Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2023 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando this summer. “For more than 30 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” said Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Edward Zissman. Former recip...
(JNS) — Victims and relatives have yet to claim millions of belongings that Nazi authorities stole from Jews and others during the Holocaust, a British official said on March 28 during an international conference of Holocaust representatives in London. Eric Pickles, the United Kingdom government’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, complained that international auctioneers are profiting from stolen artwork and other valuable artifacts as survivors who can identify their previous possessions dwindle. “We need to get a grip on this in the n...
(JTA) — When Israel and Poland agreed to resume Israeli youth trips to Polish Holocaust sites last month, their agreement stipulated that new sites be added to the students’ itineraries, including some that document Nazi crimes against non-Jewish Poles. Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and history authority, is now calling those additions “inappropriate” and “problematic.” In statements to Haaretz published on Monday, leading historians condemned the development, arguing that the new trip rules advance what they call Poland’s trac...
(JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu withdrew his firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, citing a sharp rise in violence in recent days, and suggested that proposed changes to the country’s judicial system that have sparked widespread protest were no longer imminent. In another concession to the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have flooded the streets to protest the planned changes, Netanyahu added on Monday that a yet-to-be established national guard corps would not answer directly to his far-right national security minister, Itam...
(JTA) — Berlin police are investigating a pro-Palestinian rally where demonstrators allegedly chanted “Death to the Jews” and “Death to Israel,” phrases that if verified could be criminal offenses under Germany’s strict post-World War II hate speech laws. Hundreds of people showed up in the Kreuzberg and Neukölln neighborhoods on Saturday at a rally organized in response to the police clashes with Muslim worshipers at the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem last week. In video captured by a watchdog called Democ, many were also sh...
Palestinian terror cell arrested in Jenin (JNS) — Israeli forces on Tuesday arrested a terrorist cell in Jenin, in northern Samaria, that intended to carry out an attack “in an immediate time frame.” Five terrorists were detained during the operation carried out by the Israel Defense Forces, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and Border Police, according to a statement from the IDF. The IDF’s Duvdevan undercover counterterror unit, a paratrooper patrol and a Shin Bet-directed military unit conducted the morning arrests, seizing ammunit...
(JNS) — Nearly half a century ago, the U.S. Congress proclaimed 1978 as a year of education, and over the next four and half decades the president has annually proclaimed Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s Hebrew birthday, the 11th of Nissan, as education day in his honor. Now, following the bipartisan tradition, U.S. President Joe Biden has announced that day, which this year fell on April 2, as a national “Day of Education and Sharing” to commemorate the life of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe. “On Education and Sharing Day, we honor the memor...
The Roth Family JCC’s Seniors on the Go (formerly the 39ers) recently had a visit from a therapy dog named Honey. Meeting Honey was not only therapeutic but fun for the seniors. Seniors on the Go is open to all seniors in the area 65+ who are members of the Roth JCC. People who have Medicaid can obtain a free membership here under the “Silver Sneakers” program. The next event will be on Monday, April 17. The group is having a lunch-out day at Antonios in Maitland. Anyone who has questions or wo...
Spring is always a busy time of year. It can be easy to forget to take time for yourself. But Saturday Night Out at the Rosen JCC is the perfect solution. Parents get a chance to plan a night for them. They can get together with friends or go to dinner, a show, shopping or just quiet time. Kids go to the Rosen JCC for a night packed with activities. There are games and art projects. They can use the playground. Finally, there is a movie and pizza to wind down the night. Space is limited and it does sell out so don’t miss your chance. This w...
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2023 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando this summer. “For more than 30 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” said Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Dr. Edward Zissman. Former recip...
(JTA) — Nikki Fried, who chairs Florida’s Democratic Party, was arrested at a protest for abortion rights in the state capital, along with 10 other demonstrators. The protest on April 3, which took place outside Tallahassee City Hall, was in opposition to a proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida that the state senate passed Monday evening. The bill must pass the state House of Representatives before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fried, who is Jewish, previously served as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, a rare De...
(JNS) — The Anti-Defamation League announced plans to open a satellite office in Brooklyn, N.Y., which its CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt calls one of the “epicenters for antisemitism in this country.” Of more than 395 antisemitic incidents that the ADL documented in New York City last year, 147 occurred in Brooklyn, home to a number of large Orthodox Jewish communities easily identifiable by their dress. Neighborhoods include Crown Heights, Williamsburg, Flatbush and Borough Park. “The Brooklyn community has been burdened with a...
(JNS) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog resumed talks on Monday with Knesset factions aimed at hammering out a compromise on judicial reform. The president again hosted working teams representing the ruling coalition and the leading opposition parties Yesh Atid and National Unity, respectively the second- and third-largest parties in Israel’s parliament after Likud. Talks are being held at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem. Herzog convened the first meeting on March 28, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement of a fre...
