Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) — Tinder says it has banned Shimon Hayut and all of his known aliases. But it’s hard to imagine anyone swiping right on the Israeli who masqueraded as a son of the Russian-Israeli diamond dealer Lev Leviev while allegedly defrauding women he met on the dating app, now that millions of people have seen a Netflix documentary about his crimes. “The Tinder Swindler,” released last week, offers a dramatic reconstruction of the shocking story that emerged in early 2019. Under the alias Simon Leviev, Hayut would wine and dine Scandin...
(JTA) — ABC has suspended Whoopi Goldberg from her role as a co-host of a morning TV talk show for two weeks amid criticism of Goldberg’s characterization of the Holocaust. Goldberg will take two weeks off from the show, ABC News President Kim Godwin announced in a statement Tuesday evening, hours after a leading Jewish organization that had been among Goldberg’s critics said it had welcomed her apology for saying the Holocaust “isn’t about race.” “Effective immediately, I am suspending Whoopi Goldberg for two weeks for her wrong and hurtful c...
(JTA) - A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic memoir about his father's Holocaust experience, from its curriculum after board members raised objections about curse words, nude drawings and "not wise or healthy" content within it. Spiegelman, who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for the book, told CNBC that the decision was "Orwellian" and said he doubted that the McMinn County school board's decision to stop teaching his book had only to do with his choic...
(JTA) - The New York City rabbi who spoke twice to the man who held Jews hostage in their Texas synagogue last week detailed the experience in a sermon Friday night. Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of Central Synagogue also outlined her anxiety as an American Jew and exhorted her congregants to heed a prayer that the Reform movement has made part of its liturgy on Tisha B'Av, the Jewish day mourning the destruction of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and other traumatic events in Jewish history: "Blessed...
(JTA) — Few rabbis appear before more people than Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi of New York City’s 2,000-member Central Synagogue. But Buchdahl may have become one of the most recognizable rabbis ever after her name — and face — appeared as a clue on “Jeopardy!”. The cameo came toward the end of the game show’s second round, in a category titled “I am Woman.” Reigning champion Amy Schneider, en route to her 21st straight win, selected the $800 clue, and a picture of Buchdahl wearing a tallit with purple stripes appeared. Host Ken Jennings...
(JTA) — When Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, picked a favorite memory from the last year for a reflective Thanksgiving-themed tweet on Thursday, he didn’t turn to the day in January when his wife was sworn in or mention their first diplomatic trip together this week. Instead, he shared pictures from the day his family affixed a mezuzah on the doorframe of the vice president’s mansion. Mezuzahs are tubes containing the text of the Shema prayer that Jews traditionally attach to their doorposts. Emhoff is the first Jew t...
(JTA) - Women of the Wall's monthly prayer service at the Western Wall in Jerusalem was disrupted yet again by more than 100 Orthodox protesters, a day after former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amplified the protesters' cause. The disruptions took place even though lawmakers who support and oppose the group agreed to stay away from the Western Wall, in a bid to calm tensions. Women of the Wall, a group that organizes a women's prayer service at the holy site on the first day of each Hebrew...
Spoiler alert: This piece contains plot details about HBO's "Succession," including extensive details about the Season 3 episode "Lion in the Meadow" that first aired Nov. 7, 2021. (JTA) - In the very first shot of Kendall Roy walking into the island home of Waystar investor Josh Aaronson on the latest episode of HBO's hit series "Succession," a massive mezuzah is visible on the doorframe behind him. The mezuzah, which looks to be about 8 inches long, is positioned well about Kendall's head...
(JTA) — A third of Jewish college students say they have personally experienced antisemitism in the last year, according to a new survey conducted jointly by Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League. The two groups recently announced a partnership aimed at combating antisemitism on college campuses; the survey represents one of the first fruits of the relationship. The results add data and texture to the picture of Jewish life on campus that has been built in recent years in large part on anecdotes and firestorms. They suggest that the majority of...
(JTA) — Fear of antisemitism spurred 40 percent of American Jews to change their behavior over the past year, according to a new survey about antisemitism in America. The survey, released Monday, is the latest in an annual series commissioned by the American Jewish Committee to understand how Jewish Americans and the general public experience and perceive antisemitism. A survey of American Jews found that over the last year, 17 percent said they “avoided certain places, events, or situations,” 22 percent avoided making themselves visua...
(JTA) - Jean Meltzer always knew how "The Matzah Ball," her first novel, would end. "The rule of romance is that there has to be a happy ending; the characters have to get together," Meltzer told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "If they don't get together, that's not a romance; that's literary fiction." So (not-really-a-spoiler alert) it was a foregone conclusion that protagonist Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt, a best-selling Christmas-themed romance writer who has kept her career from her...
By (JTA) — Teachers in a Texas school district were told last week that a new state law requiring them to present multiple perspectives about “widely debated and currently controversial” issues meant they needed to make “opposing” views on the Holocaust available to students. NBC News obtained an audio recording of the official, the Carroll Independent School District’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, speaking to the teachers about how to work under the constraints of the new law, known as House Bill 3979. The law was passed...
