Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Such Talent! ... I never knew (or even had a hint) that extremely famous pantomime performer, Marcel Marceau was Jewish. His name at birth was Marcel Mangel. His father was captured and killed at Auschwitz. Besides his acting talent, Marcel also worked as a liaison officer with United States General George Patton's 3rd army. He also rescued Jews during the Holocaust. (RIP Marcel. You will always be remembered for your talent and your deeds.) Speaking of talented actors and delightful people,...
(JTA) - The Darvick family did Jewish holidays by videoconference long before a pandemic forced them. "We call it Skypanukkah," Elliot Darvick told The New York Times in December 2011, when the family was featured in an article about celebrating Chanukah over Skype. So when Zoom seders suddenly became standard last year, the Darvicks were prepared. But this Passover, the Darvicks will be together again. By the time the holiday begins later this month, both Debra Darvick, 64, and her husband,...
(JTA) - The BBC has been accused of bias in its coverage of Israel for decades. Now the public broadcaster is taking flak from British Jews for coverage much closer to home. What's causing their biggest dispute in years? It's the broadcast of a debate over whether Jews should be considered an ethnic minority - a panel discussion featuring four non-Jewish panelists and a Jewish commenter as a guest. Monday's discussion touched raw nerves in the organized community, where many Jews feel...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (JTA) - Last year, Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a treaty establishing diplomatic relations. But for more than a year earlier, diners in the UAE had already been finding their way to Jewish culture - via the home cooking of a South African expatriate. Elli Kriel, a sociologist by training who moved here in 2013 when her husband was transferred to the Emirates for work, began serving kosher food to Jewish tourists years ago out of her home kitchen. Now...
By Ed Borowsky "As my forefathers planted for me, so I, too, plant for my children," Talmud, Ta'anit 23bm. There is an independent advisory group/501(c)(3) organization called the Jewish Capital Alliance that has been operating for a little over 10 years in the greater Orlando area. JCA is dedicated to ensuring the long-term growth and success of mission-driven Jewish nonprofits. They've been providing low-interest loans and lines of credit to agencies, synagogues and other Jewish organizations...
(JNS) - A new Holocaust documentary narrated by British actor and "Harry Potter" star Jason Isaacs debuted this week for students in the United Kingdom. Holocaust Learning UK commissioned the hour-long film "Out of the Darkness," which features the testimony of Janine Webber, a survivor of the Lvov Ghetto. Isaacs, 57, who played Lucious Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" series of films, is Jewish and has spoken about experiencing anti-Semitic attacks as a teenager in London by the far-right group...
In the news... Judge MERRICK GARLAND is President BIDEN'S pick for attorney general of the United States. Judge Garland is Jewish. His grandparents fled Europe and anti-Semitism. "The United States took them in," he said. "I want to pay back by serving." (He broke down, suppressing tears.) "I'm not here to serve the president. I'm here for the people." (I hope he will be voted in.) Also... My eldest son, Navy Commander DAVID and his wife, JOLENE, have many Great Danes in their family. I am...
(JTA) - Stan Lee, arguably the most famous American comic book creator, died at age 95 in 2018. Honoring his Jewish identity, many evoked the phrase "may his memory be a blessing" (coming from the Hebrew "zichrono l'bracha") when reporting on his passing. Just what this memory looks like, however, and what it should look like, is a topic that is increasingly up for debate. To most people with a passing knowledge of comic books, Lee - who may be best known to the general public for his 30-plus...
(JTA) - With "Superman and Lois," the newest TV series involving the character, premiering last week on the CW network, it's a good time to recall that Superman was the 1938 brainchild of Jewish creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Many have suggested that the pair were inspired by their own Jewish backgrounds to create Superman as the paradigm of a hero who defended vulnerable populations from their enemies. But there is reason to suspect that a more specific encounter may have inspired them...
(JTA) - I can't stop thinking about Flory Jagoda, Joseph Sassoon and Kitty Sassoon, three American Jews in their 90s who died last week. As an Ashkenazi Jew, I do not share their family backgrounds. But their deaths hit home for me, as they were among the last native speakers of endangered Jewish languages - languages I'm helping to document before it's too late. Flory Jagoda devoted much of her life to preserving one of those languages. She grew up in Bosnia speaking Ladino, also known as...
(JTA) - When Maya Katz-Ali saw the ad on Facebook recruiting Asian Jews to participate in a new video project about identity, she scrolled through her list of friends to figure out who might be a good fit. The daughter of a Jewish mother from New York and a Muslim father from India, it didn't occur to Katz-Ali that she fit the bill herself. Though she grew up connected to both parents' cultures - especially the food - she always saw them as distinct. When her mother wanted to hire Indian...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) - A Torah scroll that disappeared from a Dutch synagogue following the Nazi invasion into the Netherlands has been rediscovered 80 years later and returned to the Jewish community. The scroll, which appears to be intact and has been kept in excellent condition since World War II, belonged to a synagogue in the southern city of Dordrecht, according to Chris den Hoedt, chairman of the Jewish Community of Rotterdam, or NIG. The Pennings family from Dordrecht kept it in storage for...
