Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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"Both Jews and Muslims have a lot in common. What are we fighting over? Jews and Muslims don't eat pork, we don't celebrate Christmas, we both use 'ch' in our pronunciation, and we are both hairy creatures of God," says comedian Ahmed Ahmed. "The only real difference between Jews and Muslims is that Jews never like to spend any money and Muslims never have any money to spend." So goes one of the dozens of jokes featured in the "Laugh in Peace" comedy routine of Ahmed and Rabbi Bob Alper. It's...
“The Torah is going to the moon.” It sounds like a phrase straight out of a Jewish fairytale or children’s book, but the real-life Torah on the Moon initiative is not as pie in the sky as one might think. French-Israeli entrepreneur Haim Aouizerate is calling on the Jewish people to help fund a project that aims to send a Torah scroll to the moon to celebrate the ancient book’s innumerable contributions to morality, justice, education, culture, and more. The idea was launched about three years ago, when high-tech wiz Aouizerate saw technol...
Depression is laughable. It's a bold statement. But it is one that Jewish author John Shuchart of Leawood, Kan., thinks could positively impact the 14.8 million American adults who suffer from depression. Shuchart, a successful entrepreneur and insurance salesman, retired and put any future career ambitions on hold to focus on a fight that is near to his heart: the stigma and treatment of mental illness. Four years ago, Shuchart himself was in such a deep depression that he nearly attempted...
A University of Missouri (MU) fall 2015 honors tutorial that pro-Israel students felt would promote bigotry and misinformation on their college campus has been cancelled. “Perspectives on Zionism,” which was scheduled to be taught by self-proclaimed “post-Zionist” and “Nakba Jew-in-law” George Smith, was nixed due to no enrollment, according to a June 10 announcement. Yet the catalyst behind the cancelled course—Smith, a tenured biology professor who pushed for a curriculum that the instructor himself said would have included works by anti...
"We have given the best years of our lives to remember-to remember the tragedy of what happened... Now we are starting to see some light from all of our efforts." Such is the sentiment of Ilana Romano, widow of Israeli weightlifter Yossef Romano, who was murdered by Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists along with 10 other members of the Israeli Olympic team during the summer of 1972 Olympics in Munich, West Germany. That fateful event became known as the "Munich Massacre." Since then,...
Jewish-American aid worker Alan Gross arrived home to celebrate Chanukah after five years in a Cuban prison, prompting the Jewish world to both celebrate and breathe a collective sigh of relief. But analysts say Gross’s humanitarian release and the subsequent U.S.-Cuba prisoner swap have little to do with the prisoners and everything to do with the Obama administration’s final two years—and the reverberations might be felt as far away as the Middle East. “You could say the president was saving face [by renewing diplomacy with Cuba],” said Rees...
In southern Israel, the next generation of Jewish pioneers is making the desert bloom. A group of young, Zionist, idealistic adults are cultivating a previously uninhabited area in the northwest Negev on Israel's borders with Egypt and Gaza-growing tomatoes, potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, pomegranates, olives, and more. "I am there (in the Negev) because I can make a difference," said Nava Uner, who lives in Bnei Netzarim, one of three Halutza (pioneer) communities, as part of the new Young...
Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and the days in between them mark the season of "teshuva"-which in Hebrew literally means "to return," but in the context of the High Holidays refers to repentance. A unique case of those seeking to return and repent, or "do teshuva," are Jews who become less observant but later decide to return to their roots. Last year's much-debated Pew Research Center survey of U.S. Jews found that 52 percent of Jews raised Orthodox no longer consider themselves to be so. That...
Jews around the world were inspired last month when Arab-Israeli teenager Mohammad Zoabi cloaked himself in an Israeli flag and spoke into a bedroom video camera, "I am an Israeli and will remain an Israeli. Israel will remain a Jewish and a democratic country." What few realized is that within days after the video went viral, Israeli police arrested three men in his own family for plotting to cause him harm in retaliation for the piece. His cousin, Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi, called her...
"I feel so vulnerable when I am driving my car," said Ehud Zion Waldoks of Beersheba. "I am constantly preparing to stop abruptly, to leap out and grab my daughter and run for cover. I am calculating my speed to be a little faster than usual, but not reckless. I am checking where the nearest wall is at every traffic light." Waldoks's story is similar to that of all southern Israelis-and now most of the state of Israel, as rockets penetrate deeper than ever into the Jewish state. But as a residen...
