Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Scrolling through all the open Safari windows on my phone is like a virtual tour through the months of this pandemic. It starts in the early spring with online gardening tips, funny memes about the shift to virtual schooling, and recipes for banana bread, cookies, and Marzipan bakery's legendary rugelach (though I still haven't tackled that one). Then there are long-form reads about grief and loss, data-driven pieces about decision making, and funny memes about doomscrolling. And now, as we...
Due to the global Covid-19 pandemic and for the first time in its history, Birthright-Israel has postponed all trips since mid-March. “While tens of thousands of Jewish young adults were planning to visit Israel this summer, the organization quickly turned to online high-quality engagement with its alumni and prospective participants. Since mid-March we reached 4.4 million people around the world,” said Noa Bauer, vice president of Global Marketing at Birthright. “Today we invite the thousands of Birthright applicants whose trips were cance...
While watching television ... (What else is there to do during this pandemic quarantine? Well. If I wasn't a widow I would figure it out!) Anyway, I saw some great movies in the last few days. "First Wives Club" was one of them. BETTE MIDLER and GOLDIE HAWN were two of the stars and both are Jewish. Also, SARAH JESSICA PARKER is featured in that movie, (Another Jew.) Next, I saw "Foul Play," again with Goldie Hawn as one of the stars. The movie featured the music of Barry Alan Pincus throughout....
(JTA) — There was already some buzz around “An American Pickle,” the biggest Jewish movie of the year, before the movie’s star Seth Rogen made comments about Israel that seemed to set the Jewish internet on fire. In the new movie, Seth Rogen plays Herschel Greenbaum, a Jewish immigrant who is preserved in pickle brine for 100 years and emerges to meet his app developer great-grandson Ben, also played by Rogen, in modern hipster Brooklyn. The movie seems to exist in a world where Israel doesn’t exist — Herschel Greenbaum fell into the pickle...
If you think chicken kebabs sound boring, I don't blame you. Usually they are. And dry. But not this recipe. This recipe pays homage to one of the earliest forms of cooking: roasting meat on a spit over a fire. Roasting smaller cuts, like kebabs, became popular in areas like the Middle East, where firewood was scarce, as they proved more practical to cook over small fires. According to food historian Gil Marks, the word is derived from the ancient Persian "kabab," which most likely stemmed from...
(JTA) — One of the six men with the power to substantially change the direction of the United States Postal Service is a Jewish businessman who says his support for organized labor was heavily influenced by his socialist Zionist summer camp. Ron Bloom, who steered the nation’s automobile industry through its own crisis a decade ago and now works in private equity, was appointed to the mail service’s board of governors last year. One of two Democrats on the board, his term ends in December. Bloom told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2009 after...
"I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the only child of Rosalind and Irving Dorsky. My grandparents came from Belarus and Ukraine to the United States at the turn of the 20th century. My paternal grandfather was a tailor and my maternal grandfather had a pet store and was a part-time cantor. I have warm memories of my grandfather teaching me how to sew," Debbie Meitin said. Meitin's parents met at a dance held by a Jewish organization. "My father was an attorney, but he worked with his brother in a...
A proud Navy mom ... While watching television the other night (what else is there to do during the "pandemic"?), I watched one Navy musical movie after another. The first one was titled "Hit The Deck," starring Alvin Morris, a nice Jewish boy! You probably knew him as Tony Martin. The second movie musical about the Navy is titled "On The Town." The talents behind it were Basia Cohen (Betty Comden), Adolph Green and Leonard Bernstein, among others. They, of course, were all Russian Jews. Who...
(JTA) - It was only a matter of time: A Jewish Netflix has arrived. That moniker is probably the best description of ChaiFlicks, a film and TV streaming platform focused on Jewish-themed movies that launched Wednesday, Aug. 12. It helps that its creators were once in business with the real Netflix. Neil Friedman, founder of the Jewish-focused distribution company Menemsha Films, said he sold two films to Netflix: the 2015 bakery-set drama "Dough" and the 2016 Israeli film "The Women's Balcony."...
(JTA) - Though much about the 2020 Emmy Awards ceremony is not yet known, one thing is clear: Jewish TV stars are well positioned to clean up. Dozens of Jewish actors and creators were on the list when this year's nominations were announced Tuesday. Read through to see who could take home prizes when the awards show airs in September. One notable show that was shut out: "The Plot Against America," the HBO miniseries that depicts an alternate history in which isolationist Charles Lindbergh wins...
Maybe it's the home comfort it exudes, maybe it's how easy it is to make, but for a variety of, mostly inexplicable, reasons, banana bread has become everyone's quarantine darling. There were a couple of weeks where I couldn't scroll through Instagram without seeing at least three loaves on my feed. Google confirmed it: Banana bread searches are way up compared to other baked goods. I'll be honest: I didn't get on board until recently. Besides for having a serious aversion to all things banana,...
How will I celebrate a milestone birthday during the pandemic? That hoped-for week away with my family is out. A party at my home is out. Heck, my husband, Larry, and I can't even head to my favorite restaurant and indulge in a filet mignon and my free birthday brownie sundae. But there is a silver lining. An Abbotts frozen custard stand is less than 33 miles away from our Florida home. The history of one of my culinary favorites began in 1902 when a young and enthusiastic Arthur Abbott...
