Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3533 - 3557 of 3706
JERUSALEM (JTA)—The scene is familiar to us all. Women of the Wall come to the Kotel to worship in the shadow of the Temple Mount. Haredi Orthodox worshippers respond by disrupting their prayers, sometimes pelting them with eggs and other objects. Underlying these clashes are distinctly modern issues—the conflict between liberal and traditionalist Jewish movements and the proper place of religion in the Jewish state, among others. But the controversy surrounding women’s prayer at the Western Wall hearkens back to events that occurred but a few... Full story
Dear Editor: Chanukah stamps should be available at all post offices on or about Oct. 17. It will not be a new issue, rather it will be the same stamp issued in 2011. Since it is not a new issue, not all post offices will order a supply. Chanukah is early this year, beginning the night of Nov. 27. If your post office does not have a supply of Hanukkah stamps after Oct. 20 you can contact Ronald Scheiman at hanukkah@att.net. This information is important to show there is a demand for Hanukkah stamps that is not being met. Ronald Scheiman The... Full story
The girlfriend had been living with her boyfriend for nearly seven years. They lived a good life. He owned a successful business he’d built up himself. She worked at a highly respected international environmental organization. She was extremely cool—bright, funny, well liked by all. Neither was young anymore. They’d both been married once, and though they loved one another, they hadn’t yet gotten over the bad taste their previous, difficult relationships had left. So, while they didn’t... Full story
By Ira Sharkansky The people of Israel continue to live in a condition that is marked on the one side by the theme of the national anthem, Hope, and on the other by the national slogan, oy gevalt. Once again, this New Year has its reasons for optimism, not unblemished by worries. Life is good for most of us. Measures of health rank Israelis as one of the most long-lived of people (Jews and others), with a medical system considered among the best in the world. Hospital care does not provide the luxuries associated with private rooms enjoyed by... Full story
If our prayers are heartfelt, they will resonate on high, and be answered favorably. One of the loveliest aspects of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the concept of forgiveness, the notion that if we are sincere in our commitment to make atonement for past sins and try to improve our ways, God will, in effect, wipe our slate clean at the outset of the new Jewish year. But too often, despite our best efforts, human nature intervenes and we are back to our old ways before we know it. That’s why one particular, and often neglected, passage of t... Full story
“Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon/The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave/They buried us without shroud or coffin/And in August the barley grew up out of our grave.” These lines are from the poem “Requiem for the Croppies,” by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who died last week. They were pointed out to me by a dear friend of mine, also an Irishman, who instructively observed how Heaney’s verse—which commemorated the merciless British crushing of an Irish uprising in 1798—eerily conjures up the terrible real... Full story
LOS ANGELES—I started building my sukkah in December. To those of you who are sukkah DIYers, you know how ridiculous this sounds. A sukkah is the ritual hut that Jews build each year on the holiday of Sukkot, which begins this year on the evening of Sept. 18. You set it up after Yom Kippur, you take it down after the eight days of Sukkot are over. Most sukkahs come as easy-to-make pre-fab kits—setting one up takes all of 30 minutes, even for a tool-challenged people. So why did I start making mine eight months ago? Because this year, I’m makin... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—Each year when I sit in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m struck by the complex stories we read about biblical women and by the wisdom these stories offer about ensuring the dignity of women and girls today. The past year was one of paradoxes. At a time when Sheryl Sandberg, Malala Yousafzai, Wendy Davis and countless others reinvigorated conversations about women’s leadership, health and safety, rape and sexual violence continued to escalate all over the world. As I try to grasp these contradictions, I’m r... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the trial of Leo Frank in Atlanta, let’s begin by stating for the record: No, the Leo Frank case was not the impetus for the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. It is true that the organization, now celebrating its centennial, was founded the same year as the arrest and trial of Frank for the murder of one of his factory workers, a 13-year-old girl named Mary Phagan. But the idea for ADL, conceived by Sigmund Livingston, a Chicago attorney, preceded the case. Rather than being the... Full story
The barbarians didn’t appear out of thin air; they have always been around. They have been operating in sleeper cells within the mock civilization that was left behind by the European colonialists as the first world war drew to a close in Middle East. With Syria’s lid blown off, President Bashar al-Assad’s tribe and its various affiliates have been fighting the Sunni tribes that were in power before November 1970, when Assad’s father staged a coup and had his loyalists appointed to senior positions in the military and the government. Do the var... Full story
Beheading someone is sickening and vicious. Although it has been around for centuries, todays civilized societies no longer use this form of punishment. However Islamic fanatics still freely use decapitating people for perceived insults to Islam and transgression. It is believed that yearly decapitations are in the thousands. Many Muslims profess they are striving to take over the entire world for Islam by any means. Submit to Islam and Sharia or else. The following three verses, approving of decapitations are samples of what are found in the... Full story
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations have started once again. Hopefully, despite the many problems which must be resolved, they will end with better results than previous ones. One of the main problems is that of Palestinian refugees, as they are commonly called. To say it correctly, the people we now call refugees are the descendants of Palestinian Arabs who left Palestine in 1948 during the Arab countries’ aggression against the infant Jewish state of Israel. Around 700,000 Arabs left, mainly encouraged by the propaganda of Arab countries, w... Full story
Twenty four years ago a man, a woman, and a child stood in the arrival hall of the Boston Logan airport. Tired and disoriented after a long flight from overseas, their old life in the USSR left resolutely behind, they were hopeful for a better future. In Boston, they were met by a group of people representing an organization whose name the woman didn’t know. Nor did she know that this organization would soon become her life and her passion. In April, the board of directors hired that woman (yes, you guessed right, that woman was me) as an e... Full story
