Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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We are now two years into the deeply controversial Iran nuclear agreement that roiled our community. And, like everything connected to the deal and the Mideast, it’s complicated, as even Jared Kushner would attest. During the many months leading up to the historic 2015 agreement between Tehran and the U.S. and its P5+1 partners—United Kingdom, France, and China, plus Germany—I was deeply critical of President Barack Obama’s approach, which I thought was too narrow and timid. I felt the U.S. wasn’t acting like the superpower it is in the negot...
Can you feel the center collapsing all around you? Looking to the left and to the right—politically and religiously, here and in Israel—I see the gap widening at an increasingly rapid rate. The search for The Golden Mean, the desirable balance between extremes in our lives and worldview advocated by the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, the 12th-century philosopher), seems unattainable. The demographic decline at the center of the American Jewish community has been well documented. National and local studies have shown that we are moving in two o...
OK, so 2015 was a bummer. But we are a people with a tradition of looking to the future with hope—and having a sense of humor. So here’s my prediction for the major news stories of 2016: January: In the midst of a winter heat wave, Madison Square Garden cancels Ice Capades show due to melting ice; Republicans abruptly cancel outdoor “Global Warming Is A Myth” rally in Minnesota after key speakers suffer sunstroke. February: On the eve of Super Tuesday primaries, Donald Trump announces his vice presidential running mate: Nicole “Snooki...
With the Obama administration determined to see the Iran nuclear agreement passed in Congress, and increasingly belligerent toward its critics, many opponents of the deal worry that by continuing to wage what appears to be a losing fight in Washington, Israel will pay a heavy price The Day After the mid-September vote. But several key anti-deal Israeli and American Jewish officials I have spoken to in recent days insist that is not the case. Rather, they say that in addition to the moral imperative of opposing what they view as a catastrophic...
One of the lessons learned from the intense debate over the Iran nuclear deal is that there is a serious and growing divide within American Jewry. In large part it’s between those who are active in Jewish and Israeli life, and those who are not. This gap is increasingly evident in our widely divergent views on Israel, U.S. foreign policy, and the merits of the agreement with Tehran. Indeed, members of each group find it hard to believe that fellow religionists can actually see things any other way than the way they do, and they often base their...
In January 2011, with the U.S. trying hard to convince the Palestinians to withdraw or moderate a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, President Obama called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to make a deal. The White House did not want to find itself in a position of having to veto its own settlement policy. In the course of a 50-minute conversation, Obama offered to support a U.N. investigation regarding settlements, renew a U.S. demand for a full-scale freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank an...
The four hours of discussion on U.S.-Israel-diaspora Jewry relations was winding down as the dinner hour approached at the annual JPPI (Jewish People Policy Institute) Brainstorming Conference last Monday afternoon in Glen Cove, Long Island. That’s when the fireworks started. Most of the 25 breakout-session participants sitting around the table, Israelis and Americans, were board members of the Jerusalem-based global think tank, chaired by Stuart Eizenstat, former U.S. ambassador to the European Union. The people in the room included Mideast p...
Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to appeal directly to Israel’s nationalist camp in the final days of the election campaign appears to have paid off, at least in the short term. He won a decisive victory and is now in the process of forming a coalition of right-wing and charedi parties as he had hoped in calling for new elections in December. But the repercussions of his actions, beginning with his decision to break U.S. protocol and address the U.S. Congress without the invitation of the president, are profound and continue to resonate wit...
On the eve of 5775, more than 50 Jewish thought leaders and communal activists from around the country gathered at a retreat near Baltimore last week for 48 hours to talk about whatever was on their mind. Not surprisingly, their frank discussions covered a wide range of themes and interests. But bottom-line, the common thread was a deep concern about Jewish unity—more precisely, the lack of it—over the policies of the State of Israel, and the denominational divides that underscore the dearth of religious and communal leadership at home. As one...
When I asked Rabbi Andy Bachman what he plans to speak about in his sermons during this, his last, Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services as senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim, I thought he would bring up the importance of closing the gap between the wealthy and the needy in this country. After all, the 51-year-old rabbi built a reputation at the Park Slope, Brooklyn synagogue as a strong voice for progressive Judaism, giving secular Jews a sense of meaning through social justice and communal causes beyond ancient rituals and prayers....
The woman to my left said she felt “overwhelmed” and “emotional” in dealing with the news about Israel’s war in Gaza. The heavy volume of postings on her Facebook page were so upsetting, with their criticism of Israeli actions, that she was considering “unfriending” some of her online correspondents. The woman across the table from her, older than the rest of us, said she wasn’t a Facebook user but that she, too, felt “overwhelmed” in reading about the war and seeing it on TV. “I feel horrible for both sides,” she said. Admitting that her know...
In a rare quiet moment, John Ruskay, who is stepping down at the end of the month after 15 years as CEO and executive vice president ofUJA-Federation of New York, sat in his office on East 59th Street and described his feelings these days as “running in a relay race, trying to hand the baton” to his successor, Eric Goldstein, as seamlessly as possible. That baton, in effect, is the world’s largest local charity, a complex organization with a staff of 475 people, which raises more than $140 million a year for a wide range of local, natio...
