Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 28
It's unbelievable to see what happened to my city, my friends, my community. Hurricane Ian decimated Fort Myers Beach, along with homes, businesses, roads and vehicles, and left much of the area unrecognizable. It has been described as an apocalyptic scene. The death toll is currently at 109 deaths in the United States, the vast majority in Florida. Two Holocaust survivors in their 90s are among the many Southwest Floridians displaced by Hurricane Ian last week. The couple lived in a mobile...
Thirty-eight years ago, Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel, the only Jewish funeral home in Central Florida, opened its doors at 115 W. Gore Street in Orlando to serve the funeral needs of the Jewish community from Orange, Osceola, and Seminole counties, as well as making arrangements for other contiguous counties and out of state burials. Thirteen years later they moved to 640 Lee Road, gaining much needed space. Recently, however, Beth Shalom had to move from this location because it became...
Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando leads collaborative community effort to house Ukrainian refugees in our Central Florida community. Recently, St. Mary Protectress Ukrainian Catholic Church in Apopka became aware of a Ukrainian refugee family of four, with a toddler and newborn, few belongings, and no place to stay. Father Roman Kuzminskyi reached out to JFS Orlando to help the family in urgent need of assistance. JFS sprang into action and mobilized the community. Through JFS Orlando’s relationship with Shalom Orlando, the newly merged...
Jewish National Fund-USA has installed two stellar professionals in new Orlando roles in response to the organization's rapid growth in the region. The appointments mark the first time that the city will have a full-time team of active professionals working to connect the community to Israel. Joshua Mellits, who lives in Bradenton with his wife, Lauren Brodsky, and his son Zev, has been with Jewish National Fund-USA since 2019 and is stepping into a new role as director, Western Florida and...
(JTA) - It is rare that one can say attending a funeral was an uplifting experience. Yet the funeral Thursday for Judah Samet, who died Sept. 27, 2022, was exactly that, because remembering Judah can bring only positive feelings. He was a teacher of Torah at his Tree of Life synagogue, possessor of a unique and vigorous voice and sense of humor, veteran of the paratroop division of the Israeli army, lover of Golden Grahams, generous tipper and possessor of what he termed a "Bergen-Belsen...
Get to the root of the problem. The process of forgiveness can oftentimes start a bigger conversation surrounding the underlying issue that might have caused the event or disagreement you're apologizing for in the first place. First, try looking for patterns or triggers. For example, the common factor each time you get in an argument with your partner might be finances. Identifying it as the source of the issue will help you both build empathy and trust, making it easier to understand each...
(JNS) — Wellesley College’s student newspaper endorsed the controversial Boston “Mapping Project” last week in an article penned by the editorial board, claiming the project provides a “vital service.” The project, published this past summer by BDS supporters, links a range of Massachusetts-based Jewish groups, synagogues, schools, police departments, media and other institutions that the anti-Israel activists claim participate in harmful activities and should be dismantled. The project’s website hosts a map with the locations of their targets...
(JNS) — The heavily Jewish town of Surfside, Florida, passed a resolution last week establishing a twin city relationship with the Samaria Regional Council. Passed by a 5-0 margin, the partnership encompasses some three dozen Jewish communities and will honor Samaria Regional Council Chairman Yossi Dagan with a ceremonial key to the town. Surfside’s first Orthodox Jewish mayor, Shlomo Danzinger, told JNS the move was motivated in part by a desire to thank Israel for its help in the search and rescue operation at the site of the collapse las...
(JNS) — Between 2017 and 2022, 92.82 percent of the articles in leading U.S. college newspapers that strayed from journalistic objectivity were anti-Israel, according to a report from Alums for Campus Fairness. ACF surveyed 75 leading college and university newspapers. Of all the articles about Israel exhibiting a bias, 181 were biased against Israel and 14 portrayed it positively. Coverage spiked during periods of tension between Israel and Hamas, including in November 2018, May 2019, November 2019 and May 2021. There is an intense fixation o...
In an interview with Maariv last week, former Israeli Air Force commander Amir Eshel made several startling admissions about the role he and other IDF generals played in scuttling former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most significant strategic policies. His most startling admissions related to former U.S. president Donald Trump’s Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In 2019, then-Israeli opposition leader Benny Gantz appointed Eshel to serve as his interlocutor with the Trump administration and its Middle East peace plan. In this pos...
On the eve of The Day of Atonement, “Erev Yom Kippur”, it is traditional for Jewish families to recite the Kapporeth prayer in the morning before Yom Kippur as part of our atonement, asking G-d to forgive our sins of the past year; and to give charity in support of our request for forgiveness and to be written into the Book of Life. This year I recited the Kapporeth prayer on behalf of 19 relatives. Among these 19 relatives are one Holocaust survivor, two second-generation Holocaust survivors, five third-generation Holocaust survivors and six...
(JNS) — On Sept. 21, U.S. President Joe Biden addressed the U.N. General Assembly. In his speech, he referred to a negotiated “peace between the Jewish and democratic State of Israel and the Palestinian people.” He added that such a peace is “the best way to ensure Israel’s security … and give the Palestinians the state to which they are entitled.” Entitled? The pernicious political fantasy of the “two-state solution” has been so thoroughly inculcated into the minds of most Western leaders that it is almost axiomatic. It leads to the assu...