Dear editor, It is clear that the author, Chris DeSouza, of the Heritage’s article on Brown’s Deli in the Aug. 23 edition did not do her homework. Just checking the local Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s website, www.jfgo.org, and clicking on the sub-link “Kosher Food” in the “Passport to Jewish Orlando” link would have shown that there are at least two other kosher restaurants in the metropolitan Orlando area, which have been in the area for at least a few years. Other restaurants, but a distance away such as in Ormond Beach are als... Full story
Back in 1976, when the burgeoning punk movement began transforming the rock ’n’ roll landscapes of London and New York, a young man named John Lydon scrawled the words “I Hate...” on his Pink Floyd t-shirt. With this one stroke, Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, the lead singer of The Sex Pistols, demarcated the past from the future: eschewing the lengthy and ponderous compositions of Floyd’s front man, Roger Waters, Rotten and his mates set about delivering sharp, angry tunes in a compact three-minute format. Almost 40 years later, popular music has... Full story
Much attention, here and elsewhere, is given to encouraging American Jews to have a deeper understanding of contemporary Israel, in all its complexity, as a country that is seen by much of the world as Goliath while it perceives itself as David. But for all of our emphasis on the importance of the relationship between diaspora and Israeli Jews, our Mideast cousins get a pass; there is far too little focus on the responsibility of Israeli Jews to know us better. In truth, most Israelis have little understanding or appreciation of the diversity... Full story
I don’t know, maybe it is age, but the years roll around awfully fast (yeah, it’s age). Was it a full year ago we were preparing for the High Holy Days? OK, so we know that Jewish holidays are never “on time.” “Oy! Didn’t Yom Kippur come early this year?” “Passover is when? Too late this year!” The drill is the same. Ten days to figure out whom you really wronged over the past year and make amends. That is highly subjective. Did I really wrong him? “Ah—he deserved it and besides he wouldn’t even notice!” That’s not the idea and he probably di... Full story
LOS ANGELES—The holiest days on the Jewish calendar, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, are largely spent in synagogue. Yet prayer isn’t usually the focus when Jews prepare for the High Holidays, observes Cantor Arik Wollheim. “Hopefully people go through this process of repentance, and they give charity, but what about prayer?” Wollheim tells JNS.org. “People neglect that. How many people open the prayer book before Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and go over the davening?” The answer, Wollheim says, is almost no one. But he is looking to change that... Full story
By Dore Gold JNS.org On Israel’s popular morning radio station, Reshet Bet, broadcaster Aryeh Golan recently interviewed Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin about the latest demands by the European Union (EU), that its research and development grants not be applied to territories beyond the 1967 lines. Since mid-July, there have been reports of new EU guidelines that are expected to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, and are to apply to grants, prizes, and other financial instruments to Israeli bodies. Reflecting some of the growing rage in I... Full story
(JTA)—Everyone knows that an ocean separates Israel and the United States. Yet after three days in New York recently, I realized just how big that ocean really is. Along with five Israeli journalists, I participated in a seminar organized by the Ruderman Family Foundation meant to help us understand the diverse U.S. Jewish community. But as we met with more and more Jewish leaders whose Judaism is their passion—and for some their profession—I realized just how wide and absurd the gap is between American Jewry and Israel. We met two kinds of Jew... Full story
One of the oft-repeated criticisms of the movement to boycott Israel is that it portrays the Middle East’s only healthy democracy as the ultimate rogue state, ignoring at the same time those authoritarian regimes that violate the most basic human rights on a daily basis. Frankly, that’s why I’m pleased to announce that the boycott I’m writing about here, one that is picking up pace, has nothing to do with Israel, the Palestinians, or the Middle East in general. This time, the target is Russia. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has reverte... Full story
By Andrew Silow-Carroll An old friend who happens to be both gay and Orthodox once surprised me by defending matrilineal descent—not in terms of Halacha, the code of Jewish law, but in terms of people hood. By defining a Jew in unimpeachable biological terms, he said, we make it so Jews have to look at each other as members of a people. If you take away biology, then the only way to judge whether someone is Jewish is according to what he or she believes. Thanks to matrilineal descent, a secular Jew in Tel Aviv and a pious hasid in Brooklyn h... Full story
Living in a Jewish country has its attractions. One of them is that you can enjoy being a Jew without being religious. Living in a Jewish country also has its problems. One of them is that you cannot avoid Judaism. Even outspoken Jewish atheists are surrounded by stimuli associated with the faith they deny. Virtually every item on the daily news touches the subject. Either Jews are quarreling about an issue with religious implications—and almost all of the local topics have such implications, such as comments about environmental protection o... Full story
Hezbollah has had a rough time recently. After years of indecision, the European Union designated its “military wing” as a terrorist organization. This move, long overdue and yet incomplete, had been vigorously opposed by Lebanon, home to Hezbollah, and by Iran, the group’s chief state sponsor. Canada and the United States long ago designated the entire Hezbollah a terrorist organization. And, after the EU vote, the Gulf Cooperation Council’s six members—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates—agreed to impose s... Full story
Bayit Yehudi MK Ayelet Shaked has released a scathing open letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, for pushing the Israeli government to release convicted terrorist murderers. In the letter, Shaked—who recently called for the death penalty to be implemented for terrorists—wrote that: “In light of the current situation that you have brought about, I feel that I cannot be bound by the restraints of ‘politically correct’ wording, and I therefore will allow myself to convey my following message to you in the most straightforward fashion.” She... Full story
