Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA)-People across the United States and around the world will join together virtually on the one-year anniversary of the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue building in suburban Pittsburgh. The virtual commemoration, called "Pause with Pittsburgh," is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Oct. 27. The moment of solidarity and remembrance for the 11 people who were killed during the attack will include, for those in North America, a text including a video with the mourning prayer and a link to Pittsburgh's...
Two days shy of his 28-day time limit to establish a government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that he cannot form a coalition and that he is returning the mandate to do so to President Reuven Rivlin, paving the way for Benny Gantz, leader of Kahol Lavan (Blue and White party) to try to create a government. Gantz will have 28 days to try to form a coalition. What happens if the Gantz-led coalition talks also fail? Then any lawmaker backed by a majority of at least 61 Knes...
(JTA)-Rep. Elijah Cummings, a longtime Baltimore congressman who worked to build ties between the African-American and Jewish communities in his district, died Thursday in his home city. He was 68. A spokeswoman, Trudy Perkins, said in a statement that he died of "complications concerning longstanding health challenges." As the head of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Cummings was a leading figure in the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. He used his role to...
(JNS)—Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) say they plan on endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The three freshmen congresswomen are scheduled to officially make the endorsement at a rally for Sanders on Saturday in New York. “Bernie is leading a working-class movement to defeat Donald Trump that transcends generation, ethnicity, and geography,” said Omar in a statement to NPR. “That is why he is fighting to cancel all stu...
Jewish Academy of Orlando's students love celebrating the new year and spending time with their friends in the sukkah. Here are a few peeks from the week's activities. Jewish Academy of Orlando serves central Florida students of all faiths from transitional kindergarten through fifth grade. The school delivers a whole-child education fostering academic excellence and character education rooted in Jewish values. Jewish Academy of Orlando is accredited by the Florida Council of Independent...
The Malka Altman Memorial Lectures in Jewish Studies presents author Julie Salamon at Stetson University on Tuesday, Oct. 29, at 6:30 p.m. Salamon is the author of "An Innocent Bystander." It is the true account of the murder of Leon Klingoffer on the Achille Lauro cruiseliner. On October 3, 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish New Yorker, and his wife boarded the Achille Lauro to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise. Four days later, four Palestinian...
This year's Men's Night Out is really taking it up a notch. Not only will there be a great steak dinner catered by Arthur's, top-shelf drinks, entertainment by the hilarious comedian Johnny Lampert, and the chance to win a pair of 2020 Masters Golf Tournament Final Round tickets (including two nights at the Hampton Inn with local shuttle to the tournament), a professional magician from See Magic Live will perform interactive, table-side magic as guests schmooze during the cocktail hour. This...
(JNS)-This year, more than 5,000 Christians from all parts of the world gathered on Thursday for the city's annual Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) festive march around Israel's capital, which saw 10,000 participants in total. The Jerusalem municipality organized and funded the march and entertainment events, with participants coming to Israel from 100 nations. The arrival of the Christian pilgrims, who come annually to Israel for Sukkot, was facilitated in part by the International Christian Embas...
(JNS)-A recent presentation during a mandatory meeting for the residential living team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that was replete with anti-Semitic references has come under fire from the pro-Israel community, with the school's chancellor denouncing the incident. Titled "Palestine & Great Return March: Palestinian Resistance to 70 Years of Israeli Terror," the slideshow presentation included libelous statements with one of the slides headlined "Brief History of the...
(JNS)—Israel has been closely monitoring Turkey’s brutal offensive against the Kurds in northeast Syria in recent days. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Turkish invasion on Oct. 10, stating that Israel “warns against the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies,” and that “Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people.” However, Israel’s concerns with regard to the Turkish operation extend beyond Ankara’s conflict with the Kurds. Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res...
The near consensus view of President Donald Trump’s decision to remove U.S. special forces from the Syrian border with Turkey is that Trump is enabling a Turkish invasion and double crossing the Syrian Kurds who have fought with the Americans for five years against ISIS. Trump’s move, the thinking goes, harms U.S. credibility and undermines U.S. power in the region and throughout the world. There are several problems with this narrative. The first is that it assumes that until this week, the US had power and influence in Syria when in fac...
(JNS)—Kumble Subbaswamy, the chancellor of UMass Amherst, made $579,000 last year, and his boss, Marty Meehan, president of the UMass system, made more than $659,000. Between the two of them, they made more than $1.2 million in 2018. And still, neither one of them will do their jobs when it comes to ensuring that professors don’t use college classrooms to coerce students into affirming their personal political agendas. For his part, Subbaswamy will tell you all about the policies that are in place at UMass Amherst to prevent indoctrination in...
As a native born American of the Jewish faith I have been doubly blessed by being born into two great peoples. I am a proud and patriotic citizen of my native America and a proud supporter of Israel and the Jewish people worldwide. I am not however, a citizen or resident of Israel and have no vote in Israeli elections or how Israelis go about choosing their leaders. I do have a right and an obligation along with my fellow Jewish Americans, to express my opinion about everything that goes on in the State of Israel and work for American policies...
