Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2301 - 2325 of 4386
(JTA)-There's no reason Hodaya Koskas and Barrett Brickell would know each other. Koskas, 14, is a high school student from a small city in central Israel who takes ballet classes and hopes to be a dancer. Brickell, 71, is a retired schoolteacher from Ottawa, Canada. But they've been video chatting every week since September. The unlikely pairing begins by having Koskas read a one-page English description of a place in Israel, perhaps the Western Wall or a mall. Then they shift into talking...
(The Nosher via JTA)-Most of us need few excuses to make a batch of chocolate truffles, especially when coffee is involved. My take on chocolate espresso truffles combines a velvety chocolate base with just enough espresso flavor to give you your caffeine fix. The fact that this version is vegan, kosher for Passover and healthy (no added sugar!) is just icing on the cake. I make these truffles with whatever nuts I have on hand (hazelnuts are to die for and make them taste like Nutella). Roll...
"I had a really good time and it was very impactful," shared Lexi Landa, a teen of CTeen North Orlando who was referring to the 10th annual International Shabbaton, organized by the Chabad Teen Network. CTeen, the fastest growing and most diverse Jewish youth organization in the world, hosted a four-day event in New York, which drew in a record breaking 2,500 people. The inspirational weekend included a traditional Shabbat experience in the heart of Crown Heights, the Hasidic neighborhood of...
ENSCHEDE, Netherlands (JTA)-For most matzah bakeries, Passover is their lifeline and only claim to financial viability. After the weeklong holiday, during which Jews are commanded to consume matzah to commemorate their ancestors' hurried flight out of Egypt, demand for the famously tasteless cracker drops sharply. Except, that is, in the Netherlands. A centuries-old and proud Jewish community here has made matzah a household product that is sold in supermarkets and consumed year-round by...
Browsing recently at a Denver airport store on my way home to Orlando, I was greeted by the clerk. Exchanging pleasantries, I asked him how his day was going. “Counting the hours, ma’am. Just counting the hours.” “It can’t be that bad,” I replied. “I am working a 15-hour shift in a newspaper stand in an airport,” he said. “And this with a college degree. As I said, ‘Just counting the hours.’” Okay, so this young man was not living his dream. But all I could think of is that the clerk appeared to be the same age as a friend of mine who beca...
The Jewish Community at UCF hosted a one-of-a-kind event on campus on Feb. 22. Sami Steigmann, a Holocaust survivor and motivational speaker addressed a gathering of over 50 people. The audience was brought together with the help of CAMERA on Campus, ZOA, UCF Hillel, JewCF Chabad, UCF Greek Chapters AEPi, and AEPhi, and the hosts of the event, Knights for Israel. At the age of 3, Steigmann and his family were sent to a hard labor camp. Because he was so young, his only value was as an...
South American Holocaust Museum... I read this in the World Jewish Congress digest and pass it along to you in part: "As reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires, Argentina, recently welcomed a record 17,727 visitors in one night, and then closed for a year and a half to undergo renovations. Two days after setting its attendance record, the 17-year-old museum announced it will close for a $4 million building project that will add space for a permanent...
(JNS)-Passover is called the holiday of freedom for good reason. Every year for the last 3,000 or so years-wherever we are and in whatever form of bondage we find ourselves-we manage to celebrate our liberation after 210 years of serving Pharaoh, complete with the horror of watching our infant sons thrown into the Nile. Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, runs this year from tonight through Saturday, April 7 (after Shabbat). It is, after all, the Jewish holiday most redolent of freedom. In the space...
(JTA)-The American toy company that created the Barbie doll announced a new doll honoring Iris Apfel, the 96-year-old Jewish fashion guru. The Apfel doll wears the same green Gucci suit and jewels that the real-life Apfel wears on the cover of her latest book, "Accidental Icon," the New York Post reported Thursday. "Her long-spanning career makes her the perfect subject of a one-of-a-kind doll, the highest honor Barbie bestows," a Mattel representative told the Post in a statement. The new Apfel...
When an Iranian drone was shot down in a field this past February, news focused on the ensuing Israeli plane shot down in Syria, and on the long-term implications for the United States' involvement in Syria. But what of the Israelis who heard the drone fall almost literally in their backyard? What of the thousands of Israelis who were awakened at 4 a.m. just after Shabbat, in a panic about the siren that was going off? "I awoke, dressed in my uniform, and comforted my neighbor next door, who...
(MyJewishLearning via JTA)-Making your own Haggadah is not just a money saver, but also a great way to educate yourself about the Passover seder, add a unique twist to the festive meal and have a more meaningful and satisfying holiday. For generations, enterprising seder leaders have been sticking Post-It notes in their favorite parts of existing Haggadahs, adding in photocopied readings, or even cutting and pasting from multiple Haggadahs and combining it all in a loose-leaf binder. The Interne...
NEW YORK (JTA)-I have roamed the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Egyptian wing many times, marveling at sarcophagi, statues of Horus and Ra, and portraits of young men on ancient panels who gaze back at visitors, looking shockingly familiar and contemporary. But on a Sunday just before Passover, I viewed the artifacts as I'd never before seen them: through the lens of the Exodus story, which we retell each year through reading the Haggadah. Nachliel Selavan, a Jewish educator and self-taught...
BOSTON (JTA)-When Deborah Bodin Cohen immersed herself in rabbinical school in the early 1990s, she expected to spend a year in Israel as part of her studies with Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion. What she didn't know was that a decade later, the experience of living in Jerusalem would spark her inspiration for a children's book that has become a popular award-winning series. "Engineer Ari and the Passover Rush," Bodin Cohen's fourth book in Kar-Ben's "Engineer Ari" series, is...
