Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 2676 - 2700 of 4419
The past three years, Brian Bellinkoff has been producing, shooting and editing in Kenya, Somalia and the United States a passion project called "Men in the Arena," a film by J.R. Biersmith. It is the story of two Somali national team soccer players-Saadiq and Sa'ad-chasing their dreams of playing professionally against impossible odds. The film's mission is to shine a positive light on the most war-torn country in the world through the lens of sports. Saadiq lived in a complicated Nairobi... Full story
Israel's story... I received a little booklet with that title from StandWithUs. You probably can order it and many other related materials at www.standwithus.com/store This is what it says: Over 3,000 years ago an indigenous people developed a thriving civilization and culture in their homeland. Over time, they were conquered by a series of aggressive foreign empires. While some of the people stayed in their cities and communities, most of them gradually scattered across the Middle East and... Full story
NEW YORK-As if Jews don't have enough to worry about. Geopolitical threats to the Jewish people may wax and wane, but there's another lethal danger particular to the Jewish people that shows no signs of disappearing anytime soon: cancer. Specifically, Jews are at elevated risk for three types of the disease: melanoma, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. The perils are particularly acute for Jewish women. The higher prevalence of these illnesses isn't spread evenly among all Jews. The genetic... Full story
CHICAGO (JTA)—The platter, served during Passover, contained a green, a bitter herb, an egg and matzah. But it was no seder plate. Instead, it was the appetizer served during a six-course prix fixe meal at Aviv, a pop-up, kosher-for-Passover restaurant housed for one night at Rodfei Zedek, a Conservative synagogue in the Hyde Park neighborhood on this city’s South Side. The course, a pickle platter, featured pickled cucumbers, pickled asparagus tips and beet-pickled eggs, along with olive tapenade, citrus-carrot horseradish and—de rigue... Full story
(JTA)-It's safe to say that Eli Batalion and Jamie Elman are some of the funniest Yiddish speakers around. Their Yiddish-English web series, "YidLife Crisis," is a modern-day, Montreal-based "Seinfeld" that would make any Jewish mother kvell ("It's in Yiddish!") and kvetch ("The sex, drugs and Jesus jokes! Oy!"). The series, which premiered in 2014, follows the nebbish Leizer (played by Batalion) and rebel wannabe Chaimie (Elman) as they wander around Montreal, eat at restaurants and have Talmud... Full story
AMSTERDAM (JTA)—Decades after her death at a Nazi concentration camp, Anne Frank’s restless spirit in heaven finally finds a soulmate in Zef Bunga, an Albanian teenager who was murdered in a revenge killing. Anne, whose world-famous diary recounts her two years in hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam with her family, falls in love with the Muslim boy. They kiss and they commiserate and bond over the injustice of their early deaths—Zef in the 1990s in Tirana, Anne in 1945 in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp. This original take on the A... Full story
Two non-Jewish minority communities in Israel, the Druze (a deviant Shi’a Muslim group) and Circassians (Sunni Muslims whose ancestors were exiled to Palestine from the Caucasus), are subject to mandatory conscription to the IDF. Additionally, members of several Bedouin tribes volunteer as well as a growing number of individual Muslim and Christian Arabs. The decision of the first two groups to accept obligatory service in a special “minorities unit” the Israeli military forces was made at their own request. As early as the summer of 1948,... Full story
(JTA)-Strong women are right in actor Jessica Chastain's wheelhouse. There's Maya, the fictional CIA agent in "Zero Dark Thirty," whose work led Seal Team Six to Osama bin Laden; Melissa Lewis, the heroic mission commander who refuses to abandon a teammate in "The Martian," and Elizabeth Sloan, the accept-no-prisoners Washington lobbyist who takes on the gun industry in "Miss Sloan." "I look for characters that challenge the status quo," Chastain, who snagged a Golden Globe for her work in "Zero... Full story
Oy vay department!... I watched an entire four hours of Nazi stories on television the other day. So much of it reminded me of Twitler... oops, I meant Hitler. Anti-Semitism all over again?... I received a letter from Rabbi MARVIN HIER, dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and pass it along in part: "When I delivered an invocation at the presidential inauguration, I hoped to do my share to help begin to unite a divided country. Afterwards, people of all origins, faiths and... Full story
In the Czech language, Poslední prání translates to last wish. Seventy-five years ago today, in Nazi-occupied Bohemia my Jewish grandfather Arnošt Holzer sat down at his desk in Prague and wrote his Poslední prání in a letter to my father (the date was April 21, 1942). By then, my young physician Dad, Oswald “Valdik” Holzer had fled his native land in 1939 and become a stateless refugee in China. By 1942, he’d made his way to America. Four months before the message was written, the US declared war on Germany, barring father and son from letter... Full story
"The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust," by Amos N. Guiora Consider this dilemma: You are a bystander and witness to a crime. Should your intervention in an attempt to prevent that crime be a legal obligation? Or is moral responsibility enough? On the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Week, law professor and author Amos. N. Guiora addresses these profoundly important and timely questions in his new book, "The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust," published earlier... Full story
"The Six-Day War" by Tammar Stein In 1967, Israel teetered between existence and annihilation. By winning the Six Day War, it averted annihilation ... and began the modern dilemma of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This summer (June 5-11) marks the war's 50th anniversary. "The Six-Day Hero" is a fast-paced, riveting novel by Tammar Stein that looks at the history of the war through the eyes of the people living through it. It is the first English book for younger read... Full story
