Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 104
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-Jewelry hung from Rosa Zacharia's ears and neck. Bracelets adorned her wrists and she wore rings on six of her fingers. She and her family were dressed to the nines. Life appeared to be pretty good for Zacharia and her husband, Naftali, and their three girls: Sara, Rahel and Yoheved. This was the image of the Zacharia clan captured at a Tel Aviv photo studio on May 29, 1929. Naftali mailed it to Chicago, to his...
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA)-In the mid-1990s, Zvia Mordechai was newly divorced with two sons when Marlene Alvez, then in her early 20s, entered her life. Alvez was a recent immigrant from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who worked with Mordechai at the Niv School for the Deaf in Beersheba, Israel. Despite a disparity in their ages, the two bonded on the job and became friends. Mordechai helped Alvez find an apartment, took her shopping for...
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Two tattoos sandwich several others along the left arm of Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Kevin Pillar. One near the shoulder reads "8-14-13," the date of Pillar's major league debut. The bottom one shows a nautical compass in tribute to his grandfather, Ed Lambert, who often took his grandson on his boats and taught him how to sail. Pillar, a Los Angeles native, cherishes the memories of those Southern California trips. They'd set out from Coronado, the San Diego-area port where...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-The name one Jerusalemite bears is fraught with meaning. Shimon Balas, a new immigrant from Yemen, was killed by a Syrian sniper on April 4, 1951. His father, Shalom Balas, was so desperate for a male heir that in the next five years he produced two daughters before a son was born in 1956-when Shalom was about 70 years old. He named him Shimon, too. "My father would always expect me to be like my...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – Menahem Orenstein remembers back to the late 1960s when a customer at the Haifa repair shop where he was working would bring in an Austin Mini-Moke for servicing. Orenstein and another shop employee—his best friend, David Beck—enjoyed the novelty of the tiny green car they thought resembled a toy. The vehicle had no doors and was so low, climbing in was a breeze. Their workday done, the two teenagers would sit in the Mini-Moke, fiddling with the steering wheel...
(JTA)-When Alexander "Ali" Marpet and Jake Fuerst went on a camel ride during a Birthright trip to Israel last summer, the animal brayed loudly in displeasure at the 467 pounds of young men perched on its back. Most of the camel's agony could be blamed on the 6-foot-4, 307-pound Marpet, who was overseas on a final fling of sorts before gearing up for the big time and facing even bigger bodies than his. Marpet, an offensive lineman from Hobart College in upstate New York, was expected to be a hig...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-The pain of losing close relatives in the Holocaust is so acute that it has afflicted multiple generations of Audrey Greenberg's clan. Greenberg, of Los Angeles, has a suitcase filled with photographs showing her late mother, Ruth, as a girl. The pictures also include other family members of Ruth's parents, Yerachmiel and Sarah Leibenbaum. Starting in 1922, one or two at a time, five of Ruth's sisters...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. TEL AVIV (JTA)-A few blocks from Sylvia Selvas' home here near the Mediterranean Sea is the apartment where she last saw her friend Sarah Haim. That was 59 years ago, when Haim stopped by to tell Selvas that she was moving to the United States. Selvas recently welcomed a visitor to her second-floor residence on Yirmiyahu Street in the hope of finding her friend. Two weeks after the interview, "Seeking Kin" learned that...
MIAMI (JTA)-For Joel Mael, the Shabbat-observing vice chairman of the Miami Marlins, the team's free spending in the offseason was wise from a financial perspective. Signing Giancarlo Stanton, 25, to a record 13-year, $325 million contract and fellow outfielder Christian Yelich, 23, to a seven-year, nearly $50 million deal were parts of a plan to retain the club's budding talent and vault the club into playoff contention while saving money down the line. But this was the Marlins, who had a...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-With the clock winding down on a recent game here, Cleveland Cavaliers coach David Blatt was still barking out instructions to his players despite enjoying a late 40-point lead over the Washington Wizards. Things didn't come quite as easy early this season for the rookie NBA coach and his team, which had great expectations with the return of four-time MVP LeBron James via free agency from the Miami Heat. Cleveland stumbled to a 19-20 record, leading some pundits to question...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Miriam Grab has almost nothing to go on in her search for relatives, not even names. While the retired teacher in Haifa has five children, 29 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren, she lacks an extended family. Her father's relatives from her native Czechoslovakia were wiped out in the Holocaust. Grab figures, though, that someone on that side of the family must have survived. She concedes that the...
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)-Early on the morning of Oct. 23, 1973, Arye David found himself on a hill deep in the Golan Heights beside the imposing Mount Hermon. Though it was still dark, the Israeli soldier from his perch above the road could see three of his army's tanks making their way up. The Yom Kippur War had started 17 days earlier with surprise coordinated attacks against Israel led by Egypt and Syria, and would end with a...
(JTA)-To the dismay of baseball fan Kit Krieger, future travels to Cuba will no longer include get-togethers with ex-Washington Senators pitcher Connie Marrero. Marrero, who played for Washington from 1950 to 1954, died in Havana last April at age 102, a few months after Krieger's last visit and three years after Krieger helped arrange for Marrero a $10,000 annual pension from Major League Baseball. Theirs was a special friendship, one of many forged by Krieger, a Vancouver resident who will ret...