A singer needs songs to sing ... (That's me I'm referring to.) What's a good song without a good lyric? One of the best lyricists ever, in my opinion, was Gustav Gerson Kahn. (You knew him as Gus Kahn.) My favorite lyric of his is "You stepped out of a dream." (I do dream about my departed spouse often.) And speaking of "departed," another wonderful songwriter was Laura Nyro, who unfortunately died young. She was another talented Jew. And lets not forget Lerner and Loewe ... that's Frederick Loe...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) - Sonja Levy was a positive person who made an excellent first impression and whose important position exempted her from deportation, according to the personal card that the Jewish Council of Amsterdam made for her during the Nazi occupation. But the accolades on the card weren't enough to save Levy, a kindergarten teacher who was in her early 20s when the Germans invaded. Like more than 100,000 Dutch Jews, she was eventually put on a train to the death camps in occupied Poland...
(Jerusalem Israel) — Gilda Radner is doing flips in her grave. If she were alive, the former star of Saturday Night Live who died in 1989, would be crying, but not from laughter. Radner is one of many young comedians who got their start on SNL. She created and became famous for characters including Emily Litella, Roseanne Roseannadanna, Lisa Loopner, and Baba Wawa. Radner was also among a number of Jewish comics whose careers took off on and following SNL. Others include Billy Crystal, Jon Lovitz, Ben Stiller, and comedian-turned-Senator, Al Fr...
Purim, or the Feast of Lots, is a joyous holiday that recounts the saving of the Jews from a threatened massacre during the Persian period (539-330 BCE). It is celebrated this year beginning at sunset on Thursday, Feb. 25. The story of Purim is recounted in the Book of Esther, whose eponymous heroine plays the leading role in saving her people. The holiday is traditionally celebrated with wild abandon and with the giving of gifts to friends and the poor. History of Purim While the origins of...
"Go with the flow" has always been King William Halikman's philosophy on life and it has paid off for him. A telemetry engineer for RCA at the beginning of his career, he met an 18-year-old Brazilian beauty at a dance in Recife, Brazil. He was 25 and hadn't planned to be there. She was born in Brazil but hadn't planned to be there either (in that country, that is). Her grandparents came to South America in hopes of reaching their dream to come to America from Europe, not realizing there is a...
TEL AVIV - On Feb. 11, 1986, Soviet refusenik Natan Sharansky - freed after enduring nine years in Russian prison on false charges of treason and espionage - stepped off a jet that had carried him straight from Germany and out into the Israeli sunshine. "It was a very dramatic day, starting in a Soviet prison, then meeting my wife in Berlin after 12 years, then finishing at Ben Gurion Airport, and finally visiting the Kotel" in Jerusalem, said Sharansky, recalling the events of 35 years ago as...
Wow! ... Remember recently I mentioned in my column that I would include more Jewish comedians and singers? Two of my favorites were Sid Caeser (now deceased) and WOODY ALLEN. Both were (and are) brilliant! Actually, Woody, who was born in the Bronx, was raised in Brooklyn and at one time we were neighbors. Woody went to Midwood High School and I attended Tilden High School. (And he was older than me!) Remember singer Tony Martin? Not only was he handsome, he had a great singing voice. He appear...
(JTA) - Director Steven Spielberg has won the 2021 Genesis Prize, the award nicknamed the "Jewish Nobel." The award, which "honors extraordinary individuals for their outstanding professional achievement, contribution to humanity, and commitment to Jewish values," was announced Wednesday. "Key Jewish themes are often woven into his narratives: importance of identity and belonging, maintaining humanity in a ruthless world, caring for the other, and honoring the moral obligation to do the right...
Eight schools from five countries will unite in song in the upcoming Boys Town Jerusalem International Virtual Choral Festival on Sunday, Feb. 21, at 1 p.m. EST. For the past 13 years, the annual Boys Town Jerusalem Choral Festival, in support of the Israeli school’s underprivileged students, has been held in London. This year, the pandemic has compelled the creation of a “virtual” festival, which now opens the event to participation by choirs from Jewish Day Schools across the world. The following schools will be participating in this landm...
Staying away from politics ... But, I can't help telling my readers that we should be proud about the Jewish Space Lazers! Brilliant! Simply brilliant! Anti-Semitic conspiracy myths ... (Sounds like it belongs with the first story ... but no.) I read this in the World Jewish Congress and pass it along: "Two new reports released by the WJC have found that harmful conspiracy myths targeting Jews have become increasingly widespread online, and that the once United States-centric QAnon movement has...
Content warning: disordered eating. I never knew what an impact an eighth-grade field trip to the local water park would have on me. I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach once I saw all my classmates were wearing bikinis while I hid my belly rolls and cellulite underneath a one-piece, which suddenly seemed grandmotherly. The same shame still heats up my cheeks when I remember how my thick thighs stuck to the plastic inner tube. This field trip marked the beginning of several years of disordered eating, marked by obsessively...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) - Before World War II, there were about 50,000 Jews living in Salonica (or Thessaloniki), the largest Jewish community in Greece. Between March and August 1943, the Germans deported more than 45,000 Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing camp. Most of the deportees were gassed on arrival. Because this represented the decimation of a community, it would go down as an especially dark moment in the darkest chapter of Jewish history. But a few Jews managed to survive the...
(JTA) - Rabbi Josh Feigelson remembers the moment that football lost its magic for him. It was Oct. 20, 2013, and Feigelson was eating dinner with his family at Ken's Diner, a kosher restaurant in Skokie, the Chicago suburb where they live. A TV was playing a football game between the Green Bay Packers and the Cleveland Browns. Feigelson, who grew up in the football-crazed college town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, was a longtime fan of the sport, and his then preteen kids had taken up the mantle,...