(JNS) — It has often been said that the media is a pillar of democracy because it keeps our politicians honest. Lifting the veil of secrecy in which authorities like to cloak themselves, revealing inconvenient truths that expose the inadequacies and worse of government actions and subjecting all politicians to forensic questioning without bias—this is how the media acts in the public interest. But when the media doesn’t deliver, truthfulness goes out of the window, propaganda and ignorance take over and democracy stumbles. We see this in much...
(JNS) It is an article of faith among European leaders, the political intelligentsia and the Biden administration that “two states for two peoples” is the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Failure to achieve this goal is usually blamed on Israel, with many accusers going so far as to assert that Israel has no right to exist and accusing it of being an apartheid colonial entity perpetrating ethnic cleansing against the indigenous population of “Palestine.” With Israeli elections set for Nov. 1, the public debate is heating...
MORNING MINYANS Chabad of North Orlando and Chabad of Altamonte Springs are holding in-person 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...
(JTA) — Couscous lovers who frequent the grocery store Trader Joe’s may have noticed a change in the grain aisle: The chain’s brightly colored purple boxes of “Israeli Couscous” are now simply known as “Pearl Couscous.” The Nosher, a sister website to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, first reported the label change after word of it spread on the popular Facebook group Kosher Trader Joe’s. The move raised questions in the group about whether Trader Joe’s was trying to distance itself from Israel, a move that some companies have made for politica...
(JNS) - Jewish actress Mila Kunis has charmed millions of fans around the world, but did she charm her way into America? After a screening of her new film "Luckiest Girl Alive" at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on Sept. 29, the star who rose to fame playing Jackie Burkhart on "That '70s Show" told the crowd that, as a child, she strolled into the office of the woman who was to decide if her family would be allowed to go to the U.S. They'd been at the American embassy in Moscow for about 16...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - The Biden administration is still hoping to close a deal between Israel and Lebanon on a maritime border. Still, Israel is citing the deal's apparent collapse to prepare for tensions on its northern border. "Special Presidential Coordinator Amos Hochstein continues his robust engagement to bring the maritime boundary discussions to a close," a National Security Council spokeswoman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "We remain in close communication with the Israelis and...
(JTA) - When Rabbi Rachel Timoner's dad Eli told his family of his decision to end his life, Rachel knew what would soon be asked of her: to officiate his funeral, something he had told her he wanted since she became ordained. This presented a challenge for Rachel, the senior rabbi at Brooklyn's Congregation Beth Elohim. Being her father's rabbi "wasn't what I wanted," she says in the new documentary, "Last Flight Home," which chronicles Eli's final days from the perspective of his family. The...
One of the most important roles of a caregiver is to coordinate the medical care their loved-one receives. As medical needs grow, we often need to see specialists, have lab work done, go to therapists, and change care facilities. We would like to assume that our loved-one’s complete medical information is automatically moved from one office to another. This rarely occurs. It falls on the caregiver to ensure that the critical information is received and read by the healthcare provider. Having a binder with all of the medical records tabbed can b...
(JTA) - Episode three of "The Patient," the well-received psychological thriller series on Hulu about a serial killer who kidnaps his therapist, involves a flashback to an Orthodox wedding. Ezra, son of the protagonist therapist Alan Strauss and Reform cantor Beth Strauss, is marrying an Orthodox woman named Chava. Guitar in hand, Beth sings "Dodi Li," a traditional Jewish wedding song, knowing that women are not allowed to sing in the presence of men in this Orthodox community. As she...
New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss pledged "wholehearted" support for the Jewish State during a speech at the Conservative Friends of Israel conference on Monday. "I am so pleased to be here for the first time at the CFI event as your prime minister," Truss was quoted as saying by the Jewish Chronicle. "As you know I am a huge Zionist, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and I know that we can take the UK-Israel relationship from strength to strength." "In this world - where we are facing threats...
(JTA) — Every seven years, in ancient times, Jewish men, women, and children would gather at the Temple on the first day of Sukkot to hear the king of Jerusalem read aloud from the Torah. In 2022, there’s no king and no Temple, and more than half of all Jews live far from Jerusalem — but the ritual is still inspiring Jews around the world to gather together. In fact, the tradition, known as hakhel, appears to be seeing a resurgence of popular interest. In Northampton, Massachusetts, Abundance Farm will host an outdoor festival with tree plant...
(JTA) – It seemed like a headline out of the 19th century: a warning of “Jew-free zones” at the University of California-Berkeley. That’s the phrase being employed by some prominent pro-Israel groups this week to describe a dispute at UC Berkeley’s law school, where nine student groups recently voted to adopt by-laws that state they will not invite any visiting speakers to campus who “hold views in support of Zionism, the apartheid state of Israel, and the occupation of Palestine.” But is the “Jew-free” label accurate? Not according to Jewi...
White House ‘alarmed’ by Iran crackdown, still committed to nuke deal (JNS) — The Biden administration is “alarmed” by the Iranian regime’s ongoing deadly crackdown on demonstrators across the country but is still committed to forging a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday. “So, we’re alarmed and appalled by reports of security authorities responding to university students’ peaceful protests with violence and mass arrests,” she said, adding that these “crackdowns are pre...
