Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(New York Jewish Week) — Three hundred and seventy years ago this week, a group of 23 Sephardic Jews arrived on the shores of New York — then called New Amsterdam — and created the first organized Jewish community in the city. What a difference a few centuries make: Today, New York City is home to the largest Jewish population of any city in the world. On Thursday, the City Council will vote on a resolution to honor both, turning Landing Day from an event marked by a few Jewish leaders into an official date on the city’s calendar. The resolut...
(New York Jewish Week) - New York City kitchens are notoriously small. Nonetheless, on Friday Congregation Rodeph Sholom on the Upper West Side unveiled a 35-foot-long challah that they and their partners hope will break a world record. The gargantuan loaf was made in collaboration with the Jewish Federations of North America and the Orthodox Union with the aim of besting the current record-holder: a challah baked in Australia in 2019 that was just over 32 feet. The 35-foot challah - braided in...
(New York Jewish Week) — Commuters faced major delays Monday morning as several pro-Palestinian protests shut down traffic on the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg bridges on the East River as well as the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River linking New Jersey to Manhattan. Organizers said that the goal of the coordinated protests was to escalate disruption and send a message to the city about Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. “Particularly with blocking main arteries of transit, the idea is to confront New Yorkers — just for a brief h...
By (New York Jewish Week) — In March 2022, Jack Waksal thought he recognized Sam Ron, the keynote speaker at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s annual South Florida dinner in Boca Raton. But he couldn’t quite place him — after all, at 97, Waksal had met thousands of people during his lifetime. But when Ron said the word “Pionki,” all the memories came rushing back. Ron, formerly known as Shmuel Rakowsk, and Waksal had been best friends as teenagers when they worked side by side making gunp...
(New York Jewish Week) — The El Al desk at JFK Airport’s Terminal 4 was brimming with quiet anxiety on Monday, Oct. 9, as dozens of travelers waited to be checked in holding two documents: their passport, and their emergency summons from the Israel Defense Forces. The military reservists were preparing to board at least two specially chartered flights to Israel, where they will join a burgeoning war effort. Since Saturday’s invasion of southern Israel by Hamas, which killed at least 900 Israelis, the country has called up an unprecedented 300,0...
(New York Jewish Week) — When a small group of people convened next to an inconspicuous plaque steps from the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal, they weren’t there to catch a boat leaving the island. Instead, they had come to the southern tip of Manhattan to celebrate a ship that had arrived on its shores centuries before. The gathering was the 369th anniversary of an event most New Yorkers don’t know about, let alone celebrate: the arrival of the first Jewish community to the United States in 1654. That lack of awarene...
(New York Jewish Week) - When disability activist Lily Brasch was asked if she would walk the runway as a model for New York Fashion Week, she didn't know if she would be able to do it. That's not because she has a rare form of muscular dystrophy, which weakens muscles and limits her ability to walk. Rather, it was unfortunate timing: The show was set for Friday evening, when the weekly Jewish holiday of Shabbat begins. But Brasch, who is Orthodox and goes by the stage name Lily B., quickly...
(New York Jewish Week) — After a “traditional, religious” Jewish childhood in Brooklyn where he attended yeshiva, Barry Rosen fell in love with Iran. Rosen was 22 when he joined the Peace Corps and set out on a two-year stint in Iran in 1967. There, Rosen felt deeply connected to the people and culture of the country — he loved the food, the clothing, the language, and the sights, sounds and smells. “I was told by members of the Peace Corps that Jewish kids did very well in Iran,” Rosen says at the beginning of “Taken Hostage: The Making of...
(New York Jewish Week) — Over the last few years, patrons of New York City’s hospitals and health clinics may have noticed more than two dozen new murals adorning the walls and building exteriors — bringing life, creativity and color to the largest public hospital system in the country. The Community Mural Project, which started in 2019, carries on a hospital system tradition dating back to the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s to create works for government buildings. Today, colorful murals can be found in all 11 of the syste...
(New York Jewish Week) — In “The Calling,” a new miniseries streaming on Peacock, a Jewish NYPD detective fights crime and solves mysteries by letting his Jewishness lead the way. Jeff Wilbusch plays Avraham Avraham, a detective whose Judaism is both central to his character — in more than one scene he says the Mourner’s Kaddish for a murder victim — and an identity that influences the way he does his job. “It is so beautiful that, in our profession, as actors in the storytelling business, tha...
(New York Jewish Week) - A young child's diary, a favorite doll, a cookbook of family recipes, a report card, a Torah scroll smuggled to the United States and a silver spoon found among the rubble at a concentration camp. All of these objects are on display in "The Holocaust: What Hate Can Do," an expansive new permanent exhibition at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan that opened over the holiday weekend. The exhibit emphasizes the individual human stories and the Jewish lives liv...
(New York Jewish Week) - After she finished her compulsory military service as a singer in an IDF performing arts troupe, Israeli folk singer Bat Ella wasn't sure how she would incorporate music into the rest of her life. That is, until she met Debbie Friedman, the American singer-songwriter who revolutionized Jewish prayer services by translating popular prayers and setting them to unforgettable melodies. "She wrote melodies that are simple, catchy and touch your heart right away," Bat Ella,...
