Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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As a child, visits to my maternal grandfather and grandmother (of Italian and Polish heritage, respectively) involved eating a lot pasta and pierogi. Dessert, in turn, was sometimes cannoli and poppyseed roll, but often a platter of Stella D'Oro cookies - assorted dainty corrugated rings and logs of buttery dough with almond undertones. My grandfather had developed a taste for them early in his youth as an immigrant from Genoa, and my grandparents' pantry was never without at least one package....
"Make new friends and keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." Not only is that a quote very similar to us but can be very relatable as well. The Jewish Pavilion has solidified so many silver- and gold-type relationships. Volunteers spend many hours with seniors, many who are considered true friends. Whether it be at a Shabbat, a holiday, a one-on-one room visit, or even playing a few games of mahjong, the time spent is invaluable to all. Spending time at the communities also forges frie...
(JTA) — Several Jewish stars are among the nominees for the 2021 NAACP Image Awards, which celebrate Black achievement in movies, television, music and literature. The list announced Tuesday features a mix of familiar Jewish names, such as the often-awarded rapper Drake and TV star Tracee Ellis Ross, along with rising artists like actress Jurnee Smollett and rapper Doja Cat. The ceremony will air virtually on March 27. Here are the Jews to know. The stars Jurnee Smollett received a nomination for her breakout role as Leti in “Lovecraft Cou...
(JTA) - "Schitt's Creek" is trying to pick up in the Golden Globes where it left off in the fall with its historic Emmys sweep. The show about a wealthy interfaith Jewish family was nominated Wednesday for five awards, including four for the main actors and one for best series. There are plenty of other Jewish nominations, too, notably "Mank," the acclaimed film on the story of Jewish screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, with six. The Golden Globes, taking place virtually in the new pandemic normal,...
(Jewish Journal via JNS) - More than 170 entertainment industry leaders released a unity statement on Feb. 1 after launching the Black-Jewish Entertainment Alliance (BJEA), a joint initiative by black and Jewish entertainment industry professionals devoted to countering racism and anti-Semitism. In the face of institutional racism and rising anti-Semitism, members of the alliance feel it is critical to stand together and support one another. Signatories of the statement include Billy Porter,...
First, a somber memory ... Jan. 27 was "Holocaust Remembrance Day." That brings to mind the late former Congressman from California, Tom Lantos, who passed some years ago from cancer. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, I will try to fill you in: Tamas (Thomas) Peter Lantos was born in Bupapest, Hungary, to a Jewish family that was very educated with teachers, professors, etc. Of course, during World War II, they were sent to concentration camps. When Tom was 16 years old he was...
NEW YORK (JTA) - On a frosty Tuesday in January, Mark Becker strode into Max and Mina's ice cream shop holding a netted green bag filled with fresh oranges. "Maybe he's making orange ice cream," his brother Bruce said from behind the counter. Max and Mina's flavors tend to change with the seasons, the Jewish holidays and the Becker brothers' moods. Winter doesn't stop the experimentation. "I'm using all of it, even the peel," Mark Becker said firmly, swinging the bag over his shoulder and...
"We are the world"... "We are the children." (I'm using this wonderful song, written by Michael Jackson and LIONEL RICHIE, and applying it to the Jewish people because it seems to fit!) The more I look up things about my favorites, the more I find out that they are (or were) Jewish! For instance, who knew Larry King, super-famous radio and television personality, was a member of the clan? (I didn't.) His real name was Lawrence Zeiger. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y. (like me) and his parents were...
The Squadron, the only air force simulator program with Israeli fighter pilots as instructors, announced the launch of their live, online center of excellence. The center, which is designed for both organizations and individuals, incorporates lessons from the Israel Air Force to promote the ideals and principles it has developed. “Our online courses capture the spirit and heritage of the Israeli Air Force, combining a thrilling flight simulator experience with an actual IAF pilot navigating t...
The Council of American Jewish Museums and George Mason University’s Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media are launching two new collecting initiatives with support from a group of Jewish funders, the Chronicling Funder Collaborative, to document diverse Jewish experiences of the pandemic. The Rosenzweig Center received a grant to create a web portal that will serve as a digital content hub reflecting Jewish life during this time. The grant to CAJM enables it to partner with 18 member institutions to lead a broad-based oral history c...
(JTA) - The final book published by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks before he died in November is the Jewish Book Council's top book for 2020. "Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times," published in the United States in September, was awarded the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year when the Jewish Book Council announced its 2020 National Jewish Book Awards on Wednesday. Sacks shared his vision for a moral future - one that he said would include an end to "cancel culture," changes in...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Gene Scheer had a deadline looming. He was getting ready for the CD release of one of his Holocaust-related works, timed for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, one week away. But on Jan. 20, Scheer, a Jewish librettist whose works include the operas "Therese Raquin" and "Moby-Dick" and an adaptation of the Christmas classic "It's A Wonderful Life," took time out to watch Joe Biden's inauguration as president. The relief he felt as he watched Biden, who had been his...
It's hard to believe, but Saturday marks 10 years since the passing of Jewish musical icon Debbie Friedman, who died of pneumonia on Jan. 9, 2011, at age 59. If you grew up in the Reform movement - especially if you ever attended a Shabbat song session at a Reform Jewish camp - you are undoubtedly familiar with the singer-songwriter's vast and gorgeous musical repertoire. Influenced by folk artists like Peter, Paul and Mary, Friedman's music is modern, moving and wide ranging, from the soothing...
