Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 77
(JTA) - Rabbi Yael Buechler conceived of her latest product two years ago, after planning ways to make the Passover seder fun for her two young sons. But it wasn't until she started promoting the matzah pajamas she designed that she decided to make adult sizes, too. After she reached out in December 2021 to The Maccabeats - the Orthodox a capella group that releases splashy new videos for most holidays - to offer kids' pajamas for their Passover project, they demurred. "They wrote back...
(JTA) - For millennia, Jews have eaten matzah. And for years, Jewish patrons of Trader Joe's have been able to purchase matzah off the shelves of the tiki-themed grocery chain - which has gained its own quasi-religious following. Now, for the first time ever, Trader Joe's will be selling matzah under its own famous private label. The question, even among the store's diehard Jewish fans, is what makes Trader Joe's-branded matzah different from all other matzah. The grocery chain with more than...
(JTA) - As children in upstate New York, twin sisters Julia DeVillers and Jennifer Roy went to Hebrew school three days a week, spent their summers at a JCC summer camp and got to know local Holocaust survivors through their father, who survived the Nazis as a child in Poland. They also celebrated Christmas with their mother's family. Aware of their dual religious and cultural backgrounds from a young age, DeVillers and Roy personally sent their public elementary school principal a letter...
This article contains spoilers for "History of the World Part II". (JTA) - In a scene that will soon stream on Hulu, a group of early Christian bishops gathers to set a promotion strategy for their newish religion - to "make the Bible an international blockbuster," as one puts it. But the plot is unclear: "Who are the bad guys in this story?" asks one. He and his fellow clerics consider two options: the Jews and the Romans. "Let's make them the Jews, for sure," says a bishop. "They run...
(JTA) — The eight crazy nights of Chanukah came early for Adam Sandler when the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced Tuesday that the comedian and actor would be honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at a ceremony in March. The prize is presented annually to individuals “who have had an impact on American society” similar to that of the 19th-century novelist and humorist, “who startled many while delighting and informing many more with his uncompromising perspective on social injustice and personal folly.” Sandler,...
(JTA) — Nearly seven months after they were denied boarding in Frankfurt, a group of more than 100 Hasidic Lufthansa passengers are getting paid for their troubles. The airline is paying each passenger $20,000 plus giving them $1,000 to reimburse them for expenses incurred during the May incident, according to Dan’s Deals, the discount travel website that first reported the incident at the time. After legal fees and some other expenses, each passenger will net approximately $17,400, the site is reporting. Lufthansa would not confirm the dol...
(JTA) — Jewish comedian Larry David is being sued in a class action lawsuit for his role in promoting the failed cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX as a brand ambassador during a Super Bowl commercial. The commercial, which aired during the 2022 Super Bowl in February, showed David in various historical moments resisting technological and political innovations, such as the advent of the fork and the lightbulb, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, and the creation of the Walkman, leading up to him to ultimately decline an offer t...
(JTA) - After a years-long battle to reacquire two paintings the Nazis stole from their ancestor before he became one of their early victims, the descendants of Austrian Jewish cabaret performer Fritz Grünbaum will auction the Egon Schiele works off at Christie's in November. The proceeds will go to support up-and-coming performing artists from underrepresented backgrounds, starting with a student from a Washington, D.C., arts high school who will play the piano at an event celebrating the...
(JTA) - As images of the banner held above Interstate 405 in Los Angeles claiming "Kanye is right about the Jews" ricocheted around the internet this weekend, Jessica Seinfeld decided to take a stand A cookbook author and wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld posted a simple piece of text on a black background that reads "I support my friends and the Jewish people" and encouraged her 580,000 followers to share the post. Seinfeld, who is Jewish, was weighing in two weeks after West, the...
(JTA) — Every seven years, in ancient times, Jewish men, women, and children would gather at the Temple on the first day of Sukkot to hear the king of Jerusalem read aloud from the Torah. In 2022, there’s no king and no Temple, and more than half of all Jews live far from Jerusalem — but the ritual is still inspiring Jews around the world to gather together. In fact, the tradition, known as hakhel, appears to be seeing a resurgence of popular interest. In Northampton, Massachusetts, Abundance Farm will host an outdoor festival with tree plant...
(JTA) — Doreen Alhadeff was the first American Jew granted Spanish citizenship under Spain’s 2015 law to repatriate Sephardic Jews from around the world. Now she is going to be knighted by Spain’s monarchy for helping others obtain that same citizenship. Alhadeff, a 72-year-old real estate agent from Seattle, will be knighted under the order of Queen Isabella the Catholic next month, the Seattle Times reported Monday. Since earning Spanish citizenship in 2016, Alhadeff has helped guide people around the world, from Greece to Hong Kong, through...
(JTA) - "K-pop is over," one Twitter user declared. "We're listening to Orthodox Pop from now on." With those words, the Miami Boys Choir has transformed over the last two weeks from a singing group popular among Jewish insiders to a viral sensation. On TikTok and Twitter, users have shared clips of the group's concerts, overlaid its music with other scenes and inserted themselves into split-screen duets. New fans of MBC, as the group is known for short, have chosen their favorite singers...
