Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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A delegation from Central Florida recently returned after competing in the 35th annual JCC Maccabi Games, a weeklong Olympic-style sports competition giving close to 3,000 teens the chance to gather with fellow Jewish youth this summer. The Central Florida delegation, with teens from Orlando, Jacksonville, Tampa, Gainesville, and Sarasota, participated in the first week of JCC Maccabi, which convened July 30-August 4 in Birmingham, N.Y. (hosted by the Levite Jewish Community Center). JCC...
The turn out for the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando's Annual Meeting wasn't as large as in past years. Perhaps the weather, casting a gloomy, gray, cloud-covered sky that threatened rain, put a damper on many families' plans to come because this year's annual meeting was also billed as Family Fun Day that included a picnic. Another change in the meeting was the agenda. It was much shorter -less than an hour to go through all the protocol: the approval of last year's minutes, the...
Alan Kornman was there... he was in Israel to witness the ceremonies remembering the 1967 Six Day War and celebrating the reunification of Jerusalem 50 years ago. On Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017 at 7 p.m., he will share with us, in film and in words, what it was like to join with the Israelis at this historic time. The event, sponsored by Zionistas, will take place at the Eastmonte Civic Center, 830 Magnolia Drive, Altamonte Springs, FL 32701 Kornman is the regional coordinator for the United West, contributing editor for Family Security Matters...
On Oct. 15, The Jewish Pavilion will get it's "groove on", bringing the community together with their new fall festival, MUSIC FEST 2017 in memory of Inez and Teddy Snyder, with all proceeds benefitting Orlando's elder community. Get into the groove for this fall music event featuring local super-talent including Carol Stein, Michael and Ben Kramer, Barbara Jones, Cantor Jacqueline Rawiszer, Penny D'Agostino, Walter "Sky" Goldstein, and Paul Stenzler showcasing styles from jazz to Broadway....
Congregation Beth Am is pleased to announce that Rabbi Edward C. Bernstein will serve as its spiritual leader for the 2017 High Holidays. "My family and I are excited to join the Beth Am community for the High Holidays," said Rabbi Bernstein. "I look forward to sharing meaningful learning, singing, praying and reflecting on the best possible start to 5778." Rabbi Bernstein is a chaplain for Vitas Healthcare and an educator and author. From 2011 to 2017, he served as spiritual leader of Temple To...
On Sunday, Sept. 17, from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. there will be a special Israeli dance workshop with professional Israeli dance teacher Danny Pollock. He has been teaching Israeli folk-dance for more than 30 years. You will learn older dances and newer favorites, while touching some on the background of the music, choreography and styling. Danny Pollock has made a career of teaching Israeli folkdance for more than thirty years. Danny has led classes, sessions, and workshops in Israeli folkdance...
Holocaust survivors Genia Kutner and Gerald Biegel will share their stories with high school students (and anyone else who would like to attend) at Oviedo High School on Sept. 12. The program, dedicated to unity, is titled "One Day Starts Today." It is presented by JSU and Stand With Us. The event is open to the public and is free of charge. JSU is an after-school club, run by the teenagers, that strives to build a community where unity is the priority. Oviedo High School is located at 601 King...
The mystical meaning of the next eclipse which is only seven years away. Amazingly enough, the “totality eclipse” which took place this past Monday across the continental United States was not the end of the story. While eclipses of this magnitude are fairly rare occurrences—scientists tell us that if you stood in one place on earth you would have to wait on average another 360 years until you again saw another total eclipse—this time round is going to be different. A sequel is due a mere seven years later, on April 8, 2024. This proximi...
(JNS.org)-In the wake of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon's ousting, reports detailing his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have started to emerge. Bannon reportedly aggressively petitioned President Donald Trump to relocate the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but was blocked by Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, Vanity Fair reported Sunday. Trump promised to relocate the embassy during his election campaign in 2016, but he signed a s...
The winner of a Lebanese beauty pageant has been stripped of her title after it was revealed she had visited Israel. Dual Swedish-Lebanese citizen Amanda Hanna, who won the Miss Lebanon Emigrant 2017 competition earlier this month, was told she would be stripped of her title after visiting Israel, using her Swedish passport on an academic trip in 2016. "After communicating our decision with Lebanon's Minister of Tourism, he decided that Hanna should be stripped of her title because her visit to...
The scene is Paris in the late 19th century. At a glittering ball, a handful of eligible gentilhommes eagerly circled the charming Comtesse de La Rochefoucauld—something of an Ivanka Trump in her day—in the hope of being granted a dance. But when the comtesse finally took to the dance floor, the man on her arm was Arthur Meyer, the scion of a rabbinical family who had risen from modest origins to become a newspaper magnate. The spectacle of the comtesse dancing with Meyer the Jew was shocking to the anti-Semites in France—and, this being the t...
On a recent Friday, several-dozen Jewish hikers happened to pass near the Palestinian village of Kobar. Some locals reacted to the sight of Jews by trying to stone them to death. News reports noted that Kobar is the home town of the terrorist who recently stabbed three Jews to death at their dinner table in the town of Halamish. On Aug. 12, Palestinians attending a funeral of a dead terrorist decided they would try to complete his life’s mission by murdering some Jews themselves. They gathered on the road near the Israeli town of Tekoa and bega...
