Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1844 - 1868 of 1941
(JTA)-In 1992, Edgar Bronfman was preparing to leave North America for Paris for his first meeting with then-French President Francois Mitterand at the Elysee Palace when at the last minute Bronfman decided he wanted to take an unexpected meeting in Geneva instead. So he asked Serge Cwajgenbaum, Bronfman's right-hand man in Europe, to phone the palace and ask to reschedule. The Elysee secretary, Hubert Vendrine, exploded. "He asked me who Edgar Bronfman thinks he is to move around a meeting... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-For years, the historic Jewish cemetery was so overgrown with weeds, plagued by toppled headstones, and littered with fallen branches, beer cans and snack-food wrappers that at least a quarter of its graves were impossible to reach. Even now, after a $140,000 cleanup and improved maintenance procedures, the 35,000-grave cemetery relies on the generosity of a non-Jewish volunteer to repair its tombstones, fences and mausoleums. The cemetery isn't in Eastern Europe. It's the... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)-For Jewish and pro-Israel groups, the congressional year is ending with an odd reversal: the prospect, however fragile, of bipartisan comity on budget issues coupled with a rare partisan disagreement on Middle Eastern policy. The groups that deal with social welfare and justice issues are heartened, albeit warily, by the end-of-year budget forged by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Budget Committee, and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), his... Full story
(JNS.org) Boston University international relations professor Angelo Codevilla, who was a senior staffer on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee at the time of the arrest of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in 1985, wrote a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama calling for Pollard’s release and offering to give expert testimony on Pollard’s behalf. In his letter, Codevilla noted that Pollard is the only person in U.S. history “sentenced to life imprisonment for passing information to an ally, without intent to harm America,” a crime that normall... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Vice President Joe Biden said the White House will work with the Jewish community to help Holocaust survivors living in poverty. Speaking at the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Centennial on Tuesday, Biden said the White House will appoint a special envoy at the Department of Health and Human Services to act as a liaison for survivors and the nonprofit community organizations that serve them. A partnership with the AmeriCorps VISTA program to increase the number of volunteers helping Holocaust survivors will be... Full story
SAN DIEGO (JTA)-What do you get when you bring together 5,000 of the Reform movement's faithful for a conference in sunny San Diego in mid-December? Four days of singing, learning, schmoozing and worrying at a gathering that seemed equal parts pep rally and intervention session. For pep, there were the spirited prayer services, the morning-till-night stream of musical performances and Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, or URJ, who compared the challenges facing... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-With an estimated Jewish population of 275 undergraduates, the Quaker-founded Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia is home to one of the smaller Hillel chapters in the country. But that hasn't stopped student activists at the small suburban school from picking a fight of potentially epic proportions with the umbrella group Hillel International. On Dec. 8, the Swarthmore Hillel student board announced that it had voted unanimously to defy Hillel International's guidelines for... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Hillel International warned its Swarthmore College chapter that it cannot use the Hillel name if it flouts the international Jewish campus group’s Israel guidelines. Hillel delivered the warning in a sharply worded letter following the Swarthmore chapter student board’s decision to repudiate Hillel guidelines prohibiting partnerships with groups deemed hostile toward Israel. In his letter, Hillel’s president and CEO, Eric Fingerhut, warned Swarthmore Hillel’s student communications coordinator, Joshua Wolfsun, that the chapter’s... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-For the first 3 1/2 weeks of the summer, one group of 5-year-olds at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, N.Y., was "very quiet" as the children went about the typical camp activities, according to Amy Skopp Cooper, the camp's director. But in the fourth week, the talking started-in Israeli-accented Hebrew. By the end of the summer, evaluations revealed that most of the 20 children-all of whom had started out as Hebrew novices-"had gone up multiple levels" in their Hebrew proficiency, Cooper... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-On a bright autumn morning, Hebrew songs and phrases fill the sun-drenched, freshly painted blue and white classrooms of New York's Harlem Hebrew Language Academy Charter School. A group of kindergartners, representing such an even mix of black and white children that they resemble a 1980s Benetton ad, clasp each other by the waist and dance in a "rakevet," or train, stopping every few moments to add a new child who, as the teachers explain in Hebrew, is sitting nicely on his or... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-At the federation movement's General Assembly in Jerusalem in early November, the chairman of the network did something unusual for Jewish power gatherings: He devoted the bulk of his speech to nursery school. Calling Jewish preschool the "seedbed of our community," the chairman of Jewish Federations of North America, Michael Siegal, pledged to raise $1 billion over the next decade for a Jewish revitalization plan with tuition-free Jewish preschool as its centerpiece. By offering... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)-Chava, a student at a Chabad seminary, has lived in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn for six years, but it's only in the past few days that she started carrying pepper spray in her handbag. Her younger brother gave her the deterrent after news hit of a string of recent attacks against Orthodox Jews, seven of them in Crown Heights. The assaults, believed to be part of a national wave of so-called "knockout game" attacks in which black teens punch random white strangers for... Full story
