Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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In a country whose biblical and modern history are intertwined and covered with dramatic events taking place at locations everywhere, Gush Etzion is among the most significant. Gush Etzion is the Judean mountain region between Jerusalem and Hebron. It sits at elevations between 2500-3000 feet, made extra beautiful by terraced hilltops and a range of crops including vineyards and olive trees, and ancient paths that were the biblical highways, which pilgrims and traders would transverse in religio...
(JNS) - Every age has its own narrative myth about those who acquire great wealth. In the 21st century, the prevailing story is that of the nerd who parlays technological genius into billions. The Big Tech oligarchs who make their way onto the Forbes' billionaire list are envied and feared. But with only a few conspicuous exceptions, their posh lifestyles, liberal politics and donations to fashionable and politically correct charities generally protect them from the worst abuse that pop culture...
By With new COVID variants, seemingly never-ending vaccines, mandates causing tensions between government and citizens, and travel restrictions forcing the separation of families and friends this winter, there is a prevalent feeling of uncertainty. The upcoming holiday of Tu B'shevat reminds us that despite it all, the Jewish people are always a nation with hope. Tu B'shevat, the 15th day of the Jewish month of Shevat, is a unique holiday. According to the Talmud (Rosh Hashana 2a), Tu B'Shevat...
Marvin Friedman was called to the Torah for the second time in his life as a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022, at Chabad of Greater Orlando. Friedman was first called to the Torah in 1955 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The following is a letter Friedman, a graduate of MIT, shared with MIT Hillel news. A renewal of my Jewish identity By Marvin Friedman I am 80 years old and just celebrated my second bar mitzvah. This was all about reestablishing my identity as a Jew. On Jan. 8, 2022, I was called to...
The Jewish Pavilion provides many services to those living in elder-care communities, and among them is hosting Shabbat services at places like Oakmonte Village at Lake Mary. Randi Cunningham, who has volunteered through the Jewish Pavilion at Oakmonte for six years, plays a role in making the services happen. She first started volunteering in September 2016 following her dad's move from South Florida to Oakmonte's assisted-living facility. Cunningham said she didn't want him to move to Central...
(JTA) — In recent years, some “Harry Potter” fans have reconsidered their love for the series in light of the controversy surrounding its author J.K. Rowling, who has been criticized for comments about the transgender community. But after the release of an HBO special last week that celebrates the “Harry Potter” movies’ 20th anniversary, some are critiquing the series for a different reason: the inclusion of goblin characters that run the wizarding world’s bank. In the “Harry Potter” world, Gringott’s Bank, the bank that serves wizards and wher...
I feel heartsick ... Don't forget... I write this column almost two weeks in advance of your reading it. So... it is January 1st and I just watched "Fiddler On The Roof" for the third time. It was featured on television and that's what I do most of my spare time, watch television! Getting back to "heartsick": Although I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and my dad was born in Brooklyn also ... and my mom was born in Montreal, Canada, I know my ancestry is Russian and Polish. Actually, my maternal...
Time, in its essence, is an unceasing flow on which human beings have imposed meaning with arbitrary divisions and markers — years, months, weeks, days, minutes, and seconds. These units of time serve as measures for human activity in education, commerce, leisure, agriculture, and religion. Jewish time grew out of God’s imposition of order on the primeval chaos. First, God separated the light from darkness, creating day and night. Then, as a reflection of God’s cycle of creation and rest, the work week was differentiated from Shabbat. Later...
TEL AVIV (JTA) – For years, only those with special permission could visit the climate-controlled repositories of the Jerusalem Cinematheque to see the moving pictures held in the Israel Film Archive. But following a massive digitization effort, anyone with an internet connection can now watch the footage. "We're at the fun part where we can share this treasure with the public," says Noa Regev, director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Following a $10 million project that began in 2015 to p...
The Book of Proverbs is one of the most quoted books of the Tanakh. Comprising the second book in the Ketuvim (or Writings) section of the Tanakh, Proverbs is full of lines that share wisdom on the importance of centering your life and relationships around morality, personal responsibility and the values of the Torah. It gives us such memorable maxims that have seeped into popular culture such as “pride goeth before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18) and “spare the rod, spoil the child” (Proverbs 13:24). It also contains colorful exhortations like “L...
(JTA) - Gilad Erdan, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, had a message for the actress Emma Watson after an Instagram account in her name posted a message that was in apparent solidarity with Palestinians: It'll take more than magic to solve the conflict. "Fiction may work in Harry Potter but it does not work in reality," Erdan said on Twitter Monday, attaching a screenshot of a post from Watson's Instagram account. "If it did, the magic used in the wizarding world could eliminate the evi...
(JTA) — Few rabbis appear before more people than Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi of New York City’s 2,000-member Central Synagogue. But Buchdahl may have become one of the most recognizable rabbis ever after her name — and face — appeared as a clue on “Jeopardy!”. The cameo came toward the end of the game show’s second round, in a category titled “I am Woman.” Reigning champion Amy Schneider, en route to her 21st straight win, selected the $800 clue, and a picture of Buchdahl wearing a tallit with purple stripes appeared. Host Ken Jennings...
News that Israeli actress Gal Gadot is to play Cleopatra in a new film has ignited a storm of protests. Critics accuse Gadot of perpetrating "genocide" and cultural appropriation by planning to play the ancient Egyptian queen. A prominent Pakistani journalist blasted "Your country steals Arab land and now you're stealing their movie roles ..." Some are claiming that a Jew cannot play Cleopatra, and the role should go to an African or Arab actress instead. Nonsense. Cleopatra was a complex...