One-third of early pregnancies end in miscarriage. It is emotionally wrenching for the anticipating parents and there are support groups, and many resources to help them deal with the loss. But what about young children? How does one help a young child who also was expecting a new brother or sister to play with? A Johns Hopkins-trained, board certified OB/GYN, and an associate professor at the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, Dr. I. Cori Baill often wished that she had a...
As part of their popular monthly zoom series of guest lectures "Physically apart - Emotionally together," Chabad will be hosting Rabbi Noach and Alti Majesky, Chabad Shluchim in Ghana, Africa. The zoom meeting will take place on Feb. 11, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. and participants will learn what Jewish life is like in Ghana and how this dedicated couple managed to build a community in this third world country. "I'm excited to be speaking with the Orlando Jewish community," said Rabbi Noach Majesky who...
(JTA) — Even without hearing the words, the pictures that animate the “Appreciation Song for President Trump” sung by a group of Hasidic boys clearly spell out the reasons for their appreciation for Donald Trump. “With devotion so strong, you lead us like you know how,” they sing as a photo of Sholom Rubashkin, the former meat processing plant owner whose 27-year prison sentence Trump commuted in December 2017 appears on the screen. “The economy is growing like never before,” they sing against the backdrop of a stock ticker. “The peace th...
No surprise ... One of my favorite actors who has since passed, Jerome Silberman, was Jewish. You may know him as Gene Wilder. He also was once married to Gilda Radner, another Jew and another of my favorites, who made me adore the television show "Saturday Night Live." She passed away many years ago and much too young! And someone I consider absolute genius, Dr. Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through di...
(JTA) - For a movie about the Holocaust, the Belarussian film "Persian Lessons" has some comic potential. Set in a concentration camp somewhere in Western Europe, it involves a Jewish inmate who survives by giving Farsi lessons to a Nazi officer who dreams about opening a restaurant in Tehran. One problem: The inmate doesn't speak Farsi. Instead he comes up with his own language and teaches it to his captor, trying not to raise suspicions. If that sounds like a comedy of errors, it's no accident...
By the time Barbara Goodman was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in October 2001, there were already 30 tumors in her liver. "We knew we were in for a pretty tough battle," recalled her husband, Kenneth Goodman, then president of New York-based Forest Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company. "But I had an entire research organization I could draw upon." Nevertheless, nine months after her diagnosis, Barbara died. She was only 51, far younger than usual for pancreatic cancer patients, who...
Just a year ago, Jerusalem was inundated by world leaders commemorating the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. At the time, it was announced that in Israel there were only 192,000 remaining Holocaust survivors, 15,000 fewer than the year before because of the high death rate among the aging survivors. At this rate, within 12 years, there will be no more living survivors among us. By all accounts, the survivors’ situation has become much more perilous in the last year. The pandemic has increased isolation and fear, creating a l...
Olympia High School senior Jenna Richman has been in the Girl Scouts since she was in first grade. This year she completed her Gold Award project to receive her Girl Scout Gold Award - the highest award a Girl Scout can attain, equivalent to Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts. Her proud parents, Scott and Gwen Richman, are well-known in the community as Scott is a former president of both the Roth JCC and Rosen JCC board of directors, and Gwen is a former PAC chair at the Rosen JCC Preschool and...
Am I Proud! ... The song "Of Thee I Sing" written by my 2nd cousins (on my fathers side), George and Ira Gershwin, became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize on Oct. 10, 1935 (way before I was born!). Also, the wonderful musical opera "Porgy and Bess" opened on Broadway before I was born. It was written by them as well and with Dubois Heywood. (I'm NOT so old!) On my very first CD, I recorded five of the Gershwin's great songs. I titled the CD "Dreamer on the 18th Floor" in honor of the...
(JTA) -A Jewish couple in Florida is celebrating two hefty milestones together this year: 100 years of life, and 80 years of marriage. Lou and Edith Bluefeld, of Boca Raton, have known each other since they were 16. They ran a kosher catering business that served visiting U.S. presidents and helped to kosher the White House kitchen. They also cooked for former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin when he was in Washington, D.C., for the 1978 Egypt peace accord announcement, according to a...
(JNS) — I feel deep sorrow at the passing of a wonderful friend, and wonderful person—the late Sheldon Adelson. With a broken heart, in the name of my wife, Sara, on my own behalf and in the name of many people in Israel and the world, we send our heartfelt condolences to Miri and the family. Many of the Jewish people, in Israel and the rest of the world, share in the heavy loss. It is difficult to describe what Sheldon did for the Jewish people and for Israel. Sheldon was one of the biggest donors in the history of the Jewish people. He gav...
TEL AVIV (JTA) - As we were reminded at the beginning of the latest lockdown, Israel's quarantine hotel situation throughout the COVID pandemic was a disaster. The people sent there complained of haphazard arrangements made at the last second for guests and a galling lack of oversight or organization approaching anarchy within the hotels - all while half of incoming travelers managed to receive waivers from the government to instead quarantine at home. In the latest round, the local media...
