Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JERUSALEM (JTA) - Amit Zakoon's flower business started with a seed - literally - but it quickly grew into one of Jerusalem's premier purveyors of luxury sukkahs. "We work for all the rich and famous," Zakoon, the owner and CEO of Yarok Yarok Events Design, told JTA. Studio Ya Ya, as Zakoon's clients call the business, is known for executing weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs and parties for Jerusalem's A-list, including visiting U.S. presidents (from Bush to Obama) to big-time philanthropists like the...
(JNS)-The Hebrew word "haggadah" means "narration" or "telling." As the Passover seder's instruction manual, the haggadah is perhaps the most important tool for fulfilling the Passover mitzvah of telling the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt (a mitzvah that is mentioned six times in the Torah). The Rambam (Maimonides) in his Mishneh Torah explains that relating the miracles and wonders that were done for our fathers in Egypt on Passover night is a positive commandment, and that it is a... Full story
(JNS)-A whopping 7,000 faces and hundreds of flags of every color painted Israel's capital on Thursday, parading through the streets in the 2018 Jerusalem March. The diverse participants, decked out on Sept. 27 in costumes that represented their respective nations, had one thing in common: a love of Israel and the Jewish people. "I am proud of Israel, and I love Israel," Brazilian Liliais Alves told JNS. "I came to bless my family, bless me, bless my home and my life." The Jerusalem March is... Full story
(JNS)-Fasting is the most commonly known Yom Kippur ritual. According to a 2016 Pew survey, 40 percent of American Jews and 60 percent of Israeli Jews fast on the Day of Atonement. Of course, fasting is not exclusive to Judaism. It is an ancient practice whose purpose and benefit span across the three Abrahamic faiths-Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Fasting is mentioned in the Bible and the Koran, and although its practices differ across these religions, they each use food restriction and/or... Full story
(JNS)-When you drive into Israel's Sha'ar HaNegev Region in the northwestern Negev, the fields are burnt and black. The trees are broken, and the smell of acrid smoke stings the eyes and nose. "It is a very upsetting view," said Zeev Meidan, general manager of the Israeli Honey Council. Meidan, who in the past was employed as a beekeeper at the area's Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, has been spending extra time in the southern district to support the region's honey farmers, many of whom have been the... Full story
(JNS)-Can archaeology bring biblical history to life? According to historian and Deputy Minister Michael Oren, it depends who you ask. Speaking at a June 10 Jerusalem event celebrating the opening of the "Seals of Isaiah and King Hezekiah Discovered" exhibit at the Armstrong International Cultural Foundation in Oklahoma, as well as 50 years of archaeological collaboration between the Armstrong Foundation and Israel, Oren said that in Jerusalem, archaeology serves as a tool for proving the... Full story
There is a lot of beauty to the traditional synagogue experience. However, a traditional High Holidays service just does not speak to some-especially many young adults. "Buying seats for the High Holidays is super expensive," says Rachel Moses, a marketer for a Jewish non-profit from Mt. Washington, Md. "It also just doesn't feel like it's my place." If you think like Moses-considering skipping the tickets, and celebrating Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur outside the traditional four walls of your f... Full story
The refugee crisis, escalating terrorism and dissatisfaction with the political elite are blamed for the current rise of Europe's far-right political parties. Such a revival has not been seen since World War II. What's uniting the parties is an "imagined Muslim enemy in Europe," and a desire to support and connect with Israel, according to Farid Hafez, a sociology and political science professor at Austria's Salzburg University. The ideology of Europe's far-right parties is rooted in several... Full story
Israeli water experts believe by 2050, almost half of the world's population will live in countries with a chronic water shortage. What's causing the shortfall is population growth, which leads to a greater demand for food, increased pollution and climate instability, according to Prof. Noam Weisbrod, director of the Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research (ZIWR) in the Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In Israel's Negev Desert, which has long... Full story
“In each and every generation they rise up against us to destroy us,” Israeli MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) reminded a packed Knesset hall last month during the premier joint meeting of the Knesset Caucus to Fight Delegitimization of Israel and the Christian Allies Caucus. The focus of the event: Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and how Jewish and Christian supporters of Israel can work together to quash the economic warfare movement against Israel. “MK Lavie did not complete the quote from the haggadah,” Josh Reinstein, director of the... Full story
At around 1 p.m. on a cloudy day in April 2014, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., 74, pulled into the rear parking lot of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and opened fire. Shouting anti-Semitic slurs, he shot dead Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69, and his grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, before fleeing for the nearby Jewish geriatric center, Village Shalom. There, he murdered 53-year-old Terri LaManno. Miller told the Kansas City Star in an interview after his arrest that he conduct... Full story
It was Oct. 27, 2015, shortly after 10 a.m. Two terrorists from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber boarded an Egged bus in the East Talpiot area. One was armed with a gun, the other with a knife. They started shooting and stabbing passengers, including 76-year-old Richard Lakin, who died two weeks later from his wounds. “We spent almost two weeks at Hadassah Hospital trying to save his life,” recalls Richard’s son Micah Lakin Avni, CEO of Peninsula Group Ltd., a publicly traded Israeli commercial finance institution. “During those t... Full story