My second cousin Jessica was 2 years old when her parents, Brenda and John, had a second child, Richard. Sadly, the day Richard was born was also the day Richard died. It wasn’t long after that Jessica’s father left her mother. He was pretty much never heard from again. Her father wasn’t very responsible in the first place, so it is unknown if he left because of his baby boy’s death or just because he was who he was. Jessica was heartbroken that her father had left, and she spent a good part of her life thinking it was her fault. Jessica remain... Full story
CHICAGO-Every Friday morning for a month, rebbetzin Ariel Pardo has been meeting with three female Jewish students at Brandeis University for deep conversations that wind their way from Jewish ritual to intimacy. "Ari is always so open and she makes us feel so comfortable," said Mollie Goldfarb, 19, a first-year student. "She gives off that warm, inviting presence everyone can be around. It's never just her teaching us, but us learning and discussing together." Pardo and her husband, Rabbi... Full story
There are times when a very bad situation actually turns out to provide a "golden opportunity" to bring about change. Such is the case with Peter Gold, who started a nonprofit foundation called Strong City, a 501(c)(3) that supports organizations that empower underserved youth. It was only 16 months ago that Gold-who's parents live in Longwood -was fighting for his life after being shot by a man who was abducting a woman. Just recently, that horrific shooting was brought to the American peoples'... Full story
After reading the article about Zev Halikman, the young 22-year-old who made the USA Maccabi water polo team (see the April 7 issue of Heritage), Rochelle Willner of Temple Shalom Aleichem in Kissimmee was on the phone to Heritage. "I thought you'd like to know that there are two other people from here going to the World Maccabiah Games this summer," she said. Those two people are Marilyn Glaser, president of Temple Shalom Aleichem, and Kissimmee resident, Lazar Lowinger, a member of the USA... Full story
(JTA)-Actor Hank Azaria is known for his portrayal of an array of characters-most notably voicing Moe, Chief Wiggum and Apu on "The Simpsons." While he may be best known for his work on the long-running animated classic, Azaria, of course, has had a successful career in TV and film, with roles as varied as journalist Michael Kelly in "Shattered Glass" to the title role in Showtime's "Huff" to voicing the villain Gargamel in "The Smurfs" movie. His friends call him "the freakish mimic." And... Full story
PARIS (JTA)-In a dark alley in a poor suburb of this city, five men with violence on their minds closed in fast on 17-year-old Netanel Azoulay and his older brother, Yaakov. "Dirty Jews, you're going to die!" one man yelled. The driving dispute quickly transformed into something physical, with one of the assailants wielding a saw. Azoulay-who, along with his brother, wears a kippah-nearly lost his finger and had his shoulder dislocated before passers-by broke up the brawl. The Feb. 21 incident... Full story
A sign of the times we live in... I received the following in a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) written by JONATHAN GREENBLATT, CEO and national director, and I pass it along to you: "After 69 bomb threats were received by Jewish Community Centers in at least 27 states in late January, followed by the desecration of a 120-year-old Jewish cemetery in Missouri last month, ADL issued a security advisory to Jewish institutions nationwide. 'If you receive a threat, take it seriously, '... Full story
(JTA)—From Anne Frank’s diary to Elie Wiesel’s “Night,” books about the Holocaust remain some of the most powerful and well-known pieces of literature published in the past century. Books have the power to educate about the Shoah’s unimaginable horrors and bring to life the stories of its victims, as well as unearth hidden details about wartime crimes. Ahead of Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, JTA reached out to Jewish studies scholars across the country seeking their recommendations on recently published books dealing with the Holocaust.... Full story
(JTA)-Until recently, the Ruderman Family Foundation helped pioneer an issue within the Jewish community-key word "within." While donating locally to Jewish causes from its base in Boston, it also fostered disability inclusion among Jewish and Israeli institutions. It ran a Jewish Special Needs Funding Conference and offered grants and prizes to Jewish institutions that made themselves more accessible to those with disabilities. But look for the word "Jewish" on the "inclusion" page of the... Full story
For Molly Horwitz, it's not the anti-Semitism itself that stings the most. The feeling that some Stanford University Jewish leaders abandoned her in her fight against discrimination is what still brings tears to her eyes. As Horwitz and a fellow Stanford alum see it, those Jewish leaders were borderline hostile toward mainstream pro-Israel students while fostering warmer relations with the campus arm of J Street, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby. If true, the former students'... Full story
(JTA)—Looking through the barbed wire of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, 14-year-old Nanette Konig could barely recognize her friend and classmate from Amsterdam, Anne Frank. Both girls had been caught by the Nazis in the Dutch capital and were sent to starve to death in a place Konig describes today as “hell on Earth.” Both were emaciated when they saw each other again in different sections of the same German camp in 1944. “She looked like a walking skeleton, just like me,” Konig, one of the few living friends of the teenage diarist,... Full story
By Rebecca Spence LOS ANGELES (JTA)-"We're triggering the next sexual revolution," said Mathew Gerson, seated comfortably on the floor of his adobe-style home in Southern California. Gerson, 42, is the creator of Foria Pleasure, a women's "sensual enhancement" oil derived from the cannabis plant. Nicknamed "weed lube," the spray oil won't get you stoned-but what it can do, according to its proponents, is turn a run-of-the-mill orgasm into a full-body climax. Since launching his company in 2014,... Full story
There's a war going on in the United States. It isn't a battle with weapons that harm the physical body. It's a war of ideology versus truth and logic. And the battlefields are on college campuses. Americans for Peace and Tolerance, founded by Charles Jacobs and Avi Goldwasser, produced a shocking documentary titled "Hate Spaces: The Politics of Intolerance on Campus" that takes the viewer into the heart of the aggressive methods of "combat" used to viciously attack Jewish and pro-Israel... Full story
