Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3563 - 3587 of 3730
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
Among the handful of post-war leaders who could always be relied upon to support the United States unstintingly, the name of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, stands out. Blair wasn’t content to merely support U.S. foreign policy. He energetically advocated for American engagement and warned of the negative global consequences of an America in retreat. In April 1999, at the height of the NATO operation against the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo carried out by Serbian forces, Blair delivered an historic speech to the Chicago Council o... Full story
Like most Israelis, I am an eternal optimist. Living day to day in our neighborhood and faced with continued threats to our legitimacy and even our existence, what choice do we have? That being said, I am extremely pessimistic about the latest round of peace talks that have been initiated in Washington, D.C. There is no shortage of reasons why I should be skeptical, but what worries me most are the personalities involved in these talks and the faulty premises they represent. Almost 20 years after the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attempted... Full story
The privacy bugaboo has struck twice at the summit of Israel’s government. Two nominees for the important post of Governor of the Bank of Israel have had to withdraw their candidacy after embarrassing details began circulating in the media. One had been caught leaving a Duty Free shop in the Hong Kong airport without paying for a garment bag. He held on for a couple of weeks, saying it was all a misunderstanding, but was tripped by a sloppy cover-up. The story he told was plundered by journalists who found more holes than substance. It might h... Full story
Common sense suggests that one of the most effective ways of heightening Jewish identity and Israel engagement among young people is through summer teen trips to the Jewish state. The younger our kids are exposed to the miracles and challenges of Israel today, the better, and longer, their connection. And the more involved they and their families will be. But the reality is that summer travel programs to Israel for teens are “languishing,” according to experts in the field, who cite the fact that the numbers have decreased dramatically fro... Full story
In Israel’s history, hawkish leaders have often ended up advocating tough concessions for the sake of peace. Think Menachem Begin at Camp David, Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo Accords and Ariel Sharon who at the end of his career found himself mulling a withdrawal from the West Bank. Add Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizmann to the list—military heroes both of whom came to see that Israel’s future could only be assured through peace agreements with its neighbors. And let’s not forget President Shimon Peres, who for much of his career was a tough guy, until... Full story
If a whistle sounds in a crowded space where everybody can’t help but to hear it, does it matter? What about dozens of whistles? Yesterday, for over an hour, I stood behind barricades with Women of the Wall, guarded by police, from my people. Our people. People (haredim) who are absolutely certain that our female voices, and our prayers, said out loud for the world to hear in “their” place, are designed to be the downfall of our religion. Having elected to wear “modest” clothing this morning, I threw on a floor length long black maxi skirt at... Full story
