Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 881 - 905 of 4799
This is a story about an orthodox wife and mother, a busy Bubbe, a retired schoolteacher and a full-time dental hygienist, who at a moment in her life, or so it seemed at the time, was Divinely inspired to compose music. At first, the lyrics came, and then the melody, resulting in her first composition titled "Please See." Since this time, she hasn't turned back and has written over 20 songs, with three that have been produced into singles. Michelle Anflick, the daughter of Dr. Michael Fineberg of Temple Israel in Winter Springs, was attending...
(JNS) - Sea travel has always posed formidable challenges-especially for Jews. Keeping kosher, observing Shabbat and venturing into a sea of people who aren't Jewish isn't easy for the strictly observant. The challenges are compounded on cruises, where numerous questions come up. If most of the passengers are Jewish and the staff is not, is it permissible to cruise on Shabbat? If the ship docks on Shabbat, can you disembark? How do you light candles when you are forbidden to light a flame? How do you negotiate the electronic locks on your...
(JNS) - A deli chef prepares roast pork sandwiches as a museum official quotes from the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, often translated as "Ethics of the Fathers." Saturday's Borscht Belt Fest was decidedly not kosher, but there was a clear Jewish vibe to it as attendees flocked to Ellenville, N.Y., to reminisce about the golden age of the Catskill Mountains as a Jewish summer getaway. The first-ever festival, held on July 29 in the searing summer heat, included a street fair, comedy shows, lectures, film screenings and a preview of the Borscht Belt...
Wilfrid Israel risked his own life to save tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem refuses to recognize and honor him. Yad Vashem refuses to recognize and honor the more than 200 Jews identified so far by the Israeli Committee, Jews who Rescued Jews during the Holocaust. B'nai Brith International recognizes them. Haim Roet, himself a child survivor of the Holocaust because a Jew saved his life from the Nazis, tried for many years to get Yad Vashem to change their policy. Haim, and a few other Jews organized themselves into a...
(JNS) - Gal Gadot's first Hollywood audition was for the role of a James Bond girl in "Quantum of Solace," alongside Daniel Craig. Although Gadot did not get the role, now, a decade and a half later, she finds herself playing a female version of 007 in "Heart of Stone"-a big-buck action thriller that will air on Netflix on Aug. 11 (and which will be, if all goes as planned, the first installment of an ongoing series). The days when she was regarded as "the girl of" are long gone. Today Gadot is the main attraction. "It's true," the Israeli...
(JNS) — Tel Aviv University researchers have proposed a new theory for why the body’s tanning process does not occur immediately after exposure to the sun’s rays, but only after a few hours or even days. The study found that the body’s initial response to sun exposure is to prioritize repairing DNA damage in the skin cells, which inhibits the mechanism responsible for skin pigmentation, commonly known as tanning. The research, published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, was led by doctoral student Nadav Elkoshi and Professor Carmit...
(JTA) — For decades, armchair analysts scrutinizing the mysteries of the President John F. Kennedy assassination have fixated on who, exactly, opened his future assassin’s mail while he was under CIA surveillance. As the conspiracy theory went, that person would have understood Lee Harvey Oswald’s relationship with the Soviet Union and thus could unlock new information about a possible Communist plot against Kennedy — or a U.S. government plot to obscure his true killer. Last month, a new document dump in the ongoing declassification of Kenn...
(JNS) — Recently, seated in a cold Washington, D.C., conference room, I listened as speakers spoke of allies who support Israel and the Jewish people. The word “ally” is commonly used these days. Everyone wants to be allies of the cause du jour. While I was sitting there, however, the word “ally” brought me back to history class. Its connotation felt more military than I think any of the speakers intended. The Jewish community and Israel have a special place in the world. There are those who love them and those who hate them. Now antisemit...
(JNS) - A teenage student uncovered a 1,500-year-old "magical mirror" from the Byzantine period this week during an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation at the ancient site of Usha in northern Israel. Aviv Weizman, from Kiryat Motzkin, near Haifa, was one of 500 students participating in a week-long "Survival Course" that included a 56-mile trek and participation in excavations at archaeological sites around Israel that will be opened to the public in the future. At the site, the 17-year-old Weizman noticed an unusual pottery shard "peeping...
JAFFA, Israel (JTA) - The Hebrew lyrics for an Israeli sandwich shop ad don't sound quite like a typical Israeli night club anthem. "Kebab, merguez sausage, shakshuka/Vegetables and onion are always interesting...Now that you've eaten a baguette with soul/you will definitely be back," the song goes. But "Omelette Bread in Netanya," the song in an ad for a shop of the same name in the coastal city, has gone viral in Israel, racking up millions of views on TikTok and spawning hundreds of spin-offs, parodies, and restaurant review videos. It is be...
(JNS) — Israeli-American astrophysicist believes he may have found alien life. The purported discovery took place more than a mile underwater near Papua New Guinea. Those in search of aliens from other planets would typically look to the stars. But one high-level academic who happens to have a $100 million budget opted to look into the depths of the ocean to uncover what he reported earlier this month may be key discoveries. Avi Loeb, 61, who chaired Harvard University’s astrophysics department from 2011 to 2020, recently led a $1.5 mil...
(JTA) - According to the Jewish Virtual Library, 550,000 Jews served in the United States armed forces during World War II. There were 38,338 Jewish casualties, while 26,000 Jewish soldiers "received citations for valor and merit." But in high-profile TV and film, identifiably Jewish soldiers have been a rare sight. One exception came 25 years ago this week, when Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" hit theaters. The movie is perhaps best known for its opening sequence, for which Spielberg brutally recreated the invasion of Normandy. From...
