Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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June 28 will mark the start of the 23rd annual Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow, Poland, whose closing event is a concert that routinely draws 20,000-25,000 people and exemplifies the re-emerging broad appeal of Jewish culture in a country that was home to 3 million Jews who died during the Holocaust. “Probably less than 10 percent of the people that are at that concert are Jewish,” San Francisco-based and Poland-born philanthropist Tad Taube tells JNS.org. But now, the Jewish Culture Fes... Full story
On the surface, last Sunday’s ordination ceremony for the first three graduates of Bronx, N.Y.-based Yeshivat Maharat—the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders and halakhic authorities—marked a historic moment for the Jewish community. But Rabbi Jeffrey S. Fox, rosh yeshiva (academic dean) of Yeshivat Maharat, does not view the institution as trailblazing or revolutionary. “On the ground, on a day-to-day basis, what we are doing is very normal, especially for these w... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—With the creation of David’s Slingshot Hoppy Summer Lager, beer maker Jeremy Cowan is evoking the image of the legendary battle between David and Goliath—a match-up that’s also apt for Cowan himself. Though still a small player in the world of craft beers, Cowan is catapulting himself onto a much larger field. After years in which his company, Shmaltz Brewing, paid others to produce its He’Brew beers, Cowan is preparing to open his own brewing facility in suburban Albany, N... Full story
(JTA)—The year I unwittingly decided to become Christian started innocently enough. “There’s a sleepover at First Methodist on Friday and everyone is going,” I said to my parents. I was in the sixth grade, one of three Jews in class at our Texas public school. We lived in an area where there was at least one church on every block. It took us 45 minutes to get across town to temple, where we attended Hebrew school once a week. “So, can I go? Please?! I’ll die if I don’t go!” I begged, neglecting to mention that missing a social event where Cha... Full story
Each week Jewish Pavilion volunteers join with residents at Atria of Lake Forest to socialize and play mah-jongg. Mae Gitles says she enjoys maj and could play every day of the week. These dedicated volunteers have become friends with Mae while perfecting their game. They recently celebrated Mae’s 96th birthday along with their weekly game of mah-jongg. Without these volunteers, it is likely that Mae wouldn’t have a game of maj since many of the people living at area nursing facilities are not... Full story
The Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando hosted its Annual Meeting, celebrating its 40th anniversary on May 28 in its Harriett and Hymen Lake Cultural Center Auditorium. The program included a year-in-review video, awards presentation and performances.... Full story
Happy Birthday to me… Today, Friday, June 14 is my birthday. It is also Flag Day, the official day when Betsy Ross created the American Flag. When I was just a young kid, I asked my mom why people waved American Flags on my birthday. She said it was to celebrate me! (Of course, I thought!) Would you believe that today I turn 35 years old? (How about 45?...55?...65?... seventy something? HELL NO! My cousin, BENNETT PRIETO, was also born on this very same day. We were always known as “the twi... Full story
On May 18, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando hosted the J Ball at the Rosen Plaza Hotel, celebrating its 40th anniversary, and honoring Susan and Jerry Roth. More than 300 people celebrated at the party, which was themed to the 1970s in honor of the JCC’s 1973 founding. Over $145,000 was raised to support the JCC’s Marvin Friedman Scholarship Fund which provides financial assistance to allow people to attend the JCC’s preschool, summer camp, and after school programs. Major spons... Full story
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—As the new Superman movie “Man of Steel” flies to an opening on Father’s Day weekend, we earthbound Jewish men have the superhero’s creators—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Jewish teenagers from Cleveland—to thank for setting such a super high bar. Especially if Superman, the ultimate immigrant, is a member of the tribe, as cultural commentators like Harry Brod in his book “Superman is Jewish?” maintain. Finally, then, we have an explanation as to why Jewish men are expected to f... Full story
Keys keeping Israel gig (6NoBacon.com)—This girl is on fire—and she’s a woman with her own mind. Alicia Keys said May 31 that she will perform in Tel Aviv on July 4, despite calls from some artists to nix the Israel gig. “I look forward to my first visit to Israel,” the R&B singer told The New York Times. “Music is a universal language that is meant to unify audiences in peace and love, and that is the spirit of our show.” The appeal to Keys to boycott Israel came first from author Alice... Full story
F. Scott Fitzgerald proclaimed his distaste for Jews with his clichéd portrait of gangster Meyer Wolfsheim in his Jazz Age opus “The Great Gatsby.” The crucial but peripheral character is never described in detail, save for an upfront declaration that he is “a small, flat-nosed Jew” with “tiny eyes” and “two fine growths of hair” luxuriating in his deeply enchanting nostrils (which apparently either intrigued or repelled Fitzgerald since he mentions it several times). Indeed, for Fitzgerald, the Jew’s most salient and significant featur... Full story
The year was 1935. Yehoshua Abramowicz, just 14, was leaving Poland to join his father in England. His mother told him, “Try to be a good Jew.” By all accounts, the boy who became Stanley Abramovitch and never again saw his mother—she along with two of his brothers, one of them his twin, perished in the Holocaust—did just that. For nearly seven decades, Abramovitch, who died May 13 at 93, worked for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), traveling throughout the world and ded... Full story
“Princesses: Long Island,” the new reality show on Bravo, appears to be as bad for the Jews as we had feared. Like some other cultural gems on the network, such as the “Real Housewives” franchise and “Shahs of Sunset,” the new offering centers on a few spunky, wealthy women who live to shop, date and throw tantrums. These princesses live in a magical land called Long Island, where 20-something Jewish women wait for Jewish men to arrive from Wall Street and sweep them off their feet and out of... Full story
