Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 33
(JNS) - The government of Gibraltar has announced that Gibraltar International Airport will be renamed "Sir Joshua Hassan Gibraltar International Airport," honoring the territory's first chief minister and one of the most prominent Jewish public servants in the modern Commonwealth. The renaming was announced by Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo during his annual budget address to Parliament on July 7. In announcing the decision, the government described Hassan (1915–1997) as the "Father o...
(JNS) - Archaeologists excavating Jerusalem's City of David have uncovered massive charred wooden beams believed to have collapsed during the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 BCE, a discovery researchers say offers an extraordinary window into one of the most pivotal moments in Jewish history. The beams were found during excavations at the Givati Parking Lot site, conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University in the City of David, within the Jerusalem Wal...
PHILADELPHIA, PA - From record-breaking performances to championship victories, American athletes shine at the world's largest Jewish sporting event as Maccabi USA delegation concludes historic competition in Israel. After 900 members of the Maccabi USA delegation traveled to Israel for the world's largest Jewish sporting event, athletes from across the United States, including Minnesota, Louisiana, California, Florida and New York, returned home with more than 300 medals across dozens of...
Local resident Zach Moldof is running for Orange County Commissioner in District 7. An out-of-the-box, forward-thinking person, he sees clearly how he can make Orange County a better place for all its residents. He has been providing youth development and placemaking services to government for the past 8 years through his nonprofit Skate Bud, and in his words "Getting government to do things it was not doing before." In a time when many citizens have lost faith in government, and many...
(JNS) — The Congressional Progressive Caucus broke with House Democratic leadership on Tuesday in the latest example of support for Israel dividing the Democratic Party. Hours after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to colleagues saying that he would oppose an amendment to end $3.3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel, Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), chair of the Progressive Caucus, sent a competing letter urging House Democrats to reject the aid to Israel. “The Democratic Party needs a new approach to Israel and Pal...
A story just in time for Tu B’Av, the Jewish Valentine’s Day on July 29th. When Orlando resident Nili Arad Ivan and Isaac Makovsky first met, it wasn’t over coffee or sightseeing — it was waving to each other from six feet away. The students, only 15 and 16 years old at the time, had just arrived at Alexander Muss High School in Israel in the fall of 2020. It was during COVID, and they were waiting out their state-mandated quarantine period in makeshift pods separated by plastic sheets. Just as...
The current Three Weeks period of semi-mourning for the destruction of the Holy Temples in the ancient Promised Land seem to commemorate ancient history. But their message is as contemporary as today’s headlines. First, some background: According to the Talmud (Tractate Gittin 55-56), at the time of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, a wealthy man who was hosting a party sent his servant to deliver an invitation to a friend named Kamtza. By mistake, the servant invited a man named bar Kamtza, who the wealthy man despised. Bar Kamtza accepted t...
(JNS) — Orthodox Jewish organizations are warning that legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives to make daylight-saving time permanent would complicate daily religious observance, particularly morning prayers. The House approved the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday by a bipartisan 308-117 vote. The measure, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, would end the twice-yearly clock changes while allowing states that already qualify for exemptions, such as Arizona and Hawaii, to remain on permanent standard time. The bill now h...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Sid Rosenberg, host of 77 WABC radio’s “Sid & Friends in the Morning,” that he was in “tatters” over the sudden death of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). In the Monday interview, Netanyahu expressed shock at Graham’s sudden death, saying he had spoken to the senator only a few days earlier about how best to finish off the surviving remnant of the Islamist regime in Iran, and move to a “broader peace, which he very much believed in and devoted his life to.” The prime minister said Gra...
(JNS) — Israel’s parliament on Monday night gave final approval to a new Basic Law declaring Torah study a foundational value of the Jewish state. The 120-member Knesset passed the Basic Law: Torah Study in its second and third readings by a vote of 63-52. While Israel does not have a formal written constitution, the set of Basic Laws passed since the country’s founding in 1948 have quasi-constitutional status. The legislation, sponsored by lawmakers Yaakov Asher and Moshe Gafni of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party, states that...
(JNS) — Israel has spent decades bracing for the enemies it can see: Iranian centrifuges, Hamas tunnels, Hezbollah rockets. It has built one of the most sophisticated defense establishments on earth to battle them. But the danger that may do the most lasting damage is growing inside the Knesset, the yeshivahs and the birth statistics themselves — and no missile-defense system can stop it. That threat is Haredi exceptionalism. And Israel’s leaders built it themselves. Haredim make up less than 15 percent of the Israeli population. Yet their...
(JNS) — We count incidents. We map incidents. We archive incidents. We convene conferences about incidents. We create databases, research centers, scholarly associations, testimony projects, reporting platforms, surveys, advisory groups, working groups and task forces devoted to explaining antisemitism, a hatred that has existed for thousands of years and has never been especially subtle about its purpose. At some point, we must ask an uncomfortable question: How much more studying do we actually need? This is not an argument against s...