(JTA) — When Rivka Taub Rivera decided to apply for a religious exemption to New York City’s vaccine mandate for teachers, she didn’t turn to the rabbis of Borough Park, the Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn where she lives. Instead, she asked Michoel Green, a Chabad rabbi who has openly opposed vaccination, to submit the required letter from a clergy member. Based in Massachusetts, Green was disaffiliated by a Chabad organization because of his anti-vaccination social media posts and has become a folk hero for some Orthodox Jews who oppos... Full story
(JTA) — Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom easily survived a recall election last Tuesday, putting to end the possibility that a right-wing Republican could take over as the state’s top executive. But one effect of the bruising political fight appears likely to endure: scrutiny over whether America’s first Jewish woman senator is still fit to serve. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s name was not on the ballot, but in some ways the election was about who should replace her. Feinstein is 88 and, according to some reports, increasingly infirm. Her curr...
(JTA) — If you know any young children or fidgety adults, chances are you’ve seen, heard, or coveted a handheld piece of dimpled silicone known as a “pop-it.” The must-have toy was originally created in the 1970s by an Israeli couple with a penchant for playthings, according to a BBC report that calls the pop-it “an overnight sensation more than 40 years in the making.” Theo and Ora Coster created more than 150 toys and games through their company, Theora Design, including some that immediately became popular worldwide, such as “Guess Who?...
(JTA) — Two weeks after Mayim Bialik said being selected to host primetime specials of “Jeopardy!” was “beyond anything I ever imagined could happen,” the Jewish actress is taking on an even more prominent role on the beloved game show. Bialik is hosting the first three weeks of the regular season after Mike Richards, the producer originally selected to succeed Alex Trebek, stepped down on Friday amid a backlash over his past comments, which included offensive statements about women and Jews. Bialik is also being considered for the full-time...
(JTA) — For the second year, COVID-19 has made it so Jews who want to attend High Holidays services must undergo a complicated risk calculation. Is it safe to go to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Should I bring my children? Is the shofar — the horn whose blasts punctuate the holy days — a potential vector of disease? Last year, five months into the global pandemic that has killed more than 4.5 million people globally, the answers were fairly straightforward, if dispiriting: Stay home, or at least stay masked and very far apart...
(JTA) — Many people have curbed or curtailed their big Shabbat dinners during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not the cast of “The Real Housewives of New York City.” On the episode that aired Tuesday, the cast of the Bravo reality TV series about socialites in the city is shown attending a drama-filled event described as “Black Shabbat” by its host. Eboni Williams, the show’s first Black cast member, hosted the dinner at the home of Archie Gottesman, a founder of JewBelong, a nonprofit that set out to “rebrand Judaism” and recently took out billbo...
(JTA) — Organizers of an event celebrating immigrant chefs in Philadelphia removed an Israeli food truck from the lineup, citing “the concerns of community that we love and serve.” But the bid to calm controversy by Eat Up the Borders, the organizer of the event on Sunday, backfired: After announcing the removal, thousands of people replied, with varying levels of vitriol, questioning why the group associated a chef living in Philadelphia to the policies of a country nearly 6,000 miles away. A congressman representing Philadelphia relea...
(JTA) - When Daniela Weiner heard about a virtual bake sale against antisemitism, the Chicago pastry chef and food photographer didn't think twice about joining. Weiner is not Jewish. But she has participated in benefit bake sales before, raising $1,500 last year for racial justice causes, and she also knew that some of her Jewish friends in the food world were alarmed by a recent spate of antisemitic incidents. "Seeing a friend talk about this, crying on social media that she is afraid ... I...
(JTA) — Dozens of American rabbinical students have issued a public letter accusing Israel of apartheid and calling on American Jewish communities to hold Israel accountable for the “violent suppression of human rights.” The letter comes as Israel is engaged in an intense exchange of fire with Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, in which nine Israelis and more than 100 Palestinians have died. Israel is facing fierce criticism from progressive politicians and activists for its airstrikes on Gaza in response to Hamas rocke...
UPDATE: Israel’s announcement of a ground operation in Gaza may have been intended to misdirect Hamas militants. While the Israeli army bombarded Gaza on Thursday, the army later clarified that troops did not enter the territory. (JTA) — Israel’s army unleashed a wider military attack on Gaza Thursday night, inaugurating a new phase in a conflict that has claimed dozens of lives in the last several days. The war has already reached several milestones in a region accustomed to conflict. Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, has sent...
(JTA) - The heartwarming story has been hard to miss: A law professor is shopping at his local grocery store when he sees an elderly woman struggling to get her favorite jam from a high shelf. Why is it her favorite? "I am a Holocaust survivor," she says. "During the war, the family that owns the company hid my family in Paris." Tens of thousands of people - at least - have shared the story since it began circulating on social media this weekend. It has prompted countless people to vow to buy...
(JTA) — Thirty years after Roald Dahl’s death and months before the expected release of a new movie about his life, the family of the children’s author has apologized for his anti-Semitic comments. Dahl was openly anti-Semitic during his life, telling the New Statesman in 1983 about the Jews, “Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.” Those comments and others have colored Dahl’s legacy, even as children continue to enjoy the stories he wrote during his 50-year publishing career, including “Charlie and the Chocolate F...
(JTA) - As Israel received its first shipment of COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Twitter that he aimed to be the first person in the country to receive the inoculation. "We brought the vaccines to Israel! I intend to be the first in Israel to get vaccinated, to set an example for all Israeli citizens," Netanyahu tweeted. Recent surveys of Israelis found that a majority are fearful of the vaccines and would not want to be included in the first set of...
