Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 4283 - 4307 of 4518
SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (JTA)—Anita Batt’s weekly grocery shopping goes something like this: First, she checks several online coupon blogs, which offer guidance about the best sales and coupon combinations in stores such as CVS, Kroger and Target. Next, Batt prints the several dozen coupons she will use and places them in her organizer sorted by store. Then she visits about six stores, sometimes performing multiple transactions at the same location to maximize savings. Her purchases are stored in her... Full story
This year marks the Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando’s 40th year of building community, strengthening family life and promoting Jewish values. To help celebrate the occasion, the JCC embarked upon a social media retrospective of “Three O’Clock Throwbacks.” Everyday for two months this spring, the JCC posted a “throwback” photo from sometime in the last 40 years at 3 p.m. on its Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando Facebook page. “Our goal with posting the Three O’Clock Throwbacks... Full story
When Jewish Holocaust survivor Helen Garfinkel Greenspun first returned to her hometown of Chmielnik, Poland, in 1992, the synagogue was riddled with swastikas and other graffiti. The gray and crumbling building had been boarded up since World War II, so she could not enter. The townspeople were guarded and unfriendly, and a few individuals even chastised her driver for bringing Greenspun to Chmielnik. The reception was the opposite in 2008 and 2009 when Greenspun visited again. Chmielnik’s m... Full story
On a Friday afternoon in late June, 25 seniors walk, amble and/or glide into the familiar surroundings of the common room at Chambrel Assisted Living Facility in Longwood. For the next 45 minutes this gathering place will serve as “Congregation Chambrel,” where a weekly Shabbat service hosted by the Jewish Pavilion provides Jewish seniors with a sense of community, as well as a place for prayer. Although the average Pavilion “congregant” is well over 85 years old, Chambrel seniors are active... Full story
Dr. Moshe Pelli, Abe and Tess Wise Endowed Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Interdisciplinary Program of Judaic Studies at UCF, published a new book on the journals of the Hebrew Haskalah (Enlightenment) in the first half of the 19th century. Titled “The Journals of the Haskalah from 1820 to 1845” and published by the Magnes Press of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the book includes monographs and annotated indices to eight Hebrew periodicals published in Holland, Galicia, Germany and Lithuania in the 19th century. The mon... Full story
Cohen’s High Holidays snafu NEW YORK (6NoBacon.com)—Surprised by the early arrival of the High Holidays this year? You’re in good company. The iconic Jewish singer Leonard Cohen just rescheduled two dates on his United Kingdom tour after learning they fell out on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, BBC News reports. Cohen, 78, is already publicly repenting. In a statement from his promoter, he apologized “deeply for the inconvenience” he has caused fans. FYI, for those who still haven’t checked your J... Full story
Happy endings… The following are two true stories sent to me by The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. They are very touching to all people…especially to Jewish people. The first story comes from Minsk, Belarus. It happened back in March of 1943: Leah Ruderman escaped from the Minsk ghetto, approached by two women she did not know, Nadezhda and her mother, Anna. Leah begged them to hide her son, Leonid from the Nazis. They agreed to take the child. Leah returned to the ghetto, which was liq... Full story
How can art move someone to be more accepting of differences among people? Can what we see change how we feel? Those are the questions that drove The Museum on the Seam in Jerusalem to hold an international competition among world-famous artists and designers, asking them to interpret the theme of coexistence. The resulting exhibit, COEXISTENCE: The Art of Living Together, was created as striking way for visual art to create a call to action for social change. The works, selected by a... Full story
Many older people already take the compound phosphatidylserine to improve cognition and slow memory loss. There is more good news about this natural food supplement, coming out of an Israeli university: phosphatidylserine appears to improve the functioning of genes involved in degenerative brain disorders, including Parkinson’s disease (PD) and familial dysautonomia (FD). Produced from beef, oysters or soy, and already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, phosphatidylserine c... Full story
(JTA)—”World War Z” gives us the basics of a summer blockbuster—a star actor worth looking at (Brad Pitt) and a far-fetched action-packed plot (hero races to stop virus that is turning all of humanity into zombies). So can’t we all just buy some popcorn, suspend our disbelief and enjoy the show? Well, no. The movie features another equally well-known newsmaker, if in this case less publicized: Israel. The zombie plague is spreading like wildfire, and Pitt’s character, Gerry Lane, a former U.N.... Full story
Between May 14 and July 9, 1944, more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Yadveshem.org In a recent visit to the Orlando area former Miami resident Dr. Jill Klein, author of a newly released Holocaust memoir, “We Got the Water,” shared the details of her family’s path through Auschwitz, possibly as passengers on one of the first transports from Hungary to the infamous death camp. Throughout her book, Klein, a social psychologist and faculty member of Melbourne Business Schoo... Full story
Jewish residents at Savannah Court look forward to their monthly Shabbat luncheons with their Jewish Pavilion friends. The meals enable them to feel connected to their Jewish roots while they enjoy a lox and bagel sandwich. Pictured are residents and Pavilion volunteers at the Shabbat table.... Full story