(New York Jewish Week) - House-smoked fish platters. Plates of malawach, the Yemeni flatbread. A labneh parfait. And for Passover, "milk and honey" slushies and matzah brie with bitter herb salad. Since opening up as a pop-up shop during 2020, Edith's Eatery and Grocery in Williamsburg has embraced Jewish food from all over the Diaspora. The brainchild of Chicago-born Elyssa Heller, the store and restaurant is a celebration of Jewish cuisine outside of the narrow lanes of traditional Ashkenazi...
(New York Jewish Week) — This Passover, the New York Jewish Week is partnering with the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan for their first-ever Virtual Passover Film Festival. The online-only event will feature eight Jewish and Israeli films that touch on themes of Passover, including redemption, miracles and keeping traditions. From Thursday, April 14 — the evening before Passover begins — though April 24, the films will be streaming nationally and on-demand. The New York Jewish Week and our partner site, My Jewish Learning, are providing suppl...
(New York Jewish Week) - In a rickety warehouse in Long Island City, reached only by a footbridge that crosses underneath the Long Island Expressway, some 80,000 Yiddish books are stacked on shelves in a large, sunlight-filled room that overlooks the Pulaski Bridge, Midtown Manhattan to the west, and Downtown Brooklyn in the distance. This is the CYCO Yiddish Book Center, whose roots date back to 1938, when it began as a space in Manhattan to give Yiddish writers and readers a safe haven just as...
(New York Jewish Week) - Uptown bagel and bag lovers rejoice! The Zabar's x Coach collaboration has arrived and it's the ultimate mashup of nosh meets posh. As part of their Spring/Summer 2022 line, luxury fashion brand Coach is drawing inspiration from the iconic Upper West Side gourmet grocery. Specifically, Coach has placed the iconic orange Zabar's logo - accompanied by an image of a bagel with a bite taken out of it - on their classic brown leather Cashin Carry Bag, as well as a gray wool...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — In Brighton Beach, New York, a community in Brooklyn known to many as “Little Odessa,” named after the port city in Ukraine, many Jews are struggling to navigate the fear and uncertainty that has wracked the community as Russia wages an unprovoked war on their former country. In the weeks of saber-rattling by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and with Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, many have become distraught and terrified thinking about what might happen to the towns they grew up in and to their familie...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) – Steadfast listeners of "Borscht Beat" - a weekly FM radio show featuring Jewish music, old and new - will be thrilled to hear of host Aaron Bendich's latest project: a new Jewish record label of the same name. On his hour-long radio program, the 27-year-old plays a wide variety of Jewish recordings - songs from the heyday of Yiddish theater, as well as a mix of contemporary klezmer, Yiddish and Jewish music from around the world. On Friday, Bendich's label a...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — New York City saw nearly three times as many antisemitic hate crimes in January 2022 compared to the same period a year ago, prompting concern from local lawmakers. City Council member Julie Menin, who represents the Upper East Side, hosted a virtual “Antisemitism Town Hall” Wednesday night that featured remarks by Sen. Charles Schumer and fellow Council member Eric Dinowitz. The event, co-hosted by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, drew some 200 attendees and brought together politicians and representatives from...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Five Orthodox Jewish New Yorkers have joined a suit challenging the city’s vaccine requirements for indoor spaces. Two of the plaintiffs are rabbis at yeshivas. The suit, filed Feb. 7 in New York, challenges the “Key to NYC” program and a recent Covid vaccination mandate for religious and private school employees. The mandate was opposed by many haredi Orthodox yeshivas and groups representing them, including Agudath Israel of America. Three of the Jewish plaintiffs are parents suing on behalf of a total o...
By (New York Jewish Week via JTA) - In January of 1943, Irma Lauscher, a teacher at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, smuggled a tree into the camp so that the Jewish children imprisoned by the Nazis could celebrate Tu B'Shevat in a secret ceremony. The children used their water rations to nurture the sapling. Of the 15,000 children who were imprisoned in Theresienstadt during the Holocaust, fewer than 200 survived. But the tree was still standing when the camp was...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - Hundreds gathered in Times Square Monday to celebrate the second night of Chanukah, with live music, speeches and, of course, a public menorah lighting. But it wasn't just about feel-good holiday cheer: The event was part of the "Shine a Light on Antisemitism" campaign, which aims to raise awareness about antisemitism in order to encourage individuals and their communities to fight against it. The campaign, which is sponsored by more than 60 North American organi...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Over the weekend, bagel lovers across the five boroughs (read: Jews and everyone else) were shaken to the core when the New York Times announced a cream cheese shortage in the city. It was news no one expected to hear. A cream cheese shortage affecting bagel shops: so niche, yet so terrifying. The piece, by Ashley Wong, detailed a frightening shortage of cream cheese base that New York bagel sellers use to make their signature cream cheeses. “Supply chain issues have plagued the United States for months, cau...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - "Welcome back to live theater!" Yoni Vendriger says, standing before the audience before the show begins. It is, I realize, the first time I've seen a play in a theater since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Except the theater, in this case, is an apartment in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the "stage" is, for most of the show, the living room couch. About 15 of us make up the audience, most of them friends of the apartment's r...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — New York State’s state pension fund will divest its holdings in Unilever in response to the July decision by the conglomerate’s affiliate Ben & Jerry’s to restrict ice cream sales in the West Bank. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s announcement Thursday makes New York the fourth state to move to sanction the Ben & Jerry’s corporate parent over its Israel stance, following New Jersey, Arizona and Florida. At least four other states have launched reviews investigating whether the Ben & Jerry’s decision coul...
