Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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On Wednesday, Sept. 3, Allegro Senior Living in Winter Park was filled with warmth, joy, and the sweet spirit of the Jewish New Year as the Jewish Pavilion hosted a special Rosh Hashanah-themed breakfast. This meaningful event was held in honor of the sponsors of Jewish Pavilion Senior Services as well as the organization's dedicated board members. In the spirit of the holiday, Allegro served the traditional Rosh Hashanah treat of apples and honey, symbolizing hopes for a sweet and prosperous...
The Rosen JCC had the privilege of welcoming State House Representative Rita Harris, State Senator Kristen Arrington, and Frank Santos, CEO of Rosen Hotels & Resorts and president of The Harris Rosen Foundation, to the Rosen JCC for a tour and formal presentation of the State appropriation award they so passionately sponsored and championed on the JCC’s behalf. Thanks to a dollar-for-dollar match from The Harris Rosen Foundation, the total investment now exceeds $1 million. This t...
MAITLAND — With hurricane season nearing its September peak, Central Florida residents gathered at Shalom Orlando on Tuesday for a Lunch & Learn hosted by the Jewish Chamber of Commerce. The featured speaker, WESH 2 News Chief Meteorologist Eric Burris, delivered insight into what drives our storm season, along with projections for the weeks ahead. “Climate always modifies, grows, and adjusts. We just have to figure out how quick and how come,” Burris told the audience, setting the stage for a...
(JNS) — After last year’s public service was canceled over fear of altercations, gender-separated Yom Kippur prayers will be held in a Tel Aviv public space in October. The Tel Aviv Municipality on Thursday issued the Rosh Yehudi NGO a permit to hold prayers in Meir Park, located in the center of the metropolis, Ynet reported on Thursday. Rosh Yehudi (“Jewish Head” in Hebrew) tries to spread Orthodox Judaism in Tel Aviv, an attempt that has been met in the past with antagonism in the predominantly secular city. Prayers in Meir Park will be...
(JNS) — An Israeli security source told Hebrew media on Wednesday that up to 80,000 Palestinians have already left Gaza City in anticipation of the Israel Defense Forces operation to capture the Hamas stronghold. The mass evacuation southwards comes despite the fact that the IDF has yet to announce the start of the operation, the source told Ynet, Israel National News, Haaretz and other outlets. Most evacuated over the past 72 hours, according to the reports. Hamas is using “various measures” to limit movement, the source said, adding that...
(JNS) — The Trump administration has issued broad additional restrictions on visa applications by holders of Palestinian Authority travel documents, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing four American officials. The measures, said to have been announced in an Aug. 18 cable sent to all U.S. diplomatic missions, would prevent Palestinians from Samaria and Judea from entering America, including for medical treatment, university studies, visits to friends or relatives and business travel. The new policy reportedly goes beyond the s...
On Tuesday, Sept. 16, Interim CEO Eric Robbins, ECLC director Dr. James Larsen and Board chair Stan Rubins will discuss the ‘State of Shalom Orlando.’ Each will share the Shalom Orlando plans for the future as the Central Florida Jewish community continues to grow and thrive. Accompanying the talks will be champagne and desserts. The event will be held in the Roth Family JCC auditorium from 6:30 – 8 p.m. To RSVP, email Carol Feuerman at Carol.Feuerman@shalomorlando.org....
(JNS) — The editorial writers at The Washington Post support establishing a sovereign Palestinian Arab state next to Israel. They continue to say this even as Israel approaches nearly two years of war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to understand that Oct. 7 has changed everything. The most alarming statement in the Aug. 24 editorial may be this groundless claim: “A two-state solution remains the only viable option to end decades of conti...
This article won second place in the American Jewish Press Association’s annual Simon Rockower Award program. Rosh Hashanah is the time of year when we as individuals find ourselves at the center of the universe in direct communication with God. For a brief moment the present stops, the past does not recede and the future refuses to beckon us. The High Holy Days are rest stops on our journey through life; a brief respite to catch our breaths, to check our baggage and to recharge our human energy. To understand where we have been, where we are,...
(JNS) — In 2023, I advised colleagues not to show the video that Hamas filmed of their sadistic murders on Oct. 7, certainly not at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I said that the sight of Jewish blood always unleashes denial and even more Jew-hatred. Soon enough, I also understood that the sight of Jewish military prowess unleashes even more Jew-hatred. As Israel fought to ensure that Hamas could not make good on their threat of even more Oct. 7-style attacks on Israeli soil and displayed an extraordinary command of t...
(JNS) — Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese probably didn’t imagine that one week after his interior ministry abruptly canceled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a member of Israel’s Knesset, his government would be enveloped in a major dispute with Israel’s arch-foe, the regime in Iran. Unlike Iran, Israel has not carried out any terrorist attacks in Australia. It has not encouraged hate crimes against that country’s growing Muslim population. It is not boycotting goods produced in Australia. Had Rothman been permitted to go ahead with his...
(JNS) — The history of Jew-hatred can be understood as the systematic perpetuation of defamatory rumors strategically deployed to demonize Jews. These myths have repeatedly produced lethal consequences, claiming Jewish lives across centuries and geographies. The recurrence of these claims makes them difficult to refute before violence ensues. From the medieval blood libel to contemporary accusations of genocide and colonialism, each new fabrication presents itself as unprecedented. In reality, each libel constitutes a continuation of a long a...