(JNS) The family of Or Eshkar, 32, who died on March 20 of a bullet wound sustained during a terror attack in Tel Aviv on March 9, donated his organs to five people. Eshkar’s heart was transplanted into a 65-year-old man. A 75-year-old man received his liver. A 52-year-old and a 59-year-old each received a kidney. And a liver lobe was transplanted into a one-year-old. The heart transplant, which went to Yedidya Sulimani, a father of four and grandfather of 11, was “complex” because the patient had an artificial heart implanted previ...
(JNS) - In a video message, Rabbi Leo Dee - whose wife, Lucy, 48, and daughters, Maia, 20, and Rina, 15, were murdered in a terrorist attack - called for the observance of April 10 as "Dees Day." "Today, we differentiate between good and evil, right and wrong," he said. Dee described being unable to reach his wife and daughters, who were traveling in a different car, after hearing that there had been a terrorist attack. Then he saw a missed call from one of his daughters. "The feeling that she...
(JNS) - A coordinated cyberattack took down the websites of major Israeli universities on Tuesday. A hacker group calling itself "Anonymous Sudan" claimed responsibility for the attack on its Telegram account, stating that the "Israel education sector has been dropped because of what they did in Palestine." Institutions impacted by the attack include Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, the Open University of Israel and Reichman Un...
Over the last few weeks, while Israel has been roiled by demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands, and President Isaac Herzog has warned about the possibility of civil war, American Jews have been watching with grave concern. Even after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a delay in the government plan to overhaul the judiciary that sparked the mass protests, tensions in Israel remained high. It was precisely at this fraught moment that UJA-Federation of New York decided to bring a group of rabbis from the New York area...
Biden administration floats Iran agreement that would ease some sanctions (JNS) — Move over JCPOA. There could be a new Iran nuclear deal in town. Biden administration officials have been floating a proposed agreement with Tehran among European and Israeli partners. The terms “would include some sanctions relief in exchange for Tehran freezing parts of its nuclear program,” Axios reported. An Israeli official and a Western diplomat told Axios that Iran has rejected the proposal. The Republican Jewish Coalition also rejected it. “The Biden a...
(JNS) — With the release of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 25th annual Digital Terrorism and Hate Report on Monday, a key Jewish New York City leader says that the hate filtering out onto the streets has its origins on social media. “What we know to exist—that hate is on the rise—and the high-profile cases on the news are often the endpoint of hate,” Eric Dinowitz, New York City Council member and chair of the council’s Jewish Caucus, told JNS. “We see the assaults in Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square. We see mass murders at synagogues and su...
(JNS) — Some 60,000 tourists are expected to arrive in Israel during the Passover and Easter holidays, injecting nearly $100 million into the economy. Passover begins on Wednesday at sundown and runs seven days in the Jewish state and eight days in the Diaspora. Easter is marked on April 9, and the monthlong Muslim festival of Ramadan began on March 22. Last month, 352,000 tourist entries were recorded and, overall, 916,000 tourists have visited Israel since the beginning of the year. “The positive trend in incoming tourism, along with the inc...
(JNS) — “Ancient Judaism Recognized a Range of Genders. It’s Time We Did, Too.” So reads the headline of a March 18 New York Times guest essay by Elliot Kukla, whose website states that he provides “radical spiritual care” and was “the first openly transgender rabbi to be ordained by a mainstream denomination,” the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. The uniform resource locator that the Times uses for the article contains the publication date and “trans-teen-suicide-judaism....
(JNS) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday to establish a statewide voucher program in which every child will be eligible to receive nearly $8,000 toward schooling, tutoring or other educational-related expenses. "The State of Florida is No. 1 when it comes to education freedom and education choice, and today's signing cements us into that No. 1 position," said DeSantis. He called the new law "the largest expansion of education choice not only in the history of this state but in...
Yom HaZikaron laShoah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, is most often referred to as Yom HaShoah. It is observed as Israel’s day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, and for the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the largest act of resistance to Nazi aggression during the Holocaust. The first official commemorations took place in 1951, and the observance of the day was anchored in a law passed by the Knesset in 1959. It is held on the 27th o...
(JNS) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday in a national address that he was putting a hold on the government’s judicial reform efforts in order to “provide a real opportunity for real dialogue.” “We are on the path toward a dangerous collision in Israeli society. We are in the midst of a crisis that endangers the basic unity between us. Such a crisis requires us all to act responsibly,” he said. “Yesterday, I read [National Unity Party Chairman] Benny Gantz’s letter in which he undertakes to enter in good faith into...
Beginning in May, Chabads in Orlando are going to offer Judaism’s most satisfying answers on dreams, astrology, demons, and ghosts in a four-week course titled Jewpernatural. Paranormal beliefs are rising fast. In 2016, 46 percent of Americans reported believing in ghosts, according to Chapman University. That figure has reached 57 percent, and since the pandemic, one in five Americans say they’ve personally met a ghost. And it’s not just ghosts. Topics like astrology, dream interpretation, and psychic abilities are rapidly becoming mains...
