Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Bruce Feiler has written a really fascinating book titled “Abraham—a Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths.” It tracks the story of this founder of the three dominant faiths in the world today. Abraham, the man, if he did exist (calm down religious ones), was indeed every man. All our foibles, all our visions, all our shoulda-couldas are in him. He had a wife who could not bear him a child, so he took his maid to bed. Now in the story, his wife told him to do it. Arnold Schwarzenegger did not have the same excuse. Later, his wife did bear him a...
My grandfather, Abraham Shiplacoff, was a proud Jew. He was a Socialist labor leader in Brooklyn who led the Ladies Garment Workers’ Union into the American Federation of Labor, believing that Jewish workers should have the same rights and protection as everyone else. He went to Palestine in 1930. He saw that even under the British Mandate, there were Jews dedicated to having their own country. When he came back he wrote me a letter about this, even though I was not yet born. When my dad thought I was old enough to understand, he gave me G...
Prior to the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, public opinion on a Jewish Homeland was divided—even among Jews. Some, especially in the United States felt that we shouldn’t make a fuss. After all, wasn’t life here pretty good? Well, yeah, it was—compared to from where most of the immigrants came. But we were a People without a country. A People, not just a religion. We had mutual DNA with many others of our flock. We had a language, not much used, but we had one. The stirrings of nationalism had begun with Herzl, but it was Adolf H...
I found out something a few weeks ago that I should have known for decades. When the Roman Legions left Israel, having slaughtered thousands and sent thousands more out into what would become known as the Diaspora; they left behind dozens of Jewish villages that continued to survive. These enclaves of biblical era Jewish life, continued to exist and do until this day. So, first of all, it should put to rest the idea that Jews in any way are newcomers and interlopers on that land. We never left. Israel today is a heterogeneous mix of Orthodox,...
I am a member of the first post- “Sha, Still” generations. Those were the generations of Jews in the United States who wanted to remain quiet. “Don’t make a fuss.” That was there mantra. The Jews who came in waves during the latter part of the 19th century just wanted to “Fit In.” They did not want to be known as “Greenhorns”—a slang term for newly arrived immigrants. So, they did their best to learn English. My grandmother learned how to read and write English when she was 63. They changed their names. Greenblatt became Greene, Shapiro bec...
Jews spent close to two millennia away from home. When the Romans finally expelled the Jews from their land, really upset because it took so long to beat their guerilla forces, we scattered to over 50 countries. Gone was the Second Temple, gone was our government, our army, our social structure, everything. Except us. The Jews. We scattered and as we did, we invented something uniquely Jewish: The Portable Community. We didn’t have a Temple, so we built synagogues. We didn’t have our social structure, so we created Jewish Community Centers, Jew...
In the 1920s, Vladimir (Zev) Jabotinsky traveled through Eastern Europe trying to warn Jewish communities of a coming disaster. His was a lone voice in the wilderness. Jews knew of pogroms under the czar of Russia who was now gone. They were aware of the extreme anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church, which seemed to be under control. They lived mostly in the shtetls, the little towns or villages surrounding the large cities of the time. Those who lived in the cities such as Budapest in Hungary or Warsaw in Poland lived a fairly good life. They...
The fact that the world has a double standard when it comes to Israel is no secret. Things that are either accepted or ignored in the wide world become big news when Israel is involved, allowing the public at large and the United Nations in particular to go through a session of Jew bashing. Five Jews died in an unbelievably dastardly attack on an Orthodox synagogue in Jerusalem. The New York Times headlined the story “Four Killed in Jerusalem Synagogue Complex.” How stupidly insensitive, inaccurate and anti-Jewish. Second case in point: A bunch...
Every time I pick up a newspaper (I am of that generational bent) I hold my breath. I do the same thing in turning on the news. Matter of fact, wife Rachel will greet me with “Anything in the news about Israel?” To be a Jew and to live like a Jew, be it Orthodox, Conservative, Reform or whatever, you must be aware of the Jewish world and what happens to Jews. Israel. What is happening in Europe with the rise of Anti-Semitism all of a sudden? Somebody gets arrested or accused—“Oy! I hope he/she is not Jewish.” When the financial world collapsed...
There was a time when Jewish humor ruled. Sometimes it might have been “racy” but never obscene. The great Jewish comics did not have to resort to profanity or description of body parts to get laughs. They told truths about themselves and their people. And it was mostly their people who laughed. The audience was usually live. Television was young and inexperienced. Yes, there was Ed Sullivan and he booked the big names like Myron Cohen and Buddy Hackett. But mostly? It was the Catskill Mountains and hotels like Grossingers, the Concord, Kut...
Hamas won this one. The universal condemnation of Israel in almost every newspaper in the world; the thousands of people taking to the streets of major cities to protest the “senseless” killing of innocent civilians has made great fodder for the 24-hour news cycle. Truth? Who cares about truth? Who cares to take the time to dissect the causes and the actual events on the ground? Blood and crying and mass destruction makes for great video. When people ask where is the video from Israel? Who wants to watch as the Iron Dome saved hundreds, may...
Every two years it seems Hamas gets the courage and the means to begin an aerial assault on Israel. The usual responses always come. The Arab States and Iran call on Israel to stop the “aggression.” Gaza civilians get killed because Hamas puts their rocket launchers in alleyways and neighborhoods, trapping the civilians there. Every two years. As I write this it is going on now. The only discussion is one of a ground invasion. That is a political decision, not a military one. It will have been made before you read this. Hamas is supplied by...