(JNS) — The Jewish community of Australia has long served as a model of integration, resilience and commitment. For decades, it has stood in constant solidarity with Israel, nurturing a relationship defined by deep emotional bonds and shared historical memory. Many Holocaust survivors rebuilt their shattered lives on Australian shores, laying the foundations of communities that remain among the strongest Jewish centers in the Diaspora. Despite the vast physical distance from Israel, the connection has never been a matter of miles, but of h...
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., 407-647-3...
(JNS) - The Palestinian Authority on Monday condemned attempts by Jewish activist groups to sound the shofar on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, calling the ram's horn a "dangerous tool" used by Israel to assert sovereignty. The P.A.'s Jerusalem Governorate warned in a statement that the Jewish tradition of sounding the shofar throughout the Hebrew month of Elul is "no longer a passing religious ritual but has become one of the most dangerous tools of the occupation to impose its alleged sovereignty."...
(JNS)- Six Israelis were murdered and a dozen more wounded in a mass-shooting attack by Palestinian terrorists in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot on Monday morning. The slain victims were identified as Yosef David, 43, from Jerusalem; Sarah Mendelson, 60, from Jerusalem; Israel Mentzer, 28, from Jerusalem; Levi Yitzhak Pash, 57, from Tel Zion; Yaakov Pinto, 25, from Jerusalem; and Mordechai Steintzeg, 79, from Jerusalem. The Magen David Adom emergency medical response group...
Want to lower your blood pressure? A new study pinpoints exactly what kind of exercise is best for easing blood pressure, and it doesn't involve running on the treadmill or pumping iron at the gym. Instead, the study reveals that static isometric exercises like wall sits (also known as wall squats) and planks, which engage muscles without movement, are best for lowering blood pressure. The new analysis, a systematic review of 270 studies published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine,...
At this very moment, young Jews from around the world are making aliyah for a year of service and enlistment in the IDF: On Sept. 9, 2025, a dedication ceremony was held for the new home for lone soldiers at the Hannaton Educational Center in the Galilee. Present were the approximately 30 young men and women from North America, who have made the bold decision to move to Israel via the Garin Tzabar program of the Israeli Scouts Movement and become the first cohort to move into the home. Here lone soldiers will share a campus with their Israeli p...
RYE, New York — This is the time of year when rabbis begin working on their High Holydays sermons, and Howard Goldsmith of Temple Emanu-El of Westchester had an idea for one the other day. Rabbi Goldsmith, who has served 15 years as spiritual leader of the congregation in suburban Westchester County, 25 miles north of New York City, was reading Yascha Mounk’s “The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time” (Penguin Press, 2023), about minority groups’ growing assertion of their individual identity within wider society. The book...
On the evening of Sept. 2, over 200 joined together in the Nova Festival site to honor the memory of the sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, of the Oct. 7th victims, and bless their memory. It was the latest stage in a national initiative led in cooperation between Hatzalah Yehuda and Shomron and Children of Light - the Organization of Families of the Murdered in the Nova Festival. We did this in a very practical way - by giving an emergency medical kit with their name and photo to a volun...
Are the trails getting steeper? Or am I getting older? These were my thoughts as Larry and I climbed Shrine Ridge Trail in Summit County in early July. We had been in Colorado for 10 days before we attempted the hike, so I believed I had acclimated my body to the altitude. But we started at 11,000 feet and would peak closer to 12,000. As I huffed and puffed up the trail, I never doubted I would finish. The bulldog in me would never give up. But could I do this next year? In five years? Who knows...
Dr. David and Orly Diamond of Winter Park, Florida and Laura Felson of Smyrna, Georgia are delighted to share the engagement of their daughter, Yael Diamond, to Max Maron, son of Jeffrey Maron and Rhonda Schaffer-Maron of Stamford, Connecticut. Yael is a central Florida native and attended the Roth JCC, The Hebrew Day School (The Gotlib Jewish Academy of Orlando), Winter Park High School, Alexander Muss High School in Israel and Malcon Alte Seminary. She then earned a bachelor's degree from the...
Jerry Lee Cohen passed away in his sleep on Sept. 1, 2025. He was 83 years old. Jerry and his wife, Amira, were an integral part of the Orlando Jewish Community for over 30 years, but it was Jerry’s compassion and genuineness that truly made him special. His love of family over everything else, even his own wellbeing, was one of his greatest attributes. Jerry loved classic films and westerns. He was a huge sports fan rooting on his beloved Bengals and Reds all of his life. A veteran of the United States Navy he was a patriot who knew he was liv... Full story
With deep sorrow we announce the death of David S. Greenberg, beloved husband of Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, father of Rafi Greenberg and Elie Greenberg, and grandfather of Zeana and Lila Greenberg. David passed away on July 31, 2025, at his home in Winter Park. He was born on Feb. 20, 1953, in Seattle, Washington to Jacob and Zindell Greenberg. David attended the University of Washington where he graduated with a degree in Electrical Engineering. In 1977 he married the love of his life, Yudit...
