Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 4038 - 4062 of 4518
From the inception of the Jewish state to the present, Israel's military has been anything but a male-dominated institution. On May 26, 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion established the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Less than three months later, the Knesset instituted mandatory conscription for all women without children. Today 57 percent of all officers in the Israeli army are women, according to the IDF. The IDF recently highlighted the stories of a select group of those women on its blog,... Full story
Actress Meryl Streep has reignited a debate that has simmered below the surface in Hollywood for decades: Was Walt Disney anti-Semitic? The occasion was the annual awards event of the National Board of Review, an organization of filmmakers, students, and movie scholars. Streep presented an award to Emma Thompson, for her role in the new movie "Saving Mr. Banks," about the making of Mary Poppins. Thompson co-stars as Poppins author P.L. Travers, alongside Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. Streep took... Full story
(JTA)-When West Bromwich Albion striker Nicolas Anelka exposed British soccer fans to the vaguely Hitlerian salute now sweeping his native France, Jewish groups were confident a strong response was coming. After all, Britain is considered a leader in the fight against xenophobia in sports thanks to its successful education programs and the tough stance of its soccer institutions, courts and police. But their confidence has been shaken by the refusal of British soccer bosses to condemn Anelka... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)-The rain dripping from his uniform provided an unceremonious end to London Fletcher's career as the Washington Redskins linebacker headed to the locker room following a recent road loss to the New York Giants. His team's last-place finish was hardly the idealized final walk off the gridiron for Fletcher as a professional player. But his 16-year National Football League career might never have launched were it not for Charlotte Kramer and Leonard Schwartz. The Cleveland... Full story
LaBeouf skywrites apology HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA)—Shia LaBeouf, the 27-year-old “Transformers” star, has been the center of a plagiarism controversy. LaBeouf’s recently released short film “HowardContour.com” appears to be a near replica of veteran cartoonist Daniel Clowes’ 2008 comic “Justin M. Damiano.” Clowes apparently was blindsided by the plagiarism, telling Buzzfeed that he had no idea of the film’s existence until it was released online in December. LaBeouf has been tweeting bizarre apologies for weeks, many of which turned out to be pl... Full story
(JTA)-In less than a year, Dane Kuttler and Rowan Parker exchanged vows in 10 different wedding ceremonies at 10 different venues on two coasts under nine different marriage canopies. In what Kuttler calls "Wedding Tour '13," the introverted Seattle couple wanted to share their celebration with as many friends and family as possible while avoiding the pressures of one big party. "It was fun," Parker said. "We wanted to travel. We wanted to take a big vacation." The couple first exchanged vows... Full story
Something is brewing?... As someone who was alive during the years before World War II (although very, very young), I wonder if a poll of European Jews at that time would have come up with comparable results. This is word for word from the World Jewish Congress Digest (WJC). It is worrisome, to say the least: "A revealing new survey by the EU (European Union) Agency For Fundamental Rights (FRA) has found that hate-crimes against Jews are on the rise and that Europe's Jews increasingly feel... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Scanning the list of students, Benny Natan wondered if he would recognize any names from his youth in Salonika, Greece. One of the 157 names jumped out: Nissim Tazartes. Natan, a space and aeronautics professor at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, beamed. Tazartes was his first cousin, someone he had heard much about growing up but never met. The list of children who attended the Umberto No. 1 Italian School in Salonika between the world wars was compiled by Antonio... Full story
JERUSALEM (JTA)-To be married in Israel, immigrants must prove their Jewish ancestry to the country's chief rabbinate. Couples can solicit a letter from their hometown rabbis or present their parents' Jewish marriage contracts. Sometimes they even bring a Yiddish-speaking grandmother before a rabbinical court. In the end, every claim has to pass through one man: a midlevel bureaucrat named Itamar Tubul. Tubul, 35, is the soft-spoken rabbi who heads the chief rabbinate's personal status... Full story
On a day where snow still covers the Judean hills, a Jewish doctor from Efrat drives into the neighboring Palestinian village called Wadi Nis. He is greeted by the local Palestinian villagers with smiles and warm hellos. "There's the doctor," says one Palestinian woman to another as Dr. Yitzchak Glick lowers his car window to say hello. To the villagers of Wadi Nis and six other Palestinian villages in the Gush Etzion region, the kippah-wearing Dr. Glick is a familiar and welcome face. The... Full story
Stiller's Western Wall romancing NEW YORK (JTA)-Ben Stiller revealed to Parade magazine that he has some fond memories from visiting Israel as a teen. The actor and director, promoting his new movie, recalled that at 16 he took a father-son bonding trip to Israel with his father, comedian Jerry Stiller, and found himself in a romantic dalliance there. "I met a girl on that trip and we had a whirlwind romance," Stiller told Parade. "Is it blasphemous to say we ended up making out near the... Full story
PARIS (JTA)-In the elegant silence of a narrow street near the River Seine, David Moyal takes a breath of fresh winter air and enters a noisy restaurant in the French capital. Inside Miznon, he is transported to another world, filled with the cacophony of Hebrew voices and Israeli music. A bustling new bistro that Moyal runs in the 4th arrondissement, Miznon is becoming hugely popular with Israelis and French Jews thanks to its Tel Aviv feel and audacious mission to pack Paris into a pita. Insid... Full story
Oy vay, shades of Adolph Hitler... This is information reported by the World Jewry Digest of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) about Greece and its politics: "In the wake of continued harassment of Jews, immigrants and ethnic minorities by the far-right (Greek) Golden Dawn party, WJC urged the Greek government to crack down on the neo-Nazi extremists. WJC president, Ambassador RONALD S. LAUDER said, 'There can be no legitimate place in the Greek Parliament for parties whose public statements and... Full story
