Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Crescent City Jewish News via JNS) - Rabbi Peter Hyman was announced as the recipient of the Bronze Wolf Award, the highest Scouting award in the world and the only one given by the World Scout Committee, on March 30. It acknowledges the significant work of an individual to the World Scout Movement. Hyman became the 377th individual to have received this award since it was first established in 1935. The founder of the Scouting movement, Lord Robert Smyth Baden-Powell, was the initial...
Long-time philanthropist, community leader and dedicated Zionist, Bruce Gould has a new role - producer of a documentary portraying the complex and consequential life of the late Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, whose 1977 meeting in Jerusalem with Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was an act of unprecedented courage and a turning point for the Jewish state. The film is debuting in Florida at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, running virtually from April 14-29. Titled "Upheaval: The Journey of...
*Mattan Segev-Frank is a man with a mission. And while he has singlehandedly already begun making an impact, he knows that the issues he is concerned about are much larger than any single person. They require governments and international authorities to take decisive steps. My first encounter with Mattan, a genealogy researcher and an MA student of the History of the Jewish People at the Tel Aviv University, was in a Jewish genealogy Facebook group when he shared his dismay at stolen historic...
On Thursday, April 15 at 7 p.m., EDT, The Jewish Federations of North America, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Hayesod and additional partners will host a one-hour virtual event to mark Israel’s 73rd Independence Day. The event will begin with a farewell address by His Excellency Reuven Rivlin, president of Israel, and include a look back on his legacy as the Jewish State’s 10th president. It will also feature special appearances by Israeli Olympic-gold-medal-hopefuls who are on their way to Tokyo this summer, Jewish athletes from aro...
SUMTER COUNTY, Fla. (JTA) - When Ellen Faulkner told her friends that she was moving to The Villages, the sprawling senior community in Central Florida, they cautioned her: There was no Jewish life there. Faulkner hadn't noticed that during her visit, which was made at the urging of a high school classmate who told her rapturously about what it was like to live in the 55-plus community that's home to 125,000 self-described "Villagers." She had been captivated by the free concerts, huge crowds...
There is no end... I am surprised (and delighted) one after another, as I look up famous people and find that they are Jewish! For instance, actress GWYNETH PALTROW, Academy Award and Golden Globe recipient, the daughter of actress BLYTHE DANNER and producer, director BRUCE PALTROW. Her dad was Jewish and she and her younger brother were brought up in the religion. Her ancestry claimed many rabbis. Of course, comedians Jack Benny and George Jessel ... and so many other comedians were Jewish....
(JNS) - On a blustery day in late January, Holocaust survivor *Sami Steigmann, 81, made his debut on Clubhouse - the buzzy, audio-based, social-media platform that launched in the venture capital and Hollywood communities last spring and now connects millions of "regular" folk with celebrities for spontaneous conversations. Steigmann, who lives below the poverty line in Harlem, N.Y., was preparing to speak outside the United Nations on International Holocaust Remembrance Day for an "End Jew...
(JTA) - Folk musician and record archivist Nathan Salsburg lives on a 40-acre former tree farm in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, with fellow songwriter Joan Shelley. Shelley is not Jewish, but she and Salsburg - who has a complicated relationship with his Jewishness dating back to childhood - began observing Shabbat in the last year. "We don't turn everything off," Salsburg jokes. "But we light the Shabbat candles and say HaMotzi and drink wine. We'd like to keep it going. But I don't...
The omer refers to the 49-day period between the second night of Passover and the holiday of Shavuot. This period marks the beginning of the barley harvest when, in ancient times, Jews would bring the first sheaves to the Temple as a means of thanking God for the harvest. The word omer literally means “sheaf” and refers to these early offerings. The Torah itself dictates the counting of the seven weeks following Passover: “You shall count from the eve of the second day of Pesach, when an omer of grain is to be brought as an offering, seven...
Pampushky are fluffy, soft Ukrainian garlic bread rolls. Ukraine was known as the "breadbasket" of the Soviet Union, and both garlic and bread are staples of the cuisine. These rolls are traditionally served alongside borscht; the garlic's sharpness compliments the sweetness of its beets. Garlic and bread is such a common side to borscht that my own grandparents would often simply eat slices of brown bread and whole raw cloves of garlic with their soup. I was first inspired to make pampushky...
You love challah. You love pizza. It might be time to combine these two cherished carbs together in one pan. If you often make big batches of challah, this recipe will be quite easy to throw together as a fun appetizer, or even an indulgent weeknight dinner. You can set aside around 1 pound of dough to make the pizza dip challah, which is about half of this recipe. But you can use any challah recipe you prefer. If you don't have a cast iron pan, you can use any 8- or 9-inch cake pan that you...
(JTA) - There's never been a great, definitive American movie about a bar mitzvah. And after "Donny's Bar Mitzvah," a new movie that arrived this week on Amazon Prime and iTunes, there still hasn't been. The film, directed by Jonathan Kaufman (referred to in the media notes as "Jonny Comebacks"), is an indie comedy set entirely during the bar mitzvah party of Donny Drucker (played by Steele Stebbins), a boy from a highly dysfunctional family, in 1998 Michigan. It's something of a festival of...
In the “International March of the Living to hold virtual 2021 march,” in the March 26 issue, Dan Kosky, who sent the press release, stated that there were a couple of errors brought to his attention: • The Virtual March will premiere Thursday April 8, on Israel media at 3 p.m. IRL (In Real Life), followed by the global broadcast at 10 a.m. EDT / 4 p.m. CDT / 5 p.m. IRL and will be followed immediately by an online memorial ceremony with the first torch of remembrance lit by President Rivlin.” • There will be numerous medical associati...
