Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1326 - 1350 of 4419
(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...
This is a speech given by Hope Adelson at her bat mitzvah at the Congregation of Reform Judaism. At school, before we start our lesson, my class usually talks and jokes a bit. It's a way of getting our brains prepared to do work. I only recently have gone back to school in person. One day, reality was still sinking in. Instead of just clicking a join-conference button, I had to actually walk from class to class, wake up earlier, and experience human contact. I was doing the same thing I always...
A few days before Pesach, Rabbi Yanky Majesky of Chabad North Orlando got a very disturbing phone call. A relatively young Jewish woman had passed away all alone with no known next of kin. The woman on the phone was a co-worker of the deceased and found the rabbi's cell number. A week after the passing they went to clean the apartment and found her beloved cat was still there hiding under her bed. A draft of a will was found which indicated that the rabbi should oversee her funeral arrangements...
More super talents ... Sure, sure ... you knew MAURY POVICH was Jewish. (I didn't). I knew he was married to CONNIE CHUNG, and she converted to Judaism. What I didn't know, is they are both super kosher and attend synagogue regularly and Connie also speaks Yiddish fluently! Now, BERNIE SCHWARTZ I knew! (I even had a crush on him!) What? You didn't know I was talking about Tony Curtis? Well, Bernie was his real name. (We met, we smiled and laughed, but nothing more! (Oh well!). I was friends...
Jews have made their home in Ireland for centuries, and many have risen to be successful and prominent figures in politics, business, and theology. Ireland produced Chaim Herzog, the sixth president of Israel, and Leopold Bloom - the hero of James Joyce's "Ulysses," a canonical Irish text - is a Jew. However, the Irish Jewish community can hardly be called thriving, and Jews have not always been welcomed in this predominantly Catholic country. During the Holocaust, Ireland denied refuge to Jews...
Not everyone in Ireland supported the persecution of the Jews in Europe. The following archived Jewish Telegraphic News article, dated July 2, 1939, is a statement made by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland: A strong resolution protesting against the persecution of Jews by Nazis was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland at their annual conference here. The resolution, introduced by the Rev. Professor J.E. Dave states. “The General Assembly deplore and condemn the continued and...
(JTA) - It was an unusual Academy Awards in several ways. Forced to adapt to social distancing protocols, the ceremony was split into different venues but mostly took place in Los Angeles' Union Station. For only the second time in history, a woman won best director - and the first woman of color at that, as the award went to Chloe Zhao for "Nomadland," which also won best picture. And then there was Glenn Close's meme-able dance to the self-explanatory 1988 song "Da Butt." Also notable: a very...
(JNS) - When Rosalyn Gold-Onwude was a college student at Stanford University, she participated on Birthright Israel. Several years later, she went on her second trip-this time, as a staff member on her younger sister's Birthright experience. While participating in the program is not so unusual - more than 600,000 Jewish young people have gone on the free, 10-day trips since the program's founding in 1999 - Gold-Onwude's story is a bit different. She is the only Birthright participant to play...
Part 2 of 2 Laurence Morrell's father passed away right after he graduated from Emory University in Atlanta. "I came back home immediately and had to take over the running of my father's business. My brother was working for Martin-Marietta, so he and my mother would show me where the groves were. Together, we took over the management of 550 acres of citrus. It was mid-summer, the weeds were crotch high, and the heat/humidity was intense that summer," Morrell recalled. Morrell learned about the g...
"It's a mad, mad, mad, mad world"... Yes! That's the name of a movie I watched on television recently. It starred many, many, many, many (I got carried away) Jewish comedians. To name but a few, Leonard Hacker was one. (You may have known him as Buddy Hackett. Brooklyn born (like me), he died in 2003. Also, Milton Berle, Sid Caeser, Carl Reiner and Phil Silvers (to name a few more) ... all from either Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx. (of course!) (What talent! What great comedy minds! Will...
“The Lost Key,” the first and only film ever to explore bedroom intimacy endorsed by leading rabbis worldwide, invites everyone seeking closeness amid our currently disconnected society to screen the film for free beginning on May 22, and then join its ‘Intimacy After the Pandemic’ live virtual panel discussion on May 23, 7 p.m. The panel will discuss marriage, sex, and achieving the highest form of intimacy based on ancient wisdom that was hidden for centuries. RSVP is required and registered guests will be allowed to ask questions anonymo...
(JTA) — In the middle of a racy viral Instagram video that preceded his firing from a broadcasting gig at ESPN, NBA legend Paul Pierce spent over a minute lauding the Jewish ritual of a sit-down Shabbat dinner. Pierce is not Jewish, but during the live-streamed video from his house over the weekend — the Hall of Fame finalist gets massaged by scantily clad women and appears to smoke marijuana while flaunting COVID-19 social distancing protocols — he said the family style of meal on the Jewish Sabbath contrasts with his upbringing. At first...
(JTA) - Growing up, Passover was always a special time of year for David Teyf. It wasn't just about the holiday. It was also the stories his family would tell about the matzah factory they used to operate behind his grandfather's house in Minsk before they left Soviet Belarus in 1979. Teyf, who was born in that house, was 5 when they left that capital city. Now a successful chef, Teyf has few memories of the matzah factory. Yet he has found himself thinking about it more often lately as he...
(JTA) — In the late 1800s, the Ottoman Empire was looking to conscript men into its army, including the several thousand young Jewish ones who were living in the city of Baghdad. The Jewish community didn’t like the idea of the imperial forces taking away its young men, so it arranged to pay authorities for exemptions. Rabbi Shlomo Bekhor Husin of Baghdad documented the exemptions, carefully jotting each down name in medieval Rashi script. In the following decades, many of those names vanished or morphed as the Jews living there dispersed acr...
(JTA) - It was only about a week into lockdown last spring when Elana Brody took out her keyboard piano for a jam session. It was late at night, so it made sense that the new melody that came to her then was "B'shem Hashem" a part of the Shema. "It was kind of natural to want to sing this prayer because it's a bedtime prayer," Brody said, calling it an "incantation" of sorts. The words call on four angels to surround her - Michael to the right, Gabriel to the left, Uriel in front and Raphael beh...
(Israel21C via JNS) - Jerusalem is a city of history. Much of that history can be found in the ancient structures of the Old City. However, there's an aspect of Jerusalem's history that is much more subtly integrated into its geography: its street names. Many roads throughout the capital city are named after important figures in local and Jewish history. While there are obvious ones, such as Herzl Street and Balfour Street, many names on street signs pay tribute to lesser-known personalities....
(JTA) — Last year at this time, the message out of Jewish summer camps was one of doom and gloom. In April 2020, the Union for Reform Judaism announced that COVID would force a closure of its camps for the summer, affecting some 10,000 kids. In May, the Conservative movement’s Ramah camps across the country followed suit. This year, the outlook could not be more different. Camps in the United States are opening again with a combination of testing and vaccinations, along with a better understanding of how COVID-19 spreads. “It’s absolutely exhau...
The Torah tells us that Sarah, the matriarch of the Jewish people, laughed when told she’d give birth in her old age. Since that moment, it seems, Jews have continued laughing — at themselves and their predicaments, at each other, even at God. And beneath that laughter, and the humor that sparked it, lies the story of the Jewish people throughout the age. History Jewish humor as a genre got its start in 19th-century Eastern Europe, where Yiddish folk tales found the humor in the often-difficult everyday life of the shtetl (village). The gre...