In 1977 we had been living in Orlando for less than two years. We had moved from Cleveland and seen a great city begin its slow slide out of greatness. We were active Zionists, frequent visitors to Israel and personal friends of one of the founders of the State, Menachem Begin, who at the time was head of the Herut political party. What the Brits would call a “back bencher,” Begin was in the minority party. However, we awoke one morning in 1977 to the news that Begin had been elected prime minister of Israel and was forming a coalition, whi...
In Herzl’s dream, Israel was to be the home of the Jewish people. A home for the Jewish people. Herzl pictured a utopian libertarian place where creative, literary and academic Jews could be Jews. Where their knowledge, their inventiveness would no longer have to deal with anti-Semitism or prejudice of any kind. Ah, but where in the world would this place be? And what about the Jews who did not fit the literary, academic profile? The gentile minds of the time felt that location was secondary to just getting the Jews out of their hair. As t...
So, what does that mean? If it is the duty of the Jewish People to “Heal the World,” where would you start? Is it up to us to finally wake the world up to the fact that the world—our world—really needs healing? Yes, it is. No one in this winter of snowy discontent will disagree that something is really changing. That the snows, where they are, are deeper and more frequent and where they are not the drought gets worse. That we know. That is a given. That last year was the warmest on record and this year, despite a brutal winter will probably be...
I guess we could blame it on Mohammed’s lawyer. Apparently he never got Mohammed to write a will. As a result there was no clear heir to the throne of Islam. None of his sons made it to adulthood. So, some of his followers chose a relative, Ali, to be The Man while others went with a follower named Abu Bakr. Now, this is a very overly simplified explanation of why today there is the schism between Sunnis (Abu Bakr) and Shiites (Ali). Fights within the family are one thing. But the two wings of the Islamic religion have been fighting and k...
There are words, expressions and entire languages that rise, spread and then seem to just disappear. Today it would seem even the email is going out of style, replaced by texting which replaces words with single letters (You = U). This is not a judgment, just a statement of fact. Remember when you sent a “letter” in an actual envelope? When you addressed that letter to a certain someone and wrote on the flap of the envelope “SWAK”? (For those too young to remember, it stood for Sealed with a Kiss). Yiddish was the prime language of Eastern Euro...
Life at the top can be lonely. If you became the “Decider”—the one who must make the difficult decisions—taking the best advice of trusted associates, there would come a time in any really important decision when it is on you and you alone. While Dick Cheney gets a lot of the blame for the horrific miscalculations that led to more than a decade of war and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the fact remains, the president was in the chair and he had the final yeses and noes. Same goes for the head of any democratic society. If you happen...
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana said this in his “Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1”... and it’s still true. Look, call it “Arab Spring,” “Uprisings,” “Revolution”—the end result is that some of Africa and most of the Middle East has been stood on its head in the past three years. I listen to some supposedly really smart people parse the situation in Egypt, Syria, Libya and elsewhere. And I keep waiting. Okay? Now, tell us the real problem! Once in a great while, a writer l...
I don’t know, maybe it is age, but the years roll around awfully fast (yeah, it’s age). Was it a full year ago we were preparing for the High Holy Days? OK, so we know that Jewish holidays are never “on time.” “Oy! Didn’t Yom Kippur come early this year?” “Passover is when? Too late this year!” The drill is the same. Ten days to figure out whom you really wronged over the past year and make amends. That is highly subjective. Did I really wrong him? “Ah—he deserved it and besides he wouldn’t even notice!” That’s not the idea and he probably di...
There are some basic things that constitute nationhood. A nation must have a native language; but it’s all right if the same language is spoken elsewhere. The language must be constantly updated to cover the events, history and culture of that country. It should have a history, however long or short. In the case of the U.S. relatively short, In the case of Israel, really a long, long time. It is important once again to emphasize that the people of the ancient and holy land of Israel have had for the past 66 years, the first indigenous, e...
Jews were a peoplehood long before we were a religion. I’ve said many times, I know a lot of ex-Catholics, but I never met an ex-Italian. When we became a religion we suddenly had a bunch of rules to follow and the peoplehood and the religion kind of merged. For a long time people left us alone and we did pretty well. Then along came the Babylonians and then the Romans and pretty soon we were for the most part out of our native land and this great Diaspora was created. We lost our Temple and most of our social organizations that held us t...
Roman Blum died a few weeks ago. He was 92, and he wasn’t well. He died a very rich man. According to estimates from his accountant and lawyer, somewhere in the area of 40 million dollars. A nice area. Roman Blum left no family. His wife died a few years ago. Roman Blum was a Holocaust survivor. He said he was from Warsaw, but the few records found about his early life say he was from Chelm. Those of you who know Yiddish folk tales will appreciate why Roman Blum did not want to be known as someone from Chelm. According to what records are a...
I—and most of the world—was struck by the photo of young Martin Richard, tragically killed by the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Martin is holding a poster he created saying simply: “No More Hurting People” and underneath “Peace.” Martin will never get to know who set the bomb or why. Nor will the youngsters killed while sitting at the Sbarro Pizza Parlor in Jerusalem in 2001. One wonders, what, no matter their religious views or governmental concepts, would make someone actually take the action of killing and maiming innocent people who...
Jews are pretty good developers and builders. Look at Lennar Homes, Toll Brothers, KB Homes and others. The basics are easy. The builder-businessman selects a market that looks promising, buys the land, gets his permits. Up go the homes and the owners movie in. Simple? It would seem so. In 1950 we moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio. A lovely suburb at that time on the outskirts of Cleveland. I found out, shortly after we bought a home there, that if we had moved 10 years earlier, we could not have bought a home in Shaker Heights. They had what was...
