Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Jewish Academy of Orlando completed the recording of "Alice in Wonderland." The full-scale musical production, which was previously scheduled for May, is now being produced as a video production. Out of an abundance of caution, the school moved away from a live audience performance to video production. Shown here are Alice and the cast. Stay tuned for the final video....
This is the 22nd annual Central Florida Jewish Film Festival and it has two "firsts." It's the first time there are two film shorts to enjoy, making a total of eight films; and the first film fest that can be enjoyed from the viewer's own living room. Because of circumstances beyond everyone's control, the film festival is virtual this year. Even though theater goers can't enjoy the ambiance of the Enzian and its wonderful food and drinks, the up side is that films can be viewed at the viewer's...
This year's Jewish Film Festival hosts two film shorts - usually there is only one short - and both of them have local ties. "Resemblance" is almost "home grown" Written, directed and produced by Kevin J. O'Neill, who lives in Central Florida, the short was filmed at Canterbury Retreat in Oviedo. The executive producer, Bethanne Weiss, is well-known in the community, and in a scene on the facility's patio, some familiar faces can be spotted: Weiss, Jacqueline Levine and Harriett Weiss. Starring...
After 17 years of service to Congregation Ohev Shalom, Rabbi David Kay’s leadership will be completed at the end of his contract, July 3, 2021. The COS Board of Trustees determined that it would be in the best interest of the congregation to change the rabbinic leadership. “Congregation Ohev Shalom is very fortunate and so pleased that Rabbi Kay will remain fully engaged as our rabbi through the end of July 2021. Rabbi Kay has been an extremely dedicated and valued member of our clergy for ove...
This past Monday, Nov. 2, The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center reopened with a limited schedule. Attendance at any of the programs must be by reservation as the Center has implemented many new procedure for safety. Visitors are also encouraged to review the safety guidelines, found on the website, holocaustedu.org. The next event, a live virtual conversation with Holocaust survivor Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, will be held on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 3 p.m. Dr. Paldiel is a leading scholar on...
Temple Israel is proud to bring another quality adult education program to the local Jewish community with ScholarStream. Two four-part Zoom series throughout November and December give communities the opportunity to learn from the world's leading Conservative movement scholars and engage deeply with Jewish texts and traditions. ScholarStream is an initiative of the Rabbinical Assembly, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Jewish Theological Seminary, and Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies...
Recently featured on the TV program A World of Difference were RAISE director, Loren London, RAISE director of Employment and Education Rachel Slavkin, and three gainfully employed RAISE alumni. A World of Difference is a monthly TV series that celebrates neurodiversity, which is a viewpoint that brain differences are normal, rather than deficits. The idea of neurodiversity can have benefits for children with learning and thinking differences. This concept can help reduce stigma around learning...
(JNS) -Jewish groups reacted immediately following the U.S. Senate confirmation on Monday of Amy Coney Barrett as the 115th U.S. Supreme Court justice a week before the Nov. 3 election. Barrett, previously a judge on the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court and a professor at Notre Dame Law School, her law school alma mater, was confirmed 52-48. All but one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), voted in favor of her nomination, while all Democrats voted against it. She succeeds the late Ruth Bader Gin...
(JNS) - Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Omer Yankelevitch announced on Thursday that she is introducing a Knesset bill that would require government ministries to consult with world Jewry on matters directly related to the Jewish people, such as Jewish informal and formal education, engagement and anti-Semitism. "Creating an official forum that ensures mutual dialogue between Israel and world Jewry is the first step towards ensuring the relationship between Israel and the greater Jewish...
(JNS) — U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem will be allowed to list Israel as their place of birth on their U.S. passport, alluded the Trump administration on Wednesday. Politico first reported the development, citing a U.S. official, adding that the announcement could be made as soon as Thursday. Despite the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017 and relocating its embassy to there from Tel Aviv months later, Americans born in Jerusalem have still been unable to list Israel as their place of birth on their U.S...
(FLAME via JNS) — On Sept. 21, the United Nations marked its 75th anniversary with a one-day, high-level meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on the theme: “The Future We Want, the U.N. We Need: Reaffirming our Collective Commitment to Multilateralism.” While the goals of cooperation and dialogue are lofty and important, judging by its achievements of the last few decades, the U.N. can be deemed a failure. It has not prevented war or conflict, it has been rocked by corruption and scandal and it has largely been used by dictatorships and seria...
(JNS) — At the “virtual” World Zionist Congress, the far-left will attempt to pass two proposed resolutions to embed “cancel culture” and hostile-to-Israel “J Street U” into the World Zionist Organization. First, under the misleading guise of “unity of the Jewish people,” the far-left “Arzenu” and “World Union of Meretz” are proposing a “cancel culture” speech code resolution that “prohibit[s] communications, materials and/or programs” that “denigrate or demean” other organizations or their members or leaders “for reasons of differences i...
I have written before how the last decades’ trend of Europe in general, and France in specific, opening their doors to Islamic and Arab immigrants with no limitations is akin to feeding, even breeding, a dangerous Trojan horse within its walls. The most recent terror attack in Nice, France, the second in as many weeks, involving the beheading of innocent victims, must be a wake-up call to all those who care about survival of western values, and to Moslems who care about how Islam and Mohammed are perceived. It’s time to cut off the head of the...