What a shock! (A good one.) ... I love to watch Jeopardy!, the television game show. It is my 7 p.m. "go to" show. For the past several weeks there has been one person winning each time. She is phenomenal! She is also a trans-gender person who seems very proud of her status. (She should be proud! I never saw anyone with such diverse knowledge.) Her name is AMY SCHNEIDER and she is Jewish! As you know by now, I write this column almost two weeks in advance of your receiving the Heritage. So, Amy...
(JTA) - This year, everyone seemed to have an opinion about how the entertainment industry views Jewish women. The comedian Sarah Silverman and others openly inveighed against what she deemed "Jewface," or the trend of casting non-Jewish actresses as (Ashkenazi) Jewish women; a plotline on this year's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" season mocked a similar idea by having Larry David cast a Latina actress as a Jewish character on a show about his childhood. Whether you agree with Silverman or not, it's...
(JNS) - When the pandemic hit, Edward Ilyasov was in a bit of a pickle. The 29-year-old resident of Queens, N.Y., had submitted his letter of resignation with plans to travel the world, starting with Israel. His last days at his well-paying job in finance were supposed to be during the latter part of March 2020, and he planned to paint a person a day as he gallivanted. Yet with restrictions on travel due to COVID-19, he realized that he'd have to scrap his artistic dream. His employer allowed...
More than 3000 people joined the IAC National Summit and 125 participants joined the Orlando-Tampa delegation this year at South Florida, The Diplomat Beach Resort. The Summit featured a one-of-a-kind combination of inspirational sessions, insightful dialogue, thought-provoking panels, and professional networking, creating the spirit and atmosphere of Israel for three dynamic, stimulating, and energetic days. Speakers included world leaders, Israeli and American thought leaders, decision makers, change makers and cultural icons from business,...
More Jewish super-talents ... ADAM SANDLER is a talented actor-comedian who has starred on television and in many movies. He, of course, is Jewish and born in Brooklyn like me! His ancestry is Russian like me! At the age of 6, he and his family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire, where he grew up. (Not like me.) As a teenager, Adam attended the Jewish youth group BBYO. He graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in Manhattan. Of course, he became famous as a member of the...
NEW YORK — The Religious Zionists of America has undertaken a groundbreaking partnership with Amazon.com to make its “Tzurba M’Rabanan” text available in English throughout Amazon’s entire distribution network. This latest venture follows the dramatic growth of the contemporary Halacha learning program, which has seen a near doubling of interested participants and increase in weekly learning groups across North America this year. The “Tzurba M’Rabanan” learning method encompasses the full range of sources pertinent to any Jewish law, inc...
(JTA) - Bob Einstein, the cult-favorite Jewish comedian best known for playing Marty Funkhouser on "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and the popular "Super Dave Osborne" character on various TV variety shows, is given the biography treatment in a new HBO documentary airing Dec. 28. "The Super Bob Einstein Movie," directed by Danny Gold and provided to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an advanced screener, is a sentimental journey through the life and career of Einstein, who died in 2019 shortly after...
(JNS) - In a true "Cinderella story," 19-year-old Hailey Kops, a religiously observant athlete from West Orange, N.J., is preparing to take on the world's finest ice skaters while proudly representing Israel at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Kops and her partner 33-year-old Evgeni Krasnopolski recently qualified for the pairs ice skating competition at the Olympics, which will be held next February. They defied all odds when they finished in the top three at an Olympics qualifier event in...
(JNS) - For a few days beginning Dec. 9, a high-rise beachfront resort became what many guests described as "little Tel Aviv" as thousands of Israeli Americans, Israelis and American Jews attended the Israeli-American Council's 2021 National Summit. For many of the 3,000 attendees, the conference is an annual destination where they reconnect with other Israelis living in the United States. Of the 3,000, 120 were attendees from Orlando and Tampa. Walking through the halls of the Diplomat Hotel...
(JTA) — “A plus-sized Jewish lady redneck died in El Paso on Saturday.” It’s considered poor journalistic form to begin an article with a quotation. But journalists are also supposed to show, not tell, and there’s no better way to explain the irreverent obituary that Andy Corren wrote for his mother, Renay Mandel Corren, than by simply quoting it. The obituary published in the Fayetteville Observer, the newspaper of the North Carolina City near where Renay Corren lived for many years, went viral on Wednesday after the crime writer Sarah Wei...
Back in 2018, public adjuster Francine Fox noticed that during a conversation with one of her clients, Marvin Erickson, was frustrated and upset. A Vietnam veteran with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Erickson opened up to her that before Christmas, his family had visited and one of his grandkids was sick. Because he has an immunodeficiency disorder, he could have gotten very sick. "I wish there was a way to remind people that I have a compromised immune system." Fox told him she knew of many others wit...
Mazel tov to David Diamond who was elected Chair, Florida Board of Medicine on Dec. 3, 2021. Among his several duties as chair, is to oversee the professional activities of some 89,000 medical doctors in Florida. Diamond is also very proud of his son and daughter in their military careers. Son Ari is a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Force, serving in the Golani Brigade. Daughter Yael is a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and from December 2020 to December 2021 she was stationed in Israel...