There ain’t much anybody can do. It’s one of our insoluble problems. For those of us outside areas of the Middle East and Africa where one or another radical movement established itself, the problem may grow with the defeat of the extremists in areas they had once controlled. The worry comes not only from individuals that had served in Syria or Iraq and then go home to wreck havoc among the infidels. Those can be identified and watched. Even that is difficult. Europeans have been killed by those who slipped through the cracks. And scr...
We live in a time when, as the U.S. State Department has noted, a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” has swept across the globe. Anti-Semitism has crept into the mainstream from the margins of society in the West, as a coalition of intellectual elites and Muslims has produced a surge of venom against Israel and Jews who identify with it. That movement has found a foothold on American campuses and among left-wing groups, resulting in Jews being stigmatized and isolated in the public square, and students being subjected to violence and int...
Jews are asking if we’re back in the 1920s. To me, the scene outside a Charlottesville synagogue is more like Odessa in 1905. Across from the synagogue stood three white supremacists with semi-automatic weapons. During the Friday night torchlight parade that passed the synagogue, the alt-right marchers, hands in the salute formation, hurled slogans reminiscent of the Nazi era. The armed men in fatigues looked as if they were ready to carry out the threats. The police were called. They did not show. Did the city council want blood spilled to adv...
The stinging heat of anti-Semitism is being felt, yet again, around the world. Whether you live in Miami, Rome or Santiago, the goosebumps we all got when we heard the chants of the white supremacists in Charlottesville—“Jews will not replace us”—are the same. The lump in my throat when I learned that the pedestrians who were mowed down in Barcelona Aug. 17 were standing outside two kosher restaurants is the same feeling felt by Jews in Brussels, Sydney and Toronto. These feelings remind me of Robert De Niro’s character in the 1995 movie, “H...
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...
What do young people do on a hot summer day at Camp J? They go to join a group of seniors at Brookdale Lake Orienta for a "Game Day." Almost 40 teen-aged campers enjoyed an afternoon bonding with Brookdale residents, playing Bridge, working on puzzles, teaching phone tech, and singing and dancing in the cool A/C. The multi-generational fun and games were coordinated by former Jewish Pavilion Intergenerational program director Jane Edelstein, with assistance from Mary Vindett and Mark Pulaski at...
Tuesday evening, Aug. 22, the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center hosted a panel discussion on free speech vs. hate speech. The timely dialogue was arranged as a result of the Charlottesville protest/counterprotest. Michael Friedman, president of HMREC, welcomed the more than 500 people in attendance, and stated that we should all treat people with respect even if we disagree. "The way we respond to Charlottesville defines us as a country," he stated. Moderator Scott Maxwell,...
NEW YORK (JTA)—On the night of Rosh Hashanah, thousands of people will leave work, gather in congregations across the globe and worship God, the ruler of the world. Ten days later they will begin a fast and gather again to pray, this time atoning for their sins. On both occasions they will praise Jesus Christ and pray for his return. They are not Jews, nor are they Jews for Jesus. Rather, these congregants are members of an evangelical Christian movement called the Living Church of God. On the days Jews know as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, t...
A beginner in the Jewish genealogy search, Jane Edelstein recently attended the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference held in Orlando. This is the second article about her experience finding her roots. If you're building your family tree online, you may be tired of reviewing old historical documents that aren't even in English. It's one thing to focus on relatives that you or your parents had once met, but once you've gone back two or more generations, how do you...
On Aug. 17, the ‘Florida Atlantic University professor and president of the Islamic Society of Boca Raton, Fla., Bassem Alhalabi, agreed to publicly defend the Shariah Islamiyya (Islamic Law) but ran away in shame from the venue minutes before the program’s starting time. The title of the meeting was “Interfaith Cafe: Sharia Law and U.S. Law Nothing To Fear.” Dr. Alhalabi was to defend Islamic law, making the case that non-Muslims have nothing to fear from Shariah. Deep down Dr. Alhalabi knows the facts are not on his side. What Dr. Alhalab...
Oh No!... My favorite comedian of all, maybe the funniest comic of all time, has passed on. I'm talking about Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis was an American actor, comedian, singer, film producer, film director, screenwriter, and humanitarian. He was known for his slapstick humor in film, television, stage and radio. He died at the age of 91 on Aug. 20th. He will be remembered for all of his movies, his years as half of the team of Martin and Lewis (with Dean Martin) and mostly, for the joy he...
Like many back-to-schoolers, Ed April is preparing to return to classes. An eager student, he has already read through his required text on the Spanish American War. In just a few weeks, Ed will join with the thousands of students on the campus of Northwestern University, as he heads into his ninth year at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Northwestern University (OLLI). Though Ed is more than 55 years older than the average college student, he shares that returning to campus each year for...
NEW YORK (JTA)-After the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, voices abounded calling the demonstration an affront to American values. Rabbi Shai Held called it an attack on God. "One of the most fundamental claims Judaism makes about the world is that every human being on the face of the earth-black and white, male and female-is created in the image of God and is therefore infinitely valuable," Held wrote last week in an essay on CNN.com. "An attack on other people's humanity is by...
