Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 33
(JNS) - Israeli landmarks honored the United States on Sunday with gestures of gratitude following the American military's aerial operation against Iran's nuclear facilities early that morning. The front of the Knesset building was illuminated in red, white and blue, while the ceremonial plaza was adorned with American flags. An honor guard was stationed at the site, with the participation of Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana. "On behalf of the Knesset, which represents all the citizens of Israel, I...
(JTA) — Hundreds of people lined the streets of Tenafly, New Jersey, on Thursday to welcome home native son Edan Alexander, who survived 584 days of captivity in Gaza before being freed in May. Alexander graduated from Tenafly High School before enlisting in the Israeli army and was serving on a base on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel and took him and 250 others hostage. The last remaining living American citizen in captivity, he was freed in a one-off deal negotiated by the Trump a...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday prayed at the Western Wall, Judaism’s second-holiest site, in Jerusalem’s Old City, giving thanks for the United States joining the war against Iran. Netanyahu visited the site alongside Shmuel Rabinovitch, the rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Places, and Mordechai “Suli” Eliav, director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. The prime minister recited a special prayer for U.S. President Donald Trump, known in Hebrew as Hanoten teshuah (“He who grants deliverance”), asking that God...
(JNS) - A year after the horrors of Oct. 7, 2023, when 1,200 Israelis were brutally murdered and 252 taken hostage by Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a new phase in the war. He said the operation known as "Swords of Iron" now bears a far older, deeper name: "The War of Tkuma." In Hebrew, tkuma means resurrection - a word rooted in Jewish memory, struggle and renewal. This wasn't just a rebranding. It was a signal. With the symbolic conclusion of shiva - the seven-day Je...
Congregation Ohev Shalom was honored to host the Orlando Symphony Orchestra on June 12 as it launched its Two Concerts, One Community series. "Many of our congregants regularly attend performances at the Dr. Phillips Center, but welcoming the symphony and world-renowned baritone Lawrence Craig into our own sanctuary was beyond special. Seeing and hearing the musicians on our bimah was truly magical," said COS President Debby Gendzier. The sanctuary of Maitland's COS came alive with music,...
Shalom Orlando welcomed Dr. James Larsen as the next director of the Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center. Starting on July 14, Dr. Larsen brings more than three decades of educational experience and knowledge to this role. He will oversee ECLC curriculum, staff, budget, professional development, and family engagement, and he. Dr. Larsen comes to us from Orange County Public Schools where he was a classroom teacher, a school principal, and a district administrator during his 30-year...
As one of the largest Jewish camp operators in the United States, NJY Camps was expecting to host over 100 Israeli counselors this summer. Now, over half of them are stranded in Israel after the surprise onset of a war with Iran has ground air travel to a total halt. “Some of them were supposed to be here today. They will not be here today, and who knows when they will be here,” said Michael Schlank, CEO of the network of day and overnight camps in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. At Jewish camps in the United States, hosting Israelis as cou...
(JNS) — A pro-Israel Christian student organization on Wednesday donated $100,000 to honor the victims of last year’s deadly Hezbollah rocket attack on a soccer field in the Golan Heights village of Majdal Shams, which claimed the lives of 12 Druze children. The donation by Passages, which has been dubbed the “Christian Birthright” for its student tours to Israel, will go to a local foundation that supports community youth pursuing higher education and leadership roles, a memorial soccer tournament and other infrastructure projects. “In bri...
In ordering a preemptive strike aimed at significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear program, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was following in the footsteps of two of his predecessors. Menachem Begin ordered an attack in 1981 that destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor. And a quarter-century later, Ehud Olmert gave the green light in 2007 to destroy a nuclear reactor in its last stages of construction in northeastern Syria. But Israel was not in fact the first country in the Middle East to take aim at an enemy’s nuclear facilities. That disti...
(JNS) — Israeli fighter jets struck the entrance gate of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison on Monday, according to Iranian opposition media and Israeli officials. Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed the operation as part of a broader campaign targeting “governmental repression bodies in the heart of Tehran.” Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said in a press briefing that the Israeli Air Force was “intensifying strikes” in the capital area. The Israeli military described the attack on the prison as “symbolic....
NEW YORK — Following a U.S. operation targeting Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, Ambassador Ronald S. Lauder, President of the World Jewish Congress, issued the following statement: “A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat to Western civilization and global security. It is my hope that today’s historic operation by the United States has brought an end to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions once and for all. “I applaud President Trump and his administration for having the courage to act decisively, and for lending critical Am...
In the wake of Israel’s remarkable attack on nuclear facilities, military and other strategic targets, and leaders of the Islamic Republic regime in Iran, I have received many questions about the situation, informally from people on social media, and in a variety of media interviews. Allow me to share some important background and perspective. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran was a monarchy under the Pahlavi dynasty, with Reza Shah (1925–1941) remembered as a respected modernizer who fostered ties with nations like Israel and the Uni...
