Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 6 - 30 of 35
On Friday, Aug. 2, Chabad of North Orlando will kick off its second annual "Rolene's Shabbos" in loving memory of Rolene Hunter Z"L. Rolene, was the first to become a member of Chabad Lubavitch of North Orlando's Jewish Legacy Society by remembering the Longwood Chabad in her will and leaving a portion of her estate to help ensure a Jewish tomorrow. "Rolene was taken from us way too soon but she will forever remain in our hearts. Honoring her with this special Shabbos is the least we can do to...
These two current situations have people questioning, “What’s going on?” Dan Pollack, ZOA director of Government Relations, will shed some light on what is happening concerning the Palestinians and the rift between the U.S. and Israeli governments at two separate meetings sponsored by the Zionist Organization of America – Florida. Both meetings will be held on Aug. 11. The first will be held at the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation, 11200 S. Apopka Vineland Rd, at 1:30 p.m. Pollack will discuss “Is the rift between the U.S. and Israeli g...
(New York Jewish Week) — The Democratic Socialists of America dropped its endorsement of New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after she hosted a panel discussion on antisemitism. The DSA said in a Tuesday statement that it was rescinding its conditional endorsement of Ocasio-Cortez’s reelection campaign after she “conflated anti-Zionism with antisemitism and condemned boycotting Zionist institutions” during the discussion she sponsored last month. “This sponsorship is a deep betrayal to all those who’ve risked their welfare to fight Israe...
(JNS) — Google’s parent company Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire Israeli cloud cybersecurity startup Wiz in a deal worth some $23 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. If the agreement is inked, it would represent the California tech giant’s biggest-ever buy (scorching the previous record of $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility in 2012). It would also mark a significant achievement for Israel’s high-tech sector. “This is the largest acquisition to ever happen in the Israeli high-tech sector. It’s a sign of the strength of...
(JNS) — Saturday’s assassination attempt on former president and presumptive Republican nominee for the White House Donald Trump “is not only a heinous crime, it is also an attempt to assassinate American democracy,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on Sunday morning, Netanyahu said that he “would like to send him in my name, in the name of my wife, Sara, in the name of the ministers of the Israeli government and in the name of the entire people of Israel our best wishes fo...
(JNS) — Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for unity while paying tribute to the rallygoer who was killed in the attempt on his life. “Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers yesterday, as it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening,” Trump wrote on his Truth social media platform. “We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness,” he continued. “Our love goes out to the other victims and their families. We pray for the recovery of those who were wounded...
I visited Israel for the second time recently. The first time was approximately six weeks after the Oct. 7th massacre by Hamas. The country is still working to eliminate Hamas and the country will be forever changed by the evil attack. On this trip I tried to focus mostly on the children of Israel and what their future will look like. The future of any culture is dependent on their ability to remember the past without the bias of the media and for the culture to remember what their core beliefs are. In Israel, the children seem to have a very...
(JNS) — On July 11, actor, director and producer George Clooney was featured in The New York Times calling for a new Democratic nominee for president. His credentials for an opinion piece in the newspaper that still claims to publish only “All the News That’s Fit to Print” are that “I have led some of the biggest fundraisers in my party’s history” and “last month I co-hosted the single largest fundraiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s reelection.” George Clooney does himself in when he writes, “We don’t a...
(JNS) — Franz Kafka would feel right at home in northern Israel. Life here has a surreal, absurdist character with the indivisible mix of the mundane and the potentially catastrophic. A quiet day has only a handful of rocket or drone attacks and we have become used to incessant plane noise and to looking up and around after a boom or two. Israelis are resilient, but resilience is often the product of being able to maintain one’s routine and “normalcy” within one’s familiar surroundings. Anywhere from 60,000 to 80,000 people have been stripped o...
(JNS) — The Biden administration, as well as almost every nation in the world, is pressuring Israel to create an immediate pathway for a Palestinian state. In theory, separating from the Palestinian Arab population—if it could be done with all security safeguards in place—accepting Israel as a Jewish state and signing an end-of-conflict agreement would be a reasonable alternative to the present situation, if it were possible. But does anyone look at what a Palestinian state would be and how faithful its leadership would be to any signed agree...
Sunday, July 7, is not just another day. It is 275 days since the inhuman Hamas invasion and massacre in Israel, slaughtering 1200 and taking more than 250 hostages to Gaza. 120 are still in captivity in Gaza’s network of terror tunnels. Some may still be being held captive in the private homes of Hamas terrorist operatives, as were the four rescued in a bold IDF operation on June 8. Through forensic and other evidence, Israel has declared that a few dozen of the 120 hostages are already dead. But the actual number of hostages still alive is u...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) — The reaction of many Jews to the horrific times in which we find ourselves calls to mind the “Christopher Columbus problem”—conflating what’s new to us with what’s actually new. Has the world really changed since Oct. 7, or have a number of enduring truths suddenly become all too evident? I propose that it is the latter. Here are a dozen examples: 1. Many hold Israel to a very different standard than any other nation. Countries that kill gays, subjugate women, slaughter minority populations and murder dissidents...
