Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 5 - 29 of 39
Where has the time gone? The organizing committee is actively planning the Ninth annual Men’s Night Out, to be held at Congregation Ohev Shalom on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2025, starting at 5:30 pm. Organized and presented by Congregation Ohev Shalom, Temple Israel, Congregation of Reform Judaism, Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation, in conjunction with Shalom Orlando, Men’s Night Out is a collaborative outreach program and a “community driven” gathering designed to bring all affiliated and unaffiliated Jewish men in the Orlando community togethe...
The much-anticipated Annual Online Auction to support our local senior community is almost here! Taking place Oct. 19–24, this exciting event raises critical funds for programs that provide connection, care, and dignity to seniors in need — and this year, the Jewish Pavilion Senior Services needs your help to make it the most successful auction yet. Register, Donate, and Win! Auction participation is simple — and potentially rewarding. Register today https://jewishpavilion.org/2025-online-auction/ Your engagement goes a long way in boost...
On Oct. 19, from noon to 1 p.m., the Holocaust Center will host the Junior Reading Club. The book to be discussed is “The Patchwork Torah” by Allison Ofanasky. This event is free and open to families. It is designed for children in grades K-6 and includes discussion followed by hands-on arts and crafts. On Sunday, Oct. 26, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Dismantling Hate Workshop, Part 4: Historical Remembrance and Memorialization will be held. This is the final session of this 4-part series, led by Dr. Adrian Mitter. The workshop Uses the Hol...
(JNS) — The FBI is cutting ties with the Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center, Kash Patel, director of the federal U.S. law enforcement agency, stated in a pair of social media posts last week. Patel blamed the ADL partnership on his predecessor, James Comey, who the U.S. Justice Department indicted last month for allegedly making false statements and obstruction of justice. Those allegations relate to Senate testimony he gave about the 2016 investigation into potential links between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia....
For months, I wracked my brain for a way to express my appreciation and admiration for Rabbi Sholom Dubov, chief rabbi of Chabad Orlando, for the major role he has played in my family’s lives. Put it simply — he fortified our Jewish identification. He doesn’t need another watch or camera, suitcase or sweater, I thought. Then it hit me. What better way to pay tribute to him than simply create a tribute. So, as he celebrated his 64th birthday on the eve of Yom Kipper, here is my heartful tribute to him as well as a remembrance of my life...
(JNS) — In his first interview since announcing earlier in the day the first phase of an agreement aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the “world has come together around this deal.” Calling it a “great honor” to participate in the deal that will see all of the hostages both living and dead returned from Gaza in the coming days, Trump thanked members of his administration, including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, senior adviser Jared Kushner, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and V...
(JNS) — Families of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have sent an urgent letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, calling on the body to award the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Donald Trump for his efforts to end the Israel-Hamas war. “After almost two years of suffering, we have reached a critical turning point,” the families wrote, according to a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum Headquarters. “President Trump’s determination to bring peace made possible what many said was impossible. We strongly urge you to award Pres...
Hours after freeing 20 living hostages to a jubilant Israel, Hamas released the remains of four deceased hostages — far fewer than the 28 it is holding and obligated under the terms of the ceasefire to release. The group had already indicated that it was not prepared to release all of the deceased hostages’ remains immediately, following two years of war in Gaza, and Israel and negotiators had accepted that it could take some time. Still, the small number of bodies released on Monday represented a disappointment for many who had hoped that Mon...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to join world leaders in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday to finalize the U.S.-brokered deal aimed at ending the war on Hamas. The Sharm el-Sheikh summit “will soon begin with the participation of 30 countries and international and regional organizations, to celebrate the signing of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip,” a spokesman for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s office told Arabic media. In addition to Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald...
What a week. President Donald Trump forced the prime minister of Israel to grovel before the Emir of Qatar—the same autocrat who bankrolls Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Jewish state, was compelled to apologize for Israel’s attempted strike on Hamas officials being hosted in Doha and to promise never to do it again. It was a humiliating spectacle: the sovereign leader of a U.S. ally bowing before the financier of the Oct. 7 massacre, at the insistence of an American president. It wasn’t Netanyahu’s first humiliation at the hands o...
(JNS) — A close look at the boats used by anti-Israel extremists aboard the so-called “Gaza Flotilla,” which attempted to evade Israeli navy vessels and land in the Gaza Strip on Yom Kippur, reveals much about their true motivation—something that both journalists and Israel’s supporters have missed, though should not have. You might have expected that the banners on the ships would feature messages like “Stop the Blockade,” “Feed Gaza” or even “Stop the Genocide,” but the boats I saw in the photos had no such messages at all. That’s because the...
I am writing this column on the morning of Oct. 9, 2025, a few hours since the announcement that an agreement has been reached between Israel and Hamas for release within 72 hours of all the remaining hostages; the 20 that are still alive and the remains of the 28 who were murdered by their captors. Along with my co-religionists in the Diaspora and the citizens of Israel, I am elated and excited about our hostages coming home; and momentarily dreaming that peace in the Middle East may finally be at hand. But I know better than to allow my...