When ill health prevents someone from Chambrel from going to shul, the Jewish Pavilion steps in. The Pavilion provides weekly Shabbat services at Chambrel, an independent and assisted living facility in Longwood. Pictured, from left, are Cliff Schilling, Emma Bookspan and Miriam Van. Prior to her move to Chambrel, Miriam was a dedicated and beloved Jewish Pavilion office volunteer with exquisite handwriting. She hand-addressed thousands of cards and envelopes over the years. Although she was... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)—In their Tel Aviv boarding school a half-century ago, Moshe Zarchi and Zvi Halevy spent time together doing homework, playing hide-and-seek and enjoying Chamisha Avanim, a jacks-like game involving five gold cubes. Halevy, 62 and a resident of Netanya, Israel, fondly recalls their friendship. It may have meant even more to Zarchi, whose parents gave him up for adoption. Halevy learned only recently that Zarchi died in the United States more than 30 years ago—and perhaps was mur... Full story
Silverman’s dad rips JAPs NEW YORK—Thanks to the cultural gem that is “Princesses: Long Island,” lately the term JAP—Jewish American Princess—has been bandied around with a vigor that hasn’t been seen since the lavish bat mitzvah and nose job-filled days of our adolescence. Those not happy about the development have company in Donald Silverman, the father of JAC (Jewish American Comedian) Sarah Silverman. The elder Silverman finds it infuriating that anyone would proudly own a label that im... Full story
Why a resurgence?... Almost 70 years after Hitler’s hateful atrocities before and during WWII, why is anti-Semitism still going on? The national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN gives us some answers. In his words: “Beginning with 9/11 a new era of ‘anxiety’ hit the world and since then, a wave of anti-Jewish scapegoating has emerged. The combination of international terror, financial collapse, Islamic extremism and turmoil in the Middle East has created the per... Full story
In the past, the major literary distinction was between prose (defined as ordinary speech or language) and poetry. The recent boom in graphic works offers yet another literary possibility. Although graphic novels and memoirs were once dismissed by some critics as high-brow comic books, authors and illustrators currently aspire to something far greater. Three recent books show just how far the genre has expanded: the works being reviewed offer a family portrait of Jerusalem in the 1940s, a... Full story
The scene in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was not typical. Dozens of Arab women, most of them from villages in northern Israel wearing traditional dress, packed into the Galil Hall for a discussion about Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikva,” (“The Hope”). They came alone, without their husbands, and participated frequently in the discussion. Many of the speakers, which included several Arab members of Knesset, said the lyrics of the anthem are alien to them. The verses in question, written by Naftali Herz Imbar, who immigrated to Palestin... Full story
Edward Schnitzer remembers his father dropping him off every week for Sunday school and hanging out at the men’s club while the kids sat in a classroom. “I don’t remember any of it with the family together,” he says. But for his daughters, who are 10 and 7, Hebrew school is family time: Schnitzer and his wife, Cindy, join the girls—and about 30 other families in Temple Shaaray Tefila’s Masa program—in the basement social hall for a two-and-a-half-hour session, participating in activities and discussions, singing and sitting together for... Full story
CAIRO, Egypt—Political satire apparently knows no borders, based on the recent appearance of Jon Stewart, host of America’s hit political satire program “The Daily Show,” on Egyptian television’s “Al Bernameg,” (The Program) that is frequently described as “the Egyptian Jon Stewart program.” Host Bassem Youssef introduced his special guest dressed as a captured spy, with a black hood covering Stewart’s head. The move was a jab at recent calls by Egyptian military and political officials to be wary of foreign spies seeking to spread chaos thr... Full story
TOPANGA, Calif. (JTA)—Few world musicians get to play with rock bands, but 15 years ago, Hani Naser christened his new electric oud performing “Blister in the Sun” with The Violent Femmes. In May, when the 1980s folk-punk band reunited at the Bottlerock Music Festival in Napa Valley, Calif., Naser joined in again, strutting his stuff alongside Femmes front man Gordon Gano, this time playing the hand drums. A master percussionist and oud player, Naser has made music with the likes of Ry Coode... Full story
Seated cross-legged in the sunny backyard of her north Oakland home, wearing loose, tie-dyed pants, beads around her neck, her hair in tousled braids and sipping kombucha tea—her drum is tucked away for now—Taya Shere brings a few different stereotypes to mind: Hippie. Earth mother. Hebrew priestess. Hebrew priestess? It might not be a familiar archetype, but it is an absolutely accurate term, says Shere. No one bestowed this title upon her at birth; she grew up in Washington, D.C., where she... Full story
JERUSALEM—The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, affirmed Israel’s “right to exist in security and peace” during his visit to the Jewish state last Thursday. Welby, on a five-day tour of Egypt, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories last week, met with members of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem, visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, and prayed at the Western Wall. “The clear policy of the Church of England, [and] my own very clear and very fluent feeling, is that the... Full story
NEW MILFORD, NJ—When Yitayish “Titi” Ayenew, the first black Miss Israel, was a young orphan who moved from Ethiopia to Israel, it was learning the Hebrew language that turned around her fortunes. “Then, I was a scared child,” Ayenew, 22, told students at Solomon Schechter Day School of Bergen County, N.J., last month. “I did not know what would be my future, or that I would do the things I am doing today. For me, an inner change occurred when I overcame the obstacle of learning Hebrew. I a... Full story
Herman Wouk dreamed of writing a novel about the biblical Moses since the 1950s. In 2000, he noted that “‘The Lawgiver’ remains unwritten. I never found the way to do it.” When trying to work on the manuscript, he was never able to answer some basic questions: From whose point of view should it be told? How can anyone portray not only the greatest leader in Jewish history, but the miracles performed by him under God’s command? Yet, even in his 90s, Wouk never stopped thinking about the novel. That led him to finally write a version of “The L... Full story
