Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3026 - 3050 of 4419
Tonight, at 8 o'clock, the sirens around Israel were sounded. Everywhere. Not for rockets from Gaza, or Lebanon, or any other place of hate in the Middle East. For the soldiers who died defending Israel, for the victims of terrorist attacks, and for their families and their communities. Today is Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day. There are no sales, and there are no barbecues. There are candles and ceremonies and tears. There are memorials on Memorial Day. It sounds obvious, but to this... Full story
Speaking through her tears it was not clear whether Eliana, 15, was crying tears of sadness because of her loss, or tears of joy because she was in a place where she could express herself, and cry openly. "Before coming to Camp Koby I was so broken. This was my first sleep away camp and on the first day I couldn't eat. But I felt an immediate connection. I have met so many amazing people. There's so much effort put in to help us. It gives energy and strength to continue with everyday life." She... Full story
"Heeeeeere's Johnny"... Just recently I watched a two-hour special on the life of television Tonight Show host for 30 years, Johnny Carson. Not only am I missing all the years of watching him and his guests I actually recognized them! (Not like the guest stars who appear on our current Tonight Show. The audience goes wild and I go who????) Well, for those who get Antenna TV on their sets, you can still watch Johnny Carson's Tonight Show seven nights a week... 11 p.m.-midnight Monday thru Friday... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)-Traditionally, we say the Mi Sheberach prayer for those who are ill and those recovering from illness or accident. For example, I added the name of my friend's daughter to the list to be recited at my synagogue following a terrible accident in which she was burned. As the Mi Sheberach was recited this past Shabbat at my synagogue, I had an epiphany. I wondered aloud to my husband, what about those with mental illness? Do we ever think of adding their names in hopes of recovery... Full story
(The Nosher via JTA)-I had my first proper halva experience at The Halva Kingdom in the Machane Yehuda shuk in Jerusalem. I'd never really liked halva before that-the one or two times I had tasted it, the texture was weird and crumbly and there was a slightly bitter aftertaste. But in the shuk, surrounded by dozens of varieties of blocks of halva, I couldn't resist trying the sample offered by the charming vendor. You guys, it was so, so good! I was pleasantly shocked at how much I liked it. It... Full story
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA)-After Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma discovered that Holocaust victims used to live in what is now her home, she began to think about them constantly. At night, van Gennep-Bouma imagined the former occupants preparing to turn in. And in the morning, she wondered where they had their breakfast. That was in 2012, she recalled, talking to a visitor in the manicured three-story townhouse in the Hague where she has lived with her husband and three children since 2001. It was als... Full story
INDIANAPOLIS-A noted Indiana University cardiologist, Dr. Doug Zipes, has published his third novel, a historical thriller titled "Not Just a Game." The book follows three generations of Olympic athletes over eight decades, culminating in intrigue and danger at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Brazil. With some historical basis in fact and characters loosely based on real people, Zipes' story chronicles the challenges of Olympic competition experienced by a grandfather, father, and daughter... Full story
(JTA)-It's just before Rosh Hashanah in 2013, and New York City's mayoral campaign is heating up. Disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, who in a surprise move had thrown his hat in the ring a few months earlier, is doing one of those obligatory photo ops at a Jewish bakery in Brooklyn. All is going well. Weiner has picked up an order of cookies laced with honey-sweets for the New Year-and even insisted on paying full retail. As he is leaving the store, though, a man wearing a kippah... Full story
In January 2016, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Manpower Directorate report revealed that 36 Israeli soldiers died in 2015, marking the lowest single-year death toll the Israeli military has experienced in a decade. But although no major military operations took place in Israel last year, the fall season saw the start of a months-long (and ongoing) wave of Palestinian terror attacks that has so far claimed the lives of 34 people and injured 411 others since Sept. 13, 2015. The attacks began in... Full story
ISRAEL21c—Think of marketing as a way of moving potential customers through a funnel: enticing them to enter at the top, to stay inside until making a purchase, and to go back inside for future purchases. Think of marketing technology (mar-tech) as smart automated solutions for every stage of that sales funnel, says Pini Yakuel, CEO of Optimove, one of the growing number of Israeli companies specializing in mar-tech software for B2B and B2C clients. “Mar-tech is a very hot field,” Yakuel tells ISRAEL21c. “In the old days, marketing was perceiv... Full story
(JTA)-"Rabin in his Own Words," which opened last Friday in New York, Los Angeles and South Florida, is more than a tribute to the two-time Israeli prime minister tragically gunned down in 1995. The aptly named cinematic autobiography, which uses archival footage going back to the statesman's childhood, is entirely narrated by Yitzhak Rabin himself. Filmmaker Erez Laufer, 53, designed it that way because, he tells JTA, "I got tired of hearing people analyzing him, people talking about him, both... Full story
Fala Portuguese... Which means I speak Portuguese. And I do! Portuguese, as you know, is the language spoken in Brasil. (Americans spell it Brazil with a Z) My entertainment agent, ROBERTO DRATCU, is Brasilian (and Jewish) so I have sung and performed in Rio, Sao Paulo and many other cities in Brasil a few times. There is a thriving Jewish community in Sao Paulo, which is a large robust city in Brasil. I read this recently in the LUBAVITCH INTERNATIONAL newspaper under the heading "Memorial... Full story
