Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - U.S. Jewish groups slammed a top Presbyterian Church official for Martin Luther King Day remarks that equated Israel's West Bank "occupation" with slavery and implied that American Jews have the influence to get the U.S. government to end it. "The continued occupation in Palestine/Israel is 21st-century slavery and should be abolished immediately," Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, II, the stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church USA said in remarks released Monday. "Given the history of Jewish...
(JNS) — The U.N. General Assembly on Thursday adopted an Israeli-sponsored resolution that condemns denial and distortion of the Holocaust. The resolution, co-sponsored by Germany and backed by the United States, Russia and many other countries, affirms that the Holocaust “will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.” The text also points out the “growing prevalence of Holocaust denial or distortion through the use of information and communications technologies,” and urges all U.N. members to...
(JTA) - Nikki Fried, the outspoken Jewish Democratic candidate running for governor in Florida, compared her rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis, to Hitler in an interview, prompting DeSantis supporters to defend his record on Jewish issues. Fried, Florida's current agriculture commissioner and a former marijuana lobbyist with ties to the state's Jewish community, made the comparison in an NPR interview on Friday. "He is doing everything possible to take power away from local governments, taking away...
StandWithUs is proud to announce that it recently opened a Holocaust Education Center. The purpose of the center is to create a toolbox of user-friendly Holocaust education presentations and materials for public or private schools that have experienced Holocaust denial, lack of information, or simply want to proactively teach their teen and/or young adult students about the organized persecution and murder of six million European Jews in the Holocaust. The center’s presentations can be given by Matt Lebovic, who is the founding director of the...
The Rosen JCC in Dr. Phillips is excited to celebrate Winterfest on Feb. 19, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. This event will give Florida residents a real taste of the fun things winter offers. There will be an Arctic Snow Slide with real snow. ou even have the opportunity to make snowballs to throw with your friends. But if snow isn’t for you there is a Rock Wall and Interactive Sports to play. You can take a ride on the Holiday Train and stop at the Petting Zoo or play the Inflatable Sports Games. This is going to be an event for the entire family. You c...
Beginning in February, Chabad in Metro Orlando will offer Meditation from Sinai, a fascinating new six-session course by the acclaimed Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, exploring the nature of Jewish meditation and the profound benefits it can bring to one's daily life. Participants in the course will discover what Jewish meditation is, the pivotal role it plays in Jewish tradition, and the fundamental ideas it is based on. The course will teach crucial life tools that help us respond effectively...
(JTA) — Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, the man at the center of the Colleyville, Texas, synagogue hostage crisis last weekend, says that he is looking for another job, but wants the world’s focus to remain on his congregation’s trauma and healing process rather than his career. “My congregation, Congregation Beth Israel, and Colleyville have just undergone a traumatic experience. I’ve just undergone a traumatic experience,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And that’s where the focus needs to be.” Cytron-Walker was responding to an...
(JNS) - A U.S. District Court judge in New York dismissed a civil case brought by the family of slain Israeli American pro-Israel activist Ari Fuld against the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, citing lack of jurisdiction in a decision that could have broad implications in how American victims of terrorists can hold perpetrators liable. The lawsuit was brought by Fuld's family and the U.S. Justice Department after the 2018 murder of the 45-year-old father of four by a Palestinian terrorist....
(JNS) — Unilever’s stock has plunged 20.7 percent in the six months since it informed Avi Singer, the owner of Ben & Jerry’s Israel, that his contract was over unless he stopped selling the company’s ice cream in Judea and Samaria. That amounts to a $26 billion loss, according to Channel 12 News, which first reported on the story. The loss stems from the withdrawal of investments, holdings and pension funds by dozens of states who have anti-boycott laws in place, such as New York, Illinois and Texas. “This is a tremendous boost to the dogge...
(JNS) — Israel is preparing to test its novel coronavirus vaccine candidate, BriLife, as a booster dose, NRx Pharmaceuticals reported this week. The American company signed an agreement with the Defense Ministry in July to help fast-track the vaccine, developed by the Israel Institute for Biological Research. NRx, which is traded on Nasdaq, was given exclusive worldwide development, manufacturing and marketing rights. NRx met with IIBR experts last week to review data and research related to BriLife’s efficacy against the Omicron variant of...
TEL AVIV - A few weeks ago, Joel Tenenbaum, 81, and Marilyn Berkowitz, 84, arrived in Tel Aviv on an El Al flight from New York ready to start their new lives in Israel. They had met through JDate five years earlier. Each was widowed; Tenebaum had been married for 47 years, Berkowitz, known as Lyn, for 49. A retired New York trial lawyer raised in Brooklyn, Tenenbaum always had felt an affinity for Israel - fueled since childhood by Hebrew school and the movie "Exodus." Berkowitz, a former...
\(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Almost exactly 18 months ago, as the U.S. settled into its first pandemic summer, the Upper West Side’s flagship Jewish community center delivered some bad news to its staff: more than a third of them would be laid off or furloughed. The Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan joined JCCs nationwide in cutting staff when in-person programming abruptly shut down that spring and summer. Facing the devastating wave of COVID that hit the city at the time, the JCC Manhattan found itself unable to offer the range of services...
