Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1626 - 1650 of 4383
Another poem by Yours Truly (What else is there to do these days except clean house. (Ugh!) It's been four months I'm stuck at home, 'Bout time to write another poem, I'm missing friends and (handsome) men, I must admit, I have a yen... To hug and kiss and more (much more), Being home alone is quite a bore, Chocolate is my greatest pleasure, (My thighs are now too large to measure). Oy Vay! I repeat: Oy Vay! As if I'm not upset enough... I received the following in the mail from the Simon...
Rabbi Sanford Olshansky—adjunct professor, Judaic Studies Program, UCF—pointed out an error in Gloria Yousha’s “Scene Around” column in the Heritage, May 8 issue. He writes, “in her ‘Shout Out’ about the Passover Haggadah, Ms. Yousha complains that Moses is not mentioned, saying ‘He was the most important part of the story as he led our people out of Egypt and into the promised land of Israel.’ But God, not Moses, is ‘the most important part of the story.’ In the biblical book of Exodus, God hears the cry of the Israelites in their aff...
(JTA)-The first thing Jerry Stiller said to me when we met was a compliment. Several weeks earlier, I had interviewed him over the phone for an article tied to an appearance in an HBO miniseries. But Stiller's roots were always in the theater, so despite his successes, it wasn't surprising to find him in the smallish regional Westport Country Playhouse in Connecticut, where I had arranged to meet him. He was starring in "After-Play," a brilliant examination of life at midstage as seen through...
Following is an article likely to be written by my now teenage grandchildren in 2050: It was April 2020 during the famous Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic crisis that swept across the world. It was a wonderful time longed for with such fond memories. It was the best of times! Our family was isolated together at home. School, the little that we had, was conducted online at our convenience. No need to wake up early and get ready in a rush to get to school on time! Everyone woke up at a time they determined, not on a schedule as mandated by the...
(JTA)-"I have ordered the men not to molest you." (Ruth 2:9) With these words, Boaz, the wealthy landowner, tells Ruth, the destitute Moabite, a stranger in Bethlehem, that she is not only free to glean in his fields and to gather what the reapers may drop, but that she will be safe while doing so. Although Ruth does not work for Boaz, her situation is not unlike that of women today who depend for their livelihoods on men with power. As such, the Book of Ruth-which is read on Shavuot, the...
RAANANA, Israel (JTA)-Like all other mass gatherings now, Israel's Karmiel dance festival, one of the largest of its kind in the world, was postponed. The annual fest, which takes place at the end of June, draws thousands who take part in one of the country's oldest passions: Israeli folk dance. Those in the know say some 200,000 Israelis across the nation attend regular Israeli folk dance, including public and private sessions called harkadot, on beachfronts, sports facilities and more. To...
As Israel's tourism sector continues to reel from the global economic downturn, Jewish National Fund-USA is launching virtual travel adventures to support Israeli tour guides while providing tour participants with an opportunity to 'visit' sites off the beaten path With the latest predictions suggesting Israel's tourism industry could lose up to $1.16 billion due to the COVID-19 crisis, Jewish National Fund-USA is helping Israeli tour guides through an innovative new 'virtual travel'...
Many graduating seniors will not be able to observe their graduations at graduation ceremonies this year because of the coronavirus. Heritage would like to recognize all high school graduates in the paper. If there is a graduating student in your household, please consider sending Heritage a photo, name of student, high school (or college) attended, and if you’d like, also include their future plans. Information and photos can be emailed to news@orlandoheritage.com. The deadline for submissions is June 3....
Some day-hopefully in the near future-the COVID-19 pandemic will be behind us. Medical interventions to those infected will alleviate the pain, suffering, and deaths. A vaccine may be developed that can prevent others from becoming ill. Social distancing will no longer be necessary. We can go back to our lives, our jobs, our schools, our vacations, our celebrations. Larry and I have been sheltering in place since March 10, leaving our house only for daily exercise and essential outings. We consi...
Another Coronavirus poem by Your's Truly: I'm in my house for many months, (I'm not the type who swears or grunts.) But Coronavirus is a trap, My days are filled with food and nap, I'm watching TV night and day, (Please Dr. Phil, just go away!) When will this end? I need to know, I'll put on makeup so I'll glow, And dress in sexy clothes again, I cannot wait. Just tell me when! (Okay, I don't wear sexy clothes, I just wear jeans and don't wear hose, I'm pretty though, nice lips, nice nose, Nice...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary thought the term “anti-Semite” would be short lived and thus did not include it in the original edition of the massive lexicon. A 1900 letter by the editor, James Murray, explaining why he omitted the term was discovered recently in the archives of the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem and placed online. The OED was first published in several installments between 1884 and 1928. Murray, a British lexicographer, was writing to scholar and anti-Zionist Claude Monte...
(JNS)-United Hatzalah of Israel, the country's largest independent volunteer emergency medical response organization, put on an online fundraising telethon on Sunday to support the group's coronavirus fund. Dubbed "Saving Lives Sunday: A Streaming Event Honoring First Responders and Welcoming Home Eli Beer," the program highlighted the life-saving work of the organization's 6,000 volunteer first responders, in addition to paying tribute to the organization's founder and president, Eli Beer, who...
