Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA)-The 2010s were nothing if not turbulent. The decade brought us unprecedented political polarization, war and increasing conflict in Israel, dozens of horrific mass shootings, and a new age of election hacking and private data collection enabled by the proliferation of social media. It was capped by arguably the most shocking presidential election in American history. These are the Jewish figures who steered us through it all, and who had the largest impact on life and culture in the last 1...
(JTA)—For many Jews around the world, there’s probably no love lost for 2019. As the year draws to a close, the Jewish community continues to grapple with the continued rise of global anti-Semitism—one major community in Europe is facing the possible election as prime minister of a man who many Jews consider an anti-Semite. And Israel is caught in the grip of political paralysis following two fruitless elections (with a prime minister facing prosecution for corruption). Meanwhile, with a U.S. presidential election looming next year that is su...
(JTA)—Fifty-eight Israelis were injured during the wave of rocket attacks fired by terror groups from Gaza this week. Thirty-four Palestinians, most of them reported to be members of Islamic Jihad and other Gaza terror groups, were killed in retaliatory strikes. The attacks cost the Israeli economy $315 million and three homes were directly hit, the consulate general of Israel in New York said in a statement Thursday. After the Israel Defense Forces killed two Palestinian Islamic Jihad senior commanders—Baha Abu al-Ata and Rasmi Abu Mal...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA)-Argentinian chef Tomas Kalika, who cooks traditional Jewish foods with a modern twist, won the Chefs´ Choice Award 2019, the only peer-voted prize at Latin America's 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony. Kalika started to learn about cooking at the age of 17 in Israel with award-winning chef Eyal Shani, who later helped Kalika get a job at the Hilton Hotel in Jerusalem. Kalika later was head chef at the Eldan hotels chain. After eight years of living far from...
NEW YORK (JTA)—The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has launched a Hebrew-language website and syndication service aimed at the Israeli public. The service features original Hebrew articles and videos with Hebrew translations of items published in English by JTA and adapted for Israeli audiences. JTA’s new Hebrew news site is www.jtahebrew.com. The goal is to inform the Israeli public about Diaspora Jews and Jewish issues, and to use news items, feature stories and videos to increase Israelis’ understanding of Diaspora Jewry. Jewish communal leade...
(JTA)-Wide receiver Julian Edelman was named Most Valuable Player as the New England Patriots beat the Los Angeles Rams in Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta. The Patriots' Jewish owner, Robert Kraft, also earned a kiss on the lips from quarterback Tom Brady as their team celebrated its 13-3 victory-New England's sixth Super Bowl triumph. After the game, an interviewer asked Edelman how he felt about earning the MVP award. "It sounds crazy, it sounds crazy. 2018. L'Chaim!" he said. Edelman provided...
(JTA)-Playwright Neil Simon, known for such Broadway hits as "The Odd Couple," "Barefoot in the Park" and "Lost in Yonkers," has died. Simon, who earned a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, died Saturday, Aug. 26, at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City from complications with pneumonia at the age of 91. No writer of non-musical comedies was more successful in the second half of the 20th century, and no one else so frequently, successfully nor wittily, plumbed the anxieties of middle-cl...
(JTA)—Philip Roth, whose notorious novels about the sex drives of American men gave way to some of the most probing examinations of the American Jewish condition in the 20th and 21st centuries, has died. He was 85. His death was confirmed to The New York Times by his friend Judith Thurman. Early in his career, Roth drew outrage with sometimes stinging depictions of Jewish life, as well as his graphic portrayal in his breakout 1969 novel “Portnoy’s Complaint” of the protagonist’s sexual desires. Some worried that his work would endanger...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Bryn Mawr College in suburban Philadelphia said it will place a yearlong "moratorium" on the use of the name of a founder and past president who was a known anti-Semite. The name of the library and great hall are named for M. Carey Thomas, who served as the private college's president from 1894 to 1922. According to biographer Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Thomas prevented the hiring of Jewish teachers at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore, and later made sure she was not dealing with...
