Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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NEW YORK (JTA)-The Torah tells how God created the earth and the heavens, although the stories that follow tell us more about the former than the latter. A new exhibit doesn't quite answer theological questions about space, but it does show the ways in which Jews have looked at, written about and traveled into the final frontier. "Jews in Space: Members of the Tribe in Orbit," named after a Mel Brooks gag, is an exhibit organized and on view at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the...
(JTA)-The editor in chief of National Geographic Magazine made waves when she admitted that the magazine's past coverage was tinged with racism. "For decades, our coverage was racist. To rise above our past, we must acknowledge it," Susan Goldberg wrote in a letter for the magazine's April issue, which marks the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. The letter forced readers and staff to grapple with the legacy of the magazine, which has been reporting on the world's...
(JTA)—The heads of 139 Jewish day schools have signed an open letter urging action following last month’s deadly shooting at a Florida high school. The letter released Tuesday expresses support for the student movement calling for gun reform and seeks political change. Prizmah, a group representing over 300 Jewish day schools, organized the letter. The schools that signed on are from the United States and Canada, and represent various denominations and affiliations. They include those with students from early childhood through high school. “As...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Six-time NBA All-Star Amar'e Stoudemire has launched a line of kosher-for-Passover Israeli wines. The 6-foot-10 former player, who returned earlier this month from a trip to the Jewish state, spoke glowingly about the wines and his connection to Israel at a news conference here Tuesday. "It's a blessing for me and my family to be able to produce such great wines from a land like the land of Israel, so we're constantly counting our blessings for that," Stoudemire told reporters at...
NEW YORK (JTA)-When Meredith Jacobs was taught the Purim story as a little girl in the 1970s and '80s, Esther was made out to be its heroine, while Queen Vashti was its "evil queen." According to the Book of Esther, Vashti was banished by her husband, the Persian King Ahasuerus, for refusing his order to display herself wearing her crown in front of his male guests. A body of traditional commentary depicts Vashti as disobedient and a fraud. As an adult, Jacobs started to reject that...
(JTA)-The college-aged kids of a Jewish congressman from Florida are raising money to end gun violence by selling hamantaschen. Gabby, Serena and Cole Deutch launched the Bake Action Against Gun Violence initiative on Sunday. Their father is Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who represents the district where 17 people were killed last week in Parkland in a shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by a former student there. The project encourages Americans from across the...
(JTA)-They volunteered. They played soccer. They went to camp. They were sweet, mature and easygoing. They were just beginning their lives, or helping others on their way. And one died so that others could live. Jewish students and staff were among the 17 people who were killed when a gunman entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Wednesday afternoon and began shooting. Among the Jewish victims are first-year students Jaime Guttenberg, Alex Schachter and Alyssa...
(JTA)-Though the Jewish community in South Korea is small, Jews visiting the country to compete in or watch the Winter Olympic Games won't have to skimp on kosher food or Shabbat programming. The country's Chabad emissary is setting up a pop-up restaurant in PyeongChang County, the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics. During the Olympics, which start tonight (Feb. 9), the temporary eatery will serve three meals daily, including Korean-style bulgogi beef, schnitzel, hot dogs and vegetarian items....
NEW YORK (JTA)—A new study has some troubling news for Israel and its supporters, who have come to rely on the political and financial support of the 25 percent of Americans who identify as evangelical Christians. “Older American evangelicals love Israel—but many younger evangelicals simply don’t care,” reads the summary of the study released last month by the Nashville-based evangelical research firm LifeWay Research. And while the summary may overstate the case, the survey, underwritten by Chosen People Ministries (which seeks Jewish co...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Members of two families killed in a plane crash in Costa Rica were being remembered for their involvement in Jewish and philanthropic causes. The Steinberg family of Scarsdale, New York, and the Weiss family of Belleair, Florida, were killed Sunday when the small plane in which they were passengers went down in the Central American nation's northwest shortly after takeoff. The nine victims in the families were among 12 casualties-10 U.S. tourists and two local crew members-in the...
NEW YORK (JTA)—A Jewish camp has created a scholarship fund in memory of a family who died in a plane crash in Costa Rica. Camp Ramah Darom, a Conservative summer camp in Clayton, Georgia, established a fund in memory of the Weiss family on Tuesday. The Weisses, of Belleair, Florida—Mitchell and Leslie, both physicians; their daughter, Hannah, 19, and son, Ari, 16—were killed Sunday when the small plane in which they were passengers went down in the Central American nation’s northwest shortly after takeoff. Another eight people died in the cra...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Trivia is having a major moment-and that's thanks, in large part, to Scott Rogowsky. The Jewish comedian has played a huge role in the runaway success of HQ Trivia, the iPhone app turned massive phenomenon that now has some 500,000 people glued to their iPhones at 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. every weekday for a chance to feel smart and win money. HQ Trivia is presented in the format of a game show-it's hosted live by Rogowsky from New York twice a day. The app was created in August by Rus...
(JTA)-Political turmoil, terror attacks and natural disasters around the world: 2017 had plenty of people feeling down, for good reason. But there were also notable moments of light. As this year draws to a close, here is a chronology of some of the more heartwarming stories JTA published this year. An Orthodox Jew builds bridges with his Yemeni Muslim neighbors After President Donald Trump issued his first executive order banning immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, Alexander R...