AMSTERDAM (JTA)—In his native Germany and beyond, Hans Calmeyer is celebrated as a hero who saved more Jews from the Holocaust than Oskar Schindler. As a jurist for the Nazi German forces in the Netherlands, Calmeyer was put in charge of a small team that evaluated pleas by people who tried to save themselves by disputing their classification as Jews. According to Israel’s national Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, Calmeyer’s actions in his post, which involved accepting many of these pleas—some were quite flimsy—saved at least 3,000 people. I...
Dr. Bernard Kahn is one of the 36 percent who call themselves native Floridians. Born in Orlando in 1951, Bernie has lived and worked in the Orlando area his entire life and has seen the growth of Orlando first hand. His family came from Germany. His grandfather, Richard Kahn, was a man of "means," who held multiple doctorates in economics, history and law. Around 1934, when he spoke out against the Nazi regime, he was arrested and thrown into prison. In prison he faked a heart attack, managing...
A message from KEITH DVORCHIK, CEO of Jewish Federation... "As the wind blew and the rain fell recently, I found it symbolic of the changes we have been dealing with over the past 6 weeks. Storms roll in, creating chaos, and then leave, allowing us to regroup and move forward. During these uncertain times, it has been amazing to see our synagogues and agencies join together to provide for the needs of our community. It's been exciting to see the interest level in programming increase and more...
TORONTO (JTA)-The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 is shaking the world in disturbing ways. As someone who is no longer young, I find one aspect of the crisis to be particularly unnerving: the attitude toward the elderly. The media is filled with stories about the problem represented by the elderly. What will happen if there aren't enough respirators for everyone? Should the elderly, who have lived their lives long enough, have the same right to medical care as young people who have their whole...
Back in 2012, when Deborah Feldman's memoir "Unorthodox" came out, several people recommended I read this tale about a young woman leaving the Hasidic Satmar sect. I didn't follow the advice, but I should have. It's an important and engrossing autobiographical work. "Unorthodox" has inspired an incredible new Netflix miniseries by the same name. Starring Shira Haas of "Shtisel," this is reverent and beautiful television. Haas plays Esther "Esty" Shapiro, a woman struggling to find her place in...
Stuck in the House... By now I'm sure I proudly mentioned that I was a Navy mom several times. I must do it again! Being stuck in the house, what put a smile on my face (almost continuously) was watching certain TV movies. "On the Town," about three sailors in Manhattan, was one of them. My eldest is a Navy commander, my middle guy is a psychologist who worked with recruits at Great Lakes Naval Base and my youngest served in the Navy on a minesweeper in the Persian Gulf. Frank Sinatra, Gene Kell...
Passover is over, but I still will be using up my leftover Matzah meal, potato starch and other Passover items. Matzah meal is a great binder for hamburger, meatloaf, salmon cakes, and more. I make the vegetarian Lasagna, Matzana, all year. Make potato pancakes as a side dish or for breakfast or use the starch as a thickener like cornstarch for sauces and stews. Finely crunch the Matzah squares in the food processor for a streusel topping for an apple crisp or as bread crumbs to coat fish. Use your imagination to create your own special...
(JNS)-What's with this weather, anyway? I mean, the majority of us have accepted our lives as indoor cats right now, but a little sun wouldn't hurt, especially in the U.S. Northeast, where as of today, the highest cases of COVID-19 can be found in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. I'm not thrilled to be part of this group, but that's what it is. Since I work remotely in my basement directly under a window, I theoretically monitor the weather around the clock (as well as...
(JTA)-The new TV show based on Philip Roth's novel "The Plot Against America," helmed by David Simon, the Jewish creator of "The Wire," has premiered on HBO and made a splash with critics and fans. The eerily captivating series, which borrows details from the iconic Jewish author's life and a crucial moment in American history, depicts an alternative reality in which isolationist Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and encourages anti-Semitic...
By Eric Berger Growing up in Los Angeles, Elyse Forman always tried to take the highest-level science courses she could, like A.P. physics and chemistry. Forman often found she was the only female in those classes. "You can't help but feel that you don't belong when you're not like everyone else in the class, when people don't think that you have the right answers to questions, when they look at you weirdly if you participate," the 18-year-old said. What Forman didn't realize is that the issue...
(JTA)—Simmy Cohen has hardly read from the Torah since his bar mitzvah. When he’s not working at his marketing job from his home in Queens, New York, Cohen spends far more time these days reading children’s books to his 13-month old daughter. But with a spark of comedic genius and perhaps a little quarantine-induced imagination, he put the two together in a video of himself reading—no, chanting—the classic board book “Goodnight Moon” set to the Torah trope. “For those missing the sound of leyning,” he wrote in his post of the video to Twitter,...
Combat thru education... I read this recently in the World Jewish Congress Digest and pass it along to you: "The WJC, together with UNESCO and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, and the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, recently held a high-level workshop in Geneva on the role of education in combating anti-Semitism. The event follows two previous workshops for policymakers held in Warsaw an...
(JTA)—With its glittering assembly of stars, jokes that worked and attendees who could, well, sing, it was the Zoom Seder you wished you had. The Saturday Night Passover Seder that aired on YouTube over the weekend brought together dozens of celebrities and raised $2.6 million for the CDC Foundation, the nonprofit wing of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the government agency guiding America through the coronavirus pandemic. The broadcast, which drew more than 1 million viewers, had a distinctive liberal coastal Jewish o...
