Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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YouTube holds a vast library of music, and Chanukah songs are no exception. The Chanukah terrain consists of the classics, creative recreations of popular songs and lots and lots of acapella. Here’s a wide mix of all different types of Chanukah songs to get you in the mood for a bright and joyful holiday! Al HaNisim Literally “for the miracles”, Al HaNisim is a classic Chanukah song that relates briefly the story of Chanukah and Purim. It is a song of thanksgiving to God for redeeming the Jews from oppression. This old school classical Israe...
Today, we speak of a largely forgotten ethnic cleansing unparalleled in the history of humanitarian abuses. Recall the coordinated international expulsion of some 850,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands, where they had lived peaceably for as long as 27 centuries. In 2014, the Israeli government set aside Nov. 30 as a commemoration of this mass atrocity. It has had no real identity or name like “Kristallnacht.” But from this day forward, it will be known as Yom HaGirush: “Expulsion Day.” It began the moment Hitler came to power in 1933. The int...
This dreidel is part of the Chanukah decorations on display in the front yard of Rabbi Arnold and Mary Siegel's home. Heritage wrote about this wonderful display in 2019. The message is perfect for any year....
As Chanukah is a season of miracles for Jews all around the world, the Yiddishkayt Initiative (YILoveJewish.org), is presenting a virtual Chanukah Mini Fest from Nov. 28- Dec. 5 with a lineup of entertainment and educational programming that is nothing short of miraculous. "Chanukah is a time of miracles," said Avi Hoffman, YI Founder and CEO. "What we are doing is bringing together leading Jewish and Yiddish cultural figures from all over the world for our virtual YI Love ChanukahFest '21 featuring entertainment and activities for all ages....
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - "Welcome back to live theater!" Yoni Vendriger says, standing before the audience before the show begins. It is, I realize, the first time I've seen a play in a theater since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Except the theater, in this case, is an apartment in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the "stage" is, for most of the show, the living room couch. About 15 of us make up the audience, most of them friends of the apartment's residents. Everyone in the room is in their 20s, and i...
It started with a question for Jonathan Gold. Chanukah 2011 was nearing, and a friend sent a query to Ask Mr. Gold, the advice column of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic renowned for putting Los Angeles on the map as a destination for culinary diversity. She told Gold that she wanted to participate in the Chanukah tradition of eating foods fried in oil, but didn't want to smell up her apartment frying latkes Instead, she sought the city's best churros. A tradition was born. One night that week, a small, merry group got together and...
(The Nosher via JTA) — Everyone loves potato latkes, but no one likes the mess of frying them or the guilt associated with eating them. These latkes are baked in the oven and easily won over my kids. You do need to watch them so they don’t burn; they were done at different times in different ovens. And my pickled applesauce is basically a tangy-spicy applesauce, which we also eat like eating with schnitzel. Note: Latkes may be made 2 days in advance and reheated in the oven or frozen; applesauce may be made 4 days in advance. You can also ser...
This is a fun and colorful Chanukah cookie activity with beautiful results. Main ingredients 1/4 teaspoon Haddar Baking Powder 1/2 cup softened butter 1/2 cup crushed hard candy 1 large egg 1 and 1/2 cups Mishpacha All Purpose Flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon Gefen Vanilla Extract Prepare the cookies Using a mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add dry ingredients to the butter, and cream the mixture. Wrap...
As if you didn't already know ... How about that Jacob Rodney Cohen (with a name like Cohen) was Jewish. Of course you did, even though he is known globally as comedian Rodney Dangerfield! Such a funny man will never be forgotten. I even end this column with some of his brilliant one liners ... don't remember him? "I don't get no respect!" (One of his comical lines). Now you probably do! Speaking of memories ... Recently on television, they played a documentary on the life of British entertainer and singer extraordinaire, Amy Winehouse. Amy...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - If you watched television in the 1970s and early 1980s, chances are you can sing a few bars of "Look for the Union Label," a jingle sung on commercials for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. The infectious song was meant to prop up what was then the sagging American-made clothing industry, and the ads featured actual union members singing the praises of union-made garments. The song was more memorable than effective: Labor unions never recovered from a host of trends that shifted power from...
Jewish cooking in my family has always been an act of revival and reconnection. My family, though very dedicated to Judaism, has very few Jewish recipes that have been preserved throughout the generations. Growing up, I felt disconnected from Jewish culture. I hadn’t heard of many Jewish dishes, and I certainly didn’t know how to make them. I knew that about a quarter of my Jewish roots were Sephardic and the rest Ashkenazi — and that’s about all I knew. I didn’t know how to celebrate the festive Jewish holidays and, ultimately, I just didn...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Marty Markowitz, the former borough president of Brooklyn, has never listened to the popular podcast called “The Shrink Next Door.” He’s only vaguely aware that it’s now a TV series with an A-list cast. He does know, however, that he and the main character share the exact same name. “‘The Shrink Next Door’?” he said when a reporter called Friday. After hearing a brief description of the story, he said, “The one with Marty Markowitz?” “Shrink,” which premieres on Friday on Apple TV+, is based on the true story o...
On the night of Nov. 9, 1938, synagogues, Jewish schools and Jewish-owned businesses were targeted in violent riots throughout Nazi Germany. This map shows many of the synagogues destroyed on Kristallnacht. At least 267 synagogues were burned down or destroyed in the pogroms, which is known as Kristallnacht, the “night of broken glass.” The map shows the extent of the damage. Jewish institutions and businesses were desecrated, torched and looted by Nazi paramilitary troops and civilian sympathizers. Tens of thousands of Jews were arrested, man...
