Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1201 - 1225 of 4419
(JTA) - Meryl Jaffe says she's like any Jewish parent keeping track of her kids on social media, except it can be terrifying. When she heard President Joe Biden deployed 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan, she had a gut feeling that her son Matt - she calls him Matthew - was among them. Her family was tracking the U.S. Marine Corps on social media to verify their suspicions. "Matthew's sister, Rebecca, saw it on one of the Marine websites that she follows on Instagram. And she said, 'I think this is...
(JTA) — During the High Holidays, I always make my family’s recipe for a dessert called turte, which is similar to Greek baklava. Rather than walnuts, however, it’s made with almonds and drenched with a thick sugar syrup instead of honey. Turte is a specialty from the eastern part of Romania called Moldavia, where my grandparents were born, and is sometimes made with thin pancakes. My grandma made it with strudel dough. I recall watching her make her own dough for this dish, as well as her fabulous potato strudel, laying the paper-thin dough...
(JTA) - It turns out that Batman's hometown of Gotham City has a historically Jewish neighborhood, complete with a synagogue. And for this year's High Holidays, at least one masked superhero will be worshipping there. Her name is Whistle, a.k.a. Willow Zimmerman, and she's a Jewish superhero - DC Comics' first to be explicitly created as Jewish in 44 years. She's an activist-turned-masked-crusader who draws inspiration from Jewish teachings; she develops the ability to talk to dogs; and she's...
(JTA) - The adventurers arrived at Morgur's Mound, an archaeological site ringed with dragon bones. There they stumbled upon some treasure: a fire giant's gold-plated tooth. They grabbed the tooth and tried to leave the site, but suddenly the ground began to shake. "Four animated thunder beast skeletons erupt from the mound and attack you," the dungeon master said. "You desecrated a holy site, and these are the guardians of the holy site. Everybody roll initiative." "Are you allowed to roll on...
How could we ever forget?... I’m sure (at least I hope) we will never forget what happened to our country on September 11th, especially to my beloved New York City. I refer to the World Trade Center, of course. (Since I write this column about 2 weeks in advance of publication. I am writing it on September 11th, a day and tragedy that will live on in infamy.) I lost my cousin, Alan Feinberg, in tower one of the Twin Towers that day. He was a firefighter with the 9th battalion in Manhattan. He was bravely rescuing people when the building c...
'Sanatorium pod klepsydra' ('The Hourglass Sanatorium'), directed by Wojciech Has and starring Jan Nowicki and Tadeusz Kondra, is one of the most imaginative films to come out of the 1970s. It is both an adaptation and an "anti" adaptation of the Polish Jewish author Bruno Schulz' short story collections, 'The Street of Crocodiles (1934)' and 'Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (1937)'. Although most of the dialogue is ripped directly from the page, it is arranged in a way that is both...
(JTA) - Of all the people to interview on Rosh Hashanah, the Israeli writer and director Hagai Levi is especially fitting. A respected creator in Israeli and American TV, he is known for shows that dramatize two people talking in a room, much as we were doing ourselves, albeit over Zoom. HBO's "In Treatment," for example, the American version of his Israeli show "BeTipul," is comprised entirely of sessions between therapist and patient. "Scenes From a Marriage," Levi's latest for HBO and...
(JTA) — If you know any young children or fidgety adults, chances are you’ve seen, heard, or coveted a handheld piece of dimpled silicone known as a “pop-it.” The must-have toy was originally created in the 1970s by an Israeli couple with a penchant for playthings, according to a BBC report that calls the pop-it “an overnight sensation more than 40 years in the making.” Theo and Ora Coster created more than 150 toys and games through their company, Theora Design, including some that immediately became popular worldwide, such as “Guess Who?...
When asked about the quality I most admire in a leader, the answer is always vision. Perhaps it was the years of working with the former CEO of Central Florida Hillel, the irreplaceable Aaron Weil. Or the general lack of vision I see in so many organizations (Jewish and not), but an inspiring leader who knows the potential of their organization makes me want to sign up, donate and get involved. That is why at our recent board retreat, the Stetson University Hillel student board started with...
Great works of art often become so present in our everyday lives - the "Mona Lisa" on a mug, "The Starry Night" on a sweater, Basquiat in Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Tiffany campaign - that it's easy to forget how fragile the originals are. These images that populate our collective consciousness all started as a single destructible canvas. But most museums don't highlight the life these artworks have had as physical objects - often because that history is wrapped up in colonialism and theft. At the...
NEW YORK (JTA) - The holiday of Sukkot isn't complete without a lulav and an etrog, the four species that Jews are commanded to wave on the harvest holiday. But according to a new book, it wasn't until the Second Temple period that Jews started using the lemon-like etrog as part of their Sukkot celebrations. In ancient times, people would simply use whichever fruits they had harvested in that season, such as pomegranates, grapes, dates and figs, says Rabbi David Moster, who has been researching...
Surprise! Surprise!... Did you know that Golden Globe, Prime Time Emmy and an Academy Award... all for best actress, were earned by fabulous actress HELEN HUNT? Did you also know that her paternal grandparents were from German-Jewish folks. Like me, Helen grew up in New York City from the age of three. I recently saw her on television discussing her career. (You may have also.) And you probably have heard of actress, Milena Markovna Kunis. NO? (How about MILA KUNIS?) Mila, born in Soviet...
