Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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News of prominent NYC business woman and Jewish philanthropist, Helene Fortunoff’s death brought back memories of working in the Fortunoff family business during my college years in the 1960s. Helene was the last of the second generation of matriarchs of a very successful family of retailers who created a mini-retail empire, a model and forerunner for the Walmart and Target stores, which today dominate the big box retail business Soon after graduation from high school in June 1960, I landed a summer job in a warehouse and housewares store o...
As the holiday season concludes with this evening’s New Year’s celebrations and tomorrow’s recovery, the same old problem of 2021 confronting the Jewish people is carried over into 2022, namely global antisemitism. As we move into the new year, virulent antisemitism continues to grow unabated here in America and throughout the world. How long must we deal with the endless and meaningless apologies for the use of antisemitic tropes, for physical attacks on Jewish citizens and for attacks against Israel based on knowingly false accusations that...
In October, I wrote about the president’s announced shift from a foreign policy strategy of military intervention to a policy of “relentless diplomacy”; and the challenges he will face in dealing with Iran and with increased Palestinian intransigence toward any concessions in the conflict with Israel (“Everywhere,” Oct. 22, 2021) I also opined in that column, that the president conveyed a subtle message of reluctance to back up his “relentless diplomacy” with hard power coming on the heels of the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan....
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof …” It is not just by chance that these profound words were chosen to be the very first words of the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The first colonists to escape to the New World were motivated by a desire to escape the rigid and mandated religious practices and domination of the Church of England. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century replaced rigid Catholic Church domination of the political and religious life in Europe in areas wher...
Lebanon is the little Arab brother that reluctantly got into its big brothers’ fight with Israel. Lebanon won its formal independence in 1943 with the termination of the French Mandate established by the League of Nations. It became truly independent with the withdrawal of the French army in 1946. During WWII Lebanon was under the control of the French Vichy regime. Post WWII Lebanon became quite prosperous as Beirut soon became the banking center for the oil-rich Gulf States including Saudi Arabia. It was considered the Switzerland of the Midd...
The president recently announced that the United States will shift American foreign policy strategy from military intervention to “relentless diplomacy.” Translated into the jargon of the foreign policy establishment, this means a downgrading of “hard power” capability to an emphasis on “soft power” persuasion in negotiations By announcing this general diplomatic strategy beforehand however, the president has weakened both the hard power and the soft power impacts to our foreign policy strategy. Without question, diplomacy is the preferred p...
As the pandemic extended into the second year of the High Holidays I found myself teetering between attending religious services in person or virtually as a participant in a live-streaming congregation. Last year, as a senior citizen and unprotected by vaccination it was a no-brainer to avoid services in person. Unfortunately, it was not a pleasant experience for me to “attend” live-streaming services. I felt completely disconnected. The online services were heavy into English with Hebrew being almost a second language. The music acc...
It was a warm summer day in June 1968 when California Democrats went to the polls in the presidential primary and delivered a resounding victory to Senator Robert F. Kennedy over democratic rival and then vice president Hubert H. Humphrey and Minnesota Senator Eugene J. McCarthy. America was well on its way, moving toward the presidential conventions, to select the respective Republican and Democrat nominees who would face each other in November in the 1968 presidential election. The no nonsense senator from New York was in a close national...
As America licks its wounds and wrings its hands at the debacle of the last several weeks in the humiliating retreat and defeat at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan, let us pause to remember the brave and courageous men and women of our armed forces who returned to the battlefield in the waning days of our retreat from Kabul. They returned, not to battle a barbaric enemy, but to rescue and save American citizens, Afghan allies and citizens who embraced freedom, modernity and equality. These are the Afghans who rejected the inhumane,...
Rosh Hashanah is the time of year when we as individuals find ourselves at the center of the universe in direct communication with God. For a brief moment the present stops, the past does not recede and the future refuses to beckon us. The High Holy Days are rest stops on our journey through life; a brief respite to catch our breaths, to check our baggage and to recharge our human energy. To understand where we have been, where we are, and where we are going requires us, (utilizing “contemporary lingo”) to call up our spiritual Waze to see if...
One of the great ironies revealed by the Covid-19 pandemic is the action of many Americans who profess to be lovers of freedom and of their fellow Americans, but who have ignored common sense and betrayed that love, in their irresponsible exercise of freedom during these trying days of pandemic. Not only have they endangered their own health, they have acted in a manner that expresses an abandonment of their concern for the health of their fellow citizens. Abraham Lincoln warned of the threat to the Nation of the irresponsible exercise of...
Lately, the delicious flavors of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream have started to taste very bitter. Could it be the sudden introduction of antisemitic ingredients into the recipe have contaminated a great American product along with the story of a great American company? Prior to being acquired by Unilever, Ltd., a British based international conglomerate in the food industry, in 2001, the company was not only successful, but was socially conscience and active in civil rights and environmental concerns. It certainly was not at its inception destined...
One of the factors in the early formation of humans into social groups was a common belief in spiritual powers, mythical gods and superstitions. The consensus of so-called religious beliefs within these groups at the dawn of civilization was as much a driving force in the formation of tribal community life as was the need to collectively survive by delegating and cooperating in food gathering, hunting and protecting against other tribal communities. While unanimity of religious belief within the tribe was beneficial to its safety, well-being...
