Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(Jewish Journal of Greater Boston via JTA) — Sarah Freudenberger has spent a lot of time being told “no.” A year and a half out of college, the “no” came from cantorial schools when she applied for ordination. Months later, when she got engaged, it came from the three rabbis she had worked with at a Reform synagogue in Florida, when she asked if they would officiate her wedding. Both refusals were because – like 42 percent of married American Jews, according to a 2020 Pew study – Freudenberger’s spouse is not a Jew. Peter, her husband and the...
(JTA) — In a 1988 episode of the British television show “That’s Life,” British stockbroker Nicholas Winton was invited to sit in the audience as host Esther Rantzen dramatically revealed to him that the entire crowd was composed of the Jewish children — now adults — he had saved during the Holocaust. That tear-jerking clip periodically goes viral on social media, but now, Winton’s story is coming to bigger screens — in a dramatic film, “One Life,” where he is portrayed by two-time Academy Award-winning actor Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins wa...
(JNS) - Harold Rhode has a PhD in Ottoman history and lived for years in the Muslim world. He served as an adviser on the Islamic world to the U.S. Department of Defense for 28 years. I recently had the opportunity to speak with him. Q: Do all of the signatories to the Abraham Accords, Arabs and Israelis, see the Abraham Accords the same way? A: We Jews want people to love us. And the peace we're looking for is that you'll stop fighting, and we'll stop fighting, and everyone will live together...
(JNS) - Mark Podwal's "Shabbat: A Taste of Heaven," an acrylic and colored pencil drawing on paper, was part of his 2003 exhibition "A Sweet Year" at the Israel Museum Ruth Youth Wing in Jerusalem. (His book "A Sweet Year: A Taste of the Jewish Holidays" came out the same year.) "When the Jewish people were gathered at Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, God told them that olam habah (the world to come) would be their reward for keeping the commandments," the New York artist tells JNS, quoting "Ot...
(JTA) - The bright, colorful movie musical "The Color Purple," which opens in theaters on Christmas, tells a story that has by now become a familiar part of the American canon - of a young Black woman's self-empowerment and discovery of her own sexuality amid the horrific, abusive conditions of her life in the early-1900s rural South. It's far from the first time Americans have heard the story of Celie, the protagonist of Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple." Walker's novel debuted in 1982...
(New York Jewish Week) — The late Brooklyn klezmer musician Pete Sokolow would sometimes take the stage as “Klezmer Fats.” But many players used a different sobriquet to refer to the pianist, who served as a link between generations: “the youngest of the old guys.” Sokolow started playing klezmer in the summer of 1958 with older musicians at resorts in the Catskills. Twenty years later he was part of the klezmer revival. “When it mattered, Pete was there,” klezmer historian Henry Sapoznik told the New York Jewish Week. “Pete was able to bui...
(JNS) — ’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the news, not a keyboard was clanking, except in New York to target the Jews. The “gem” of Gaza City “was destroyed by Israeli bombardment,” its mayor Yahya Sarraj wrote in a Dec. 24 New York Times op-ed. “The Israeli invasion has caused the deaths of more than 20,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and destroyed or damaged about half the buildings in the territory,” Sarraj adds. “The Israelis have also pulverized something else: Gaza City’s cultural riches and municipa...
By Ben Sales (JTA) — On Oct. 6, JTA led its morning newsletter with an article that had long been in the works — and that we expected to drive conversation in the days ahead: It was a profile of a Jewish dad in Florida who had pushed to ban hundreds of books — including Anne Frank’s diary — from school libraries. The ongoing saga of book bans in school libraries, and how they ensnared works about the Holocaust and other Jewish topics, is a story our reporter Andrew Lapin, and JTA more broadly, had focused on all year. For much of 2023, book ban...
Senior Program Director Susan Bernstein and Jewish Pavilion volunteers were busy celebrating Chanukah with senior residents of 10 assisted living facilities....
(JNS) — On Dec. 16, our rabbi announced that Avi Lulu of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, who spent Chanukah with us in Palm Beach, Florida and returned to Israel on Dec. 11, had telephoned him the previous day to tell him that his son Alon Shamriz had been one of three hostages mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers. The congregation roiled with anguish. We had gotten to know Avi. He spoke at menorah lightings, Shabbat services, parlor meetings and before the Jewish Federation. Kfar Aza is located near the Gaza border. On Oct. 7, 80 of its more than 700 r...
Sometimes, your loved one is going to be discharged from the hospital, and you feel that person is not ready to come home. You can refuse discharge. Every state has a quality innovation network quality Improvement Organization. These government agencies help people with Medicare and Medicaid. See www.tiny.cc/QINmap. KEPRO handles Florida, Georgia, etc. Kepro, 844-45-9708. It is a beneficiary and family centered family quality improvement organization that can help you. Quite simply, this is how it works and I tried it with my mother a few...
(JTA) - A decades-long era of Jewish comedy on television will come to an end next year, as "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Larry David's HBO comedy, is set to end after its 12th season. The imminent conclusion of "Curb" has been rumored for several seasons now, but a poster and press statement from David this week confirmed that its 12th go-around, premiering Feb. 4, will indeed be the show's last. "As 'Curb' comes to an end, I will now have the opportunity to finally shed this 'Larry David' persona...