(JTA)-Even during Jewish holidays, when food is so abundant, it is possible to eat well. My cookbook, "Great Meals with Greens and Grains," highlights many of my favorite plant-based, vegetarian recipes that not only are healthy but delicious. And many of its recipes are kosher for Passover or can be easily modified by removing or substituting a single ingredient. The following three recipes would be great when served as a light dairy lunch following a traditionally heavy seder. They are colorfu...
Great music. Great memories... Unlike the music of today, (much of it Rap spelled with a silent C)... thanks to my dear friend, TONI McDONNELL, I was able to watch a television show on the UCF Channel featuring the big bands and the music I appreciate. And I appreciated Toni telling me about it! I especially enjoyed seeing the legendary Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra that I eventually became the vocalist with. I repeat... Great Music. Great Memories! Honors well deserved... I received this news from...
(JNS)-Why is this year going to be different from all other years? Because this year, you can stump your guests with the meaning behind many of the mysterious rites that comprise the Passover seder. Let's face it, you finally wrap up those frenzied days of cleaning and cooking. And then your guests arrive (Passover is an even bigger family reunion than Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year), and by the time you pass out the Haggadahs and the seder actually begins, you often slog through it on autop...
(Kveller via JTA)-When I see the giant gefilte fish and matzah display at Costco in late February, it sends me into a panic. I think, is it time for gefilte fish already? I think that finding the holiday foods, including that gigantic jar of gefilte fish, is not easy and maybe I should stockpile now. I start thinking about how many people I'm having for Passover-a lot or a little? One manageable table or an impossible four? Most of the year I'm a pretty normal American woman. I look normal. I...
(My Jewish Learning via JTA)-What is the essence of Passover? On the one hand, it seems obvious: Passover is about gathering together with loved ones to recall, through sumptuous home rituals, the exodus from Egypt. We gather round our seder tables and quickly become engulfed in the warmth of family and friends, the culinary delights of a delicious meal, and the comforting, vaguely familiar words and songs we recite year after year. Passover is, indeed, a beautiful opportunity for rejoicing and...
There are no Jewish characters in the cinematically and thematically beautiful 2018 Academy Awards best picture winner "The Shape of Water." However, out of all nine nominees, this Guillermo del Toro masterwork best speaks to the Jewish experience: empathy for others, defense of what is right-even if not politically expedient-and remaining true to core principles of our religion. There even are some striking Jewish historical parallels in this adult "fairy tale for troubled times" set in 1962,...
(My Jewish Learning via JTA)-Here are nine things that many likely wouldn't know about the Festival of Freedom: 1. In Gibraltar, there's dust in the charoset. The traditional charoset is a sweet Passover paste whose texture is meant as a reminder of the mortar the enslaved Jews used to build in ancient Egypt. The name itself is related to the Hebrew word for clay. In Ashkenazi tradition, it is traditionally made from crushed nuts, apples and sweet red wine, while Sephardic Jews use figs or...
(JTA)—When I walked into the house through the back door one day as a young man, I was shocked to see my mother in the kitchen. To put it mildly, this was not one of her favorite places. When I asked her why she was there, a look of panic crossed her face. “Now that Grandma’s gone,” she explained, “I have to make the charoset.” Sensing her culinary discomfort, I volunteered to take over. With a look of vast relief, she fled the scene. Guided by the memory of my grandmother’s charoset—the sweet, chunky, fruity mixture that symbolizes the mortar...
NEW YORK (JTA)-It costs more per pound than filet mignon. It might be burnt or taste like cardboard. It's so delicate it often breaks in the box, rendering it unfit for Passover ritual use. Yet every year, Jews from Brooklyn to Bnei Brak line up to fork over their hard-earned money to buy boxes and boxes of the stuff. This isn't your regular box of Streit's matzah. We're talking, of course, about handmade shmura matzah: the artisanal, disc-shaped matzahs considered extra special because the...
(The Nosher via JTA)-I first tried raw vegan coconut cream pie years ago at Café Gratitude, one of the popular plant-based restaurants in Los Angeles. Café Gratitude is a quintessential healthy L.A. eatery. The menu features dishes with titles like "I am bountiful" and "I am cosmic" (which you are semi-forced to say out loud as written). Those dishes might include heirloom grains, fermented vegetables, turmeric or seaweed. The servers often have ethereally glowing skin and offer you an i...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—Half a century ago, Bob Hope’s films were wildly popular, but the comedian was never nominated for an Academy Award. So when Hope served as host of the 1975 Oscar bash, he opened his monologue with “Welcome to the Academy Awards... or as it’s known in my house, PASSOVER.” At Sunday’s 90th award ceremony, the notable Jewish nominees could largely repeat his punchline. The list of Jewish nominees, all with realistic chances to strike gold, included two for lead actors: Daniel Day-Lewis (in “Phantom Thread”) and Timothee Chalamet...
Every photo tells a story, and what you see here is no different. The photo shows two women, smiling and happy. On the right is Rebbetzin Rivkie Lipskier, Chabad at UCF co-executive director, wife, and mother of five young children. I stand on the left, professor of political science at UCF, wife, stepmother to two adult children, and old enough to be Rivkie's mother. Rivkie and I met about 11 years ago when she moved to Central Florida with her husband, Rabbi Chaim Lipskier, who, like Rivkie,...