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA)—The ringing telephone that awakened David Rashti early one morning brought with it a jolt the Los Angeles-area resident couldn’t have anticipated. The caller was someone Rashti had never met or even heard of: Rachel Levy, a resident of Safed, Israel. She spoke Hebrew, he spoke English and they were unable to understand one other—until Levy utilized her weak knowledge of Farsi. When Rashti, 47, heard “Iran”—not the country but the name of his long-los...
BALTIMORE (JTA) – Beyond the rusty orange leaves, the sky hugging the orchard flourished in pastel blue – a hue that surprisingly didn't define my mood while stretched out upon the grass, head nestled in interlocked palms that sweet October day. Surprisingly because the Sunday afternoon outing marked a jarring wrinkle in a cherished autumnal tradition. With one son serving in the Israeli army and another participating in a post-high-school one-year program in Jerusalem, this apple-picking for...
PHILADELPHIA (JTA)-In text accompanying a new exhibition at this city's National Museum of American Jewish History, Sammy Davis Jr. is quoted on why he converted to Judaism. "I became a Jew because I was ready and willing to understand the plight of a people who fought for thousands of years for a homeland," the late entertainer said. What immediately follows is a curator's observation: "Davis knew that becoming a Jew also meant recording Christmas songs." The comment, while somewhat facetious,...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Mementos of Jacob Goldstein slide across the 3-foot-by-4-foot horizontal screen like cards being dealt at a casino: his photograph, his name, an Operation Urgent Fury headline denoting the 1983 military campaign in Grenada, Goldstein's explanatory text summarizing his role during the invasion. Even more striking than the photograph showing the uniformed rabbi wrapping tefillin on the Grenada beach with his rifle resting atop a mound of sandbags is his recollection of going from...
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Decades removed, at a private game reserve in South Africa, the unique bond felt by the Class of 1984 at Durban's Carmel College had endured. Twenty-four graduates from the now defunct Jewish high school had gathered for a reunion of the class precipitated by its 30th anniversary. "The relationships between us were very much like brother and sister," Warren Bank, an advocate in Johannesburg who c...
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Tanya Klein grew up knowing that her mother, Tova Silverstein (nee Lowenbraun), had survived the Holocaust in hiding in her native Belgium. Mom, however, shared few details – only her rescuer's surname, Larose, and the name of the village, Villers-Poterie. But at a family wedding in 2009, Klein's chat with a cousin launched a quest to find and meet one of her mother's rescuers. And last week the Bal...
The "Seeking Kin" column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Howard Schoenfeld and his teenage daughter Zahava set out for a stroll along a Long Island Beach in New York on a recent Sunday morning. Zahava likes to collect shells, so after parking at Oak Beach, a popular spot for vintage-car enthusiasts, they walked along the inlet. Eyes cast downward, they stumbled upon an unlikely find - a gravestone. It read: Our beloved daughter Hannah Schnur Died Nov. 3...
BALTIMORE (JTA) – Blocking brothers, a college star seeking success in the pros, a fullback who hasn't had a carry in four seasons and a couple of ace special teamers are among the Jewish players on NFL rosters as the league kicks off this week. A punter may join the group after sitting out the preseason because of a personal issue. Also, Marc Trestman is back for his second season as coach of the Chicago Bears after moving to the NFL following a stellar career on the sidelines in the C...
BALTIMORE (JTA) – As a former WNBA president who played in what is considered the first U.S. professional basketball league for women, Donna Orender has been eager for a trailblazing female to join the National Basketball Association in a prominent role. So she was plenty pleased last week when the world champion San Antonio Spurs hired Becky Hammon, a point guard with the WNBA's Stars of the Texas city, as a paid assistant coach – a first in NBA history. "Becky's a special woman, a great pla...
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Sean Carmeli, a sergeant in the Israeli army, was stationed in Israel's South awaiting possible orders to enter Gaza. He was exchanging Facebook messages with his friend Ian Benisti, a U.S. Marine reservist who was visiting Israel from California. The two had planned to get together, maybe go to the beach. But Israel was in the midst of an escalating conflict with Hamas. "Bro', hope this'll be over soon, so we can meet up," the Texas-born Carmeli wrote to Benisti in their last...
(JTA)-On the morning of June 30, the children began arriving at Camp Solomon Schechter in Olympia, Wash., ready for a fun-filled summer. But shortly before the first little feet descended the bus steps, the sleepaway camp's Israeli counselors learned from back home about the discovery of the bodies of three teens kidnapped in the Judea-Samaria 18 days earlier. The news about the teens' fate challenged administrators at Jewish camps like the Conservative movement-affiliated Schechter to deal...
BALTIMORE (JTA)-In the years after coming out as gay, lacrosse player Andrew Goldstein recalls being asked on panel discussions whether major American professional sports leagues would include openly gay athletes. It's a question, Goldstein said, that is no longer relevant with Jason Collins in the National Basketball Association and Michael Sam, who was drafted recently by the St. Louis Rams of the National Football League. "We're in a new era, and at the very least, kids in high school who...
