Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS.org) Hundreds of people demonstrated on Feb. 23 outside the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, calling on the U.S. to release imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. The demonstrators held signs reading "Free Pollard" and "29 years, that's enough." A number of Knesset members took part in the demonstration, including Moshe Feiglin and Tzachi Hanegbi (both Likud), Shuli Mualem-Rafaeli (Habayit Hayehudi), and Nachman Shai (Labor). "We are appealing to the Americans and telling them, 'Enough,'" Shai...
Jam session. Flash poll. A tapping into our collective mind. Almost three weeks ago, from Feb. 16-19, 2,135 people-61 percent between the ages of 18 and 34-participated with world Jewish leaders in an online "jam session" organized through a joint initiative between the government of Israel and an entity being termed world Jewry. The initiative, said Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett, was about "hearing new ideas and empowering Jews from around the world to take part in...
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- A billboard in central Tel Aviv features a black-and-white photo of a distressed woman above a caption in bold red letters that reads, “The pain and remorse from my abortion accompany me every day.” The billboard is an advertisement for Efrat, an anti-abortion outfit that dubs itself “The Committee to Rescue Israel’s Babies” and offers financial support to pregnant women in an effort to persuade them not to terminate their pregnancies. Efrat has never protested outside a gynecological clinic, nor has it sought to restrict...
Ukraine’s religious communities ask Russia to pull out troops (JTA)—Religious communities in Ukraine, including the Jewish community, called on Russia to “stop its aggression against Ukraine” and pull out its troops. The religious communities also appealed to the international community, including the United States, Great Britain, the European Union, the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, to “stop foreign invasion into Ukraine and brutal interference into our internal affairs.” Rabbi Jacob Dov Bleich,...
(Algemeiner )-One of Ukraine's chief rabbis, Moshe Reuven Asman, urged Jews to leave the capital city Kiev following a reported anti-Semitic attack on two Chabad yeshiva students in the city last month, Israeli daily Ma'ariv reported. "I told my community to get out of the city and if possible out of the state... there are many warnings about planned attacks against Jewish institutions," Asman said, adding, "We have been told by the Israeli Embassy to not go outside." Many members of Kiev's...
Alice Herz-Sommer, oldest Holocaust survivor and subject of celebrated documentary, dies at 110 (JTA)—Alice Herz-Sommer, the 110-year-old Holocaust survivor and concert pianist whose life was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, has died. Herz-Sommer, who was believed to be the oldest Holocaust survivor and was still playing the piano, died Sunday morning in London. “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life,” the 38-minute film about her life, is up for best short documentary at the Academy Awards to be handed out next month. The f...
NEW YORK—In the wake of Hadassah Medical Organization’s announcement that it must restructure, the national board of Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America (HWZOA) resolves to help the hospitals emerge from their financial crisis and assures supporters that all contributions to the Hadassah Medical Organization (HMO) will be used solely for intended purposes. HWZOA sent a message to HMO and those it serves expressing solidarity during HMO’s restructuring process. HMO’s board announced on Feb. 7 that it would apply to the court fo...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)-In her 110 years, Alice Herz-Sommer has been an accomplished concert pianist and teacher, a wife and mother-and a prisoner in Theresienstadt. Now she is the star of an Oscar-nominated documentary showing her indomitable optimism, cheerfulness and vitality despite all the upheavals and horrors she faced in the 20th century. "The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life," a 38-minute film up for best short documentary at the Academy Awards to be handed out next month, begins in her...
(JNS.org)—Three days into the 2014 Sochi Olympic games, Jewish-American figure skater Jason Brown won a bronze medal at the team figure skating competitions Feb. 9. In addition to his skating, Brown has grabbed international attention due to his hairstyle. Brown’s flowing ponytail seemed to move with the skater symmetrically as he danced. The ponytail even got its own Twitter account, @2014PonyPower, with many followers. “I am still the same person before I left for [U.S.] Nationals,” he said. “I’m that crazy guy with long hair who loves to sk...
NEW YORK and JERUSALEM—CathMaps+, the world’s first HIPAA-compliant mobile application for cardiac patients and people living with elevated risk of a cardiac incident, that integrates their cardiac history with an interactive map of Cath Labs throughout most of the world, was launched for the U.S. market. CathMaps+ mission is simple: to use mobile technology to provide peace of mind and emergency assistance to hundreds of thousands of Americans in their most urgent time of need. The app was created by Danny Oberman, an Israeli who made ali...
Interactive map charts Holocaust deportations of French children (JTA)—A French historian has created an interactive map that charts the location of children deported from France during the Holocaust. On Monday, the online map by Jean-Luc Pinol was so overloaded with connections that it could not be accessed. Based on data collected by Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld, the map is part of an exhibit on display outside the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Paris. Some 11,400 children were among the 76,000 Jews deported from France and s...
With the Winter Olympics underway in Sochi, Russia, the Jewish debate on the games mirrors the discourse taking place in the broader international and athletic communities. While some Jews say they view the games purely as sport-with social or political issues not factoring into their evaluation-not all can ignore Russia's controversial "gay propaganda" legislation, political detentions, allegations of Olympic corruption, and the recent terrorist threats against the games. "I personally don't...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Of the 200,000 wine bottles Yakov Burg produced last year, 16,000 went to Europe. The possibility of a boycott and repeated rumblings that Europe is planning to label goods produced in the settlements could decrease that number, but Burg isn't worried. The CEO of Psagot Winery, which is located in a settlement of the same name in the hills of the central West Bank, Burg prides himself on running a Jewish-owned business in the West Bank, even welcoming groups of Christian Zionists...