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of Hamas terrorist leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef and author of a 2011 New York Times bestseller memoir, recently re-emerged in news headlines when he spoke at the annual conference of the Jerusalem Post newspaper. The so-called "Green Prince," Yousef is a Palestinian born in Ramallah and raised by one of Hamas's most dangerous leaders. The younger Yousef was arrested by Israel, but rather than becoming further hardened in prison, he became enlightened about the... Full story
The influx of migrants and refugees into Europe has presented that continent's leaders and policymakers with some of their greatest current challenges. Those challenges "defy silver-bullet solutions," said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken. Blinken, who made that remark at the 2016 Herzliya Conference, which took place from June 14-16 in Jerusalem and Herzliya, was highlighting one of the topics that reappeared in many of the dozens of speeches and panel discussions throughout th... Full story
"Writing is a messy process," says author Elizabeth Poliner. "People who don't write fiction would be surprised to see what early drafts could look like." But readers wouldn't know "what a mess it was for the longest time," as the Jewish author puts it, when reading Poliner's critically acclaimed latest book, "As Close to Us as Breathing." The volume garnered Amazon's "Best Book" designation in March 2016 as well as rave reviews from the New York Times, W Magazine, NPR, People, Good... Full story
One report says the Obama administration will soon get "tougher" with Israel over an alleged surge of Jewish settlement construction. Another report says Israel is currently halting new settlement construction. What's the real story? The Associated Press (AP), citing three anonymous American diplomats, reported last month that the U.S. plans to sign a new Middle East Quartet document aligning its criticism of Israel's construction policies with those of mediator partners including the European U... Full story
One-hundred years ago this month, British colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Marie Denis Georges-Picot divided the Middle East loosely and arbitrarily between Great Britain and France. Following that division, which became known as the Sykes-Picot Agreement, a series of further-and often contradictory-treaties and conferences resulted in power battles, internal uprisings, coups, and revolts. A century later, the Middle East-with an explosive array of... Full story
How hard can making matzah be? Mix flour and water, and bake. Actually, there are various ways that one can go about producing matzah-and the results are all a little different. When you're standing in the supermarket just before the holiday trying to choose matzah, it might help to know what you are looking at. It's not just the orange box versus the blue box, or even hand-made versus machine-made. According to leading kashrut supervisors at the Star-K and Orthodox Union (OU)... Full story
Groggers, candy, and music. A story that involves royalty, a beauty pageant, and the antagonist getting hung on a tree. And let's not forget the costumes. Purim is a joyful holiday that children of all ages can enjoy and appreciate. My children start thinking about their next year's Purim costumes before I can even rid the house of the chametz (leavened products) from the traditional "mishloach manot" Purim gift baskets in order to prepare for Passover cleaning. Throughout the course of the... Full story
The Israeli government’s passage of legislation that authorizes egalitarian prayer in a soon-to-be-created 9,700-square-foot, NIS 35 million ($8.85 million) section adjacent to the southern part of the Western Wall (Kotel in Hebrew) has been called groundbreaking, empowering, dramatic, and unprecedented. The section could be ready in as soon as a few months or up to two years from now. “This is a fair and creative solution,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the 15-5 vote on the measure by his cabinet. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, presi... Full story
Honk. Honk. Hoooonk. It’s the sound of the Israeli street. Israelis have a reputation for aggressive driving, no doubt. But according to the 2014 Road Safety Annual Report, 263 people lost their lives on Israel’s roads in 2012, a 40-percent decrease from the number of accidents causing death in 2000. “There has been a real increase in the awareness of the need for road safety,” says Dr. Victoria Gitelman, a researcher at the Transportation Research Institute of Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. So what has changed? First: publ... Full story
William (Baruch Nissan) Snyder is a vibrant 12-year-old boy. He loves baseball, football, swimming, riding his bike, and playing video games. He laughs heartily, his gigantic sense of humor shining through-with one hand on his special dog, Asha. But like his Hebrew name, William is a blessed miracle. Each day of his last 10-and-a-half years has been a miracle. Father Ron Snyder recalls that when William was around 7 months old, he and wife Lori felt "something didn't seem right" with their first... Full story
In the fourth shooting at a U.S. college campus since August, 10 people were killed Oct. 1 when a 26-year-old gunman opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon. Many would be surprised to learn that part of the solution to the American school shooting epidemic might be found in Israel. School shooters present a challenge to both forensic psychiatry and law enforcement agencies. But new research by Prof. Yair Neuman, a member of the Homeland Security Institute at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), is... Full story
Anti-Zionists are targeting South Africa, but hold tight and wait to see what happens, South African Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein tells JNS.org regarding reports of an impending dual citizenship crisis that may affect his country’s Jewish community. Discussing an early-September call by a deputy cabinet minister and senior official in the ruling African National Congress (ANC) political party that the government should look at changing current laws to ban South Africa’s citizens from holding dual citizenship—which would prevent them from fight... Full story
The day after the largest sandstorm in 15 years swept through the State of Israel last week, turning the skies orange and clouding people's vision, Azerbaijan Ambassador to the U.S. Elin Suleymanov says his eyes are opened wide. On his first visit to the Jewish state through Project Interchange, an institute of the American Jewish Committee, Suleymanov tells JNS.org he has been enlightened about issues ranging from Judea and Samaria's Jewish communities to the Palestinians to religion and... Full story
