Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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What a brilliant and talented people we are ... If you watch the TV show "Shark Tank," you will be familiar with MARK CUBAN, a brilliant billionaire, among other brilliant billionaires. Mark is Jewish with Russian ancestry. He was born in Pittsburgh. Also brilliant (as comic actors), GEORGE BURNS, and also MOREY AMSTERDAM. There will never be comics like the Jewish comics of my time. They were the best. (DON'T ask my age!) Birthright Israel Foundation ... I received a letter from Israel (Izzy)...
Not long ago, there were ominous reports about the fate of Jewish delis. Lovers of pastrami and chopped liver wrung their hands. While it's undeniable that there are far fewer Jewish delis today than there were a generation ago - David Sax, author of "Save the Deli," calls them "a dying breed" - a revival is underway, in many cases led by women. That wasn't always the case in a male-dominated industry. But in the past five years, several delis owned and run by women have joined the Jewish food...
Josh was 8 years old when his parents sent him to Jewish summer camp for the first time. Even though he had issues like ADHD that made school challenging, they figured the informal, open environment of summer camp - together with a little extra care from staff - would enable him to find his place. They were wrong. After just six days, he was sent home. Meredith Englander Polsky, who had attended that same overnight camp throughout her childhood, was working there as a counselor that summer. "I...
The earliest Jews in the North American colonies related to Africans and their American-born offspring in the same ways most other white European colonists did. These Jews, largely immigrants from Spain and Portugal, derived much of their livelihood, directly or indirectly, from the slave trade. Approximately one third held slaves themselves, though few owned large plantations, and none publicly opposed the institution of slavery, even as enslaved Blacks increasingly came to identify with the...
By NEW ORLEANS (JTA) - Janis Rabin's family emigrated from Poland, eventually settling in Bogalusa, Louisiana. For years, she and her relatives had kept memories and stories of their family's Jewish experience to themselves, or shared them casually with friends. So when Rabin entered this city's Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience the day it opened to the public, she was moved by seeing her family's history represented more formally. "I look at the museum and it is such a beautiful...
I can't say it enough. How proud I am ... I recently watched the movie "The Sandpiper" on television. (Again, I repeat: What else is there to do these days?) It starred Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth converted to Judaism when she married the love of her life, Mike Todd, a Jew. When he died so unexpectedly, she married Eddie Fisher, another Jew. The music featured in the movie was composed by Johnny Mandel, also Jewish. Another great movie I saw on television was one of my all...
(JTA) - There is a remarkable scene toward the end of the new documentary "Final Account," a collection of eyewitness testimonies of the Nazi regime from elderly Germans and Austrians who remember it (and, to various degrees, were part of it). In the sequence, a former Waffen-SS officer sits down with a group of students in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee - the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference, where Nazi officials met in 1942 to map out the parameters of the Final Solution. The officer, Han...
I don't usually do book reviews, I really don't have time. But this book, "Plunder: A Memoir of Family Property and Nazi Treasure," by Menachem Kaiser, was "not-put-downable." As Kaiser wrote in his book (the last sentence actually) "Oh my god ..." is my thought of this book! By that I mean, this book is remarkable. I love the way it was written. At first I was a little overwhelmed by his detailed writing - how he describes his feelings with every adjective possible it seems. But as I kept...
(JTA) — Blintzes are one of Shavuot’s most popular dishes. Long associated with Ashkenazi cooking, the light and airy hug of the blintz pancake envelops pillowy fillings such as whipped farmer’s cheese or fruit compote. To call it a crepe is like calling chicken soup consommé. It sounds more fancy, but it lacks the tradition and warmth. For Florence Tabrys, a Holocaust survivor, blintzes were a lifeline to her former life near Radom, Poland. I spoke to Florence when writing my first book “Recip...
How lucky I am ... I've had five careers in my life so far... wife, mother, dancer, singer and journalist. Of course, the most important were wife and mother! Especially, the way my husband of 55 years, Irv, was an aerospace engineer, and our 3 sons, (in order of age) are a Navy commander, a psychologist and a marketing manager. Yes, I'm proud! I was only a professional dancer for three years and then a wife, mother and professional singer. And, as a singer I met and was lucky to know singer...
In commemoration of the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Dachau Concentration Camp by American soldiers, the Simon Wiesenthal Center Archives is highlighting the amazing story of two Native American soldiers who were twin brothers and how one brother helped liberate hundreds of prisoners. The Freeny brothers entered the U.S. Army in 1940 as combat medics with the 45th Infantry Division. Organized in 1923 as the National Guard for Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico, the Division was activated for federal service in September of...
(JTA) — Faye Schulman, a Holocaust survivor who lost most of her family to the Nazis but joined a group of partisan fighters and documented their work in photographs, died April 24, The Washington Post reported Saturday. She was 101 years old. Schulman’s photographs often depicted the smiling faces of young partisan fighters, with Schulman at times at the center in a stylish leopard print coat. Michael Berkowitz, a professor of Jewish history at University College London, told the Post that her...
(JNS) — With tens of thousands of Israeli families under attack by rocket fire from Hamas in Gaza and required to stay near the safety of the protected rooms within their homes, Colel Chabad, Israel’s oldest continuously operating charitable organization, has increased home deliveries to support the elderly in need. While seniors usually get meals at one of 22 soup kitchens around the country, the constant threat of attacks has forced Colel Chabad to temporarily shut these facilities and del...