Over the past week, I found myself thinking several times about one of the more curious episodes in the book of Exodus. The Torah tells us that during the plague of frogs, the frogs entered not only the fields and homes of the Egyptians, but even their ovens. The sages explain that this, too, was part of the miracle. Left to themselves, frogs do not voluntarily leap into burning ovens; it is contrary to instinct. The image has stayed with me because it captures something deeply unsettling: the experience of watching someone knowingly act agains...
(JNS) — Julian Casablancas, the frontman of The Strokes, one of the defining rock bands of the early 2000s, recently told a million YouTube subscribers on the popular web series SubwayTakes that American Zionists “get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are black people during slavery.” This week, Oxford University released a video of Casablancas expanding on it. Yes, that Oxford. The Oxford Union, comfortably ensconced at the highbrow academic institution in England, invited him to speak, and he offered a clarification....
(JNS) — The spectacle of the United States turning 250 and hosting the World Cup brings to mind ancient Rome. Civilizations do not simply rise and fall. They either remain faithful to their mission or rot from within and hand the future to someone else. Greece gave the world philosophy. Rome gave it law and power. Britain carried Greek tools into the modern age. America inherited Rome’s burden. The United States is Rome’s successor in both symbolism and substance. It has a Senate, an eagle, Latin mottos and global reach. But it also inher...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of Altamonte Springs — Sunday morning minyan, 8 a.m. Weekday morning minyan 6:30 a.m., 407-720-8111. 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...
(JNS) — Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz renewed his call to establish Nahal outposts in northern Gaza, telling Israel’s Channel 14 television station that the move would help protect communities along the border. “I intend to establish three Nahal outposts, which is also a military entity, in those places that were in northern Gaza,” Katz told the broadcaster during a tour of the Gaza Strip. Nahal is a program within the Israel Defense Forces that combines military service with educational and social welfare projects, often involvi...
Joel Dinerstein’s new memoir blends family drama, cultural history, and social critique in a vivid portrait of working-class Jewish life before the Holocaust became the defining center of American Jewish identity Joel Dinerstein has spent much of his career exploring the origins of American cool, its popular music, and the nation’s racism – through his books, a Smithsonian exhibit, a class on the History of Cool, and as a jazz DJ in New Orleans. In “The Last of the Ellis Island Jews: A Brookly...
(JNS) - The hundreds of people who visit the Jerusalem Theater each day for plays, concerts or a coffee now have the chance to view an exhibition of colorful, distinctive paintings created collaboratively by young adults with autism from the Kfar Shimon residential facility near Beit Shemesh. The exhibition, titled "Feelings in Between," offers visitors a glimpse into the inner worlds of the artists, some of whom are nonverbal. "They have a lot going on in their minds that they can't always...
Submitted by Jewish Pavilion Senior Services Maintaining good health doesn’t always require major lifestyle changes. In fact, some of the most effective wellness strategies are simple, consistent habits that can easily be incorporated into your daily routine. At the Orlando Senior Help Desk, we encourage seniors and caregivers to focus on small, manageable steps that promote overall well-being. Here are a few practical tips that can have a meaningful impact on your health: Take a 10-minute walk after meals A short walk after eating can do wonde...
Layered Tuna Salad The perfect lunch for your book, Mahjong or bridge group or to take to work. You can use up all your leftovers for a single portion or prepare many jars ahead of time for a large crowd. You can omit or substitute ingredients according to your taste. A quart jar with a screw on cover or one for each person Serves 6 1/2 bottled oil and vinegar dressing 3 medium cooked potatoes, peeled and sliced 1 red pepper, quarter and sliced (I used roasted peppers from a jar.) 3/4 cup...
Israeli security officials recently warned that Iran may attempt to influence Israel’s upcoming elections through coordinated disinformation campaigns on social media and other digital platforms. Their warning took me back more than 50 years to a remarkable woman who spent her life studying exactly these tactics — long before the internet, artificial intelligence, bots, or trolls existed. Most Americans have never heard of Natalie Grant Wraga, who preferred to be called Natalie Grant. Yet the...
(JNS) - Under a law meant to crack down on those cooperating with Israel and other states, Iran this week published a list of networks, media personalities and others it deems hostile to its regime. Featuring high on the list is a prominent member of the Jerusalem News Syndicate. Emily Schrader, at No. 2 on the list of "hostile media persons," is host of the JNS podcast "Axis of Truth" and co-host of "The Quad." The list is the first in connection with the 'Law on Intensifying Punishment for...
(JNS) - As the 2026 school year ends and summer vacation begins, Israel's high school students are completing an educational journey that has been anything but ordinary. After beginning their teenage years during the COVID-19 pandemic and finishing them against the backdrop of war, bereavement and national upheaval, 11th- and 12th-grade students in the Ohr Torah Stone Ann Belsky Moranis Arts Program are using art to make sense of a world that often feels chaotic. The exhibition, titled...