The Jewish Federations of North America, or JFNA, may soon launch an effort that would include supporting groups in Israel working to limit or end Orthodox control of personal-status issues such as marriage, divorce, conversion and burial, The Jewish Week has learned. Clearly this is a key, often emotional, issue in this country, where about 85 percent of the American Jewish community is non-Orthodox; some feel they are looked upon as second-class Jews by Jerusalem. But the proposed project, known as iRep—Israel Religious Expressions P...
On Shabbat mornings, when I go outside to pick up the newspaper from the front stoop of my house, I am aware of a deep sense of responsibility. I know that where and how I open the paper to check the scores during the baseball season determines whether my beloved Baltimore Orioles won or lost the previous night’s game. I know, I know. Some might think it illogical—after all, the game has been over for hours and the players are home, asleep, no longer on the field. But over the years I’ve learned that if I check the scores before I bring the pap...
Watching a first-rate documentary a few weeks ago on Showtime about David Steinberg, the controversial but loveable Canadian-born comedian, actor, writer and director, brought back a flood of memories for me. Called “Quality Balls,” the 75-minute film traces his career from the mid-1960s, when he left his academic studies at the University of Chicago to join Second City, the legendary improvisational troupe; to his infamous “sermon” about Jonah and the whale on “The Smothers Brothers” show in October 1968 that resulted in CBS banning Dic...
Los Angeles—Anne Frank is the most universally known of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Her diary has been read by millions of people around the world, and her tragic story of living in fear, hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex in Amsterdam with her family and others for more than two years, has been told in a Broadway play, Hollywood movie, television dramas and in countless other ways. Is there anything more to be known about this precocious young girl with a gift for writing, a poignant faith in humanity, and maturity fa...
There was a time when American Jewish families sat shiva when a child married out of the faith. Even two or three decades ago the prevailing attitude was one of disappointment, embarrassment and regret, coupled with a parental commitment to make the best of it and hope the grandchildren would be raised as Jews. Times have changed. With the increase in intermarriage has come greater communal acceptance, to the degree that for some Jewish religious leaders it is no longer standard to publicly endorse endogamy, or Jewish in-marriage. For them...
At the outset of this new year, I’m reminded of the line from “All About Eve,” the classic 1950 film about ambition and betrayal on Broadway: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.” This year portends to be a momentous one for Israel, hinging on its all-important relationship with the U.S. It could bring real progress on the road to peace or lead to at least one and possibly more dangerous military confrontations between Israel and its adversaries. By April, the deadline will be approaching for two major diplomatic...
One of the unintended highlights of this year’s Conversation—the annual Jewish Week-sponsored two-day retreat for a wide variety of Jewish leaders and future leaders from around the country—was the emerging friendship between two participants with seemingly little in common besides their names. Actually, their name. You see, the small team that helps put together the list of about 55 participants each year had intended to invite David Ingber, the dynamic and popular rabbi of Romemu, a growing congregation on the Upper West Side. When his posit...
Not surprisingly, there has already been a large wave of reactions to the first major national survey of American Jews in more than a decade, with its sobering, if not bleak, portrait of a community on the fast track toward assimilation. The responses to the Pew Research Center’s Religion and Public Life Project report, based on interviews with nearly 3,500 Jews, tend to fall into one of three categories: Oy Gevalt, We’re Doomed: With the study indicating that an increasing number of Jews, particularly among the young, are moving away from form...
‘Words of hate can easily turn into acts of hate,’ says Foxman in new book on perils of Internet. Last Thursday, a 5-year-old British girl, April Jones, who had been raped and murdered, was buried in London after her funeral was televised nationally. She and another young girl were victims of men apparently addicted to online pornography. And although England, like the U.S., bans child pornography, Prime Minister David Cameron plans to take measures to further restrict pornography on the Internet, making Britain “the most family-friendly democ...
“A Portrait of American Jews,” a major study due out soon from The Pew Research Center, is said to show that more than 60 percent of the children of intermarriage are raised as Jews. It also notes that only 22 percent are given a Jewish education. What, then, does it mean to be raised Jewish if it doesn’t include a Jewish education? That’s just one question certain to be brought up in a renewed discussion, prompted by the report, over the nature, sustainability and future of American Jewish life in the 21st century. Already in recent days a...
If our prayers are heartfelt, they will resonate on high, and be answered favorably. One of the loveliest aspects of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the concept of forgiveness, the notion that if we are sincere in our commitment to make atonement for past sins and try to improve our ways, God will, in effect, wipe our slate clean at the outset of the new Jewish year. But too often, despite our best efforts, human nature intervenes and we are back to our old ways before we know it. That’s why one particular, and often neglected, passage of t...
Much attention, here and elsewhere, is given to encouraging American Jews to have a deeper understanding of contemporary Israel, in all its complexity, as a country that is seen by much of the world as Goliath while it perceives itself as David. But for all of our emphasis on the importance of the relationship between diaspora and Israeli Jews, our Mideast cousins get a pass; there is far too little focus on the responsibility of Israeli Jews to know us better. In truth, most Israelis have little understanding or appreciation of the diversity...
Common sense suggests that one of the most effective ways of heightening Jewish identity and Israel engagement among young people is through summer teen trips to the Jewish state. The younger our kids are exposed to the miracles and challenges of Israel today, the better, and longer, their connection. And the more involved they and their families will be. But the reality is that summer travel programs to Israel for teens are “languishing,” according to experts in the field, who cite the fact that the numbers have decreased dramatically fro...
