Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 42 of 42
(JNS) - On any given day, people coming into the Kosher Palate in Dallas do so know they are going to be spending money on groceries or prepared foods. This past week, however, hundreds of people were treated to free hot meals made by the staff of the supermarket/catering company amid a week of brutally cold winter weather. "My husband being the kind of guy he is, he likes to feed people, and he said there are people who are at home and no way to get hot food, so we have to feed them," said...
(JNS) — A ruling issued by a court in Poland on Tuesday is meeting fierce criticism from Jewish groups and others who claim that the decision will silence further examination of the role of Polish citizens during the Holocaust. The criticism comes after a court found that the authors of “Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland” —Jan Grabowski, professor of history at the University of Ottawa in Canada, and Barbara Engelking, director of the Research Centre for the Extermination of Jews — must issue a retract...
(JNS) - Pittsburgh Steeler Zach Banner announced Monday that he was donating a portion of a game-day check to Tree of Life*Or L'Simcha Synagogue, the site of the mass shooting in October 2018. "I'm crashing Hanukkah this year guys ... by donating part of my game day check to the Tree of Life synagogue here in Pittsburgh. Happy Holidays!" tweeted Banner. He signed off as "Hulk," a reference to Marvel superhero Bruce Banner. "I have been so moved by the support and love I've received from the...
(JNS) A minor league baseball stadium in Lakewood, N.J., served as the outdoor meeting ground for some 500 participants in the JBiz 2020 COVID-19 Business Expo and Conference sponsored by the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. The event held on Nov. 16 was attended by both Jews and non-Jews, and featured a recorded message from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and an address by Mark Zelden, director of the Center for Faith & Opportunity Initiatives, a division of the U.S. Department of Labor. Several local politicians were also in attendance inclu...
(JNS) — Hate online, particularly anti-Semitism, is continuing to grow at alarming rates, and stopping it will require education, collaboration and a cohesive definition were the findings from the first-of-its-kind, two-day symposium sponsored by the U.S. State Department. “Nowadays, bigots everywhere can spread anti-Semitism online anonymously. In the first eight months of 2020, the Israel anti-Semitism monitoring system recorded 1.7 million anti-Semitic messages from more than 445,000 users on Twitter and YouTube; 37,000 of those mes...
(JNS) — Professing his “respect and love” for the Orthodox Jewish community, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced major restrictions and closures in parts of the state designated as “COVID clusters,” areas that have an overwhelmingly large Orthodox community. “I understand the imposition this will place on them,” the governor said on Tuesday afternoon after a morning meeting with leaders in the Jewish community. “I said I need their cooperation; I need their assistance. I asked them to work with me to follow these guidelines, and that was po...
(JNS) — Each year, tens of thousands of Jews from across the world make a pilgrimage to Uman, Ukraine, to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, at the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. The leader of the Breslov Chassidic dynasty, Rabbi Nachman passed away in 1810 though urged his followers to spend the holiday with him, and it’s a tradition that continues. However, with the coronavirus pandemic raging worldwide, there have been calls from officials to avoid visiting the holy site. In a joint statement last week, the Ukrainian and Isr...
(JNS) - After denouncing racist, anti-Semitic fliers left around his community earlier this month and then being threatened by a neo-Nazi leader, Rabbi Shlomo Litvin of Lexington, Ky., aims to educate others on what Judaism and anti-Semitism are all about. The trouble began more than a week ago when people in suburban Lexington neighborhoods received fliers urging "Aryan men and women stand up" and said, in part, "Blood and Soil ... Jews will not replace us, Blacks will not replace us, Mexicans...
(JNS) — The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York sent a letter Monday notifying the Village of Airmont in Rockland County, N.Y., that they plan to file suit against the village on the grounds that are violating terms of the Federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. RLUIPA, as the law is commonly referred to, was created in part to ensure that municipalities did not create zoning or landmarking laws that would discriminate against religious institutions or “unreasonably” limit religio...
(JNS) - A federal judge expressed concerns on Friday that New York governmental leaders violated the rights of residents when it sought to limit the number of individuals who could gather for prayer services during the coronavirus pandemic. Judge Gary L. Sharpe of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of New York, issued a preliminary injunction against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, preventing them from enforcing any limitations on outside gatherings...
(JNS)-The worldwide pandemic COVID-19 is wreaking havoc in its relentless sweep across the planet, not only in terms of health needs and care, but in economic terms as well. It has quashed the booming stock market and decimated unemployment lows, with such turmoil expected to continue for the next few weeks and maybe months. While the long-term impact of the coronavirus is yet to come, Jewish communal organizations are already hearing from small business, individuals and groups that have...
(JNS)-Imagine a teacher assigning a Holocaust-related project to a high school student in the United States, such as the creation of the "ideal concentration camp" or a Nazi cereal box. Or maybe the class spends just a single lesson on the complex subject matter as part of world or European history. These are not fictionalized scenarios; they are some of the findings by researchers looking to understand the state of Holocaust education in America. Questions of who should get taught, what...
(JNS)-A shipment of medical supplies from Magen David Adom in Israel were delivered on Monday morning to Chabad in China to help prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. At the request of Chabad, Magen David Adom sent in 2,000 face masks and 200 full-body protection kits. The latter includes special suits and masks, along with covers for shoes, hats and glasses in the event of contact with a person who may be sick. "Magen David Adom, as Israel's national EMS organization and the country's l...
(JNS)-Less than 24 hours after five people were stabbed at a rabbi's home on Forshay Road in Monsey, N.Y., Jews gathered on the lawn to sing and dance as a Torah scroll was dedicated at a nearby synagogue, making for a far different scene from the night before. On Saturday night, Grafton Thomas, 38, entered the home of Rabbi Chaim Rottenberg and began stabbing people who had come to celebrate the seventh night of Chanukah. Using what has now been described as a machete, the attacker began...
(JNS)-Up and down the state of California, synagogues, Hebrew schools and Jewish residents are dealing with effects of wildfires that have consumed tens of thousands of acres in recent days, from evacuations to school closures to days with no electricity as authorities try to limit the fire damage and danger. In Northern California, the Torah scrolls from Congregation Beth Ami in Santa Rosa were evacuated from the synagogue on Saturday as winds whipped flames from the Kincade Fire in nearby...
(JNS)—Representatives of Jewish, Christian, Muslim and other religious groups gathered together recently at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., for a discussion on security issues facing faith communities. The timing couldn’t be more apt, as one FBI source noted that this is the most “complex and dynamic threat environment we have ever been in.” Every day, said the source, foreign governments are researching and identifying ways that they can “exploit” and “sow discord,” and turn people against their own communities. He added that faith comm...
(JNS)—In just a few weeks, tens of thousands of kids will be on the move, leaving home for Jewish overnight camps. This year though they’ll be doing so under the specter of heightened security concerns as anti-Semitism is at a near-record high nationwide and it has been just half a year since two deadly synagogue shootings. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents for 2018, 1,879 attacks were committed against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country last year, including the attack at the Tree of Life*...