On our way back to Tel Aviv from Mitzpe Ramon, my brother-in-law Hanan, sister-in-law Rose and my husband, Max, were looking for a goat dairy farm that several people had told us about. There was nothing but stark arid desert scenery for miles, and then suddenly we spotted a sign that read Kornmehl, in Hebrew and English, and heard some goats in the distance. We drove on an unpaved road wishing we were in a jeep until we spotted a few goats and a cabinlike structure. Two young women offered us a cheese-tasting and then a menu containing all... Full story
Joshua Stulman grew up reading a little known comic book series about the adventures of Jewish super hero “Shaloman,” created by Al Wiesner. Shaloman takes on bigotry and Holocaust denial, uncovers terrorist plots to destroy Israel, and even rescues an Israeli and an Arab child, helping them to overcome their differences. Now, at 30, the New York City-based Stulman has created his own comic book featuring Jewish superhero “Magen: The Shield of Israel.” In the first 25-page issue, the ripped... Full story
Was Judaism the first religion of the early Israelites? Based on archeological evidence, scholars believe our ancestors worshiped more than one deity. According to Avigdor Shinan and Yair Zakovitch, the biblical text was written to promote a different idea: that the Israelites were to worship only one God. In “From Gods to God: How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends” (The Jewish Publication Society), Shinan and Zakovitch show how, before the Bible appeared in written form, numerous oral traditions pre... Full story
THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (JTA)—On a cold winter night in 2008, Wim Kortenoeven was startled by the crackling of a large fire raging near his home on the edge of this city’s last remaining Jewish enclave. Rushing from his apartment, Kortenoeven walked 70 yards and crossed the line separating his Jewish-owned housing project from the predominantly Muslim borough containing what Dutch media have taken to calling the “Sharia triangle”—Sharia referring to Islamic law. On the seam line, he encoun... Full story
HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. (JTA)—Over the past few weeks, strangers have begun stopping high school computer science teacher Chaim Cohen on the street. A few accuse him of recording them without their knowledge. Even fewer blame him for all of society’s ills. But many just want an answer to a simple question: Is he wearing Google Glass? Cohen is among the approximately 2,000 developers throughout the United States who are trying out the search giant’s much-hyped wearable computer, a futuristic Inter... Full story
In three-part harmony, a group of more than 50 people—mostly women, mostly middle-aged and older—began chanting a verse from Leviticus: Aish tamid tukad al hamizbei’ach; lo tichbeh (“Fire always shall be kept burning on the altar; it shall not go out”). They were led by Rabbi Shefa Gold, who added an overlay of harmony, drumming, and the droning sound of an accordion-like “shruti box.” As the chant continued, it grew more intensely spiritual, less self-conscious, louder and more harmonious. For three hours on May 19, Gold led participants... Full story
‘Kitchen (and PR) nightmares’ NEW YORK (JTA)—An unsavory appearance on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” turned out to be a PR nightmare for Samy Bouzaglo, the owner of Amy’s Baking Co. in Scottsdale, Ariz. But the Morocco-born Israeli appears to have bigger problems than sassing a reality show host and becoming entertainingly unhinged on Facebook (and then blaming the crazy posts on hackers). Bouzaglo, who runs Amy’s with his wife, Amy, could be facing deportation—to Israel. He was in... Full story
BALTIMORE (JTA)—Sabina Faynberg decided recently to visit the grave of her cousin Shalom Schwartzbard on a moshav near the Israeli city of Netanya. Going online to find directions, the Jerusalem woman stumbled upon a “Seeking Kin” column that discussed Schwartzbard, who had murdered Semyon Petliura on a Paris street in 1926. Many Jews of the time had held Petliura responsible for instigating pogroms in Ukraine that killed thousands of their relatives and thus believed the killing was justi... Full story
Shades of Mel Gibson… Television’s Military Channel has been showing many WWII films, mostly in honor of Memorial Day and the week after. One of the series titled “Nazi Collaborators,” shows the gathering of Jews in different cities of the German occupation. In most cases, they were loaded on to railway cars and sent off to concentration camps. You know their fate. Some were lucky enough to survive the war and even make it to Israel! Israel is very special to our people. This fact makes the fol... Full story
Early on in Jodi Picoult’s new novel “The Storyteller” (Atria), Josef Weber comments that Sage Singer doesn’t say much in their grief support group, but when she does speak up, she’s a poet. She answers firmly that she’s no poet, but a baker. His response—“Can a person not be two things at once”—foreshadows this story of Nazis, Holocaust victims, survivors and the second and third generations. “The Storyteller,” which reached the top of The New York Times bestseller list just after it was published, is Picoult’s first novel to touch upon the H... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—When Amanda Melpolder began planning her wedding to Jeff Greenberg, she hoped the ceremony would be unlike others. Melpolder had become involved in an independent minyan in Brooklyn after converting to Judaism several years ago, and she and Greenberg wanted their wedding this June to reflect the prayer group’s community spirit and sense of do-it-yourself camaraderie. Friends were asked to lead prayers and narrate the signing of the ketubah, or marriage contract. Melpolder, a che... Full story
The Israel Antiquities Authority recently uncovered a magnificent mosaic dating to the Byzantine period in the fields of Kibbutz Bet Qama, during an archaeological excavation being carried out prior to the construction of a new highway interchange in the area. The Israel Antiquities Authority said the well-preserved mosaic was found among the remains of a settlement that extends across more than six dunams on the kibbutz’s farmland. Dr. Rina Avner of the Israel Antiquities Authority, who is d... Full story
