Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS)-The decision by Israel to bar Reps. Rashid Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) due to their support for the anti-Israel BDS movement has generated international headlines while at the same time sparking further partisan divide and debate. The controversy over the congresswomen, however, comes shortly after a visit to Israel by 72 fellow members of the U.S. House of Representatives that seemed to highlight rare public goodwill between Democrats and Republicans, as well as the broad...
In the early 1960s, Abe and Zelig Wise developed the neighborhood of Palomar, in northern Orange County. Many of the early residents were Jewish. In mid-2016, the former and current residents of Palomar gathered to take a group photo. This photograph was to be part of the exhibit at the Orange County Historical Museum celebrating 100 years of Jewish life in Orlando. The evening was a reunion of friends from the neighborhood. It was a wonderful time of renewing acquaintances and celebrating their...
StandWithUs, an international, nonprofit Israel education organization founded in 2001, recently selected Samantha Gabbai, a senior at Winter Park High School, for the StandWithUs High School Internship program 2019-2020. Danielle Garsten was selected as SWU’s Emerson Fellow at UCF. The StandWithUs High School Internship Program is a high school leadership program that prepares students for the challenges they may face regarding Israel in college and in their communities. Students in both the HS Internship and Emerson Fellows attend two confere...
(JNS)-Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) on Saturday called for boycotting Bill Maher's HBO show after the liberal comedian denounced the anti-Israel BDS movement as "a bulls**t purity test." "Maybe folks should boycott his show," tweeted Tlaib, who compared boycotts of Israel to that of apartheid South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. "I am tired of folks discrediting a form of speech that is centered on equality and freedom," the congresswoman continued. "This is exactly how they tried to discredit &...
Looking for help to build your family tree? Then come to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando on Sept. 3, to jumpstart your research. Two career medical professionals who have been doing genealogy for years will share with you many valuable lessons they just learned from the world's top genealogists. Dr. Diane Jacobs, and Dr. Richard Signer of Central Florida recently attended the annual conference held by the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. Jacobs and...
On Sept. 14, children will gather at two local Chabad Centers to experience Rosh Hashanah through an interactive farmers market. "We wanted to do something different," said Chanshy Majesky, co-director of Chabad of North Orlando. While the Jewish New Year is well-known for its long services and serious prayers, Majesky wanted to "let kids experience the fun side of the holiday." Children will get a fresh start to the year by visiting each stand at the Rosh Hashanah market. As they go from booth...
On average, one person dies by suicide every three hours in the state of Florida. In fact, suicide is the eighth leading cause of death in the state. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Data & Statistics Fatal Injury Report for 2017) That is why this summer JFS Orlando’s mental health counselors and front-line staff participated in the Florida Implementation of the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention Project. FINS is a collaborative partnership between the University of Central F...
The Zionist Organization of America, Florida chapter will present a lecture by Jonathan Matusitz, Ph.D., titled "18 years after 9/11, what have we learned? The reasons for terrorism" on Sept. 11 at the Roth Family JCC, 7:30 p.m. Matusitz is currently a tenured associate professor in the Nicholson School of Communication and Media at the University of Central Florida. His research focuses on the role of communication in terrorism, symbolism in terrorism, the globalization of culture, and health...
Heritage Newspaper’s print audience doesn’t get to read responses to articles that are posted in the online edition of the paper (unless they also read the online edition). Here are this week’s responses: Netflix’s ‘The Red Sea Diving Resort’ misses the real story of Ethiopian Jews/ by Ben Sales, Aug. 16 issue, page 10A • Your comments regarding the film are right, but on the other hand, watching the movie prompted me to research the real story, which is indeed remarkable and brave.—Irene • Excellent review of the film. Agree 100%.—Yraine. To...
(JNS)-Israel and South Korea have concluded three years of negotiations on a free trade agreement, officials announced on Wednesday, paving the way for a major boost in bilateral trade. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the agreement-the first with an Asian country-calling South Korea a "global leader." "Israel is a vibrant, advanced economy, and I think our partnership will do tremendous good for both our economies. I'm sure it will multiply our trade, which already stands at...
(JTA)—Students at a Southern California high school made a Nazi salute and sang a Nazi marching song at the start of an awards ceremony. The school district will not say publicly if or how it disciplined the students. The incident, which took place last year, involved 10 members of the boys water polo team at Pacifica High School in Garden Grove, California, the Daily Beast reported. The video was posted to Instagram by one of the athletes, according to the Daily Beast, and widely circulated among students at the high school. A spokesperson f...
(JNS)—U.S. President Donald Trump clarified remarks made about how Jewish voters could support the Democratic Party knowing the anti-Israel bias among certain congressional members, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). “If you vote for a Democrat, you’re being disloyal to Jewish people, and you’re being very disloyal to Israel,” the president told reporters on Wednesday. In remarks in the Oval Office on Tuesday following his meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Trump said, “Any Jewish people that...
President Trump took issue with continued American Jewish support for the Democrats after Tlaib and Omar gave a press conference libeling Israel in furtherance of their anti-Jewish, BDS agenda. For his actions, he is again being falsely defamed as an anti-Semite. American Jews who wish to deny leftist anti-Semitism, pretend that BDS is primarily directed against Israel. After all, if the likes of Omar, Tlaib, AOC and the rest only hate Israel, then they aren’t anti-Semitic. They just hate Israeli Jews. But the truth is that BDS in America is di...