“America can’t do a damn thing against us,” Ayatollah Khomeini bragged while holding our hostages. The Carter administration had undermined the shah’s government in favor of the Islamists who seized power in 1979 and then prevented the Tehran embassy’s Marine guards from defending the facility and the people inside against the Muslim “student” groups who claimed to be coming in peace. The “peaceful” student activists took over our embassy and held our people hostage. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei taunted President Trump with the same slogan i...
Israel is a strong country because its home front endures impossible travails. Imagine going through years of running to public shelters, safe rooms, or, when caught in a car during an Iranian, Houthi, Hamas or Hezbollah rocket, missile or drone attack, getting out and lying flat on the ground, hands protecting head. Israel’s triumph last year over the vaunted Hezbollah—the most lethal weapon in the arsenal of the Islamic Republic of Iran—and its campaign against Iran dubbed “Operation Rising Lion,” will be remembered for generations as a bibl...
(JNS) — History is being made right now as the Middle East—and perhaps the free world — has just been reshaped. On the morning of June 22 in central Israel, where I have been living and working, we were awoken to the spectacular news that U.S. President Donald Trump launched a deliberate, accurate and successful military attack on Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. The precision and scale of the operation has already sparked waves of speculation and analysis across global media channels. The targets of the strike — key nuclear facilities — been cent...
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) — Amid the devastation of recent missile attacks, the rescue of babies has become a poignant symbol of hope. A heartfelt video from Thursday in Ramat Gan captures a father’s reunion with his infant son, passed to him by rescuers after the massive Iranian barrage at around 7:30 a.m. “Hand him to me, all is well, my boy is OK, come to Mommy, such a smile,” he said, his voice breaking as he held his child, saved from a direct missile strike on their building. In another part of central Israel, rescuers freed a baby girl from the wreckag...
In 2017, I interviewed Harry Lowenstein, a Holocaust survivor, and published his story in the Heritage Florida Jewish News. Little did I know that that would begin for me a journey that would span eight years, hours and hours of interviews, research, and writing, and over 40 stories that would culminate in my fifth book, tentatively called “Witness and Legacy: Profiles of Jewish Sacrifice, Survival and Strength,” will be launched this September. What follows is my introduction. “You reall...
One of the best things in life is to have the privilege of taking one’s grandchildren out for ice cream. Even during a war. Perhaps especially during a war. This week, my daughter and son-in-law brought my four grandsons for a visit, partly as a fun outing and partly as a respite for themselves. Since the war erupted with Iran, all school and pre-school programs have been canceled, leaving parents of young children to figure out how to juggle keeping all the kids occupied without pulling their own hair out, and keeping them safe and close to h...
On June 5, 2025, Lt. Leonard M. Keysor was posthumously honored with a historical marker at the location of his London home. It was the first public recognition of him as a Jew. Born in London, Leonard Keysor moved to Australia just before the outbreak of World War I. When war was declared, he enlisted in the Australian Army, joining the 1st Battalion. Serving with Australian Forces in the trenches of Gallipoli during World War I, Keysor was a bomber and a highly skilled grenade thrower. He was...
When we reflect on grief, our minds often turn to the emotions and processes following the loss of a loved one. However, the journey of grief begins long before death, especially when a loved one receives a life-threatening diagnosis. This pre-loss mourning is termed anticipatory grief, a concept illuminated by grief expert Dr. Therese Rando. Anticipatory grief encompasses the mourning of past, present, and future losses, shaping the emotional landscape of both care recipients and caregivers. From different vantage points, care recipients and...
JAFFA, Israel - It was after 2 a.m. by the time I finally fell asleep, after yet another siren sent us scrambling to the safe room in our Jaffa apartment, which has transitioned - at least for this iteration of war - into a kind of Japanese-style tatami bed, sprawling mattresses wall-to-wall. Three hours later, I woke up inexplicably and saw the door was open. One of the kids was missing. Bleary-eyed, I went searching and found my middle son curled up asleep on my bed. I carried him back and...
Imam Hassen Chalghoumi of Drancy, near Paris, is astonished by what Israel is currently doing in Iran. He writes: I, a son of Ishmael, an imam, a Muslim, a man of peace, hereby present my sincere testimony about this extraordinary people: I must admit, I believe in religions and miracles. But there is something about this people - the people of Israel - that feels like a living miracle. A people the Pharaohs tried to erase 3,000 years ago... and failed. A people the Babylonians tried to annihila...
Israel was the first target of retaliatory attacks by Iran after Israel launched a massive military campaign against its nuclear program on Friday. But security officials are warning that Israelis and Jews abroad could also face consequences from the beleaguered regime. Iran has a long track record of sowing violence against Jewish and Israeli targets abroad, including over the last two years as its proxies in the Middle East have battled Israel on the ground. Among the many examples: Swedish teens who tried to attack the Israeli embassy in...