(JNS) — Oct. 7, 2023, was the worst day in the history of the State of Israel and will be remembered as such for all time. But as New York Times columnist Bret Stephens noted in a column analyzing the lessons of that day and the war that followed, “For all its undoubted horrors, this war may ultimately be remembered as liberating.” Israel responded to Hamas’s day of genocide by waging war to destroy the Iran axis of which Hamas was a member. Stephens explained how Israel’s war had liberated the peoples of the region. In Lebanon, thanks to...
Sharm el-Sheikh, October 9 (U.S. time): Israel and Hamas signed a first-phase agreement that promises a pause in fighting, a partial Israeli pullback, and hostage–prisoner exchanges, with releases expected shortly after Israeli cabinet ratification. Much to hope for. But peace isn’t just paperwork — it rests on trust and, not to be forgotten, on what children are taught. As President Ronald Reagan said, “Trust, but verify.” There are three sobering clues from recent history which explain why verification can’t be a footnote, it’s the whole bal...
(JNS) — As a law student at American University Washington College of Law in the early 1970s, I worked part-time as the administrator of the campus’s Abraham S. Kay Spiritual Life Center, a building in the center of the Quad, donated by the Jewish Kaye family and designed to look like a giant eternal light unto the nations. The Kay building’s use reflected its design, as its ground floor served as offices for clergy members of up to a dozen religious organizations and as a social hall. The main floor provided a nondenominational prayer and cere...
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., 407-647-30...
(JNS) — Israel’s Ministry of Religious Services is prepared to receive the remains of “between one and 28” slain hostages as part of the agreement with Hamas in Gaza, director-general Yehudah Avidan said on Sunday. Despite expectations, no one yet knows how many hostages’ bodies will be handed over by the terrorist group before the deadline of 6 a.m. on Monday, Avidan told Kan Reshet Bet radio. A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross will carry out an initial identification process after receiving the bodies, according...
(JNS) - I've been thinking a lot about Yaakov Kirschen now that the year 5785 has ended and a new one has begun. I had long known of him but had just started getting to know him, meeting the man behind the "Dry Bones" political cartoon - recognized far and wide in the Jewish news world - on the last Saturday in March. I happened to be in the same place he was that Shabbat, spending time with family in a suburb of Tel Aviv before flying back to the States that night. He was convalescing from a...
(JNS) - Customers at Fuzzy's Pizza Katy in West Houston have the option of ordering something a little bit more lofty than just a tomato pie as part of a current promotion. The family-owned pizza shop is offering a limited-edition Elie Wiesel keepsake box in honor of the Sept. 30 birthday of the late Holocaust survivor. Wiesel died on July 2, 2016, at the age of 87. It's an opt-in program; owner Jeff Hajjar said he started with 72 keepsake boxes (as of Tuesday night, he had 19 left) in the...
Typical causes of stress include work, financial struggles, parenting issues, relationship troubles, health concerns, caregiving and more. Signs and symptoms of stress include feeling anxious, sweaty palms, fluctuating mood, digestion issues, constipation or diarrhea, dizziness and nausea, teeth grinding, headaches, decrease in energy levels, trembling, and rapid breathing. The impact of stress on your mental and physical health can lead to behaviors such as trouble concentrating, experiencing memory problems, constant irritability, impaired...
(JTA) - When Rita Zohar stepped into the role of Bessie Stern, a Holocaust survivor whose death sets in motion Scarlett Johansson's new film "Eleanor the Great," she wasn't simply acting. Zohar, 81, is a childhood survivor of the Holocaust. She was also drawing on her lived experience of loss and resilience to bring life to her character. "This role in this movie has given me a voice," Zohar told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "Even though this is not my story, this is not what happened to me...
(JNS) — On the 84th anniversary of the notorious Babi Yar massacre, the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center revealed the names of more than 1,000 newly identified victims, announced publicly for the first time at a ceremony at the site on Monday. In Jerusalem, BYHMC and March of the Living hosted a parallel memorial at the National Library of Israel, where the newly discovered names were also read out. Speakers included BYHMC Chairman Natan Sharansky, Ukraine’s Ambassador to Israel Yevgen Korniychuk and Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan. “Me...
In one of her last interviews, renowned British primatologist Jane Goodall said that she wanted to send Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with several other world leaders she disliked, on a one-way trip to space. “There are people I don’t like. And I would like to put them on one of [Elon] Musk’s spaceships and send them all off to the planet he’s sure he’s going to discover,” Goodall said on Netflix’s “Famous Last Words: Dr. Jane Goodall,” which was filmed earlier this year and premiered following her death last week at 91....
(JNS) — World leaders from across the globe on Thursday welcomed Israel and Hamas’s agreement to the first phase of Trump’s ceasefire deal, reflecting both intense global relief that the end to the two-year-old war may be in sight and respect for the American president. Among those praising the move were countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia, who defied the American administration by recognizing a Palestinian state just last month. United Kingdom “I welcome the news that a deal has been reached on the first stage o...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday marked two years since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre, pledging that Israel “will prevail” and reaffirming his commitment to achieving all the war’s objectives — the return of hostages, the elimination of Hamas and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the Jewish state. In a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu recalled the immense suffering caused by the attacks, in which some 1,200 people were murdered and 251 were abducted into the terror...