(JTA) - As head of programming for Maccabi USA, Shane Carr is used to having people ask him to add sports to the organization's many Jewish sports tournaments around the world. But since 2019, one sport has been suggested above all others: pickleball. Widely considered the fastest-growing sport in America, pickleball is a sort of condensed court tennis and pingpong hybrid that has attracted millions of new fanatics since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, from middle schoolers to the likes of Bill Gates and LeBron James. Originally created...
(JTA) - Josh Harris already owned parts of professional sports teams in the NBA, NHL, NFL and the English Premier League. But when the opportunity arose to purchase his hometown Washington Commanders, the Chevy Chase, Maryland, native said it was "bashert," using the Yiddish word for fate. Harris, a co-founder of the private equity firm Apollo Global Management, which manages over $500 billion in assets globally, bought the Commanders earlier this year from embattled Jewish owner Daniel Snyder for $6.05 billion - a record for a North American...
(JNS) - Following the historic JCC Maccabi Games in Israel, the world's largest Jewish youth sports event continues with the JCC Association of North America's 41st JCC Maccabi Games and Access events in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., from Aug. 6-11, hosted by the David Posnack JCC. Nearly 2,000 Jewish teens comprising 64 delegations from the United States, Canada and six other nations will gather for the week-long events. For the first time, delegations from Argentina, South Africa and Ukraine, which also sent a delegation to the recent Israel-based...
(JNS) — Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed software, called ArchCUT3-D, to extract and analyze ancient engravings that could lead to a better understanding of the engravers’ background and skills. The software extracts thin, three-dimensional slices of man-made engravings, and uses micromorphological incision recognition to closely examine size, shape and color for precision analysis. In the study, published in “Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications,” researchers scanned two ancient engravings (Ibex...
(JNS) - A collaborative study conducted by a global team of microbiome experts has uncovered compelling evidence linking the gut microbiome to autism spectrum disorder. The findings, which were published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Neuroscience in June, identified consistent differences in the gut microbiome of people with autism across various cohorts worldwide, indicating that microbiome changes are a common characteristic associated with autism. Moreover, the researchers discovered correlations between microbiome changes and immune...
(JTA) — Though there were no Jewish players at this week’s MLB All-Star Game, the future is bright. The best bellwether of what’s to come is the MLB Draft, which included 20 rounds split between the past three nights. A total of 614 players were drafted this year, and according to Jewish Baseball News, five of them are Jewish. Here’s the 2023 Jewish MLB draft class: Jake Gelof, 60th overall Taken in the second round by the Los Angeles Dodgers, Jake Gelof is a power-hitting third baseman who just concluded a record-setting career at the Univers...
(JNS) — Hundreds of visitors flocked to Shiloh in Samaria’s Binyamin region on Thursday to welcome a biblically pure red heifer. The 22-month-old cow, which was brought to Israel from the United States, found a new home at the Ancient Shiloh heritage site, where the biblical Tabernacle once stood. In the coming month, two more heifers will be transported to the town, and a center will open there dedicated to researching the phenomenon. The heifers will be kept in a fenced-off area, and visitors will not be able to touch the animals. The mys...
(JTA) - In the second season of "The Nanny," the sitcom she wrote and starred in, Fran Drescher's character, Fran Fine, refuses to enter a hotel where the busboys are striking. "I'm sorry, but the Fines don't cross picket lines," she tells her companion, the father of the family she works for. "It's against our religion." The laugh line was one of many moments when Drescher served her signature mashup of brashness, Jewishness and liberal politics, throughout her early 1990s series and beyond. Now, three decades later, Drescher is one of the...
(JTA) - Barbie the doll has a deep Jewish history. Now, the creator of "Barbie" the movie hopes watching the film will also evoke a deep Jewish experience. Greta Gerwig, who conceived and directed the buzzy live-action film released this month, told The New York Times that she hopes watching the movie will be a quasi-spiritual activity for its viewers. The feeling she wants to achieve, she said, is the same one she felt as a child when she was a guest at the Shabbat dinners of close family friends who were observant Jews. At those dinners, she...
(JTA) - Today is not just "Barbie" release day - moviegoers are also planning to fill theaters across the United States to see Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" biopic. Many hope it will answer a question that has long divided Americans and the country's understanding of its history: Who exactly was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb? Oppenheimer's name has become "a metaphor for mass death beneath a mushroom cloud," in the words of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, whose 2005 book "American Prometheus" was adapted into Nolan's...
(JTA) - When Michael Neuman found out his run on this season of the NBC obstacle course competition show "American Ninja Warrior" would not air, the competitor inside of him was crushed. Part of the filming schedule had conflicted with his Shabbat observance. But Neuman was even more disappointed that he would not get to keep any footage from the show. Neuman, a 30-year-old psychotherapist from Miami Beach, had arranged to bring three young people from his Jewish Inspiration Foundation - which supports Jewish youth with physical challenges...
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2023 issue of CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly and is reprinted with permission of the Central Conference of American Rabbis. The full special issue on “Israel at Seventy-Five” can be found at https://ccar.co/summer23. “A Tough Neighborhood” This is the line of Noah. Noah was a righteous man; he was blameless in his age; Noah walked with God. — Genesis 6:9 JPS 1962, 1985, 1999 A rabbinic midrash on this verse suggests that a person should not be judged by absolute standards — that time,...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Dozens of personal diaries from people living through the early years of the Jewish state have been handed over to the National Library of Israel as part of the Operation Diary project. One presented recently describes the life of the immigrants on the Exodus 1947 ship. "September 1, 1947 - one person died on one of the ships today," Miriam Sternberg Wechsler wrote. "In the presence of all the ships that stood still for a short while, he was lowered for burial in the Atlantic Ocean. The fourth victim, this time not...