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA)-A cache of 75 original Nazi objects discovered earlier this month by the Argentine Federal Police has been evaluated as "unprecedented" and "the biggest" discovery of its type. The objects, discovered earlier this month in a hidden room of a house in the northern part of the city, included equipment used for Nazi medical experiments during the Holocaust. They were analyzed a week ago at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, Federal Police Commissioner Marcelo El...
(JTA)-Until recently, the Ruderman Family Foundation helped pioneer an issue within the Jewish community-key word "within." While donating locally to Jewish causes from its base in Boston, it also fostered disability inclusion among Jewish and Israeli institutions. It ran a Jewish Special Needs Funding Conference and offered grants and prizes to Jewish institutions that made themselves more accessible to those with disabilities. But look for the word "Jewish" on the "inclusion" page of the...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Don Rickles, the bullet-headed comedian and actor whose pioneering brand of insult comedy earned him the nickname "Mr. Warmth," has died at 90. Rickles died Thursday morning, April 6, at his home in Los Angeles from kidney failure, according to his publicist. He would have turned 91 on May 8. Bald and squat, Rickles would pace the stages of nightclubs and late night talk shows seeking out "victims" in the audience, riffing on their weight, ethnicity and dress, calling them...
PARIS-Arab immigration to France and deep-seated anti-Semitism in that country mean French Jews have no future there, the head of the Jewish Agency for Israel said. Natan Sharansky made this declaration on Monday in the French capital, where he was attending a Jewish Agency Board of Governors meeting, held in the city for the first time as a sign of solidarity with French Jews. "We came here because there are historical processes here," Sharansky said of France, which for the past two years has...
(JTA)-A day after witnessing her mother's brutal murder, Dafna Meir's teenage daughter spoke before hundreds who had come to mourn her. Dafna Meir, 38, a mother of six, was stabbed to death on Sunday near the entrance of her West Bank home. "It's hard for me to think we will not laugh together or fight anymore, that you won't accompany me to the IDF induction ceremony, down the aisle, and to the maternity ward," Renana Meir, 17, said at a Jerusalem cemetery, calling her mother her best friend....
Israeli company Soda-Stream has offered to take in Syrian refugees and employ them in its new factory in the Negev Desert. In an announcement over the weekend, SodaStream and the mayor of Rahat, which is near the home beverage maker's factory, said they can absorb up to 200 families. Some 30 percent of the 1,100 workers at the factory live in the Bedouin city led by Mayor Talal al-Krenawi. "As the son of a Holocaust survivor, I refuse to stand by and observe this human tragedy unfold right...
(JTA)-Theodore Bikel, an actor and folk singer who was recognized in 1997 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, has died at 91. Bikel, who won fame playing Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof," doing more performances of the role than any other actor, died Tuesday morning of natural causes at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Born in Vienna, Bikel fled Austria at age 13 with his family after the 1938 Nazi...
NEW YORK (JTA)-A 39-year-old executive with an education startup and a 20-year-old naval academy student were among the seven people confirmed dead from an Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia. Rachel Jacobs, the executive, who also is the daughter of former Michigan State Senator Gilda Jacobs, and Justin Zemser, a second-year student at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, were both Jewish. The accident, on a northbound train Tuesday night, injured more than 200 people, and...
(JTA)—What made headlines (in Israel, the U.S. and around the world) in 2014? Test your knowledge with JTA’s annual news quiz: 1. Palestinian officials apologized to Czech authorities after the Palestinian envoy to Prague, Jamal Al-Jamal, was killed in an explosion in his home because: a) a cache of illegal weapons was discovered there. b) the explosion damaged a historic Czech cemetery. c) the ambassador’s residence was being used by Palestinian militants as a safe house. d) Yasser Arafat’s widow, Suha, blamed the explosion on the Czech g...
NEW YORK (JTA)—From wars and elections to scandals and triumphs, JTA takes a look back at the highlights of the Jewish year 5773. September 2012 Islamists throw a homemade grenade into a Jewish supermarket near Paris, injuring one. The incident is part of a major increase in attacks on Jews in France in 2012. October 2012 William Herskowitz, a member of an internship program in Israel for American Jews, shoots dead a hotel employee in the Israeli resort city of Eilat and then kills himself f...