NEW YORK (JTA)-On Thursday, The New York Times announced that its publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., 66, is stepping down at the end of the year and will be succeeded by his son, 37-year-old Arthur Gregg (A.G.) Sulzberger. The familial exchange of power wasn't unexpected. The younger Sulzberger is the sixth member of the Ochs Sulzberger clan to serve as publisher of the prominent New York newspaper. He is a fifth-generation descendant of Adolph S. Ochs, who bought the newspaper in 1896 as it...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Audience members greeted Palestinian-American activist Linda Sarsour with loud applause at an event here that in recent weeks became a rallying cry for both critics and defenders of Israel. Sarsour, a leading feminist as well as pro-Palestinian advocate, was the best-known speaker on a panel on anti-Semitism held Tuesday at the New School for Social Research. Billed as a discussion of anti-Semitism on the right and left, the panel was denounced by pro-Israel critics who have...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Nazis came for Rose Holm's family in the afternoon. By the evening, the 16-year-old was lying among corpses in the underground bunker where she and her family had been hiding. "I was between those dead ones, and I didn't know if I'm alive or I'm dead," Holm, now 92, recalled. Among those shot and killed were Holm's parents, brother and one of her sisters, as well as some 85 other Jews hiding in the bunker outside Parczew, a town in the eastern part of Poland. Only one family...
SECAUCUS, N.J. (JTA)-"Caution: Meat and dairy sampling on show floor," read a sign at the entrance to Meadowlands Exposition Center. That may seem like an unusual warning outside a convention center, but to the crowd attending the food expo there on Tuesday, it made sense: Kosherfest is the world's largest kosher food trade show, where the vast majority of those attending follow the Jewish prohibition against mixing meat and dairy. More than 4,000 food industry professionals gathered for the...
NEW YORK (JTA)-On a typical Shabbat in Teaneck, New Jersey, streets are blocked off outside of major synagogues. Uniformed off-duty police officers, paid by the synagogues for the morning, stand near a cruiser parked nearby or direct traffic on the main street. Volunteers, walkie-talkie earpieces disappearing beneath their lapels, stand at strategic points outside the synagogues keeping an eye on foot traffic. A few may have swept through the synagogue before services checking for suspicious...
(JTA)-On a recent Friday, Eitan Press stood in Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda Market offering to apply balm to the beards of passers-by. Press was hoping they would get hooked on his product, an ointment that comes in a variety of Jewish-themed scents, including the popular Sukkot (myrtle, lemon, lemongrass and mint) and Havdalah (clove and cinnamon). The founder of the Aleph Male beard balm company, Press estimates that he has "anointed hundreds of beards" since its founding in July. "I've seen how...
NEW YORK (JTA)—For many home cooks, spices are an afterthought, sprinkled on a dish lacking in flavor. Israeli-born, French-educated chef Lior Lev Sercarz wants to change that. “If you want to make good food and beverages you need to know about spices, and I would like to help you know more about it, whether you’re a home cook, whether you’re a professional,” Sercarz, 45, told JTA recently at La Boite, the small spice and biscuit shop he opened in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. Since opening La Boite in 2011, Sercarz has amassed...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Mike Tolkin apologizes for checking his phone as he sits down at a café in this city's Flatiron district. The 32-year-old Democratic New York mayoral hopeful was waiting to hear Tuesday whether he would be allowed to participate in the final primary debate the following day, which would boost his exposure amid an otherwise quiet campaign. Tolkin, a technology entrepreneur and the youngest candidate on the party's ballot to challenge incumbent Bill de Blasio, had not met the...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Larissa Raphael was sick of eating knishes that packed in plenty of potatoes but no punch. "I was like, 'why does the knish need to be bland?'" she said. "I want it to taste really good." As the former pastry chef of a late lamented restaurant that earned a Michelin star, she decided to take matters into her own hands. In February, Raphael, 47, launched her one-woman knish business, Riss' Knishes. Raphael started cooking up the idea last year when an acquaintance suggested she...
NEW YORK (JTA)—This Jewish year was not a quiet one, to say the least. From the tumultuous first eight months of Donald Trump’s presidency, to a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers, to a neo-Nazi protest in Charlottesville that turned violent, to the twin weather catastrophes of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, Jews, like so many others, found it hard to take their eyes off the news. As the year 5777 comes to a close, JTA looks back at some of the moments that had the most significance for Jews, sorted below by date. Bob Dylan is...
NEW YORK (JTA)-The United States will return to Iraq next year a trove of Iraqi Jewish artifacts that lawmakers and Jewish groups have lobbied to keep in this country, a State Department official said. A four-year extension to keep the Iraqi Jewish Archive in the U.S. is set to expire in September 2018, as is funding for maintaining and transporting the items. The materials will then be sent back to Iraq, spokesman Pablo Rodriguez said in a statement sent to JTA on Thursday. Rodriguez said the S...
(JTA)-The Jewish community in Houston has seen "devastating" damage from Hurricane Harvey and could take years to recover, a federation official said. "Recovery like this-it is a disaster larger than Katrina in terms of the amount of water that fell-we're going to have short- and long-term recovery plans, but this is probably going to take us years to get back to where we were," said Taryn Baranowski, the chief marketing officer for the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Seventy-one percent...