(Algemeiner)—In a sharp about turn, AIPAC, the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, has now backed the White House in its call to delay a Senate vote on new sanctions against Iran while the U.S. and world powers negotiate with the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. In a statement released on the heels of an extensive speech by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), calling on both sides of the Iran sanctions debate to soften their positions, AIPAC said, “We agree with the Chairman that stopping the Ira...
AGAHOZO-SHALOM YOUTH VILLAGE, Rwanda (JTA)-Anne Heyman's death during a horse-riding competition in Palm Beach, Fla., on Jan. 31 shocked and devastated many in the Jewish world. But it was Heyman's work in Rwanda that so many of her admirers will remember most. A former assistant district attorney in Manhattan who made a career shift to philanthropy around the time she began having children, Heyman learned during a visit to the Tufts University Hillel in 2005 about children who were left...
Virginia Beach students to make up school on Saturdays (JTA)-Virginia Beach City public schools will have classes on three Saturdays to make up for days lost from a major snowstorm last month. "We hope our community could be reassured that our religious needs can be met," Rabbi Israel Zoberman of Beth Chaverim, a Reform congregation in Virginia Beach, told the local media. "We don't want anyone to pay a price for the snow that came upon us." Zoberman told WAVY-TV, "I would like to believe that someone overlooked the fact that on Saturday Jews...
NEW YORK—Taglit-Birthright Israel has announced that it is expanding its program eligibility to now include those young adults who had previously visited Israel as part of a peer trip when they were younger. The organization said the reason for the change in policy was based on an educational assessment that those who may have visited as a teenager would gain a significantly greater understanding and attachment to Israel through the Taglit-Birthright experience as a young adult. Beginning with the Summer 2014 registration that opens on Feb. 1...
On Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m., former Jewish refugees from Arab countries will step before the microphone and share experiences they and their families lived as they sought freedom in the United States. This event will take place at Temple Israel, 50 S. Moss Road, Winter Springs. Following the screening of the film The Forgotten Jews they will share their stories, followed by a question and answer session. Among those participating are Azita Yashar and Solly Gabay Haber. Yashar was born and educated in Tehran. Her early education was in public...
Carlos and Maria and their two children wanted to emigrate to Israel from their home in Argentina, but financially it was an impossible dream. Argentina had suffered financial collapse in 2001, and even though the economy was slowly improving, inflation and anti-Semitism were still on the rise. The family was beginning to lose hope when the Jewish Agency introduced them to representatives of Ezra International. With financial aid, Ezra made it possible for Maria to get to Israel first while her...
(JNS.org) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper made history last Monday by becoming the first Canadian leader to address the Israeli Knesset, saying Canada will stand by Israel ''through fire and water." Harper, who is making his first-ever trip to Israel, arrived on Sunday at Tel Aviv's Ben-Gurion Airport to a lavish ceremony. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Harper's courage and said he is a "great friend of Israel and the Jewish people." In his speech to the Knesset,...
WASHINGTON (JTA)- In previous AIPAC vs. White House dustups, the pro-Israel lobbying group's strategy was to speak softly and let Congress carry the big stick. But in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's face-off with the Obama administration over new Iran sanctions, congressional support may not be so readily available and keeping a low public profile is proving impossible. According to congressional insiders and some of the pro-Israel lobbying group's former senior executives, AIPAC...
When the economic crisis hit Bulgaria in 2011, Yana-a Jewish mother of three-was one of the first casualties. She lost her job as an optician and suddenly her family had to survive on her husband's meager salary of $500 a month. Bills pilled up quickly, and soon they were $8,000 in debt. Struggles like that of Yana's family are sadly common among some European Jews today. And while our understandable focus tends to be on the rise of nationalism and anti-Semitic political parties, the economic ha...
BUCHAREST, Romania (JTA-Touring the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2005, Romanian President Traian Basescu was unprepared to confront some painful truths. Facing a photograph showing pro-Nazi Romanian troops offloading their Jewish countrymen from cargo trains, Basescu was shocked and saddened. For decades, his country's educational system had obscured the truth of Romanian complicity in the deaths of their Jewish countrymen. Now here he was in Washington seeing hard evidence to the...
With the Middle East in turmoil, Europe moving backwards, and the United States fatigued from years of war and recession, Canada has emerged as a staunch supporter of Israel. At a time when Israel is routinely singled out for condemnation, Canada has been at the forefront of defending Israel and criticizing its enemies. This outspokenness comes amid the growing economic and political clout of Canada, a country that is traditionally accustomed to keeping a low profile internationally. While...
Leaked comments Israeli Defense Minister Moshe [Bogie] Ya'alon made about U.S. Secretary State of State John Kerry's approach to Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations caused a diplomatic stir last week. Yet Ya'alon's reported remarks-which characterized Kerry's approach as an "obsession" and as "messianic"-appear to have less to do with any personal dislike of Kerry and more to do with how Kerry's pursuit of a two-state solution is at odds with the defense minister's understanding of...
