Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 5 of 5
(JTA)—The High Holidays are approaching. It is a time when Jews worldwide join together in the spirit of camaraderie, pouring out their hearts for a good new year. But the lead-up this year has been different, often pitting Jews against Jews in bitter controversy Rosh Hashanah 5779 arrives with the passage of legislation declaring that Israel is a Jewish state with the right of Jewish self-determination. Supporters and detractors have been characterizing each other using inappropriate, explosive language. On one side, too many have called t...
(JTA)—Last week, Pope Francis made a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz—the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual “theater of death,” where the vast majority of Jews were murdered. At Birkenau, there is a large church in what once was the Nazi commandant headquarters. The church is in direct violation of a 1987 agreement signed by four European cardinals and European Jewish lea...
CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA)—My father died a few weeks ago. The hardest part of the shiva was when it ended. Friends and family were, by and large, no longer visiting. I was alone in pain and agony. I thought of this reality during my visit to the Emanuel AME Church in this city merely two weeks after the racially motivated massacre that killed nine people. Joined by Rabbis Shmuel Herzfeld and Etan Mintz, we approached the front of the church. The cameras, which had been everywhere for days, were gone. Only a couple dozen people were milling a...
NEW YORK (JTA)-May 1 will mark the 50th anniversary of the first Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) demonstration on behalf of Soviet Jews. The man who inspired the demonstration and became the father of the movement, Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbaum, died April 9 at the age of 87. Birnbaum founded the SSSJ and, together with others including Glenn Richter, developed the first national grassroots Soviet Jewry organization. But Birnbaum's legacy was much greater than any organizational affiliation....
NEW YORK (JTA)—Belief in God is at the core of my very being. But that belief is sometimes challenged by the scores of innocents killed over the millennia in God’s name, from biblical times to the present day. Last month, dozens were killed at a shopping mall in Kenya by terrorists demanding to know if those they were confronting were Muslim. If Muslim, they were spared; if not, they were murdered. One man who claimed to be Muslim was asked to name Muhammad’s mother. When he could not, he was summarily shot in the head. The day after the mall...
