Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 3701 - 3712 of 3712
NEW YORK (JTA)—As of 2012, one in 20 Americans is identifying themselves as an atheist, agnostic or unbeliever. According to the research done by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released last year, nearly 33 million Americans list themselves with no religious affiliation. While it’s not specified in the Pew study how many Jews are among the ranks of the nonbelievers, doubtless the cultural landscape of Judaism is also impacted by these larger trends in Western culture. Part of the reason for this shift is the co-opting of what is perc... Full story
I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about my great-grandfather, Moses Strouse. Not because I am interested that deeply in family trees or have ever visited ancestry.com, but because I am drawn to sociology and am deeply disturbed about the 21st century transitions to large, faceless franchises and stores. Moses Strouse was a Jew from Germany, and he and his sons wound up—of all places—in Columbia City, Ind., not far from Fort Wayne. In all likelihood, they were wondering where to live in between trains from Ellis Island to Chi... Full story
Nervous Jews are worrying if Barack Obama is intent on forcing Israel into a peace process. Leaving aside the issue that being nervous is a chronic condition of being Jewish, an appropriate response to Obama and all the others who think that Israel is not doing enough to make peace with the Palestinians is that peace is already upon us. It is a Jewish peace, to be sure, but peace none the less. Peace is, after all, more a semantic issue, or a matter of comparison, than anything absolute. No one in the world lives in absolute peace. Americans le... Full story
(JTA)—Israel’s State Archives recently released the previously classified minutes of a 1983 Cabinet meeting during which the government debated the Kahan Commission’s recommendation to fire Defense Minister Ariel Sharon on account of the Sabra and Shatila massacre. The killings had taken place some months before, on Sept. 16, 1982, when 150 fighters of the Lebanese Christian Phalanges entered two Palestinian refugee camps and massacred 700 to 800 residents. The Israel Defense Forces, which controlled the area, allowed the Lebanese forces access... Full story
NEW YORK (JTA)—In 1993, one of the great scholars of Russian Jewry, Zvi Gitelman, noted that “since the 1880s, no group of Jews has migrated as often, in as great numbers, and with such important consequences as the Jews of Russia and the FSU. The mass immigration of Russian/Soviet Jews played a great role in shaping the character of the two largest Jewish communities in the world, those of the United States and Israel. American Jewish and Israeli politics, religion, culture, and economics have been, and are still, profoundly influenced by tho... Full story
NEW ORLEANS (JTA)—“Hillel’s not really my thing. That’s not me.” This is not what you want to hear as a first-year Hillel director acclimating to a new campus. Yet when I arrived at Tulane University four years ago, that’s the refrain I heard as I tried to figure out how a Jewish student population that comprised more than 30 percent of the school’s student body could barely turn out 100 students for its largest events. Hillel at Tulane had been built on Jewish communal best practices, but it was not actually reflective of the social and re... Full story
And so the day has come. Our youngest child. Our last family bar mitzvah. I’m thinking less and less about what I’ll say to my son, more and more about remembering every moment as deeply as possible, because events like these don’t come around again. They are bookmarks, reference points, times that are easy to look back to and say yes, I recall that time in our lives. Gabriel will do just fine. He’s ready. Now all he has to do is be himself, enjoy the celebration along with his friends and fam... Full story
One of the best-kept secrets in the New York Jewish community most certainly is the Museum of Tolerance in Midtown —and not by design. Opened a decade ago by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and located on East 42nd Street, between Second and Third Avenues, the museum features exhibits and interactive programs challenging visitors to confront issues of bigotry and racism, with the Holocaust as a backdrop and tragic example of the price paid for passivity. There is much to engage the mind and emotions, but on the day I was there t... Full story
In all the blather from politicians and media personalities following Israel’s indecisive election, it is possible to see two ideas that might provide a map to the country’s future. One is the equalizing of the burdens between the haredim and the rest of us. Prominent in the explanation of Yair Lapid’s 19 Knesset seat victory are the mass demonstrations that occurred during the summer of 2011. That was hardly a united movement. Chants and signs demanded too great a variety of injustices to be corrected. What was clear, however, was that there w... Full story
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Jewish identity and connection are the birthright of every Jew. So why do so many Jewish institutions discriminate against Jews with disabilities? It keeps happening because we let it happen. We make excuses by saying there isn’t enough support or enough dollars, or because we value children going to Harvard over those who won’t. With February being Jewish Disability Awareness Month, it’s time to ask how long we plan to provide the pearls of our heritage only to those capable of receiving them in the rote methods they are pre... Full story
When I went to Hebrew school in the 1970s, we were still using textbooks from the 1950s. The girls in the illustrations wore short dresses and Mary Janes; the boys wore pie-sized yarmulkes, shorts, and neckties—in their homes! Somehow I grew up to live a highly engaged Jewish life, but not until I shook off a perception that Judaism was for, well, prim little girls and nerdy boys with neckties and gigantic yarmulkes. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Lately I’ve noticed a number of Jewish organizations and individuals marketing thems... Full story
Sometimes you have to give politicians a little credit. If you heard through the grapevine that two of your friends had been discussing you, with one calling you a “liar” and the other one replying, “I have to deal with him even more often than you,” chances are you would cut ties. And that’s exactly what former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said, respectively, about the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an unguarded moment at the G20 Summit in France two years ago. Yet, in the aftermath of this e... Full story
