is indisputable. At issue are the causes of this warming and its consequences. The vast majority of scientists agree that human activities are a significant contributor to global warming, and that the consequences will be significant and even cat...
There is a widespread but false belief that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is finally prepared to accept the two-state solution proposed by the United Nations in November 1947, when it divided Mandatory Palestine into two areas: one for the Jewish people, the other for the Arab people. At the time, the Jews of Palestine accepted the compromise division and declared a nation-state for the Jewish people, to be called by its historic name: Israel. The Arabs of Palestine, on the other hand, rejected the division and declared that...
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 Israe...
On June 22, the United States celebrated the anniversary of the G.I. Bill, a historic act that was the first major piece of legislation dealing with the postwar era challenges to come. With veterans coming home to already fully staffed factories, the G.I. Bill, officially known as the Service Member Readjustment Act of 1944, helped stop another recession by providing education and housing opportunities to veterans-allowing them to create new jobs and businesses in America's new booming economy....
The arts, sciences, technology, literature, architecture, navigation, mapmaking, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and art that flourished in Medieval Spain are often credited to Islam but this is a distortion of the role played by adherents of all three religions. The United Visigothic kingdom of Spain prior to the Muslim invasions had inherited five centuries of Roman civilization and had made use of the achievements of the Greeks and earlier Carthaginians as well as the Assyrians in...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Paul Shaffer, sporting a gray T-shirt and a one- or two-day-old beard, is sitting in the living room of his spacious Manhattan apartment near Lincoln Center. The walls are crammed with music memorabilia, including a signed Curtis Mayfield single and a plaque presented by the State of Israel to Sammy Davis Jr. The homey scene is a far cry from the glamorous studio environs that made Shaffer famous. For more than 30 years, Shaffer served as David Letterman's sidekick, musical director and band leader on his two late-night...
"This is my town"... That is the name of the newest BARRY MANILOW album. It refers to New York City, of course. (This is also my town!) Although I have been living here in Central Florida for more than half a century, I still walk, talk and think like a New Yawka. See what I mean? Oy vay department... I read this bit of disturbing news in the current issue of the World Jewish Congress digest and pass it along to you in its entirety: "The Palestinian terror group Hamas, has elected one of the...
(Kveller via JTA)—Being the parent of a child with a disability can be lonely. Being the single parent of a child with a rare disability that is estimated to affect a mere 1 percent of the population can feel like being sentenced to solitary confinement. Beginning in toddlerhood, my daughter Kate embarked on a lifetime of being poked and prodded, assessed and reassessed, and being escorted to multiple therapy appointments to address both a body and mind that were out of sync with everyone else. I felt helpless, like a failure and utterly a...
This old picture from the early 1900s was a family enigma for many decades, until the mystery was solved earlier this year. I have stayed in touch throughout the years with cousins who are the son and daughter of Minnie, the girl on the left. My cousins and I knew the picture was of our widowed grandmother, Hinda Schwartzman (with the black bow), along with her widowed daughter, Jennette Bayles (Baylish), and two of Jennette's three daughters-Minnie, left, and Anne, rear. My cousins guessed the...
RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (JTA)-An Israeli soldier clapped football great and Vietnam War veteran Roger Staubach on the shoulder at a soccer field here, telling the 1963 Heisman Trophy winner and U.S. Naval Academy grad that he and his brother serve in the paratroopers. The introduction Thursday evening prompted Staubach to hark back to early June 1967, when he was serving in Vietnam and heard a report on his walkie-talkie that Israel was about to be attacked. Staubach recalled being concerned for...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israel's minister of education says he wants to protect students from political coercion in the classroom. But critics of a new code of academic conduct he is proposing say it's a power play meant to stifle left-wing opinions in higher education. The code of ethics for institutes of higher education, which would bar the expression of political views in classrooms, was drafted at the request of Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party. It has...
