Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3601 - 3625 of 4470
(Jewniverse via JTA)-It might seem that the only Jews left in Pakistan are underground-in Karachi's lone Jewish cemetery. But that's not quite so. Faisal (Fishel) Benkhald, the son of a Muslim father and Iranian Jewish mother, dares to call himself a Jew in a country where the Jewish minority began dwindling in the 1940s with the British partition of India and today has all but vanished. Benkhald also leads a one-man campaign to save the Karachi cemetery from being sold to provide more burial... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Miriam Grab has almost nothing to go on in her search for relatives, not even names. While the retired teacher in Haifa has five children, 29 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, she lacks an extended family. Her father's relatives from her native Czechoslovakia were wiped out in the Holocaust. Grab figures, though, that someone on that side of the family must have survived. She concedes that the... Full story
As I write this column... (Well in advance of publication, of course), it is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the horrible Nazi death camps where our people suffered and many died. Attention (I'm especially addressing possible Holocaust deniers)... Here is an article directly from the World Jewish Congress (WJC) Digest, written a few weeks before the anniversary day: "More than 100 survivors of the Auschwitz death camp from across the globe will travel to Poland to... Full story
(JTA)-From Givatayim's renowned Sabich Shel Oved-a simple eggplant-sandwich shop with lines snaking around the corner-to lesser-known places like Chachaporia Georgian cuisine in Jerusalem, the new e-book "Israel's Top 100 Ethnic Restaurants" provides the English-speaking tourist a window into the delectable, folksy Israeli foods that locals have raved about for years. Israel has been on the culinary ascent of late, with dozens of food blogs, new high-end restaurants, cooking shows and celebrity...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The opening of an exhibit at the Austrian Embassy in Washington of more than 50 photographs by an 84-year-old Jewish Nobel laureate was something of an amateur hour-twice over. Both Austria's ambassador and Martin Karplus, the photographer, referred to the pictures-postcard-style views of Europe in the 1950s and a more recent series on China and India-as hobby rather than high art. Then at a reception, many of the approximately 250 guests handed their phones to strangers to... Full story
DENVER-A groundbreaking effort is underway to help synagogues and JCC early childhood education (ECE) centers increase enrollment, better engage Jewish families and build stronger connections to the Jewish community. Led by Rose Community Foundation, the initiative-known as BUILDing Jewish ECE (www.buildingjewishece.org)-involves a comprehensive partnership between the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) and the JCC Association, and is open to all nine Denver and Boulder synagogues and JCCs that... Full story
By Uriel Heilman NEW SQUARE, N.Y. (JTA)-Get Rabbi Shulim Greenberg talking about the health benefits of pomegranate juice and he sounds like a homeopathic nutritionist-with a Yiddish accent. Every January, the Hasidic charity run by Greenberg obtains some 40,000 pounds of California pomegranates, squeezes them into juice and ships the product in eight-ounce plastic bottles to ailing Jews. The recipients-mostly residents of the haredi Orthodox strongholds of Brooklyn, Lakewood, N.J., and New... Full story
I've never been to Cuba... Let's see... in South America I've been to Puerto Rico, Mexico, The Bahamas, Brazil (a few times as I record and perform there and my agent is Brazilian), and other Latino places... but never, ever to Havana. I would love to go, mind you, but because of restrictions I couldn't... that is... until now! Listening to the "State of the Union" speech last night, I feel optimistic. I even heard a news flash on NBC television a while ago, stating that a high United States... Full story
Earlier this month, Shalom Families met to fly kites in Winter Park. After a week of rain and storm clouds, the weather brightened up for a beautiful day of sunshine and would you believe it? Wind! Young families gathered with their princess and superhero kites for a fun afternoon in the sun. Shalom Families is part of the Our Jewish Orlando initiative reaching out to our community's next generation. For more information visit www.JFGO.org.... Full story
(KVELLER/JTA)-I grew up in a public school that had enough Jewish kids that I felt represented. I went to Hebrew school twice a week and had a chavurah, or fellowship, through my Reform synagogue with kids my age. A portion of my family was Orthodox. I was surrounded by Jews. I always felt like there were a lot of Jews in the United States and the world based on my childhood experience. I was wrong. We are less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and 0.2 percent of the world population. Last... Full story
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Soviet army’s liberation of Auschwitz, an event that freed over 7,000 remaining prisoners. Among them was Roman Ferber, who, at 12 years old, was one of the youngest Jews on Schindler’s list, and a rare juvenile inmate of the death camp along with his 8-year-old cousin, Wilús Schnitzer. Roman’s wartime survival is described in a newly published biography, “Journey of Ashes: A Boyhood in the Holocaust,” co-authored with writer, Anna Ray-Jones. By his twelfth birthday, Roman, (now a resident of Monroe... Full story
(JTA)-Wes Anderson's whimsical film "The Grand Budapest Hotel" was nominated for nine Academy Awards last week, just days after winning the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical. Named one of the best films of the year by several top critics, it could earn Anderson, a director whose cult following has steadily grown over the past decade, his first Oscar. It will also likely raise the profile of Stefan Zweig, the Austrian Jewish novelist who, Anderson has said, inspired the film's quirky... Full story
