Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Time, in its essence, is an unceasing flow on which human beings have imposed meaning with arbitrary divisions and markers — years, months, weeks, days, minutes, and seconds. These units of time serve as measures for human activity in education, commerce, leisure, agriculture, and religion. Jewish time grew out of God’s imposition of order on the primeval chaos. First, God separated the light from darkness, creating day and night. Then, as a reflection of God’s cycle of creation and rest, the work week was differentiated from Shabbat. Later...
The effort to strike a balance between a particularistic loyalty to Jewish religion and nationhood and a more universalistic commitment to the human community played itself out in the struggle to set a date for the beginning of the Jewish calendar year. The two possibilities were Nisan, the month of Passover, and Tishrei, the month of what is now known as the festival of Rosh Hashanah . In the Torah, the beginning of the year was clearly set at the first of Nisan, in the context of a description of the first Passover. “The Lord said to Moses a...
Food innovation is the next course in the storied U.S.-Israel partnership. Rutgers University's Food Innovation Center and Tel-Hai College in Israel's northern Galilee region recently announced the New Jersey-Israel Healthy, Functional, and Medical Food Alliance, a venture that will create synergies between start-ups and more established food businesses in America's so-called "Garden State" and the Jewish state. The key players are Member of Knesset Erel Margalit (Labor), founder of the Jerusale...
Given that half of the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust came from Poland, many descendants of Polish Jews may be surprised to learn about the current hospitable environment for the Jewish population of their ancestors' country. Poland experiences far less anti-Semitism than the typical European country and is home to a burgeoning-albeit relatively small-Jewish community (estimates suggest 10,000-20,000, but no definitive figures are available). At the same time, young non-Jewish Poles ar...
Since 2006, the Turner Classic Movies (TCM) cable and satellite TV network has hosted “The Projected Image,” a month-long showcase examining how different cultural and ethnic groups have been portrayed on the big screen. At last, after previously covering African Americans, Asians, the LGBT community, Latinos, Native Americans, Arabs, and people with disabilities, the annual series is delving into Jewish film this month. “The Projected Image: The Jewish Experience on Film,” whose first segment aired Sept. 2, runs again Sept. 23 and 30, at 8 p....
As the intersection of family, Jewish memory, and the passions of contemporary politics and society, the Passover seder is said to be the most celebrated annual Jewish event in the United States. But it is not always easy to make all seder attendees feel the Haggadah's mandate that in every generation, each individual should feel personally redeemed from Egypt. The seder's uniqueness is what makes running a successful seder so challenging, suggests Noam Zion, research fellow at the Shalom...
On the surface, last Sunday’s ordination ceremony for the first three graduates of Bronx, N.Y.-based Yeshivat Maharat—the first institution to train Orthodox women as spiritual leaders and halakhic authorities—marked a historic moment for the Jewish community. But Rabbi Jeffrey S. Fox, rosh yeshiva (academic dean) of Yeshivat Maharat, does not view the institution as trailblazing or revolutionary. “On the ground, on a day-to-day basis, what we are doing is very normal, especially for these w...
Chaya Appel-Fishman hatched the idea for a network of Jewish businesswomen at age 16, when she rented a college campus and created a conglomerate of creative arts programs with 120 participants and a 20-person staff. “I wanted mentors who could give me advice and deal with my religious needs,” she recalls. “And many women reached out to me for support, asking me ‘How did I do it?’” Now 24 and the founder and executive director of The Jewish Woman Entrepreneur nonprofit, Appel-Fishm...