(JNS)—It’s more than 30 years since pro-democracy student demonstrators were brutally crushed by Chinese security forces in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square—a graphic sign that while communism was in the process of collapsing elsewhere in the world, China was to be a bloody exception. The spirit of those 1989 protests has been revived in recent weeks on the streets of Hong Kong, where hundreds of thousands of protesters have been vigorously opposing Chinese attempts to impose the draconian laws that hold sway on the mainland. Because Hong Kong was a...
(JNS)—Jewish and pro-Israel students soon heading to universities this fall are invariably wondering about more than living arrangements and course loads. Will students and faculty take real steps to rehabilitate the politicized campus climate? What will be the next steps and targets of the BDS movement against Israel? In the past few years, campus BDS success seemed to stagnate a bit. During the 2018-19 academic year, only two campuses passed BDS-inspired legislation while eight other attempts failed to earn sufficient support. Even when d...
As the dust settles over the planned, canceled, re-scheduled and then canceled-again trip to Israel by Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, one thing comes to mind offering perspective on how this played out: The scene from “Argo” when the CIA affirms that “This is the best bad idea we have.” Why? Because no matter what had happened, Israel only had bad choices. Why the best bad option? Certainly, Israel could have handled its decision much better. But either way, they played into the hands of the media hungry rabid anti-Semites who dis...
In an effort to cut carbon emissions from burials and cremations, the state of Washington, led by staunch environmentalist Governor Jay Inslee, became the first U.S. state to legalize human composting. To think, people can be criminally prosecuted for disrespecting a human corpse, a symbol of a once-living person. But the religion of Mother Earth now supersedes all cultural decency. We’ve already cemented the contempt for life at the front end. I thought we had evolved since the ancient Greek elders determined that only the strong newborns s...
First, they praised the terrorist who murdered a U.S. senator’s niece. Then they were chosen by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to organize her now-canceled trip to Israel. Tlaib’s outrageous choice of the pro-terrorist group “Miftah” to run her trip is a slap in the face of the United States Congress and deserves to be investigated by the House Ethics Committee. The fact that Rep. Tlaib chose Miftah to organizer her trip is no secret; it was widely reported by major news media. The problem is that nobody is explaining what “Miftah” really is. The...
(CJN via JNS)—A New Middletown Village man was arrested on Aug. 17 after police said he made a threat toward the Jewish Community Center of Youngstown, Ohio. James Reardon, Jr., 20, is being held in Mahoning County Jail in Youngstown on telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing charges, according to two Youngstown television stations. New Middletown Police Chief Vincent D’Egidio said Reardon posted a video July 11 on Instagram of a man shooting a semi-automatic rifle with sirens and screams in the background with the caption: “Po...
For the fifth straight year, on average, students at Jewish Academy of Orlando are performing at least two grade levels ahead of their peers nationwide. The test scores, from April 2019, were taken using the nationally recognized Iowa Test of Basic Skills®, commonly known as the "Iowa Assessments." The Iowa Assessment is a nationally standardized achievement test for K-12 students, allowing schools to compare their students' scores to national norms in Reading, Language Arts, Mathematics,...
Baby Nicolette and little Phillip Jr. are the shining spots and the motivation for Gerline and her husband, Phillip. "That's what I'm fighting for everyday," Gerline says. "For me and my itty-bittys and my husband. He's not giving up and I'm not either. When I look at them, it's all worth it." Growing up as the oldest daughter, Gerline was always the responsible one. At the age of 21, she became the head of her household, taking care of her mother and her younger brother and sister. She juggled...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-In its 10 years of placing young Palestinian and Israeli leaders with Congress members, no lawmaker asked New Story Leadership for one of each-until Jamie Raskin did. This summer, Eran Nissan and Mohammed Ahmad have been interning in the office of the Maryland Democrat, bonding over constituent work. No one knew until well into the summer, however, that the two young men had a deeper connection than they realized: When Ahmad described the unsettling nightly intrusions by...
(JNS)-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended a memorial ceremony on Monday for the Ukrainian Jews murdered at Babi Yar during World War II. The two leaders laid wreaths at the menorah monument of the site, where an estimated 33,771 Jews were massacred in September 1941. "Babi Yar is endless pain. In this grave, the mass grave here behind me, tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews and many non-Jews were murdered," said Netanyahu. "As prime...
Chabad of South Orlando now offers Hebrew school for grades K-7 in two locations: In Doctor Phillips at 7347 W. Sand Lake Rd. on Sundays, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. In Winter Garden Stoney Brook Town Center, two Sundays a month, 11 a.m. -1 p.m. The schools offer the Aleph Champ Hebrew reading program, cooking, drama and art, Jewish history and culture, bar/bat mitzvah preparations, and holiday programs. For more details and to sign up: JewishOrlando.com/hebrewschool or call 407-354-3660....
Don't you dare!... Change Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty? NO WAY! That poem (as it is) is part of our beloved country's history. Please let your feelings be known about this. Write to your congressman or congress woman or senator! Israel is in the news a lot these days... (And not all positive.) I read this in the World Jewish Congress digest and pass it along to you: "As Israel attempted to become the fourth country in the world to land a spacecraft on the moon, WJC President...