In 2013, the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) published a survey of mature trees in Jerusalem that was "the most comprehensive of the recent SPNI surveys, including some 4,000 trees," according to the society's marketing and communications coordinator, Danielle Berkowitz. Many of the trees identified through such surveys have rich histories and stories attached to them. In fact, hundreds of trees throughout the Jewish state illuminate fascinating aspects of Israeli history... Full story
By Rabbi Jack Riemer JNS.org Whenever a new book on the life and thought of Abraham Joshua Heschel appears, I always have two reactions. One is to marvel at the fact that Heschel is the only one of the star-studded Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) faculty to which he belonged who is still studied and written about today. No one would have believed back in the days when I was a student at JTS that Heschel-and Heschel alone-would be the subject of continued study in our time, for back then he... Full story
Why has education been so important to the Jewish people? Author Maristella Botticini says a unique religious norm enacted within Judaism two millennia ago made male literacy universal among Jews many centuries earlier than it was universal for the rest of the world's population. "Wherever and whenever Jews lived among a population of mostly unschooled people, they had a comparative advantage," Botticini told JNS.org. "They could read and write contracts, business letters, and account books... Full story
NEW YORK-Union for Reform Judaism released a list of its Top Ten Moments for 2013. Making the list was Beth Schafer as a producer of the celebration of Women of Reform Judaism's Centennial Anniversary. In 2011, Schafer was commissioned to write an anthem that would define and celebrate the WRJ in its 100th year in 2013. The text chosen by members of the WRJ attending the 48th Assembly in Washington D.C., came from Isaiah 1:17: "Limdu Heiteiv, dirshu mishpat, ashru chamotz, shivtu yatom, rivu alm... Full story
Matt Loory was working at the First Watch restaurant on Rt. 436 in Altamonte Springs, training to become a manager, when Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Orlando, where he graduated with honors in 2012, called him and said that Ringling Bros. had a job opening for a cook, was he interested? Longwood resident Loory was interested. "I grew up seeing Ringling Bros. every year in Orlando with my family and fell in love with the circus." Just 23 years old, his future already looked bright... Full story
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-Fittingly, Harvey Pollack was the one who scribbled the number 100 on the most famous photograph in basketball history: Wilt Chamberlain holding the piece of paper signifying his astounding point total in a 1962 game for the then Philadelphia Warriors. After all, Pollack is basketball's ultimate numbers and public relations man. But the scrawling is hardly Pollack's sole legacy in a nearly seven-decade career in basketball. He was the first to track a player's blocked shots,... Full story
Braff film Sundance-bound HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA)-It seems like just yesterday that folks were ripping high-earning "Scrubs" star Zach Braff for taking money from regular people via Kickstarter to fund "Wish I Was Here," his follow-up to "Garden State." Now the film is done and set to premiere in Park City, Utah, at the Sundance Film Festival in January, USA Today reports. In addition to directing and co-writing the project, Braff also has a starring role alongside Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin,... Full story
European anti-Semitism... Yes. It exists! (What ever happened to "Never Again"? As an example, here are some excerpts from the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) newsletter: HUNGARY-Hungarian Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister TIBOR NAVRACSICS, and Deputy Foreign Minister ZSOLT NEMET met with Rabbi COOPER and SWC International Relations Director Dr. SHIMON SAMUELS in Budapest and urged them to investigate reports of a growing relationship between Iran and Hungary's anti-Semitic, anti-Roma... Full story
By JTA Staff (JTA)—So, you think you know what’s going on in the Jewish world? Test just how closely you followed the year’s news (and remember it) with our end-of year-news quiz. 1. Berlin’s Jewish Museum provoked controversy this year with... a) an exhibit exploring the origins of the swastika as an ancient Hindu symbol b) an exhibit featuring Jews sitting in a glass box answering questions from visitors c) an exhibit featuring selfies taken at Holocaust memorials d) a panel discussion on whether or not Anne Frank would have been a “belieb... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Wearing a black jacket and hat with a white shirt buttoned up to the neck, the bearded man sings of poverty and hunger, homelessness and being alone, a family lost. Yet through the pain, the performer of the Yiddish tune "Papirosen" somehow projects contentment as he sits smiling a toothless smile on a bench facing a table of schnapps and snacks at the Belz shteibel in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, N.Y. His singing packs exponential poignancy given that the man in this... Full story
Sad opinions... This opinion piece comes directly from a recent World Jewish Congress digest. Read it and weep: "As Hamas rises, peace prospects (in Middle East) sink," says an analysis by two USA Today journalists, MICHELE CHABIN and OREN DORELL state that the ascendancy of the hard-line jihadist movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, will likely scotch any movement toward a two-state solution. Calling Hamas a 'spoiler' for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, the journalists say that... Full story
Just as Judaism is an ethical and spiritual lighthouse, so too were The Beatles. Most religions have their roots in spiritual awakening. The Beatles had a powerful appeal to a generation in calling forth a spiritual bonding. They sought out wonder, meaning, and innocence in their lives and music. Similar to Judaism, the religious allure of The Beatles was a vital factor in allowing the group to endure. They were spiritual apostles that evangelized a kind of gospel that resonated with tens, if... Full story
