Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Harry Haft’s real-life story is shocking and little known. He was imprisoned in Jaworzno, a concentration camp that was part of the vast Auschwitz complex, and was forced to box his fellow inmates. The loser of each fight was murdered by Nazi guards, who enjoyed watching this macabre spectacle. Haft was forced to fight in 76 matches. The horror of his experiences never left him. His story is portrayed in HBO’s new film, “The Survivor,” directed by Academy Award-winner Barry Levinson and starring Ben Foster, who visited Auschwitz and lost 30 lbs...
China has been accused of committing genocide against the Uyghurs. Here's what you need to know, and what you can do about it. Some people are refusing to watch the Winter Olympics this year because of concerns over China's dismal human rights record of the Uyghurs, a persecuted minority in China. The US, Britain, Canada, and other nations have refused to send officials to the Games in a quasi-boycott. A recent British report accused China of committing genocide against the Uyghurs. Here are som...
News that Israeli actress Gal Gadot is to play Cleopatra in a new film has ignited a storm of protests. Critics accuse Gadot of perpetrating "genocide" and cultural appropriation by planning to play the ancient Egyptian queen. A prominent Pakistani journalist blasted "Your country steals Arab land and now you're stealing their movie roles ..." Some are claiming that a Jew cannot play Cleopatra, and the role should go to an African or Arab actress instead. Nonsense. Cleopatra was a complex...
With anti-Semitism skyrocketing, many Jews are finding themselves under attack. At times it can feel that few non-Jews want to stand up in defense of Jewish communities in their midst. Yet three recent events in Europe have given Jews some hope, as unexpected heroes stepped up to say enough is enough. Standing up against hatred on British train Asma Shuweikh, a 36-year-old Muslim mother from the British city of Birmingham, was travelling on the underground tube in London on Nov. 22, 2019, when she witnessed a Jewish family with young children...
Holocaust denial isn’t just getting “a few things wrong.” It’s a pernicious form of anti-Semitism that serves no other purpose than to attack Jews. Dear Mark Zuckerberg, I’m one of your many fans. Like over two billion people around the planet, I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends, hear new ideas, and digest news. Your decisions about social media affect my life every day. Unbelievably, now those decisions include giving Holocaust denial free reign. On July 18, 2018, you gave an interview to Kara Swisher of the tech site Recode in...
J.K. Rowling, French celebrities and German officials are making it clear they stand with the embattled Jewish minorities within their midst. In the past few days, the author J.K. Rowling—along with dozens of other people in Britain, France and Germany—have been saying enough is enough in the face of relentless anti-Semitism. Their words, coming amid record-breaking levels of anti-Semitism, are a welcome beacon of moral clarity. Rowling issued a series of Tweets on April 18, 2018, (Holocaust Remembrance Day), attacking anti-Semitism and ass...
The Anne House employee isn’t the only person told not to wear his kippah at work. When Barry Vingerling, a 25-year-old Dutch Jew, started working at the Anne Frank House in 2017, he might have assumed his new employers would be sensitive to his religious identity. After all, Anne Frank House commemorates a teenager who was hounded and murdered solely because she was Jewish, helping to make “never again” a reality when it comes to anti-Jewish discrimination. Vingerling wore a kippah to his interview and got the job. Yet, when he started weari...
Father Desbois is on a mission to expose the Holocaust’s hidden crimes. Father Partick Desbois, a French priest, might be one of the greatest detectives of all time. In nearly a decade of work, he has uncovered the murder of 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe during World War II. His most recent book, “In Broad Daylight,” maps out the mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe in exhaustive detail. While the mass execution of Jews in Poland, France and Germany in Nazi concentration camps and death camps is well documented, in the eastern count...
Jerry Lewis, who has died at the age of 91, was a consummate entertainer, one of the 20th century's great comic geniuses and a great philanthropist. Beloved on screen, his personal life was often tumultuous. Suffering through decades where his work languished, he nonetheless continued to challenge himself with new projects well into his late 80s. Lewis was born in 1926 in Newark, New Jersey. Most sources give his original name as Joseph Levitch. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia...
Standing up to anti-Israel sentiment on campus and around the globe makes a real difference. The head of Kent State’s Students for Justice in Palestine was urging the erasure of Golda Meir’s quote that adorns a wall on campus, along with other inspirational sayings. Here’s the offending quote: “Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.”—Golda Meir This outlandish demand to remove Golda Meir...
