Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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How important is Judaism for the Jews? We’ve long confused social science by being both an ethnic group (or tribe) and a religion. Among us are members of the tribe who deny religion, and converts to the religion who may have to wait a generation or two before being fully accepted by others as members of the tribe. We argue about members of the tribe who have adopted another religion. What are they? Their descendants can be welcomed back. And, depending who is judging, the converts themselves can change their minds. The question here is w...
(New Jersey Jewish News via JTA)—This past week was exhausting, but not in the way I’ve become accustomed to as the father of three children in a demanding profession. It began with the uplifting gala of the Masorti Foundation and a conference celebrating 30 years of women’s ordination, but was immediately followed by the soul-draining news that the ultra-Orthodox mayor of Rehovot, Israel, decided to cancel the b’nei mitzvah ceremony of children with disabilities because it was to be held in a Conservative synagogue. At the Masorti event,...
One of the most enduring images from the Baltimore riots was that of the irate mother of a rioter vigorously admonishing and slapping her law-breaking teenage son. Millions of frustrated Americans, watching the televised images of mobs of young people burning and looting at will, no doubt wondered, “Where are their parents?” Toya Graham, dubbed “the Baltimore Riot Mom” by the media, was one parent who refused to stand idly by any longer. Some Israelis are probably wishing there were a few “riot moms” in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem....
Dear Editor: Having spent last Tuesday evening at the Seminole County School Board meeting, I read with interest your article “Seminole County School Board Drops Yom Kipper as a Nonattendance Day.” The school board heard from two members of the Jewish community that evening. I spoke, as chairperson of the Jewish Community Relations Council, representing the Jewish Federation. I was followed by Rabbi Rick Sherwin of Congregation Beth Am. There were no other speakers that evening. The board thanked both of us and continued on with business. The...
Back in Roman times, Yemen went by the name “Arabia Felix”—Latin for “Happy Arabia.” It’s hard to think of a greater misnomer for this Arab state on the southern tip of the Persian Gulf, a few miles across the water from the Horn of Africa. The Romans actually had a pretty miserable time there. Aelius Gallus, who was the Prefect of Egypt in 26 BCE, tried to conquer the territory and was roundly defeated. Through the ages, Yemen maintained its warlike image, with its various tribes doing battle with the Ottoman Turks and the British Empire. The...
WHOA! This really got my attention. The recent article in the United Synagogue’s Spring issue of “CJ-Voices of Conservative/Masorti Judaism” on page 9, titled “Resource for Jewish-Muslim Engagement.” From the headline, this seemed like it had possibilities. However, this was quickly squashed when I learned the three participants in this endeavor would be the Hartford Seminary, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS)! I do have reservations about the validity of such a partnership. I am certainly...
A number of individuals from my hometown of Fall River have traveled to Ponta Delgada in the Azores to commemorate the refurbishing of a synagogue that they had financed. They also met with the one Jew still living in the islands. Jews had once been a major element in Portugal, but no more. They also were a major element in Fall River, but no more. Jewish history in Portugal resembled Jewish history in Spain. A sizable population developed in the early Middle Ages, by some reports a larger percentage of the total population than in Spain. In bo...
A combined JCC and Federation? It isn’t a new idea. Tampa’s Jewish Community Center and Federation merged 20 years ago. It’s also happened in Austin, Texas and up in Connecticutt and in more than 25 other communities across the United States. Now it is a topic that is being tossed around in the Orlando Jewish community. Nothing is concrete, it is only talk at this time. But with the changing economy and similar mission statements, it makes a lot of sense. Wondering how the merge between Tampa’s JCC and Federation has worked, I spoke with Emilie...
It pains me that I can’t pray there. But it’s not an Arab woman who is preventing me. So the Arab women, calling themselves the army of Muhammad, stand guard at the Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif, Noble Sanctuary, whatever you call it, depending on what tribe you’re from. In between noshing and knitting and drinking tea, they seek out Jews, the visibly religious kind who ascend the Temple Mount, to stop them from praying there. They chase them down, surround them, terrify them, some calling them pigs and apes. “Everyone must protect Al Aksa so...
On April 15, 1945, the British Second Army entered Bergen-Belsen. One week later, prisoners in the concentration camp beat Rachel Genuth (my mother) until she lost consciousness. The 15-year-old had managed throughout the war to evade punishment at the hand of a Nazi officer or kapo. Now, after the liberation, while blows fell on her, she thought, “We who survived will never be human again.” In the winter and spring of 1945, Bergen-Belsen, in northwest Germany, had morphed into the largest repository for inmates shunted from the east, away fro...
I recently attended the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s women’s fundraising event – CHOICES – at the behest of the honoree, Ina Porth. It was a well-run program, and Ina is as deserving of the special attention as anyone could be. But that’s not what I’m writing about. While there were a number of excellent examples of positive programs run by the local Federation (teen trips to Israel, RAISE – Recognizing Abilities and Inclusion of Special Employees), I was moved most by the call to acti...
When Barack Obama began his first term as president, foreign policy chatter was prone to including terms like “regime change” and “axis of evil” in discussions about Iran. But as Obama sought to break decisively with the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush, he moved rapidly in the opposite direction, offering an olive branch to the Iranian regime within a few weeks of assuming office. In March 2009, Obama delivered a message to mark the Persian New Year in which he said, “The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its...