(JNS) — “I have to say to the Orthodox community tomorrow, ‘If you’re not willing to live with these rules, then I’m going to close the synagogues,’” Gov. Andrew Cuomo told religious Jews. His basis for the decree was a photo of mourners who weren’t practicing social distancing at a funeral. But the photo of a crowd of Orthodox Jews on Cuomo’s slide was from 2006. They did go to a funeral in 2006. It was a very different message than Cuomo’s condemnation of bigotry when he had insisted, “There is zero evidence that people of Asian descent bear...
(JNS) — Peter Beinart’s latest attack on the Jewish state that he opposes as vehemently as he professes to have its best interest at heart is a work of remarkable sophistry. In a lengthy op-ed in the radical-leftist quarterly Jewish Currents, the author of “The Crisis of Zionism” — recently hired by the equally ill-intentioned New York Times as a “contributing opinion writer” — bashes Israel by denigrating the Muslim-majority countries with which it is forging warm peace treaties. That the Abraham Accords and Sudan agreement were brokered b...
MORNING MINYANS (Please note, because of the coronavirus, all minyans have been canceled or held virtually.) 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) — Islamists have declared war on France, a senior leader of French Jews said following multiple assaults, including the murder of three people at a church in Nice. Gil Taieb, the vice president of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish communities, made the comments Thursday in reference to the beheading of one woman and the fatal stabbing of two others outside the Notre Dame church of the Mediterranean coastal city. The perpetrator was shouting “Allah hu akbar” — Arabic for Allah is the greatest — before he was shot and rushed to...
(JNS) -President Donald Trump completed its reversal of a legacy U.S. policy prejudiced against Israeli settlements. The United States and Israel signed new bilateral agreements on Oct. 28 that further enhance the cooperation between the close allies in the areas of science, industrial research and agricultural. Yet perhaps more noteworthy is that legacy "geographic restrictions" have now been removed from existing agreements. U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman noted at the ceremony that t...
(JTA) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of Europe's most prominent nationalist and anti-immigrant leaders, has often faced accusations that he is too soft on far-right anti-Semitism. But now, in an unusual reversal, Orban is trying to level that same accusation at the country's largest Jewish group, Mazsihisz. Orban recently criticized Mazsihisz, a nonpartisan federation of Jewish communities and groups, for not speaking out loudly enough against the candidacy of Laszlo Biro, a...
Memories ... Did you know that former New York City Mayor, Ed Koch, (who was Jewish) once came to Orlando and visited us at Congregation Ohev Shalom? Well he did, and I had the pleasure of meeting him in person! And speaking of famous people ... The other night on JIMMY FALLON's "Tonight Show," the guests were two prominent Jewish people, comedian CHELSEA HANDLER and Senator BERNIE SANDERS. Actually, Bernie went to a rival high school, Madison, in Brooklyn when I attended Tilden High School and...
(JTA) — Some Orthodox neighborhoods classified as “red zones” by the state of New York due to their high COVID-19 test positivity rates in recent weeks will soon be allowed to reopen schools and nonessential businesses. But the areas of Brooklyn where Orthodox Jews have staged protests against the restrictions imposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo still have so many new cases that that will remain red, Cuomo announced Wednesday. Cuomo instituted the color-coded zones earlier this month after he criticized New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan to...
The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of new beginnings and births for our family and Disney World, a mix of pain and euphoria. In the summer of 1970, my husband, Howard, and our two young sons, Lee and David, left behind the smog and gridlock of Los Angeles. We had lived there for a year while Howard, hired as Hotel Division manager for Walt Disney World, participated in Disney's intensive orientation training for new executives. He looked forward to assisting in the construction and...
(JTA) - Sacha Baron Cohen's latest appearance in character as Borat was heavy on the bathroom humor - and on satirizing conspiracy theories that target Jews. On "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on Monday night, Cohen showed up as Borat - the anti-Semitic, misogynist journalist from Kazakhstan who starred in a blockbuster 2006 film and is set to star in a sequel out this week. Right away, Borat said the coronavirus comes from "a place called Wuhan, which is in Israel." "It is no surprise, they are spreading...
(JTA) — A virus forced the World Zionist Congress to go virtual for the first time since its founding in 1897. But that didn’t stop last week’s gathering, held once every five years, from being any less crucial — or less contentious — for the future of Israel and the Jewish people. Nor did it dampen enthusiasm for the event among the American delegation, which hailed from 28 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., after an election last winter that saw record voter participation. Of the 750 delegates to the 38th World Zionist Congress,...
So much has been written about the Holocaust. But have we really learned from the past? Millions of words later, we are facing a terrifying upswing in anti-Semitism. What can we do? We can keep writing, keep recording, keep remembering. And we can make sure that the voices of those who perished and those who survived are preserved. As we commemorate the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, here is one more for the record: The story of my husband's cousin, a Holocaust survivor. Albert Leon...