A friend of mine and faithful reader of my column (I hope!) asked me to share with him my perspectives on the new political situation in Israel and the impact it will have on future relations between Israel and the U.S. government, American Jewish communities, and the Arab world. I told him I would love to respond to his request, but in truth given the complexities of the Mideast and my lack of a crystal ball, the most accurate answer I could respond with is “I don’t know!” However, as a columnist I do have literary license to speculate on wh...
Next Sunday, June 20, is Father’s Day. In the more than 30 years I have been writing this column I have never devoted an entire column to my dad. I have often thought about it, but my feelings of loss for him have always overwhelmed my ability to write about him. This year in November will be half a century since his passing when I was 27 years old. He had not quite reached his 61st birthday when cancer took him from me. He was the oldest of six sons of an immigrant father and mother. Himself an immigrant arriving in the U.S. at 16 years of a...
As Hamas creates a war crime with every rocket it fires into Israel solely for the purpose of killing civilians, a biased media, along with supposedly creditable human rights organizations, BDS backers, Students for Justice in Palestine and naive progressives including many progressive Jews, are accusing Israel of provoking the current breakout of hostilities by another false accusation of Israeli apartheid of Arabs This latest provocation, according to these purveyors of false accusations against Israel is the alleged attempt to arbitrarily ev...
The word “folly” has become associated with only one policy decision in all of our nation’s history. That policy decision was to purchase Alaska from Russia immediately after the end of the Civil War. The primary advocate of the purchase for $7,000,000 was then Secretary of State William H. Seward. After much heated public debate and opposition, the sale was ratified by the U.S. Senate and consummated by Mr. Seward who was ridiculed and heavily criticized at the time in the American press. The purchase, coming so close to the end of the Civil...
I have been writing my Everywhere column for the Heritage Florida Jewish News for almost 20 years. It began in the early 1980s and continued until just after the High Holidays of 1997, when I suspended writing the column in favor of devoting more time to a growing family and law practice. I resumed writing the column in February 2018 after the kids were grown and well on their way to following their own dreams; and I entered the ambiguous state of semi-retirement. One of the great pleasures of writing this column is the feedback I get from read...
As the Holocaust recedes further and further into the past, the anti-Semites of the future (and for sure they will exist) will have an easier time promoting the falsehood that the Holocaust never occurred. Who will replace the first generation of survivors to bear witness and to challenge the current and future Holocaust deniers? Who will perpetuate the truth that the darkest event in human history actually occurred? In order for “Never Again” to be a continuing reality, and not just a slogan, the World must “Never Forget”! Can World Jewry rely...
As the sun sets tomorrow evening and the Sabbath wanes, Jewish people around the world will be welcoming in the holiday of Passover, with the holiday’s most notable event, the Passover Seder. The Passover Seder is a family and community gathering characterized by a festive and elaborate meal, complete with symbolic foods, inserted into the middle of the re-telling of the story of our Exodus from Egypt. The stage is set with the lighting of holiday candles accompanied by the prayer that reminds us of the Torah commandment that mandates our t...
In the past few weeks we have witnessed a Black comic on SNL (who should know better) taking a cheap shot at Israel, explicitly and falsely accusing the Israeli government of discriminating against its Arab citizens by intentionally withholding vaccine inoculations in favor of its Jewish citizens. This incident reminds me of the saying, “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” On Feb. 9, 2021, NBC broadcasted on its digital platform a Canadian-produced episode of “Nurses,” which according to numerous newspaper and other I...
Today marks the one-year anniversary since my wife and I attended our last Jewish social or religious gathering. That event was attending services to hear the reading of Megillat,The Book of Esther, and to enjoy the festivities, food and beverages as we celebrated Purim 5780 at the Orlando Torah Center. Since that time our Jewish life has been observed and celebrated in marital “solitary confinement.” In fact, our initial isolation felt a little like imprisonment. I actually texted my children in the early days of the pandemic, somewhat ton...
As the Biden administration takes shape it is becoming increasing clear, through the president’s appointments to the State Department, White House staff and other federal bodies dealing with Middle East policy formulation, that he sees U.S. re-engagement with the Palestinians as a high priority. The terms of that re-engagement could be beneficial in advancing the peace process by fostering a resumption of bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on the basis of the new realty in the Arab/Israeli relationship. H...
Although never a member of the Republican Jewish Coalition, I have endorsed their efforts over the years in being at the Republican Party table and promoting Republican candidates who support a strong American/Israel relationship. Their work has been and continues to be particularly important in the face of a Democratic Party, moving more leftist and more antagonistic to Zionism and a strong and secure Israel and still retaining the support and loyalty of a substantial majority of American Jewish voters. The RJC has also been a bulwark within...
Let us forget for a moment that Israel is not the nation-state of the Jewish people. Let us fantasize that it is not engaged in an intractable conflict with Palestinian Arabs who refuse to recognize or make peace with the legitimacy of an indigenous people who historically, biblically, legally, and irreversibly have reestablished their homeland in the Land of Israel. The realty of course is that despite numerous efforts and generous concessions over the last 73 years by Israel to make peace with the Palestinian Arabs, the Palestinian Arab...
