Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3532 - 3556 of 4518
By Brian Blum (ISRAEL21c)-Did your cursor just vanish? That's not a glitch but a feature for Israeli fraud-busting startup BioCatch. Have you ever noticed that when you are visiting your bank's website or checking out at an ecommerce site, the cursor inexplicably vanishes and you have to move your mouse to get it back? This "trick" is part of how an award-winning Israeli fraud-busting startup is keeping users safe online. BioCatch calls the missing cursor maneuver and similar techniques it... Full story
(Jewniverse via JTA)-Do you wish pop star Lorde would lay down a track in Yiddish already? Well, the next best thing just happened. The Technicalities, an Israeli husband-and-wife Yiddish music duo in their early 30s, recently recorded this cover of Lorde's hit song "Team." Shira Z. Carmel-who also sings in the popular Israeli doo-wop band The Hazelnuts-croons in the mamaloshen with her husband Alon Diament on accordion. The Yiddish cover is a part of an ambitious multilingual Holy Land tribute... Full story
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—In May 1948, I was walking down Market Street in San Francisco when I passed a small movie theater with a marquee that announced “The Jews Fight for Their State.” For the first time, it fully hit me that the Jews—by the gentile consensus of the time, mainly cowards and draft dodgers—were actually taking on five vastly superior armies. I took the train back to Berkeley but had a hard time focusing on my studies at the University of California. With the school year nearing its end, I decided to go join the fight. I was among som... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-The name one Jerusalemite bears is fraught with meaning. Shimon Balas, a new immigrant from Yemen, was killed by a Syrian sniper on April 4, 1951. His father, Shalom Balas, was so desperate for a male heir that in the next five years he produced two daughters before a son was born in 1956-when Shalom was about 70 years old. He named him Shimon, too. "My father would always expect me to be like my... Full story
Mai Azem, a 16-year-old Israeli Arab, had never met an American teenager. Until she joined the “Q School” in Tira, a predominantly Arab city in central Israel, she wouldn’t have been able to have a conversation with one, either. But thanks to Q Schools, an after-school English language-enrichment program for Arab youths, and an interfaith evening arranged by the Alexander Muss High School in Israel (AMHSI) on Mother’s Day earlier this month, she managed to converse with American Jewish students, get to know them, and exchange personal informa... Full story
On Thursday, May 28, the Jewish Academy of Orlando graduated 14 eighth-grade students at their annual end of the celebration. Five of the 14 graduates have been students at the Jewish Academy of Orlando since kindergarten. Throughout their years at the Jewish Academy, this group has been known for their strength of character, leadership and strong academics. Commenting on this milestone in the students' lives, Head of School Alan Rusonik said "This has been an exceptional group of students and... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-In 2003, two years after the website was founded, the editors of Wikipedia faced a dilemma: How should they refer to the part-fence, part-wall Israel was building along the West Bank border? The article's first iteration-published amid the bloody second intifada, or Palestinian uprising-called it a "security fence" and focused on Israeli support. Within a half-hour, another editor added a sentence about a United Nations condemnation. Later that day, the phrase "apartheid wall"... Full story
(JTA)-Hollywood Reporter's new cover story interview with actress Natalie Portman may be one of the most heavily Jewish-themed articles the magazine has ever published. In it, the Israel-born Portman, who's preparing for the May 18 debut of her film adaptation of Israeli author Amos Oz's "A Tale of Love and Darkness," which was shot in Jerusalem, talks about everything from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (she's not a fan) to anti-Semitism in Paris, where she now lives, to reading... Full story
(Jewniverse via JTA)-What do Judas Iscariot and hot-and-sour soup have in common? A rubbery mushroom known as "Auricularia auricula-judae," or "Jew's ear." The term "Jew's ear" might make you feel funny, but it was not intended to be anti-Semitic. It's more about the fact that these tasty mushrooms look a lot like wrinkly ears and are most often found on the wood of elder trees. Lest you forget your Christian gospel, Judas Iscariot hanged himself on an elder tree after he betrayed Jesus Christ.... Full story
I received a phone call... A very lovely sounding lady named LILLY phoned me recently to talk about anti-Semitism. She felt that Jewish organizations and communities should let all the good things Jewish people do be known via media ("positive commercials" she said) so Jews would be much more valued in society and less likely to be picked on. I am trying to do just that, especially when I write about all the scientific breakthroughs coming out of Israeli universities. But then, mostly Jewish... Full story
By Gabrielle Birkner NEW YORK (JTA)-"This was a woman," the narrator explained, as the camera pans over a figure so emaciated and burnt that it's barely recognizable as human. It's one of the more arresting scenes in "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey," a highly unusual Holocaust documentary shot and scripted 70 years ago, and crafted with the help of the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. But it almost didn't see the light of day. The recently completed film has begun making the... Full story
NEW YORK-The World Jewish Congress (WJC) and The Weinstein Company announced today that Academy Award® winner Helen Mirren will receive the WJC Recognition Award for her role in the acclaimed film 'Woman in Gold' and for helping to educate the public about the issues of Nazi-looted art. WJC President Ronald S. Lauder will present Mirren with the inaugural award at a special event in New York later this year at a date to be determined. Mirren will be honored for her portrayal of Maria... Full story