(JNS) — For two years now, since the outbreak of the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, hotels in Israel have seen dramatic drops in stays by incoming tourists; tour guides have lost most, if not all, of their business; and restaurants and other business owners who rely heavily on visitor traffic have suffered catastrophic and often irreversible damage, with many forced to close. The question on everyone’s mind is: When will tourism to Israel pick up again? Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahum told JNS that the tourism industry has been mos...
(JNS) — Documents, photos and ancient manuscripts from a monastery in the Sinai Peninsula are now available for free on the National Library of Israel website. The collection from Saint Catherine’s Monastery includes items from the 12th century. The monastery’s library is considerably older as it was founded in the sixth century by Byzantine Emperor Justinian the first and is believed to be the oldest working library. It contains works in various languages including Greek, Arabic, Syriac, Georgian, Armenian and more, which library offic...
(JNS) — As nuclear talks between Iran and world powers continue in Vienna, Iran appears to be already eying its next moves. On Jan. 14, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian visited China to discuss the 25-year cooperation agreement signed by the two countries earlier this year. That agreement aims to boost economic and political relations at the very same time the United States is looking to reduce its presence in the Middle East. “At the beginning of the new year in 2022, I am very happy to start my first visit to China since...
(JNS) — Israel abandoned its “red list” of countries last week — those destinations with high COVID-19 infection rates, from which foreign travelers were banned from entering Israel. It’s welcome news to pro-Israel groups whose bread and butter is organizing trips to Israel. They say the travel bans have complicated their mission to connect people to the Jewish state, and no amount of speaker series and digital events can compare to “putting two feet on Israeli soil.” Izzy Tapoohi, president and CEO of the Birthright Israel Foundation, t...
Netanyahu is considering a plea deal in his corruption cases that could bar him from politics for years, reports claim By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly negotiating a plea deal with prosecutors in his ongoing corruption cases that could bar him from politics for several years and further reshape Israel’s political landscape. Although various Israeli media reports have swirled inconclusively for several days — including some that claim momentum for a deal is slowing — all allege that Netanya...
(JTA) – The Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the famed Nazi hunter who died in 2005, defines itself as "a Jewish global human rights organization researching the Holocaust and hate in a historic and contemporary context." The center's associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, has helped to defuse antisemitism controversies involving celebrities for decades, such as the recent one surrounding Nick Cannon in 2020, in which Cooper personally engaged in several dialogue sessions with Cannon. Other W...
(JNS) — Just outside the entrance to the United Nations, a famous Jewish prophecy is engraved into the plaza’s Isaiah Wall: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares. And their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation. Neither shall they learn war any more.” Sadly, wars continue to be fought across the Middle East, and Israel still strives to maintain its Qualitative Military Edge over other nations in the region. Yet more and more, wars are changing form, and the effectiveness of conventional weapons...
(JNS) - "I'm grateful to be alive," wrote Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker on Facebook shortly after he emerged unscathed from his synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, where he was held hostage for nearly 11 hours, along with three congregants. "I am grateful that we made it out." The world watched in shock on Saturday as yet another antisemitic incident threatened to take the lives of innocent people - their only crime praying in their synagogue. On Sunday, the FBI named Malik...
Kevin and Melitza Lugo have a deep love for Israel. So deep that they put “their money where their heart is” and started Kemel Inc. Equipment Sales & Imports in 2019 to become distributors for Olea Essence From the Sea of Galilee, an Israeli company that makes olive oil products and gourmet products to women’s and men’s skincare products. One of Olea Essence’s best selling products is its olive oils that come in various flavors. All of the products are plant based and 100 percent natural. “We ca...
(JTA) — Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker has publicly described for the first time the moment he and two other hostages escaped a gunman in his synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday “The last hour or so of the standoff, he wasn’t getting what he wanted,” Cytron-Walker told CBS in an interview posted on Monday morning. “It didn’t look good. It didn’t sound good. We were very, we were terrified. “And when I saw an opportunity where he wasn’t in a good position, I made sure that the two gentlemen who were still with me that they were ready t...
(JNS) — A dozen major Jewish organizations spanning the religious and political spectrum are urging the U.S. Senate to quickly approve funding for the replenishment of Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system. The House of Representatives overwhelming approved (420-9) legislation last September to provide $1 billion in funds, but the legislation has since stalled in the Senate. The letter, which was spearheaded by the American Jewish Congress and Jewish Council for Public Affairs, calls on Senate leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McC...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — In a boon for scholars and amateur researchers, records from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust authority, are now publicly available through JewishGen, the largest online Jewish genealogy resource of its kind. The agreement announced Tuesday by Yad Vashem and New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage/A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, an affiliate of JewishGen, provides easy access to millions of names commemorated in Yad Vashem’s database. “Pages of Testimony,” documents collected by Yad Vashem since the 1950s, incl...
Our Cherished Community, There are no words for the fear, anger, and despair we felt this Shabbat as the situation in Colleyville, Texas unfolded. In the same way, words cannot describe our relief when all hostages emerged safely. This horrific incident is a reminder of what we already know: antisemitism remains a serious threat for American Jews in 2022. Federation is dedicated to the fight against antisemitism. We make the safety of our community the top priority every single day. Here in Orlando, we are fortunate to have a top leader in...
