Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

Articles written by Ben Hartman


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  • My two homes - Israel and the US - feel like they're in collapse. What do I do next?

    Ben Hartman|Oct 30, 2020

    (JTA) — Last month, I filled out a request for an absentee ballot for the U.S. presidential election. At the top of the form it had two relevant options — I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country, and I intend to return; and I am a U.S. citizen living outside the country, and my return is uncertain. Both of these have been true for almost two decades. I’ve spent the last 17 years split between the United States and Israel — and for the first time, I’m not sure I want to be in either place. Back in March, a few weeks into Israel’s...

  • Here's why some of America's top cheese brands are now going kosher

    Ben Hartman|Jul 21, 2017

    It's early morning in the Sardinian countryside and a farmer is milking his sheep while an Orthodox Jewish kosher supervisor looks on. The supervisor, known as a mashgiach, is sleeping in the farmer's barn, and he'll be there all week. Welcome to the world of kosher cheesemaking. The weeklong kosher cheese run in Sardinia is just one of a number of methods that artisanal kosher cheesemaker Brent Delman, owner and founder of The Cheese Guy, uses to manufacture products for kosher consumers who...

  • This Chicago lawyer's life was saved by two Israeli Nobel Prize winners

    Ben Hartman|Jul 21, 2017

    When Jeffrey Kriezelman first started feeling the pain in his back, he shrugged it off as the vestige of an old baseball injury. A busy immigration lawyer whose Chicago firm helps immigrants and asylum seekers gain lawful status in the United States, Kriezelman also was an avid athlete who had spent many seasons playing outfield in a men’s senior baseball league. Between sports and long hours at the firm he ran, Kriezelman, in his early 60s, didn’t have time to give pain much thought. But weeks went by and the pain worsened. So Kriezelman cal...