Marina Delfos is on a mission. Working with a group of people who come to Jamaica each year through Caribbean Volunteer Expeditions and a handful of local volunteers, she is helping to take inventory of the area's Jewish gravestones, trying to make sense of the 360-year-old and oft-forgotten Jamaican Jewish past. This past March, Delfos struck stone while she was on the Way Back When (Black River Heritage Tour) trip with Allison Morris. "I knew there had to be a cemetery in [the town of] Black...
Many questions surrounded the future of the Chabad-Lubavitch branch of Hasidism after the death of its seventh and final leader-"the Rebbe," Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson-on June 12, 1994. Schneerson had no children, and no successor was named. But 20 years later, Chabad is not only alive and well, but increasingly receiving the so-called highest form of flattery: imitation. Against the backdrop of last fall's much-discussed Pew Research Center survey of American Jews, many Jewish leaders...
Standing alone against the desert landscape, Kornmehl Goat Cheese Farm & Restaurant is modest, lacking artsy adornments and embellishments that tourists often favor. But situated about 30 miles south of Sde Boker, the home of Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, the farm is a striking example of how the once vast desert region that most tourists simply ignored is blooming today. Owners Anat and Daniel Kornmehl are considered by many chefs to be the finest makers of goat cheese in Isr...
On Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the counting of the Omer and the 18th day of the Hebrew month of Iyar, the Jewish community is aflame with celebration. People frolic around bonfires in traditional festivities, marking the day with joy. According to Rabbi BenZion Friedman, director of the Torah Learning Center of Greater Kansas City, the tradition of lighting bonfires on Lag B'Omer started with the passing of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on the 18th of Iyar. Known as the Rashbi, on the day of his...
Some 22,000 Israeli soldiers have died since the establishment of the Jewish state, including 40 soldiers between March 2013 and March 2014, according to the Israel Defense Forces. "We in Israel are fighting-and dying-on behalf of every Jew in the world... We are maintaining a safe haven for every Jew to escape to. Jews in the Diaspora live safer lives and hold their heads higher because Israel and its army exists," said Chantal Belzberg, executive vice chairman of OneFamily, an organization...
Fifteen seconds. That's how long a resident of Sderot has from the time a Code Red alert is announced until a Palestinian rocket strikes the town or is intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. In other southern Israeli communities, one might have 30 seconds, maybe even a minute. But it's never very long. Israelis fell asleep to sirens March 12 and awoke to sirens March 13 while enduring a barrage of at least 60 rockets launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, the largest...
Jam session. Flash poll. A tapping into our collective mind. Almost three weeks ago, from Feb. 16-19, 2,135 people-61 percent between the ages of 18 and 34-participated with world Jewish leaders in an online "jam session" organized through a joint initiative between the government of Israel and an entity being termed world Jewry. The initiative, said Minister of Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Naftali Bennett, was about "hearing new ideas and empowering Jews from around the world to take part in...
While methods of insulin administration have improved and modes of measuring how much insulin to give are far superior than they were in the 1920s, when insulin was discovered, there have been no major advancements toward a cure for Type 1 diabetes for almost a century. Until now, Dr. Eli Lewis believes. "Tissue damage actually plays a role in Type 1 diabetes... but it is often overlooked and under-studied," Lewis-a world-renowned expert on autoimmune disease and the director of the Clinical...
Americans with Israeli bank accounts may be in for a financial nightmare in just several months if they haven't filed their taxes properly. According to Charles M. Ruchelman, a member of the Washington, D.C., law firm of Caplin & Drysdale, some Israeli banks are already notifying U.S. account holders that they may be disclosing the relationship between the Israeli banks and their U.S. owners to the U.S. Department of Justice, which could result in fines-or even prosecution-for Israeli account...
From the inception of the Jewish state to the present, Israel's military has been anything but a male-dominated institution. On May 26, 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion established the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Less than three months later, the Knesset instituted mandatory conscription for all women without children. Today 57 percent of all officers in the Israeli army are women, according to the IDF. The IDF recently highlighted the stories of a select group of those women on its blog,...