(JTA) - "Deck the halls with matzo balls"? Chanukah menorahs with 12 candles? Products with misfired Chanukah messages have been drawing gripes for years, but this year major retailers are responding quickly to customer complaints about Chanukah products they say are culturally inappropriate or misinformed. It took just one day from when the Instagram account Chanukah Fails posted about Target's Chanukah "Countdown Calendar" before the major retailer changed the product description to "Happy Chanukah Wall Hanging Menorah." The Instagram...
In most Jewish holidays, wine gets the spotlight. Chanukah is not one of those holidays! When it comes to Chanukah, it's all about the fried foods like latkes and jelly donuts. Sure, wine enthusiasts might say "I can pair latkes with Champagne," but can they really? As a certified cicerone, the beer version of a wine sommelier, all I want with my oily golden potato pancakes is a crisp Vienna Lager, Hazy Pale Ale, or to crack open any of the beers in my Hoppy Chanukah Craft Beer-a-day Box from Brewvana. What I really love about this box is that...
Ingredients 1 large russet potato, peeled 1 large zucchini, peeled 1/2 head of cauliflower 1/2 yellow onion 1 clove of garlic, finely minced 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1/2 teaspoon pepper Vegetable oil for frying Preparation: Grate together potato, zucchini, cauliflower, and onion. Use a food processor to make this step faster. Wrap the vegetable mixture in a cheesecloth or a lightweight kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. In a large bowl, combine vegetables...
Latkes are far more popular during Hanukkah than donuts here in the U.S. While you can find latkes in the freezer section of almost every major supermarket, good quality sufganiyot are much harder to come by, and lots of people I know have a fear of using yeast to make dough like donut dough. But there is an easier way to make sufganiyot, and it comes in a can: biscuit dough. What can these doughy babies not do? Using canned biscuits, you can either make full-sized sufganiyot, or smaller, donut hole-sized bites. Make sure to let them cool befor...
Who knew? Of course I did ... First of all, author Daniel Keyes (born Daniel Korzenstein) was my first cousin. His mom, my aunt Betty, and my mom, Sally, were sisters. Danny's little sister, GAIL, and I were (and still are), extremely close. (She feels like a sister to me.) Danny wrote the famous book "Flowers For Algernon" which became required reading in some New York City schools. He also wrote "The Minds of Billy Milligan" and other successful books. What people didn't know (but we in the family did) was that Danny was a fabulous singer. Hi...
Chanukah can be a great time for simple and fun family art projects. There is a custom for each member of the family to have his/her own menorah. This year, why not make your own? You can buy lots of small votive candles (yahrtzeit candles are an inexpensive way to do this) and decorate the glass with a collage of colorful pieces of tissue paper. When the votives are lit, light shines through the tissue paper like stained glass. This is a great hanukkiyah for the Friday night of the holiday, when the candles are supposed to burn for at least...
By (Alma via JTA) -- Chanukah season means latkes, menorahs and the retelling of the classic story about Judah and the Maccabees. But there's a woman from a few hundred years before Judah was around who is just as important to this story. This Chanukah, let's bring this forgotten biblical badass back into the spotlight. She's not mentioned in the Torah. Her earliest known stories aren't even in Hebrew; they're in Greek. And she's on the fringes of medieval texts, at best. And though her story is interwoven with quite a few fictional elements,...
For Jewish children, the excitement of Chanukah is often connected to the promise of receiving gifts — usually one for each of the eight nights. For parents, however, the gift-buying and gift-giving can start to feel like a long-running episode of the Home Shopping Network, leading some of us to wonder: What messages are we imparting to our children during this time of year? While our daughters were growing up, my husband and I paused to consider the values we wished to encourage during Chanukah. Agreeing on “quality family time” as a main goal...
(JTA) - Even when Arthur Kurzweil sits by himself in his study, he doesn't feel that he's alone. After all, he has the dreidels - all 4,000 of them. Kurzweil, 70, is a prolific author and editor who has written books about Judaism and magic and his car rides with Talmud scholar Adin Steinsaltz, as well as the Kabbalah and Torah installments in the "... for Dummies" series. His most significant contribution to Jewish publishing, however, may be his books and teaching about Jewish genealogy: He has exhaustively chronicled his efforts to trace his...
(JTA) - "Arthur's Perfect Christmas," the 2000 TV movie, begins with Arthur sitting at the piano in his jammies singing about how this Christmas is going to be magical - the best one yet. It's clear what holiday is center stage in Arthur's world. But it's the B plot about the show's Jewish character Francine that speaks to a legitimate Jewish experience - truer than any current kids' Chanukah specials on TV. Francine's best friend, Muffy, refuses to accept that Francine can't attend her Christmas party. Francine tells Muffy 28 times, literally...
These potato latkes are so good that posting the recipe alone is a mitzvah of the highest order. The Festival of Lights refers to a lamp in the temple that was supposed to have only enough oil to last the Maccabees one night, but instead lasted for eight. The holiday celebrates the miracle of the oil, so fried foods are often featured at Hanukkah feasts. Problem is, most potato pancakes, or latkes, are awful. Luckily for you, these are amazing. Ingredients 1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks sea salt 2 pounds baking...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - One of the first images of "The Shrink Next Door," the limited series premiering Friday on Apple TV+, is of a smiling man wearing a huge kippah, chatting at a party in the Hamptons. The party, viewers will later find out, is being held at the summer home of Marty Markowitz, a garment district merchant whose life becomes increasingly dominated by his psychiatrist, Isaac "Ike" Herschkopf. The series is based on a true story that was first told in a popular 2019 podcast of the same name by journalist Joe Nocera....