"Hate on the rise"... This is something I usually don't write about, but I am so bothered that I can't help it. It's about Blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, Asians and Jews. I am a white Jew ... I can hide my Judaism. But why should any of us have to? Once again, I will mention my experience as a young child about 4 or 5 years old. I learned to say the "Hail Mary" and "Our Father," and I pretended to be Christian because I didn't want to keep being beaten up by Jew-hating kids. Sure, my skin color is...
By Margaret Littman (JTA) - Visiting Yad Vashem a decade ago, Alon Shaya got to see some of the Jerusalem Holocaust museum's culinary-related artifacts that aren't always on display to the public. It was the James Beard Award-winning chef's introduction to the fact that concentration camp inmates distracted themselves by recalling and secretly writing recipes - on scraps of hidden paper and cloth - from their prewar lives. "Food is such a big part of everything I do. It really moved me that peop...
It is hard to believe that Passover starts tomorrow evening. How can we even begin to think about preparing for Passover when we are living in the midst of a pandemic? As we each live in the uncertainty of quarantine/lockdown/shelter in place/limited movement - select whichever one matches where you live - many of us have been stockpiling food in our cabinets. And, if they look anything like mine, they are full of chametz (bread products). With everyone stuck at home, the line between work and...
NEW YORK (JTA) - Every Passover, we strive to experience Egypt in our own lives. Locating the suffering of our Egypt wasn't hard this year: It seems like most days my husband and I share the names of new people we personally know who have passed away from COVID-19 and families devastated by the challenging conditions in which their loved ones passed away. We have been mourning the absence of community, the simplest and deepest of joys. The Alter Rebbe of Gur, known as the Sfat Emet (1847-1905),...
BOSTON (JTA) - On the eve of Passover during the Depression, a juggler in ragged clothes is invited into the home of a poor family that has a bare Seder table. It's a poignant scene in "The Passover Guest," the captivating debut picture book by author Susan Kusel, a longtime Judaica librarian who was inspired by a classic Yiddish tale, "The Magician," by I.L. Peretz. By lovely coincidence, readers have that rare opportunity to enjoy another retelling of the beloved story in a new publication of...
Passover begins at sundown tomorrow, Saturday, March 27. (Matzo Brei here I come!) Any prouder? (my blouse will split!)... How about Emma Lazarus? She was Jewish. Her poem, "The New Colossus" is engraved on the Statue of Liberty! Being a battered child because of my Jewish heritage, the first poem I learned (and never forgot) goes like this: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free ..." (Although very poor, living on welfare in a Brooklyn project, I knew how...
I have to tell you about my Aunt Ann and Uncle Harry, both first-generation Americans fresh off the boat from Istanbul, Turkey, and Russia. They owned a fish store in Philadelphia. Their fish shop was the end store on a block of row homes in the Jewish neighborhood. I remember as a little boy, I would avoid the fish store because I didn’t like the smell, but I would go upstairs to Aunt Ann’s and Uncle Harry’s house and would always see the paper bag filled with their day’s receipts sitting somewhere in their home above the store. I also re...
NEW YORK — The Orthodox Union, the umbrella group for Orthodox Jewry and leading certifier of kosher products, has released its OU Guide to Passover, the annual publication that provides comprehensive guidance about kosher-for-Passover products. This year’s edition, which is available in both PDF and online database formats, features close to 30,000 kosher-for-Passover products and charts on ingredient substitutions, halachic times for Passover, required portion sizes at the seder and Sefirat HaOmer. Passover this year will be celebrated fro...
Last week, my 11-year-old daughter went back to her school campus for the first time in 50 weeks. As we prepared for her return, we cleaned out her backpack, which was frozen in time: It still held the remnants of a class field trip taken the first week of March 2020; her sunscreen, hat, playing cards, and souvenir pen all stark reminders of the moment just before we hibernated into our own silos. We replaced these relics with the folders and books she needed to bring back to school. She readjusted the straps, already worn-in to the contours...
(The Nosher) - Leave it to Sephardic Jews to make even a pedestrian dish - the ubiquitous matzah brei, a mash-up of fried matzah and egg - into something sublime. In his landmark book "The Sephardic Kitchen," Rabbi Robert Sternberg introduced many of us to the flavors and pleasures of Sephardic Jewish cuisine. Masa Tiganitas is a Passover recipe of the Greek Jews - tiganites is the Greek word for pancakes, and, according to Sephardic cook and author Jennifer Abadi, tiganitas is related to the...
Singing is traditionally a major part of the Passover seder, and it certainly makes for a more festive and participatory celebration. But what if your repertoire of Passover songs is lacking or you can't remember the lyrics or melodies even for classics like "Dayenu" or "Chad Gadya"? Or what if you have an urge to accompany the singing on guitar (or some other instrument) this year? Whatever the situation, we can help. Here (and in no particular order) are the best online resources we could...
Amar'e Stoudemire, the former NBA star-turned Orthodox-convert to Judaism and the Hapoel Jerusalem basketball team co-owner, has been in the news a lot lately. Currently, he is an assistant player development coach for the Brooklyn Nets, and he is very happy that he doesn't have to work on Shabbat, which he observes. In December he spoke at a Zoom discussion event sponsored by the UJA Federation New York, titled "Amar'e Stoudemire: His Practice On and Off the Court." Stoudemire was introduced...