(JNS.org) Last Thursday, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard entered his 29th year in American prison. Pollard, now 59, was arrested in Washington on Nov. 21, 1985. He was later convicted of spying for Israel, and is the only person in U.S. history to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally. "It's an embarrassment for America, it's a lack of justice, it's an embarrassment for the world," Rabbi Pesach Lerner, executive vice president emeritus of the National Council of Young Israel,... Full story
WASHINGTON, D.C.—American Jews and American Muslims called on Congress in a joint statement to pass comprehensive immigration reform with a meaningful path to citizenship. In joining together as unlikely allies, Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) renewed their united push to refocus Congress’ attention on the nation’s most pressing domestic policy crisis. The following is a joint statement from Alan van Capelle, CEO of Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice and Haris Tarin, direc... Full story
The United States Postal Service recently introduced a new Chanukah stamp. The 2013 Chanukah stamp features a photograph of a beautiful forged-iron menorah created by Vermont blacksmith Steven Bronstein, who uses the ancient techniques of blacksmithing to create modern designs. Bronstein's blend of the primitive charm of ironwork with a contemporary design appealed to art director Ethel Kessler. "There is a rich tradition of crafts in Judaic art and that tradition goes back many generations,"... Full story
The Jewish community is rightly concerned with a campus environment that is too often hostile to Israel. Public demonstrations, inflammatory language and personal attacks by anti-Israel organizations seek to exploit the spirit of open debate and public action central to American academic life. Rather than reflexively respond to the animosity of others, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)—America’s pro-Israel lobby—and Hillel—the center of Jewish life on over 550 campuses worldwide—are working together to strategic... Full story
When recent rabbinical school graduate Rabbi Benjamin Frankel began a part-time clerical position in 1923 working with students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), little could he have imagined that within less than a century, the small Jewish student program would balloon into a national and international organization with a presence at 550 colleges and universities. Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is celebrating its 90th anniversary in November, the organiza... Full story
The weekend of Oct. 24-27 I was granted a wonderful opportunity to attend the Chabad on Campus Shabbaton in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I haven't had an experience like this since I was a part of B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) in Nashville, Tenn. I lived in Nashville for six years but prior to that I was in Orlando. I attended preschool at the JCC and Hebrew school at Congregation Ohev Shalom. Since high school I haven't felt that strong connection to Judaism while in college. Luckily,... Full story
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) applauded the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) for its approval of the Older Americans Act (OAA), which includes the Holocaust survivor legislation. Services under the OAA help enable Holocaust survivors and other older adults to age in place in their homes and communities. “With each passing day it becomes even more urgent to do all we can for the survivors of the Holocaust,” said Michael Siegal, chairman of the JFNA Board of Trustees. “The guidanc... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Bernard Madoff. An unscrupulous contractor. Art that disappeared or was destroyed by fire—it’s not clear which. Bad, bad bookkeepers. And did we mention Bernard Madoff? These were among the causes of “material diversion” of assets—tax-speak for lost funds or property totaling $250,000 or 5 percent—reported by Jewish organizations on their tax returns. Since 2008, the IRS has asked nonprofit organizations to indicate on their tax returns whether they have become aware of such losses in the past year. According to an investigat... Full story
(JNS.org) A new advertising campaign in Boston-area newspapers calls out officials in the public school system of Newton, Mass., over the alleged presence of anti-Israel materials in those schools. The Boston-based nonprofit Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) took out the ads in the Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Newton Tab, Boston Metro, and Jewish Advocate. The ads cover research by concerned parents and students that has revealed the presence of anti-Israel texts in Newton schools... Full story
(JTA)- Marla Topp of Temple Judea Mizpah in Skokie, Ill., doesn't need survey data to tell her that Reform Judaism is in decline and Orthodox Judaism is growing. She has to look no further than her own synagogue. A couple of months ago, the temple began renting out unused classroom space to an Orthodox school that had outgrown its building. Now its classrooms serve as a satellite location for the Arie Crown Hebrew Day School's early childhood program. The Orthodox preschool isn't the temple's... Full story
BOSTON (JPR)—The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described an anti-Israel billboard campaign appearing throughout the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) System as, “intentionally designed to mislead the public.” The billboards show a series of four maps and falsely claim that Israel has systematically confiscated land from the Palestinians. The ads, which began appearing last week, are sponsored by Henry Clifford, who co-chairs the virulently anti-Israel group Committee for Peace in Israel and Palestine. “These billboards are intenti... Full story
(JTA)-When Craig Breslow entered the playoff game against the Detroit Tigers, FOX broadcaster Tim McCarver hailed the Boston Red Sox reliever-a Yale University graduate with a double major in molecular biophysics and biochemistry-as the smartest player in Major League Baseball. But with Breslow's stellar performance this postseason, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington is looking like the genius for acquiring the lefty in a trade last year. In Boston's first two playoff series this season,... Full story
NEW YORK—The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued a list of the Top 10 most influential and active anti-Israel groups in the United States. Each of the selected groups, according to ADL’s research, is “fixated with delegitimizing Israel” and has demonstrated the ability to reach new segments of the American public with a hostile and misleading narrative about Israel. “The Top 10 anti-Israel groups are the most significant players in the domestic anti-Israel movement today,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. “The groups are fi... Full story
