Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Chew on this: One of America's most iconic gum brands was originally a Jewish-owned tobacco business. In 1891, Morris Chigorinsky emigrated from Russia to the United States, where in the early 1900s he assumed control of the American Leaf Tobacco Company. But by 1938 - by then Chigorinsky had changed his surname to Shorin - the business was flailing. His four sons decided to save the family from certain penury by starting a new penny candy business, Topps Chewing Gum Inc., with the name...
(JTA) — Motorcyclist Steve Goode is on the way to Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan. But on a recent phone call from a hotel room, he doesn’t know exactly where he is. “Indiana, in … what the hell town am I in?” he says with a laugh. Turns out he’s in Richmond, Indiana, a few days into a 75-day trek called the Great American Deli Schlep, during which he will stop at 42 Jewish delis across the United States to raise awareness about hunger and food insecurity. He started out at Manny’s Cafeteria and Delicatessen in his native Chicago,...
(JTA) - When Daniela Weiner heard about a virtual bake sale against antisemitism, the Chicago pastry chef and food photographer didn't think twice about joining. Weiner is not Jewish. But she has participated in benefit bake sales before, raising $1,500 last year for racial justice causes, and she also knew that some of her Jewish friends in the food world were alarmed by a recent spate of antisemitic incidents. "Seeing a friend talk about this, crying on social media that she is afraid ... I...
(JTA) - If anyone can pull off a bluegrass song about Anne Frank, it's Nefesh Mountain, a husband-and-wife duo from New Jersey that has been a standard-bearer of Jewish bluegrass for years. The group has appeared in Rolling Stone and national bluegrass magazines and worked with some of the most respected bluegrass session players as they have put an Americana spin on Jewish prayers such as "Mi Chamocha" and "Modeh Ani" and released other songs that tap into Jewish traditions. "What we're doing...
(JNS) — The Susi Bradfield Women’s Institute for Halakhic Leadership of the Ohr Torah Stone network commemorated the graduation of its 2021 class, attended by hundreds of family and friends. Three women—Rabbanit Dr. Hannah Hashkes, Rabbanit Shira Marili Mirvis and Rabbanit Chamutal Shoval—successfully completed the intensive five-year course. The curriculum spans a range of topics on Jewish law, including Shabbat and festivals, kashrut, mourning, family purity, and Jewish marriage and divorce. Upon graduating from the institute, women are certi...
This article originally appeared on Kveller. Fully virtual bar and bat mitzvahs are, happily, no longer a necessity in many places. Whether you are including a few people in an IRL event, or even hosting a small crowd in, say, your backyard, most families are still likely to have guests who are only able to attend — or are only comfortable attending — a bar or bat mitzvah via a virtual platform like Zoom. Does this scenario have your head spinning? Fear not! You don’t need to plan two separate events. But you do want to include your on-sc...
Like many American Jews, Michael Fineberg, Ph.D.'s paternal grandparents emigrated from Lithuania and Russia, his maternal grandparents from Romania and Austria, arriving by boat to the United States in the early 1900s. His parents were first generation American Jews who assimilated and worked hard to build a life for themselves and their children. His father didn't graduate from high school as a result of World War II. Returning after the war, he worked at the Food Fair Grocery Store chain,...
My social media has been full of proud parents posting pictures of their high school, college, and graduate school graduates which no doubt comes with extra meaning on the heels of a pandemic that’s interrupted so many of our lives. As happy as I am for my friends and their children, I can’t help but look at each of these pictures through a prism of current events in Israel. I am proud of my daughter and son-in-law who are also graduating this year. However, in Israel, ceremonies marking their accomplishments are more toned down than they oth...
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...