TEL AVIV (JTA)-From the wrong angle, it looks like a bunch of unevenly stacked tuna cans, as if someone in the grocery store did a bad job. Look at it from the other direction, and its shape becomes clear: The cans are, in fact, a sculpture of a giant open hand holding a bag of clementines. That's the idea behind "Come and See What Cans Can Be," an exhibit of seven installation artworks constructed almost entirely from canned food. On display at the atrium of Ra'anana Park, in a Tel Aviv suburb,... Full story
(JTA)-Plenty of mobile apps help consumers order meals for delivery or offer recipes. But a new app developed by Israeli entrepreneurs will actually prepare the food for you on your kitchen counter. While not quite as fantastical as it sounds-to use the app you also need a coffeemaker-sized appliance called The Genie-the invention promises to prepare mess-free, all-natural, healthy food in just seconds. Described by one writer as "like a Keurig [coffeemaker] for food," the device, which looks... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Barack Obama has a message for American Jews: I don’t shy away from disagreeing with Israel publicly, because I care about Israel and our shared values. The president marked Jewish American Heritage Month with a speech last Friday at Washington’s oldest Jewish congregation, Adas Israel. His remarks glided from the triumphs of American Jewish accomplishment to Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. When it came to Israel, Obama was, as usual, unstinting in his pledge to protect the interests of the Jewis... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – Menahem Orenstein remembers back to the late 1960s when a customer at the Haifa repair shop where he was working would bring in an Austin Mini-Moke for servicing. Orenstein and another shop employee—his best friend, David Beck—enjoyed the novelty of the tiny green car they thought resembled a toy. The vehicle had no doors and was so low, climbing in was a breeze. Their workday done, the two teenagers would sit in the Mini-Moke, fiddling with the steering wheel... Full story
CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA)-Renowned for its gracious architecture and signature Southern charm, Charleston is increasingly celebrated as a foodie heaven. The trouble is, in a city whose culinary specialties embrace (and glorify) oysters, she-crab soup, and shrimp and grits, the burgeoning restaurant scene is nearly off limits to those who keep kosher. But things are set to improve for the kosher-observant later this year, when the College of Charleston opens a $1 million kosher vegetarian dining... Full story
LOS ANGELES (JTA)-Rabbinic tradition teaches that when God spoke at Sinai, the world was silenced-birds did not sing, breezes did not rustle leaves in the trees. Out of that profound silence came the word, and were the world silent again, for even an instant, we could hear the everlasting echo of God's voice. In one way that is a beautiful metaphor for the holiday of Shavuot. Among the holidays, it is "silent" in that no custom imposes itself on our imagination. There is no sukkah, no seder. It... Full story
It's been one year, almost to the day, since the Heritage interviewed Sonya Baumstein, the young adventurer (she is now 30) set to be the first woman to row solo across the Pacific Ocean from Japan to San Francisco. She originally planned to take on this challenge earlier in the year, but she had several set backs. She posted an apology to her supporters and investors on her blog about two months ago, "I want to start with an apology to all of those who have some investment in me, the project,... Full story
Suspicious no? YES... I read this in the April issue of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) digest and I pass it along to you: "William Schabas, who was appointed last August by the United Nations Human Rights Council to lead a three-member inquiry into Israel's alleged war crimes during its war with Hamas in Gaza, has resigned following allegations of bias. Schabas was a paid consultant for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in 2012. Although the commission had largely gathered all its... Full story
Rep. John Mica (R-FL) was in Orlando meeting with members of the Orlando Jewish community and Central Florida Hillel student leaders to discuss the latest situation in the Middle East. Pictured from left to right are Hank Katzen (chairman of the Board of Central Florida Hillel), David Freund, Rep. Mica, Nicole Kostiuk and Cody Fishman.... Full story
Once again, the light stuff first... It hurts to think my grandchildren don't even know how famous Frank Sinatra was... sure he has restaurants named after him in Las Vegas, here in Orlando, and probably in many places, but do they know he was "ole blue eyes?" No! Why is he in a Jewish newspaper, you ask? That's a "no-brainer." Sinatra was a staunch supporter of Israel and loved the Jewish people. And they (and most of us) loved him right back. In a recent television special titled "All Or Nothi... Full story
BOSTON (JTA)-Most days, a little-known 19th-century portrait of Abraham Lincoln by Solomon Nunes Carvalho (1815-1895) is tucked away in archival storage at Brandeis University's Rose Art Museum. But on April 28, the deeply allegorical portrait, painted in 1865 by the American-Jewish artist, made a rare public appearance, the first in a decade. The painting is the only known portrait of Lincoln by a Jewish contemporary. The occasion was a home-turf book launch for Brandeis professor Jonathan... Full story
About three years ago, Tirael Cohen posted a flimsy, 8-by-10 inch flyer in the Ariel University halls seeking students to create a student village in Samaria. Within a few days, more than 150 students called expressing interest-and it was all she and her friends needed to get started. Today, Cohen is the director of Kedma, a growing organization that runs student villages in Judea and Samaria. On May 19 in Jerusalem, she will accept the "Spirit of Zion" Moskowitz Prize for making her Zionist... Full story
(The Nosher via JTA) - Move over cupcake, there's a new trendy dessert in town and her name is the donut. Don't get me wrong – I like a good cupcake just like the next sweets-loving gal. But I have been particularly excited to watch as the cupcake has been dethroned while the donut has taken over as the next "it" dessert. Trendy delicious donuts have been cropping up all over the country for the past few years. There are several ultimate lists of where to get the best donuts, including this r... Full story