(JNS)—After spending six months in jail on the outskirts of Moscow, a young Israeli woman named Naama Issachar was sentenced on Oct. 11 to seven-and-a-half years of imprisonment in Russia. Both the extreme sentence and trumped-up charges of drug-smuggling not only have traumatized the 26-year-old from Rehovot—and inflicted great anguish on her family and friends—but also has spurred the entire Israeli legal and political system into action. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, pleading with him to p...
COLOGNE, Germany (JTA)—When the breaking news from Halle started to pour in Wednesday afternoon, the Jewish community around the world was still in the midst of commemorating the holiest day of the year in Judaism, Yom Kippur. Equipped with a rifle, ammunition and other military gear, the 27-year-old gunman tried to break into a synagogue in the eastern German city and shoot as many Jews as he could during prayers. The shooter, a far-rightist, had every intention to commit a memorable massacre with a “worldwide effect,” according to Germa...
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...
(JTA)—More than 10,000 people marched in Berlin against anti-Semitism and in a show of support for the victims of anti-Semitic violence in the city of Halle. The march on Sunday left from Bebelplatz, significant as a site of Nazi book-burning, to the New Synagogue in central Berlin. Several thousand others marched on Saturday in the streets of other German cities including Hamburg and Marburg. The march comes days after a German man with anti-Semitic and white supremacist motives in a livestreamed attack tried and failed to enter the s...
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (JTA)-The fourth Democratic presidential debate revealed fissures among the candidates on whether to keep U.S. troops in the Middle East. The 12 hopefuls on the stage Tuesday night at Otterbein University in this Columbus suburb were unanimous in describing President Donald Trump's pullout of American troops from Syria as catastrophic for the Kurds, U.S. allies in the war against the Islamic State who are now at the mercy of Turkish forces who invaded northern Syria following...
(JTA)-A Muslim man from Albania who saved Jews during the Holocaust will attend an event in Poland honoring rescuers from across Europe. Xhemal Veseli, 93, who is among a handful of Muslim rescuers alive today, will travel to Warsaw with Albania's foreign minister, Edmond Panariti, whose family also saved Jews from the Holocaust. They will attend in Warsaw an event titled "An Evening for the Righteous" on Nov. 14. "In the remarkably fragmented and aggressive world we live in today, religion...
SARASOTA, Florida (JTA)-Most American Jewish day schools go all in on Chanukah, in part to remind their students that Jews have a winter holiday of their own. But when December rolls around at the Hershorin Schiff Community Day School in southwestern Florida, you're almost as likely to see kids drawing Christmas trees as menorahs or dreidels. That's because the school asks its students to design their own holiday plates-and almost half the students at this Jewish day school are not Jewish....
Stronger together... I read this in the World Jewish Congress digest and pass it along: "WJC President Ambassador RONALD S. LAUDER is calling on Jews around the world, of all levels of faith, religious practice and political affiliation, to unite as one in order to contend with the growing challenges facing the Jewish people. (Gee, I thought anti-Semitism would have disappeared by now, ever since I suffered beatings as a little child in the Red Hook Projects of Brooklyn for being Jewish, way...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA)-Argentinian chef Tomas Kalika, who cooks traditional Jewish foods with a modern twist, won the Chefs´ Choice Award 2019, the only peer-voted prize at Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony. Kalika started to learn about cooking at the age of 17 in Israel with award-winning chef Eyal Shani, who later helped Kalika get a job at the Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem. Kalika later was head chef at the Eldan hotels chain. After eight years of living far from...
(JTA)-"Jojo Rabbit" sounds like a film that is difficult to pull off amid the state of rising anti-Semitism in 2019. It's a comedy set during the Holocaust about a 10-year-old German boy being brainwashed by Nazi ideology and his imaginary friend-a playful version of Hitler who likes to dance. But before you get outraged or assume it downplays the horrors of the Holocaust, like multiple critics have argued already, take a deep breath: "Jojo Rabbit" is a very good movie with a meaningful...
TEL AVIV—About 2.1 million women worldwide developed breast cancer in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Last year also saw some 627,000 fatalities due to breast cancer—nearly all because their cancer had spread to distant organs. Israeli researcher Neta Erez is trying to find out how the cancer spreads in a bid to stop it. “Most studies are still done on the primary tumor, but that’s not what kills the patient,” Erez said. “If we can intervene at an early stage, we may be able to prevent metastasis.” If successful, t...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Many obituaries of Harold Bloom, the lion of American literary criticism who passed away on Oct. 15, 2019, at 89, mention that he was born to Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Few mention his lifelong love of Yiddish, and particularly Yiddish theater, which he grew up watching in New York City (although The New York Times one does say that the first book Bloom read was an anthology of Yiddish poetry). In what was likely one of Bloom's last interviews, taped only a...