(JNS) - To the women, children and men who survived the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 in Israel: You are not alone. We see you. We hear you. We are crying with you. And I am sorry. I am so very sorry. Those words are not adequate enough to convey the depth of my sorrow for what you were made to endure, but they will have to do because I don't believe adequate words exist. I am sorry for the horrors you suffered on that Black Shabbat. And I am sorry for every day of continued suffering you...
(JNS) — Eran the potato farmer. Rachel the food hostess. Michaela the midwife. All three are residents of the northwestern Negev who were caught in Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre; all three are heroes who were able to think quickly on their feet and save myriad lives on that dreadful day. Their stories of heroism, and many more, are being gathered and documented online for children, to give them strength and create a sense of unity amid the horrors being shared about Oct. 7. The name of the project is...
Our first Susya soldier fell. It was the first night of Chanukah. We were eating dinner and my daughter, 16, saw a message in her medical whatsapp group. The head Medic was wishing a friend of mine sorry on her son. I saw it, and said "he probably got injured" and we continued eating. The mother, a good friend of mine, is one of our original medics here. She is a strong person, one of my group of friends, and is one of those women who seems to do it all. She can even do a lay-up on the basketbal...
Men account for almost 40 percent of the caregiver population. In order for male caregivers to properly care for their loved ones, they must remember to care for themselves. Here are seven emotional and physical tips for male caregivers: • Participate in a support group. • Vary the caregiving responsibilities among family members or friends. • Exercise an average of three times per week and maintain a healthy diet. • Establish time for meditation. • Practice time management. • Prepare all necessary documents, i.e.: insurance policies, d...
As the end of the year approaches, you’ve probably noticed your inbox filling up with requests from charities asking for year-end donations. Giving is important, especially now. Like so many people, you may find yourself stressed as you scramble to locate receipts and track contributions to document your tax deductions for 2023. You may also discover that organizing your giving differently could have resulted in greater tax benefits. Here are a few tips to help you maximize your tax deductions, be more intentional about your giving, and r...
(JTA) - Throughout Hollywood history, many stars of Jewish ancestry have soft-pedaled their heritage, changing their names or speaking rarely, if at all, about their Jewishness. No one can accuse Barbra Streisand of either. The singer and actress of the stage and screen - one of the most beloved Jewish American icons of the past half-century - published her long-awaited memoir, "My Name is Barbra," earlier this month. Throughout, Streisand references her Jewish background constantly, often...
(JTA) - When tickets for Los Angeles' Infinite Light Festival went on sale in October, just a week after Hamas' brutal attack on Israel, sales were brisk. In fact, tickets sold out to the annual Chanukah celebration held by the local Jewish federation's young adult division, NuRoots, faster than in any other year. "I truly believe that that's because people are just craving to be in community, to celebrate, to be given permission to have a sense of joy, and to show up and have fun," Chelsea...
Oftentimes, as nursing home residents decline, they lose the ability to communicate. Sadly, this is a time when families stop visiting as often because they don’t know what to say or how to make the visits meaningful for the family, as well as their loved one. Sometimes, just being present can be satisfying. Here are some tips for the families. • Prepare for the visit ahead of time. Bring items of interest with you. For example, if your loved one enjoys pets, bring your family pet to visit. If he loves music, bring music to play. • Talk with...
Israel Tsvaygenbaum views what is happening in Israel as a painful reminder of his own family history. His father was 29 when he fled Poland in 1939 to escape the Nazis. The remaining family members were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau. "I have always reflected in my paintings the theme of the Holocaust and, in general, human tragedy, the loss of people close to us," said the Russian-American artist, whose work representing the magic realism art movement is known throughout the world....
By (New York Jewish Week) — In March 2022, Jack Waksal thought he recognized Sam Ron, the keynote speaker at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual South Florida dinner in Boca Raton. But he couldn’t quite place him — after all, at 97, Waksal had met thousands of people during his lifetime. But when Ron said the word “Pionki,” all the memories came rushing back. Ron, formerly known as Shmuel Rakowsk, and Waksal had been best friends as teenagers when they worked side by side making gunp...
A recent poll by the Arab World for Research and Development painted a vivid picture of who the innocent Palestinian Arabs are about whom the world is decrying their treatment in Israel’s war with Hamas, the same world that’s been an impotent deaf mute, overlooking decades of abuse and war crimes against the Palestinian Arabs under Hamas, the PLO, and Islamic Jihad. The current situation begs the question, for another conversation, as to whether anyone in the world actually cares about the well being of the Palestinian Arabs, or if this is jus...
(JTA) — Attend or watch footage of a campus pro-Palestinian demonstration these days and you are likely to see someone carrying a sign reading “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” Almost immediately after the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, George Washington University Students for Justice in Palestine put out a statement praising the terrorists, declaring “Decolonization is NOT a metaphor.” As a political slogan, it may not pack the same punch as “Free Palestine” or “From the river to the sea.” But to activists on both sides of the Israeli-Pa...
By Andrew Bostom (JNS) — On Nov. 22, Geert Wilders and his Partij voor de Vrijheid, “Party for Freedom,” burst out of the Netherlands’ political wilderness with a resounding electoral victory. Now endeavoring to cobble together a governing coalition, Wilders observed, “The PVV is a broad popular party. The largest in the Netherlands. 2.4 million people voted for us. Highly and poorly educated, native and immigrant, workers, retirees, young people and the elderly. From the city, the countryside. The PVV is for everyone.” Just prior to the electi...