Recently I came across photos taken 30 years ago this summer. During that time, I was privileged to greet several planeloads of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union landing in Israel, welcoming them on the tarmac as they began their new lives in their ancient home. Even though some didn’t know it, they were fulfilling dreams of generations of the Jewish people yearning to come home. Having worked for years to help free Jews from the USSR, and dreaming to live in Israel myself, each p...
(Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) - Sandy Greenberg recalls walking along Amsterdam Avenue in New York City with his best friend Arthur back in 1959 after they had just completed a humanities class at Columbia University. During the trek, his friend stopped to point out something that caught his eye. "'Sanford, I'd like to show you this patch of grass and I'd like you to really look at it,'" Greenberg recalled Arthur saying. "At first I was stunned, then he was pointing out how the light...
Oy, what memories! ... I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, because of Covid-19, I (and many of you) spend day after day after day at home, watching television and going batty with boredom ... unless you have children in your home and then it's not so bad. But my kids are grown men and, except for my youngest, also a grown man who insists on watching over me in my "old" age, I am alone with my dog, Chloe. So, I watch a lot of television ... mostly "Dr. Phil" and an occasional movie. What a...
Over the past century, Jews and Christians have celebrated the return of the Jewish people to the Biblical Land of Israel, a restoration prophetic proportion. More recently, this return was accompanied by some four-legged friends representing Israel's 3000-year history in the Judean mountains. This is the modern story of Jacob's Sheep. Jacob's Sheep are an heirloom (unaltered) breed of ancient sheep, mentioned in Genesis 30. They originated with Jacob the Patriarch working for his father in...
You've heard of the wandering Jew, but have you heard of the wandering Jewish cookie? As Jews move from country to country, they pick up recipes, spices and dishes along the way. Sometimes, even after a Jewish community is no more, their food remains, an echo of a world that once was. Such is the case of the "Jewish cookie" from Iceland. Recently I learned of a cookbook, "The Culinary Saga of New Iceland, Recipes From the Shores of Lake Winnipeg," compiled by Kristin Olafson Jenkyns, a writer...
The Central Florida Jewish community knew and loved Talia Osteen as one of the three members of the singing group Visions, which began under the guidance of Cantor Allan Robuck of Congregation Ohev Shalom. Each of the girls eventually went their own way and Osteen moved to New York, then to California, to pursue her career in the film industry. She successfully starred in five national TV series, and also formed the band The Wellspring, which released five albums and composed scores for several...
(JTA) - Jerzy Kosinski's 1965 Holocaust novel "The Painted Bird" was mired in controversy almost from its release. The film adaptation, which became available through on-demand platforms this weekend, has raised eyebrows as well. In the 1960s, the author suggested that the novel - about a Jewish boy who witnesses sexual deviance and violence while wandering through Eastern Europe during World War II - was autobiographical. Prominent Jewish reviewers, including survivor Elie Wiesel and Cynthia...
BOSTON (JTA) - More than 350 years ago, a plague took a deadly toll on Hamburg, Germany. As the High Holidays approached, fear and panic set in and many of the city's Jewish families fled. Among them were Glikl and Hayyim Hamel, successful Jewish merchants who left with their three young children, including an 8-week-old daughter. En route to Hayyim's parents, they spent time with relatives in Hanover, where some locals came to suspect their oldest daughter, 4-year-old Tsipor, was infected....
We need some "light" news these days ... As a vocalist, I am constantly adding to my repertoire. I am so delighted when I realize who the composers were! For instance, "You're Gonna Hear From Me," a terrific song made famous by BARBRA STREISAND (who, incidentally, is a fellow Jew and a school rival of mine who attended Erasmus High School while I attended Tilden High School back in Brooklyn when we were kids.) The song was written by a Frenchman, Andre' Previn, (I thought). His real name was...
(JTA) - Zach Banner of the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers now knows what challah tastes like - and he can say the word properly. With "a little phleghm," the offensive lineman said in a tweeted video of himself this week. In a recent interview, Banner said that after he posted tweets and videos embracing the Jewish community amid the anti-Semitism furor involving fellow NFLer DeSean Jackson, he has received an outpouring of love - including the delivery of loaves of challah. That affection has also...
(JTA) - Marc Maron warned listeners at the beginning of the latest episode of his "WTF" podcast on Monday: "If you don't like Jews, you're gonna get triggered." It was a fair disclaimer, given that his hour-long conversation with Seth Rogen touched on just about every general aspect of modern Jewish identity, from Jewish summer camp to cultural Jewishness to sitting shiva. But a second warning came part of the way through the episode, as the conversation turned to Israel. "We're gonna piss off...
The interview for this year's Heritage Human Service Award winner was unprecedented. Since an "in person" interview was not possible, Heritage requested a bio and this chosen recipient obliged with an excellent introduction: "The designee for this year's Heritage Human Service Award, Hank Katzen, first visited Israel at age 18 on a UJA Family Mission. It was on a very hot day that Hank and his father [Marc Katzen] climbed to the top of Masada. On the way to the top, Hank experienced a peace and...
Adrian and Geanne Share came to the Orlando area in 1998. "My husband's an engineer whose passion is to see high-speed rail built in the U.S., and we came to Florida for that purpose. He's spent 20 years on different attempts to bring high-speed passenger service between Miami and Orlando. He led the engineering for the system that is being built between Orlando and Miami by Brightline, and oversaw the construction of the first phase between Miami and West Palm Beach that is temporarily shut dow...