VACAVILLE, Calif. (JTA) – Soon after Jon Grobman was released from prison, where he had once thought he would die, he headed back inside voluntarily - this time with canine sidekicks. Grobman was returning as the newest hire of a nonprofit group, Paws for Life K9 Rescue, that had been instrumental in his own long and difficult road to redemption. He won't easily forget the words of the judge who sentenced him to life without parole. "If I felt that you had any promise to ever amount to a...
(JTA) — If there’s one thing Rabbi Sholom Lipskar wants to remember from the aftermath of the Surfside condo collapse in June, it’s the small cards that he distributed to the first responders and search-and-rescue teams working at the site. Inscribed with Psalm 23, a psalm often recited in times of trouble that begins with the words “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” the cards were meant to protect and inspire those charged with extracting survivors and, later, recovering bodies. Lipskar estimated that he gave out as many as 800 of...
Qian Julie Wang grew up in libraries. Coming to America at age 7, she was thrown into the brand new world of New York City. Soon, she was spending all her free time in her local Chinatown library, soaking up as much English as possible. It became her second home, a place of safety. Now, she's telling her story for the first time - buoyed by the hope of reaching those in libraries who were just like her. Wang and her parents were undocumented, and the 2016 election - which occurred just after...
(JTA) - At a key moment in the new Netflix film "Worth," Kenneth Feinberg, the real-life architect of the compensation fund for 9/11 victims, is shown overwhelmed by the monumental emotional toil of the job. At a town hall meeting for victims' families Feinberg - whom Michael Keaton until this point has portrayed as an ultracompetent professional arbiter - is assailed by critics of the fund who see its calculations as too impersonal, its salve on their grief too pitiful. One stands up and...
(JNS) I first went to Israel when I was 21 and returned at least once a year until 2020, so I was thrilled to renew my streak in August. My wife and I were particularly anxious to see our son who we had not seen since he finished his army service. As you can imagine, getting into Israel was not easy and only possible at all because of our son being an Israeli citizen, since tourists were not being permitted to visit. We had to get an entry permit from the Israeli consulate, take a COVID-19 test and submit the result to the Israeli government 24...
I watch this show regularly… And I’m not ashamed to admit it! I’m talking about the Maury Povich show on television. I love watching it although everyone I know says “it’s beneath them.” I also enjoy watching “Hoarders.” Maybe because I’m very sloppy? (Oh shut up!) Anyway, MAURY POVICH has always been a favorite of mine and, of course, he is one of us! I also enjoy watching SNL (Saturday Night Live) on television. I need a laugh now and then and now, now, now! I’ve enjoyed watching particularly when the guest host is SCARLETT JOHANSSON....
(JTA) — Two weeks ago, Delta Airlines pilot Alexander Kahn flew hundreds of Afghan refugees from Germany to Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., as part of a U.S. government partnership with commercial airlines. It had extra special meaning for Kahn, as he told CNN, for a few reasons — first and foremost, his own father was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to the U.S. in similar fashion. “I’m the son of an immigrant in the United States, my father was a Holocaust survivor, he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp by Patton’s T...
(JTA) — Al-Qaida had planned to carry out a massive terrorist attack on Israeli dance clubs in 2002 but was thwarted with the help of U.S. intelligence operatives, a former FBI agent said. Ali Soufan, who with other agents had monitored al-Qaida for the FBI both before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and afterward, said the information was obtained by the operatives during interrogations of a Palestinian man apprehended in Afghanistan, the Israeli newspaper Yediot Acharonot reported Friday in an article about Soufan. Zayn a...
Rachel Lipman cares deeply about preserving her Jewish family's fifth-generation winemaking business, Loew Vineyards, but the 28-year-old is keeping an eye on the future, too. As one of the youngest winemakers in Maryland - if not the youngest - she's pushing through boundaries in a traditionally male-dominated industry. But that's not all. Lipman is also educating customers about her family's extraordinary legacy of producing unique wines - a 150-year-old family tradition that was nearly...
(JTA) - Fania Records, often called the "Motown of Latin Music," announced the passing of Larry Harlow on social media last week. Once the record label broke the news on Aug. 20, a who's who of Latin music offered tributes. "Larry's contributions to what today is known as salsa are immense," seven-time Grammy nominee Bobby Sanabria wrote on Facebook. "A true part of NYC's history has been lost [...] to our Latino community and it is heartfelt." But Harlow, whose paternal grandfather was the...
The start of the Jewish New Year coincides with the start of the Federation fiscal year. With the last year being filled with so many challenges and so many successes, we are excited about what this year will bring. RAISE, our incredible work social skills and job training program for adults with special needs returns in person this fall, providing work and social skills training for adults with special needs along with 1:1 job coach support at our local agencies. If you are interested in being...
Health salads - sweet and tangy slaw-like, cabbage-based salads that often include carrots, bell peppers and cucumbers - are a fixture of New York Jewish delis. They're sold by the pound in the deli case or sometimes generously arrive alongside your complimentary plate of pickles. While the dressing is typically sweetened with sugar, the purported "health" is derived from the volume of raw vegetables and the notable absence of mayonnaise. If you're from New Jersey, you may also know this dish...
If you, like me, are a regular chicken roaster, you're halfway to one of the best salad dressings out there: schmaltz vinaigrette, a tangy, savory top coat for a simple salad of mixed greens and whatever you've picked up at the farmers market. Using a warm fat, like bacon or duck fat, in a vinaigrette is a time-honored practice that works extremely well thanks to the ability of fat to emulsify with the other ingredients, creating a silky, rich dressing. Warm bacon dressing over a spinach salad...