(JTA) - In a move that is already thrilling some Jewish audiences and stirring controversy among other international fans and activists, Marvel Studios announced that an Israeli comic book hero will appear in the next installment of its Captain America movie franchise. "Captain America: New World Order," which is set for release in 2024, will feature Israeli actress Shira Haas as Sabra, a hero who debuted with a cameo in a 1980 "Incredible Hulk" comic and appeared as a full character the...
(JTA) - Move over, tashlich: Twitter is the new place to atone, thanks to a bot programmed by Jewish coders who want users to apologize better. While the tradition of symbolically throwing bread, representing sins, into a body of water may be a more familiar High Holiday custom, a new Twitter bot aims to address "fauxpologies" on social media. "Repentance Bot" allows users to tag the account when they see an apology that they believe falls short. The bot then replies to the apology with...
(JTA) - "Whoever needs, come and eat." That's the quote from the Talmud - the book of Jewish law - that welcomes customers to Goldie's Bagels in Columbia, Missouri, telling them that people who cannot afford to pay can get a coffee and a bagel, with cream cheese, free of charge. The promise is core to the shop's mission: Launched as a popup in 2020, Goldie's aims to imbue Jewish values into its daily operations. "My whole thing in opening Goldie's is we're going to be so outwardly proud to be...
(JTA) — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s student newspaper pulled a column that criticizes students who travel to Israel after its author says he and his mother have received threats in response to the article. The column, titled “When studying abroad becomes a political statement,” was published on Wednesday and pulled on Sunday. “To disagree with the outcome of an individual’s work is one thing,” wrote Guillermo Molero, editor-in-chief of the Daily Tar Heel, in a statement explaining the retraction. “But to harass people p...
(JTA) — Olivia Newton-John, the iconic pop singer of the 1970s and ’80s, died at her home in Southern California Monday of the breast cancer she had battled for three decades. She was 73. Newton-John was most famous for her starring role as Sandy Olsson, alongside John Travolta’s Danny Zuko, in the 1978 musical “Grease,” and as the singer of the 1982 hit song “Physical.” Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, to Brinley Newton-John and Irene Born, the daughter of Max Born, a Jewish Nobel laureate and one of the founders of quantum mechanic...
(JTA) - A century ago, German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig spearheaded the revival of intellectual Jewish life in the city of Frankfurt am Main with the "Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus" - the Jewish House of Free Study. As many as 1,100 adult students would attend lectures tailored to secular Jews and aimed at democratizing the kind of Jewish learning that was typically restricted to the beit midrash, or formal house of Jewish study. Now, a Lehrhaus in the spirit of 1920s Frankfurt is coming to the...
(JTA) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ratcheted up the fight over the state's new 15-week abortion ban Thursday when he suspended a Tampa-area state attorney who had vowed not to prosecute violations. The move also vaulted yet another Jewish figure into the fight's foreground. Andrew Warren, the state attorney for Hillsborough County, had joined more than 90 other attorneys nationwide in pledging not to prosecute individuals who seek or provide abortions in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's...
(JTA) - So many campers were sick with COVID-19 last week at Ramah New England that its director, Rabbi Ed Gelb, put out a call to families: Would any nurses be willing to come to camp for a few days to help? "We have a large and capable nursing staff, but more help would be great," he wrote. Gelb's request came in an extended email about the state of the pandemic at the Palmer, Massachusetts, Jewish camp, in which he said some buildings had been transformed temporarily into infirmaries. But...
(JTA) — So many campers were sick with COVID-19 last week at Ramah New England that its director, Rabbi Ed Gelb, put out a call to families: Would any nurses be willing to come to camp for a few days to help? “We have a large and capable nursing staff, but more help would be great,” he wrote. Gelb’s request came in an extended email about the state of the pandemic at the Palmer, Massachusetts, Jewish camp, in which he said some buildings had been transformed temporarily into infirmaries. But unlike some other camps, he said, Ramah New England...
(JTA) — In a live streamed address to students, faculty and staff at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Israel to join the network of countries around the world that have placed sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. “We are grateful to your great nation. But we would like to also get support from your government,” Zelensky said. “Tell me, how can you not help the victim of such aggression?” In his address, Zelensky recognized the connected histories of Ukraine and Israel, noting the Ukrai...
(JTA) - Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? ShvomBob Kvadrat-hoyzn, of course. And now the Jewish world knows how to say "SpongeBob SquarePants" in Yiddish, thanks to a translation of the animated kid show's theme song by Eddy Portnoy, the academic advisor and director of exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in Manhattan. Last week, Portnoy's college-aged daughter put "SpongeBob" on TV, and Portnoy was inspired. He typed up the lyrics on his Notes app and posted the...
(JTA) - Five years ago, Rabbi Guy Austrian made a small but powerful change at the synagogue he leads: He wrote down the language his community used to call non-binary members to the Torah. That language had been developed informally over time through a process that Austrian recalled as being "a little awkward" because it involved tweaking language on the fly for congregants whose gender did not fit into the male-female binary that's baked into Hebrew. Codifying the language meant changing only...
(JTA) — More than half of bankruptcies in the United States are connected to medical debt. For some families in the Chicago area, however, that debt is being erased in accordance with the Jewish law of shmita, the sabbatical year. The Torah’s shmita laws prescribe that, every seven years, all agricultural activity in the Land of Israel is forbidden, and the land must be left fallow. There are many specific rules, including prohibition against plowing, pruning and planting. But a lesser-known custom in observance of the shmita year is the rel...