MORNING MINYANS 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 Israel — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-30...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Vandals tore down Israeli hostage posters hanging outside the Capitol Hill office of Rep. Brad Schneider, an Illinois Democrat, a week after pro-Palestinian activists used megaphones and drums to protest outside his home in the middle of the night. “My Capitol office was vandalized yesterday in a vile act of hate in which the posters of the more than 100 people still held hostage in Gaza (including 8 Americans) were ripped from the wall, shredded and tossed across the hallway,” Schneider, who is Jewish, posted Friday...
There are veterans like an Australian gold medalist canoe paddler and Israel's powerhouse judo team. There are newcomers, like the youngest American female wrestler ever and Israel's soccer team. And there are athletes competing in events from fencing to beach volleyball to racewalking to air pistol shooting. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are around the corner, running from July 26 through Aug. 11, and dozens of Jewish athletes will be among the estimated 10,500 competitors representing roug...
(JTA) — MILWAUKEE — “Beautiful prayer!” the woman shouted out from the floor of the massive Fiserv Forum. The delegate to Donald Trump’s coronation was responding to a benediction led by Leora Levy, a Jewish Republican from Connecticut, to close out the first day of this year’s Republican Party convention. Levy’s comments included one of the rare mentions of Israel on the convention’s first day, as she led a hushed and somber crowd in praying for the release of hostages abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7. “O Lord our God, we pray for the peace of...
For people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, the world around them significantly impacts how they engage, react, and enjoy life. Caregivers often seek supportive tips and tricks for behavior management, but did you know you can modify and even prevent behaviors associated with dementia by using color? Many studies have been conducted on light as well as color with varying results. However, most experts agree that the use of colors, especially for someone living with dementia, can help in improving their quality of life. R...
Dr. Michael and Mrs. Jackie Hirsch are pleased to announce the bat mitzvah of their daughter Malena Hirsch, on Monday, July 1, 2024 (25th day of Sivan 5784). Malena read the Korach Torah portion at the Robinson’s Arch portion of the Kotel in Jerusalem, Israel. Cousins Shira Leibowitz Schmidt of Netanya, Yaakov Mantaka of Bnei Brak, and Roger Friedman of Irvine, California attended the ceremony. Rabbi David Ebstein and his wife Rena assisted in arranging for the bat mitzvah on the Temple Mount a...
(JNS) - Nearly 350 Hamas terrorists, including 100 members of the terror group's elite Nukhba Force, managed to infiltrate Kibbutz Be'eri in southern Israel on Oct. 7 due to catastrophic failures by the Israel Defense Forces in their readiness and response, according to the first part of the IDF's internal probe of the attacks. "The IDF had difficulty creating a clear picture of what was happening in the kibbutz until the afternoon hours of Oct. 7, even though the yishuv emergency team had an...
(JTA) — As expected, on July 4, 1976, the United States celebrated its bicentennial with a flurry of patriotic pride and hype. The surprise was that the day also brought one of the most miraculous events in Jewish history: Israel’s rescue of 102 hostages being held over 2,500 miles away at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda. A week earlier, on June 27, terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a radical West German group hijacked an Air France airliner full of Israeli pas...
(JTA) — MILWAUKEE — Three Jewish organizations dealing with immigration and community relations said they were alarmed by the Republican Party’s plans to launch mass deportations, saying they are steeped in a racist conspiracy theory that at times has veered into antisemitism. The Republican platform, published this week, pledges to “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.” “President Trump and Republicans will reverse the Democrats’ destructive Open Borders Policies that have allowed criminal gangs and Illegal Alien...
Dr. Bernard Norman Gotlib, 96, of Altamonte Springs, Florida, passed away peacefully July 8, 2024, surrounded by his loving family. Dr. Gotlib was born May 13,1928 in Bangor, Maine to the Abraham and Sarah (Nathanson) Gotlib of blessed memory. Dr. Gotlib graduated from the University of Maine and University of Vermont Medical School before completing his ENT training at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Boston. They lived most of their married lives and raised their children in Longmeadow,... Full story
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden answered nearly an hour of questions at a potentially make-or-break press conference on Thursday, amid increasing pressure from Democrats for him to withdraw from the 2024 election over concerns about his age and fitness for office. Biden, who began the press conference 57 minutes after its scheduled start time, opened with eight minutes of prepared remarks, which he read from teleprompters, about Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the economy, border security and a potential Israel-Hamas c...
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The 2024 Republican Party platform pledges to fight antisemitism and to keep Israel safe. It promises to fight anti-Christian bias as well as “gender insanity.” And it vows, in all-caps, to “DEPORT PRO-HAMAS RADICALS AND MAKE OUR COLLEGE CAMPUSES SAFE AND PATRIOTIC AGAIN.” Parties traditionally publish platforms in election years ahead of their national conventions, as a statement of the party’s values and a wish list of policies should their candidate win the White House. The Republican platform, posted Monday and su...
A month after announcing $90 million in Palestinian aid, USAID will send $100 million more (JNS) — On June 5, Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, announced that the United States would donate $90 million in aid to Palestinians. Just over a month later, Power, who is visiting Israel, revealed that Washington plans to provide another $100 million in Palestinian aid. Power is meeting with Israeli officials “to discuss continued efforts to increase the flow of assistance across Gaza, including nee...
