Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Shown here are Temple Israel's Meitin Religious School students standing inside the sukkah they built last year. Read about what many of the Central Florida religious schools and day schools have to offer the children of this community to prepare them to take their stand in this community and this world in the Back to School supplement in this week's Heritage....
By Uriel Heilman NEW YORK (JTA)-There have been three major polls of American Jews since the announcement of the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran-by the L.A. Jewish Journal, The Israel Project and J Street-all with significantly different results. Two show U.S. Jewish support for the Iran nuclear deal outpacing opposition to the deal by 20 percentage points: 48-28 according to the Jewish Journal, and 60-40 according to J Street. The Israel Project survey showed slightly more...
As members of Congress review and debate the recent agreement governing Iran's nuclear development, the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando (JFGO) is at the forefront locally, providing community members with a vast array of resources about the issue via the Federation's special web page, jfgo.org/iran. Launched two days after the agreement was announced, JFGO's web page has grown substantially, with several hours of video, statements from Jewish groups across the nation, and links to in-depth...
By Maayan Jaffe JNS.org According to the model of Western philosophy, a successful Jewish student would be one who masters the Talmud, the laws of Shabbat and kashrut, and the tales of the Midrash, says Rabbi Dovid Abenson. “Every institution craves the box child,” Abenson, founder and director of the Shaar Hatalmud online Jewish learning program, tells JNS.org. “The box child is a child that fits the mold.” Yet Abenson asks, if a student has not internalized a love and appreciation for knowledge, nor a faith and security in Judaism, “can we, a...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Turn off the ads, turn down the noise and read, listen and consult. That's what five key Jewish lawmakers say they are planning for the five to seven weeks they have to contemplate their vote on the Iran nuclear deal. There are 28 Jews in Congress, but seven are undecided and in positions of influence as lawmakers consider an agreement that grants Iran sanctions relief in exchange for nuclear restrictions on its nuclear program. Republicans are mostly against the deal, so the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Call it a double miracle for the pastor who would be president: Mike Huckabee managed to unite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama while grabbing the spotlight from Donald Trump. Netanyahu's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, slammed Huckabee, a Republican candidate for the White House in 2016, for saying that Obama will march Israelis "to the door of the oven" as part of the Iran nuclear deal. And Obama has mocked Huckabee's remarks,...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-President Barack Obama will not alter the terms of Jonathan Pollard's parole once he is released, a signal that Israel's struggle to bring him to the country whose citizenship he has assumed will outlast his November release date. "Mr. Pollard will serve his sentence as mandated by statute for the very serious crimes he committed," Alistair Baskey, a National Security Council spokesman, said in a statement emailed to JTA. "The president has no intention of altering the terms of...
The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society will mark the 450th anniversary of the arrival of the descendants of Crypto-Jews to territories later to become the United States, 11 a.m. Tuesday, Sept. 8 at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, 11 Magnolia Ave, St. Augustine, Florida 32084. The program is open to the public and will include a tour of relevant excavations of oldest successful European settlement in the United States led by St. Augustine Archaeological Association Board Member, Carl Lindenfeld. Discussion over lunch follows the...
The joy of the Sabbath will be celebrated on Friday evening, Aug.14, at 7 p.m. at Congregation Beth Sholom in Leesburg with a much-anticipated Kabbalat Shabbat service. Rabbi Karen Allan will lead the service. When Zoiry Zinger, former violin soloist in the Russian Symphony Orchestra, joins Rabbi/Cantor Karen Allen with her keyboard, the Sabbath will be welcomed with a musical celebration of the Jewish spirit. The program will include a new musical presentation, composed by Rabbi Allen for Zinger, as well as new and traditional melodies for...
On Friday evening, Aug. 21, Temple Israel will be holding its Second Annual ShaBBQ from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. This year, in addition to the delicious menu of hot dogs, hamburgers, beans, chips, ice tea, dessert and more, the adult membership will be pitted against the children in a game of kickball on TI's spacious grounds. As always, there also will be arts and crafts for younger members to take advantage of. This dinner and activities will be followed by Kabbalat Shabbat and MaAriv services at...
The recent announcement of the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran has sparked deep concern and even outrage in the Jewish community. In an almost unprecedented moment for American Jewry, the majority of prominent Jewish organizations have lined up in order to combat this deal. This includes AIPAC, the ADL, and various Jewish Federation chapters, including those in Boston and Miami. This historic display of Jewish unity comes because of a clear belief that Israel and the Jewish people have been placed in a life-threatening situation. But the J Street...
By Ira Sharkansky Israel is currently facing two especially delicate issues. We’re hearing about a New Middle East. This is not the one that Barack Obama and his supporters saw coming out of his Cairo speech and Arab Spring, but a post-Arab Spring alliance between Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It looks promising in terms of mutual antagonism to Iran and its clients, and joint opposition to the American-brokered deal with Iran. One suspects that there is already considerable cooperation between the three, in terms of high level meetings b...