By Ira Sharkansky It isn’t the Caribbean image of paradise made popular by Harry Belafonte, but the Israeli reality of being out of step with its surroundings. And the surroundings extend much further than its Muslim neighbors. They also include pretty much the whole world as represented by the United Nations, as well as large segments of American Jews. Israel just ain’t what a lot of people think it is, or think it should be. To a considerable extend, it represents the latest expression of Jewish history, i.e., being an outsider, having to str...
As part of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ongoing campaign to isolate and delegitimize Israel, the Palestinian Football (Soccer) Association is trying to get Israel suspended from international soccer’s governing body. The Palestinians are seeking to have an anti-Israel resolution considered at next month’s annual congress, in Zurich, of the Federation Internationale de Football Association, better known as FIFA. The resolution will argue that Israel should be suspended because it does not sufficiently permit free access between Pales...
KRAKOW, Poland (JTA)—The International March of the Living is in its 27th year. In those years, over 220,000 young people from around the globe have come to Poland to study, reflect and remember. They then return to their communities to share their personal reaction to facing the past through their experience in the present. This is the 70th year since the end of World War II. With every passing day, the number of survivors among us decreases. Our responsibility is to find the best way to ensure that their story is passed on from generation t...
NEW YORK (JTA)—It’s happening again: Palestinian refugees are caught between warring factions in the Middle East and the world is reacting too slowly to their plight. In earlier times, Palestinian refugees found themselves in the crosshairs at the Sabra and Shatila camps, when Lebanese Phalangists massacred them while Israeli forces stood by. Now it’s the Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria, where militants from the Islamic State have targeted Palestinian civilians in a reign of terror that Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general, has called the ...
Dear Editor: First, I want to give my heartfelt appreciation to the organizers of the Yom HaZikaron Ceremony at the Jewish Community Center on April 21. They presented a most meaningful commemoration. The musicians and singers were outstanding! I want to thank those who shared the memory of loved ones. They did this with great personal pain. On film an American father talked about his fallen IDF son. The Yom Hazikaron program was not well attended for a community our size. Where was the Central Florida Jewish Community? The Israel Defense...
As expected, the Obama administration is having a hard time selling the American public on the feeble understanding—it’s not a “deal,” since nothing was signed—that was recently reached with Iran over its nuclear program. Let’s start with President Barack Obama himself. Interviewed by Thomas Friedman of the New York Times after the understanding was announced, Obama was confident and buoyant, declaring that there was no formula “more effective than the diplomatic initiative and framework that we put forward” when it comes to preventing Tehr...
The two countries I know best are both immersed in political frenzy. In the United States it is the onset of the 2016 presidential campaign. In Israel it is sorting out the goodies and the claimants after last month’s election. Both are marked by hyperbolic claims and promises, which are not likely to produce more than tiny increments of what affects the future of each place. The American presidential race may end up as a competition between two dynasties, with Jeb Bush against Hillary Clinton. So much for claims of being the most openly d...
I found out something a few weeks ago that I should have known for decades. When the Roman Legions left Israel, having slaughtered thousands and sent thousands more out into what would become known as the Diaspora; they left behind dozens of Jewish villages that continued to survive. These enclaves of biblical era Jewish life, continued to exist and do until this day. So, first of all, it should put to rest the idea that Jews in any way are newcomers and interlopers on that land. We never left. Israel today is a heterogeneous mix of Orthodox,...
Leave it to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to shill shamelessly for President Barack Obama. In a lengthy interview about the Iran nuclear framework, the ever-sycophantic Friedman gives us new insight into the banality of mediocrity—Obama’s as statesman and his as journalist. Seldom before have we seen such a coupling try to spin diplomatic surrender into victory. Unchallenged, the voluble Obama reveals his personal hurt about being labeled anti-Israel by segments of the American Jewish community. Once again, Obama reminds Friedman’s v...
NEW YORK (JTA)—The evening before we visited Auschwitz, over pizza with a group of young people in Oswiecim, the town on whose outskirts lies that infamous symbol, one of my students approached me with tears in her eyes. Tears are hardly uncommon to visitors of sites of mass death. But for this student—a participant in a weeklong trip to Auschwitz undertaken as part of a course on Holocaust history and literature that I teach at Baruch College in New York City—the trip marked her first time on a plane, her first time in a foreign count...
Hillary Clinton is hoping for a “new tone” in the U.S.-Israel relationship, one Jewish leader recently claimed. But in the meantime, Israel is stuck dealing with the deadly consequences of her policies as secretary of state. Russia this week announced its intention to provide Iran with the S-300 advanced missile system. Russian president Vladimir Putin reportedly justified his action on the grounds that the missile system is for defensive purposes. In this case, however, “defensive” means that it could be used to “defend” Iran’s nuclear weapo...
Let me state this up front. I am not a big fan of Benjamin Netanyahu. I believe his hard line approach to continuing the development of settlements and building in East Jerusalem is counterproductive. I think his recent visit to the United States to speak to and influence Congress damaged Israel’s relationship with its most important ally, and was completely devoid of any constructive ideas. His re-election tactics, including announcing the day before elections that he was opposed to a 2...
By Ed Ziegler Do you really think that World War II’s Holocaust has taught the world a lesson? I think not. It clearly appears, to me, that much of the world has not learned. If we do not honestly face facts now, in this nuclear age, we are doomed to endure even greater horrors. There are “Holocaust Deniers” and“ “Revisionists” who claim there’s no evidence the Holocaust ever occurred. They claim there are only false tales of “gas chambers disguised as shower rooms, factious wartime barbaric sadistic atrocities forms of mass murder designed...