BRUSSELS (JTA)-I was feeling nervous about coming to Brussels for seder with my family. Making the 130-mile trip there from my home in Amsterdam meant taking my 5-month-old son on a train that last year saw an attempted jihadist attack, and into a city that is still reeling and on alert from the March 22 Islamist bombings that killed 32 people. I wasn't worried about terrorism, though. Having experienced, by the time I turned 19, two intifadas and the Gulf War missile attacks in my native Israel... Full story
JACKSON, N.J. (JTA)-Pinchas Cohen spent most of Monday wandering around Six Flags Great Adventure under a blazing sun, wearing a knee-length black coat and carrying a big box of shmura matzah under his arm. An imposing, Russian-born Chabad-Lubavitch Hasid who now lives in Brooklyn, Cohen came to this amusement park in New Jersey with his 11-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, the two youngest of his nine children, to have some fun on the first day of chol hamoed, the intermediate days of Pass... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-On an army base in northern Israel, a scrawny nerd with glasses shakily patrols in the dead of night. Suddenly he's ambushed by a group of militants in kaffiyehs, and he's forced to fight for his life, using everything from a gun to a knife to a desk lamp, until he's left with blood dripping down his face. This isn't the most recent flare-up in the Israeli terror wave. It's a scene from the recent horror film "Freak Out," starring Itay Zvolon-who is famous in Israel for a... Full story
Two representatives of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando joined more than 200 participants from seven countries who gathered April 10-12 in Baltimore for the 8th Annual PJ Library Conference. Jennifer Cohen, JFGO's director of Outreach and Engagement, and Aleah Mathews, volunteer co-chair of JFGO's Shalom Families committee, represented Greater Orlando at the conference. PJ Library, a program of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation that is administered and subsidized locally by the Jewish... Full story
A monthly update on current issues from the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s Jewish Community Relations Council Hello, and welcome to the first monthly column from the Jewish Community Relations Council! We look forward to sharing news, information, and action items on how you can make a difference in Central Florida and beyond. For our first column, we want to simply introduce ourselves and tell you what we do. As part of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, the mission of the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) is to live our... Full story
(JTA)-The story of Chiune Sugihara-the Japanese consul in Kovno, Lithuania, who disobeyed his government's orders in 1940 and issued transit visas through Japan to thousands of Jews seeking to flee war-torn Europe-wasn't widely known until 1985, when Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial authority, honored him as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. But I grew up hearing Sugihara's story because he saved my father's life. My father, the attorney Nathan Lewin, is a Sugihara survivor. I also... Full story
By Hillel Kuttler The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-"If only," it's the most common regret expressed by "Seeking Kin" interviewees, and by genealogists generally. David Harel has dug into his family's history impressively, but second-guesses himself for never asking his late father, Yaakov Halberstadt, key questions before Halberstadt died at 96 in 2010, or for not pressing to address other mysteries. Harel, 74, who lives on Kibbutz Yavne, near... Full story
(Kveller via JTA)—Every year it happens in just about the same way: I pledge to stick to it. I create reminders and support systems. I beg my husband to join me in the daily routine. And then at some point, I fail. No, I’m not talking about a fad diet; I’m talking about the ancient Jewish ritual of counting the omer. Every night, starting from the second night of Passover (at the seder), Jews count an “omer”—a measurement of grain that was brought to the ancient Temple in Jerusalem as an offering. Of course, now the counting is only symbolic: W... Full story
From mystery to mystery, We are the Phoenix Firebird Garuda Bennu Choi. They tried to destroy us, Shot Beheaded Crucified, and Threw us in ovens. From the alter of ashes We arose Stronger Smarter More powerful. Don’t they know? Our destruction is—Impossible. From mystery to mystery, We are Jews.... Full story
I know what's wrong... I was recently visited by my dear cousin Ben, a retired psychologist. One of my sons is also a psychologist. His wife is a psychologist. My machatunim (her mom) is a retired psychologist... THEY NOW CONFIRM THAT I AM NUTS! (But I kind of knew that already.) Not a surprise... With all the anti-Semitism in the world these days, this report I recently received from the World Jewish Congress (WJC) under the heading "Immigration to Israel Highest Since 2003," doesn't surprise... Full story
ISRAEL21c-Shafrir Levi's baby boy loves to slurp spoonsful of bananas, pears and apples mashed with pure sesame-seed paste, known as tahina in Israel and tahini most other places. The baby's affinity for ground sesame seeds is understandable, and not just because tahini is a staple of the Israeli diet (the word tahina comes from the Hebrew verb "to grind"). His ancestor in Morocco was a master of making the tahini-based treat called halva, and opened the Halva Kingdom in Jerusalem in 1947.... Full story
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (JTA)-"Why can't we eat veggie burritos tonight? Will I be miracled? Will they play 'The Wheel?' Will Phil sing?" These four additional questions were asked at a Passover seder this week that's quickly becoming a new Bay Area tradition. Fans of the legendary psychedelic band the Grateful Dead celebrated Passover for the third year in a row Wednesday night at Terrapin Crossroads, the Marin County club owned by the band's bassist, Phil Lesh. This was the first year that seders... Full story
ISRAEL21c-Two guys walk into a New York City bar in 2003 and meet a couple of Brazilian women. "What do you miss most from home?" the men ask. "Agua de coco," the women answer. Coconut water. In 2004, the two men found Vita Coco, which takes off like wildfire as consumers everywhere seek alternatives to sugary soft drinks. Today, Vita Coco is the global market leader in coconut water, the clear nutritious liquid inside young green coconuts. The company has 10 manufacturing facilities in eight... Full story