Jews stood up to the U.S. government 40 years ago, and should again on Iran. These days, like many Israelis and American Jews, I find myself in a precarious and painful situation. Those of us who believe that the nuclear agreement just signed between world powers and Iran is dangerously misguided are now compelled to criticize Israel’s best friend and ally, the government of the United States. In standing up for what we think is right, for both our people and the world, we find ourselves at odds with the power best able to protect us and promot...
(Kveller via JTA)—For four years, my children attended Community Day School, Pittsburgh’s independent Jewish day school located in Squirrel Hill, the city’s historically Jewish neighborhood. The school’s mission is to “educate Menschen: young people who are academically strong who grow to be good people, knowledgeable Jews, contributing citizens of the people of Israel, the United States, and our world.” Essentially, CDS promises not only a rigorous secular education, it promises to partner with me to raise my children. Last summer, how...
Israel’s Channel 2 recently dedicated a full 15 minutes to the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Reporter Danny Kushmaro brought to an Israeli audience awareness of “the Jews that stand behind the boycott of Israel.” For me, a longtime “student” of JVP, as well as many Americans, there would be little surprise to hear the venomous rhetoric disgorged by JVP activists. For an Israeli audience that never heard of JVP, however, the reaction had to have been nothing short of shock and a profound sense of betrayal. For decades,...
The Obama administration’s weak response to Iran’s latest belligerent rhetoric is reminiscent of how the U.S. responded to one of Yasser Arafat’s most infamous speeches—and illustrates one of the main dangers of the Iran nuclear agreement. Just four days after the nuclear deal was signed in Vienna, with the ink on the agreement barely dry, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, denounced America’s “arrogance” and vowed that despite the agreement, Iran will continue “supporting our friends in Palestine, Lebanon” and elsewhere. In oth...
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 I...
Three girls who survived their survival Such Good Girls: The Journey of the Holocaust's Hidden Child Survivors By R. D. Rosen On sale Oct. 1, 2015 A five-year-old girl who slipped out of the Lvov, Poland, ghetto with her mother, who, thanks to her fluency in German, found work as a bookkeeper for a Nazi. A six-year-old schoolgirl who somehow knew not to raise her hand when her schoolteacher in Southern France suddenly asked which students were Jewish. A family that barely made a noise for more...
Temple Israel of Winter Springs co-hosted one of the "Summer Sundays" held at the Jewish Community Center in Maitland on July 12. It was a pool party with lunch, fun and sun!...
BERLIN (JTA)-Seventy-nine summers after Marty Glickman's Olympics uniform was rendered as useless as a jilted bride's wedding dress, his daughter Nancy wore the same uniform to light the cauldron that officially opened the European Maccabi Games here. Her late father's removal from the U.S. track team hours before the 4x100 meter relay in the still-standing stadium across from where the opening ceremony took place Tuesday made Nancy Glickman's act the dramatic climax of a night replete with...
By Shannon Sarna (The Nosher via JTA)-I have never made rugelach. Well, actually that's not entirely true. I made rugelach once recently, and they were a disaster. The dough wasn't moist enough, I didn't roll them properly and I ended up with a bit of a mess. Thankfully one of our contributors is a rugelach master. Samantha Ferraro of The Little Ferraro Kitchen doesn't just make delicious rugelach-she makes rugelach in varieties such as cheese and herb, cherry pistachio and pumpkin candied...
The times they are a changin' (or are they?)... I just read the following in the new World Jewish Congress (WJC) digest for this month: "Addressing the rise of anti-Semitism around the world and the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and Africa, WJC President Ambassador RONALD S. LAUDER noted that the merging today of anti-Semitism and the persecution of Christians is not unique. 'We've both been targeted before, often by the same enemy. But today's rampage against both religions at...
(JTA)-Jeff Lieberman was en route to a South Carolina screening of his first feature, "Re-emerging: The Jews of Nigeria," when he realized how close he'd be to the tiny Blue Ridge Mountain town of Tryon, North Carolina. The New York-based filmmaker couldn't pass up a side trip to the birthplace of Eunice Kathleen Waymon-better known to the masses as Nina Simone. "I'd been a fan of hers since I was in high school, but always felt like I didn't quite understand her," said Lieberman, whose first...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Few communities were as battered during last summer's conflict between Israel and Hamas as Nahal Oz, a kibbutz of some 350 people located just a mile from the Gaza border. At one point in the fighting, 40 missiles landed on the community in a single day. Hamas militants attempting to infiltrate the kibbutz through a tunnel killed five Israeli soldiers. For much of the war, families with young children were evacuated to other communities far from the fighting. And just four days...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—The murder of a 16-year old girl at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade has sparked calls for LGBT-rights legislation—as well as pushback from those who oppose it. Shira Banki died Sunday after being stabbed while marching in the parade on Thursday night. Five others were wounded in the stabbing. “It never crossed our mind that Shira would be murdered as a symbol,” her parents said in a eulogy Monday, according to a copy of the text on the Israeli news site Ynet. “An unnecessary death of a young girl, innocent and full of good intent...