The Nachum Segal Network has announced the 2015 Kosher Halftime Show. Hosted by Jewish radio icon, Nachum Segal, the Kosher Halftime Show is the family oriented alternative to the pop culture musical and dance performance on broadcast television. The program will stream and be available during halftime of Super Bowl XLIX, Sunday Feb. 1, 2015, on www.nachumsegal.com. The program will feature Soulfarm, led by Grammy award-winning guitarist C Lanzbom and lead singer Noah Solomon Chase. Together with drummer Ben Antelis and Grammy award-winning... Full story
(THE NOSHER/JTA)-When my husband and I first married and started to host Shabbat dinners, making my own challah felt like a rite of passage. But I have a little trick that keeps it from being quite the ordeal it must have been for the Jewish women who came before me: I let my beloved bread maker do the hard work. My bread maker kneads the dough while I am at work. I come home, braid the challah, add any of amazing fillings detailed on The Nosher food blog (my favorite is the balsamic apple and... Full story
In January 2006, Pearl Lefkowitz organized a "mission" trip to Cuba. The following is her husband, Howard's, journal of this trip. He sent Heritage these impressions in light of the recent renewal of relations with the country. Interestingly, we were advised that 400 families (young people?) have made aliyah in the past year. That's a significant chunk of a community of 1500 Jews. I also wonder how many used this as an opportunity to immigrate to other places, particularly the U.S. We were furth... Full story
Psalm 137 is a hymn expressing the yearnings of the Jewish people in exile following the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 607 BCE. "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning," the psalmist wrote, expressing the desire of the Israelites to return to Jerusalem. This heart-stirring pledge has resonated in the minds and souls of the Jewish people since that time. Through the narration of scholars such as Ruth Wisse of Harvard, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the UK,... Full story
The end of fall introduced the kindergarten students at the Jewish Academy of Orlando to the hibernation habits of many different animals. Science lessons answered inquires about the 5W's: who hibernates, what happens to animals when they hibernate, where they hibernate, when they hibernate, and why animals hibernate. To culminate the unit, the kindergarten students had a Hibernation Hoopla. During the Hoopla students in KA and KB were partnered up, given an animal (of the stuffed species),... Full story
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Early on the morning of Oct. 23, 1973, Arye David found himself on a hill deep in the Golan Heights beside the imposing Mount Hermon. Though it was still dark, the Israeli soldier from his perch above the road could see three of his army's tanks making their way up. The Yom Kippur War had started 17 days earlier with surprise coordinated attacks against Israel led by Egypt and Syria, and would end with a... Full story
Mark Bernadiner, PhD., sent this article to the Heritage. This is a photo of a page from the Larousse French dictionary from 1939. In the appendix it lists all the then current flags of the world in alphabetical order. You'll notice that for Germany at that time the flag was the Nazi one replete with Zwastika, which proves that this was printed before 1945. Now, alphabetically, look for the Palestinian flag. Yes, there is one. What does it look like? Surprised? Oh, but you thought (Mandate...
"Where did I park the car?..." This is a question I asked my spouse once, as I was coming out of a shopping center. "Where did I park the car? I don't remember. I think I may have Alzheimer's disease," was the complete question I asked him. He responded, "It's not forgetting where you parked the car that indicates Alzheimer's... it's when you forget what to do with the car!" (He was right!) On the subject of Alzheimer's disease, the following comes directly from the "Health & Science page of... Full story
(JTA)-To the dismay of baseball fan Kit Krieger, future travels to Cuba will no longer include get-togethers with ex-Washington Senators pitcher Connie Marrero. Marrero, who played for Washington from 1950 to 1954, died in Havana last April at age 102, a few months after Krieger's last visit and three years after Krieger helped arrange for Marrero a $10,000 annual pension from Major League Baseball. Theirs was a special friendship, one of many forged by Krieger, a Vancouver resident who will ret... Full story
LOS ANGELES (JTA)-A fundraising campaign started quietly by two first graders two years ago to help find a cure for a rare genetic disease just passed the $1 million mark, with donations streaming in from all 50 states and 60 countries across the globe. The million-dollar achievement has been celebrated as the perfect feel-good story, but the trigger for this global effort was a somber diagnosis at the birth of Jonah Pournazarian. The playful, redheaded youngster was born weighing four pounds... Full story
(ISRAEL21c)—A water well that may be the oldest wooden structure ever found, and the oldest evidence of an ancient olive-oil industry, are among the preserved remains of a prehistoric village discovered underwater by Israeli researchers off the coast of Dado Zamir Beach in Haifa. These and other fascinating clues into New Stone Age (Neolithic) culture from about 7,700 years ago were uncovered beneath 100 cubic meters of sand. “The State of Israel is a pioneer in the study of prehistoric underwater villages flooded by the sea, and is at the cut... Full story
Moving into an assisted living facility does not mean you have to leave your lifetime of memories behind. When Ruth moved into Horizon Bay on Montgomery Avenue in Altamonte Springs last year, she brought her large collection of Judaica with her. When the Jewish Pavilion volunteers came to visit her to celebrate Chanukah, they couldn't help but notice Ruth's prized possessions displayed in the front lobby. Here she is beaming with pride over her collection of Chanukiahs.... Full story
(JNS.org)-New photos posted on the Facebook page of the International Space Station (ISS) paint a detailed picture of Israeli topography. The photos-taken by NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore, commander of the current Expedition 41 to the ISS-were shot as the station passed over Israel from a height of 268 miles. "Israel-completely clear-on Christmas morning from the International Space Station. Astronaut Barry Wilmore woke up early on Christmas to reflect upon the beauty of the Earth and snap some... Full story