In these last few difficult days in Israel, there is a moment that I cannot shake. I'm sitting on the sofa talking to my husband who is abroad on a work trip, and suddenly, unexpectedly, the siren goes off. It's nearly 9pm, and the only sound we can hear is that awful rising and falling wail. My middle son and I start to run for the shelter, and as we go by the window, we see not one, not two, but five, six, seven missiles heading in our direction. Bright lights streaking through the sky from th...
(JNS) - The Roman-era oil lamp recently unearthed in Jerusalem may be the missing half of a similar artifact found in Budapest nine years ago, the City of David Foundation announced on Sunday. Mere hours after publication of the discovery of the "lucky" lamp shaped like a grotesque half face, Hungarian archaeologist Gabor Lassanyi contacted Ari Levy, director of Israel Antiquities Authority excavations at Jerusalem's City of David National Park. "Nine years ago, in an excavation we conducted at...
Laugh and cry ... (That seems to be how I describe my days lately). During this pandemic, I stay at home a lot and watch television. Of course I see many comedians. There is one comedian especially, he was also a gifted actor, producer and director. His name was Mike Nichols. Mike was only about seven years old when his parents sent him out of Germany, where he was born as Igor Mikhail Peschkowsky, to America to keep him from falling into the hands of Nazis. Yes, Mike Nichols was Jewish, and...
(JTA) - For some Americans watching the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza in recent days, the most striking image from the conflict came in a video of Israeli men at the Western Wall, singing and dancing as they watched a fire burn outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Others can't look away from videos of Iron Dome, Israel's missile defense system, which shoots rockets out of the air mid-flight, lighting up Israel's skies like a fireworks display. Both images have gone viral as Israel and Gaza...
(JTA) — A detailed account of one of the earliest American diplomatic voyages to Palestine has surfaced as part of an upcoming auction in Jerusalem. The account appears in a handwritten letter from one of the passengers of the USS Delaware, a U.S. Navy ship that visited the Mediterranean Sea in 1834 and made a stop at the port town of Jaffa, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Sent from the Spanish island of Menorca and addressed to Circleville, Ohio, the four-page letter describes several historically significant moments in the s...
The duality of Shavuot is undeniable: the yom tov exists, or rather coexists, with distinctly different facets. On the one hand is its status as an agricultural festival marking the wheat/barley harvest and the related celebration of the precociousness of the Land of Israel and another aspect is its historic commemoration of the most remarkable event in the origin story of the Jewish People - the Revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai. Passover and Shavuot are connected by family ties as much...
One morning, my wife suggested I look into making a different kind of bread. Not necessarily to replace my weekly challah habit, but just to try something new. I asked what she had in mind and she mentioned monkey bread. I'd never heard of it. So I Googled and turns out that monkey bread is actually a yeasted cake. Its origins are rooted in the immigrant Hungarian Jewish community that came to the United States. I immediately thought of my father's grandparents, Jews who immigrated from the form...
Last year revealed that the 31.7 million small businesses in America can truly make a difference when they support and rally around other local businesses. By working together, small businesses kept communities safe, fed, entertained, engaged and moving forward. One aspect of May's Small Business Month mission highlights companies who desire to witness the growth and success of other small businesses. As businesses are starting to come back, locally owned and operated FASTSIGNS centers have prou...
When Sheryl Kurland of Longwood, Fla., began traveling around the country doing interactive speaking engagements for college women on the topics of healthy relationships and sexuality, she was stunned at the amount of sexual assault these young women confessed to. "Through interactive exercises and games, I would also ask these college-age women to list their relationship priorities like communication, trust, and sex, in order of importance." She'd end with the message that trust is the...
Sad and disturbing ... Our own wonderful KEITH DVORCHIK, head of our Federation and Roth Family JCC, posted the following on computer: "Being Jewish is so much more than individuality. It is a communal identity. Jews around the world connect and bond because we truly are a family. As we prepare for Shabbat this week, let's remember our global family members who lost their lives, who lost their loved ones. Let's say kaddish for those who have not yet been identified and whose immediate family...
The Jewish Pavilion 2021 fashion show attracted a sellout crowd this year and made more money than ever before. Chairwomen Marci Gaeser and Sharon Littman explained that women were looking for a fun Covid-safe activity and were thrilled to venture out. Many women in attendance had not seen one another for over a year and did not know whether to embrace or bump elbows. Recognizing acquaintances was rather challenging with everyone in masks. "If their hairstyle or weight changed, it was difficult...
(JTA) — Steven Spielberg has launched a film foundation called Jewish Story Partners to fund documentaries that “tell stories about a diverse spectrum of Jewish experiences, histories, and cultures.” It’s funded by the Righteous Persons Foundation, which Spielberg and his actress wife Kate Capshaw founded after Spielberg’s experience making “Schindler’s List” in 1993. Two Jewish philanthropies — the Maimonides Fund and the Jim Joseph Foundation — also contributed funds. (Both organizations also help fund 70 Faces Media, the Jewish Telegraphic...
