Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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BOSTON (JTA) - Jason Greenberg remembers the lavish breakfast spreads Carmela Dan would serve when he and his family visited his cousin at Kibbutz Nir Oz. He relished the shakshuka, salads and bread she prepared to welcome her American family. "She was a great cook," Greenberg, a lawyer in Boston, recalled of those regular visits he has made for more than 30 years. Dan was beloved at Nir Oz, a tight-knit community on the southern border with Gaza that she helped found in 1955. What especially...
(JTA) — A Jewish billionaire investor and philanthropist quit the board of Columbia Business School, saying the campus had become unsafe for Jews since the launch of the Israel-Hamas war. “With blatantly anti-Jewish student groups and professors allowed to operate with complete impunity, it sends a clear and distressing message that Jews are not just unwelcome, but also unsafe on campus,” Henry Swieca said in an Oct. 30 letter obtained Tuesday by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “My resignation is an expression of my deep concern for the directi...
Mr. Samuel Levine, 85, of Orlando, Florida passed away peacefully Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, at Advent Health Hospice surrounded by his family. Mr. Levine was born Sept. 29, 1938, in Bronx, New York to the late Isador and Esther (Weinstein) Levine. He and his wife moved to the Orlando area in 2015 from New York and he retired as a supervisor in the medical field and a proud United States Air Force Veteran. Mr. Levine is survived by his devoted wife of 58 years, Sandra (Schneid) Levine of Orlando, Florida; daughters, Meredith Levine (Gary Silver)... Full story
Mrs. Jaya “Julia” Salinsky, 85, formerly of Orlando, Florida and of Mint Hill, Virginia passed away peacefully Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, surrounded by her family following a brief illness. Mrs. Salinsky was born May 10, 1938, in Havana, Cuba to the late Leon and Sarah (Erdsnecker) Stelcner. She was a former member of Sholom Aleichem. She and her husband, Norman Salinsky of blessed memory, moved to the Orlando area in 2002 from Miami, Florida. Mrs. Salinsky is survived by her devoted children, son, Steven (Eileen) Salinsky of Fairfax, Virginia, a...
(JTA) — I am a non-religious, 20-year-old Jewish student in New York City. I have not been to Israel since I was 9. I was raised in what you might call a “naturally occurring Jewish community”: Riverdale, in the Bronx. I attended Modern Orthodox schools through high school. Once I graduated, I left for Binghamton University, which boasts a massive Jewish community. It wasn’t until I transferred this fall to Hunter College, part of the City University of New York, that I left the Jewish bubble. The last month has been the worst of my life. T...
(JNS) — As rockets from Gaza continue to rain down across Israel following the carnage of the Hamas attack on the western Negev that began on Oct. 7, and foreign nations including the United States consider further evacuations of their citizens, many new immigrants to the Jewish state are for the first time facing the harsh reality of living at war. Dov Lipman, former member of the Knesset and CEO of the Yad L’Olim NGO, shed light on how traumatic the last few weeks have been for olim in Israel. He made aliyah from the U.S. in 2004. “Ke...
Since Oct. 7, Israel Bonds has raised $1 billion (JNS) — In the first nine days since Hamas brutally attacked Israel on Oct. 7, Israel Bonds—which supports the Jewish state with its sales, which have totaled more than $50 billion since 1951—raised $200 million. Since then, Israel Bonds has raised four times that amount, raising its total in the past month to more than $1 billion. “This is Israel Bonds’ highest surge of investment ever, which demonstrates the strong support for Israel of the Jewish communities and Israel’s supporters in the Unit...
TAIPEI, Taiwan (JTA) — Growing up as a Bukharian Jew in China, Uriah was always told by his parents to hide his Jewishness in public and to try to assimilate into the greater Chinese population. Uriah — who asked to be identified only by his Hebrew name to ensure the safety of his family — said that when he began publicly talking about his Jewish identity, people told him that he would “never be one of us [Han Chinese].” But Uriah had never felt physically or personally threatened until the aftermath of Oct. 7, when Hamas killed over 1,400 Isr...
More than 250 people attended Jewish National Fund-USA’s Breakfast for Israel on Friday, Nov. 10, at the Hilton Orlando/Altamonte Springs in a powerful show of solidarity and unity with the Jewish State. The event’s featured speaker was Elie Klein, a Baltimore native who immigrated to Israel and is now a world advocate for the disability community, promoting inclusion, equity, and access around the globe. As Jewish National Fund-USA’s Liaison for ADI Negev-Nahalat Eran, a world-class rehabilitation facility for people with disabilities locat...
(JNS) — “This is a second Holocaust for me,” said survivor Ruth Haran, 87, who is reliving a childhood nightmare. Twice now, she has made it out alive from the inferno. But the death, the destruction and the fear have all returned and come full circle for the great-grandmother, eight decades after the Holocaust. Her son and two other family members were killed in the Oct. 7 Hamas assault on Israeli communities in southern Israel. Seven other members of her family, including her daughter, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, aged 3 and 8, we...
(JNS) — Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.) sits on the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, giving him a 360-degree perspective on both the context surrounding Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre in Israel and its aftermath. “At the end of the day, this administration has an Iran policy problem,” Waltz said of the White House’s reported efforts to appease Iran in exchange for restarting the 2015 nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action from which the Trump administration withdrew in 2015. “It has been obsessed wi...