Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 15 of 15
(JTA) - "Nobody Wants This," a rom-com Netflix series starring Adam Brody as a charming Los Angeles rabbi who falls for a blond, agnostic sex and dating podcaster played by Kristen Bell, is based on a true story - kind of. Erin Foster, the creator of the show, is a blond Los Angeles native who found her match in a Jew, albeit not a rabbi - her husband is record-label owner Simon Tikhman - and converted for him. Like her protagonist Joanne (Bell), she also "got the ick" when her Jewish then-boyfr...
(JTA) - On the eve of World War II, the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies in Berlin embodied an avant-garde era for the study of modern Judaism and philosophy, hosting students from the leading thinker Leo Baeck to Czech Jewish writer Franz Kafka to the first woman rabbi, Regina Jonas. It was also home to one of the world's largest and most important Jewish libraries - about 60,000 books of theology, history and literature that reflected the diversity of German-Jewish society before the...
(JTA) - Taylor Swift's detachment from contentious global conflicts is a hallmark of her superstardom. For some fans in Israel, it's also a selling point. Michal Paz-Klapp, the Young Adult editor at Israel's prominent Modan Publishing House, snatched the opportunity to publish a Hebrew-language edition of "Who Is Taylor Swift?," by Kirsten Anderson. The U.S. children's book came out in April as part of Penguin Workshop's bestselling "Who Was?" and "Who Is?" series, a range of illustrated...
(JTA) — Spain, Norway and Ireland said Wednesday they would formally recognize a Palestinian state, a sign of Israel’s challenges on the global stage. The countries portrayed the step as an attempt to salvage long-dormant prospects for progress toward a two-state solution, creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Israel castigated the move as a reward for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which launched the current war. “Last month I stood on these same steps with Prime Minister Sanchez of Spain, and we said that the point of recognizing the state of...
(JTA) — A Holocaust romance, sparked when a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau is forced to tattoo a number on another prisoner’s arm and they fall in love at first sight, sounds almost implausibly uplifting for a story set in a concentration camp. But “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” a new television series, is based on two Slovakian Jewish prisoners — Lali Sokolov and Gita Furman — who really did meet at Auschwitz, survive, marry and move to Australia together after the war. The six-part drama, which premiered May 2 on Peacock and Sky, draws from...
(JTA) — Georgia Hunter was 15 when she discovered that her grandfather was Jewish. The revelation took place a year after his death, while Hunter was interviewing her grandmother for a school project. “A high school English teacher said, ‘Go out and interview a relative to learn a bit about your roots and in turn about yourselves,’” Hunter told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I sat with my grandmother Caroline and I will never forget that hour I spent with her, sitting in her home and discovering that my grandfather was from this town called...
(JTA) - In 1941 Sarajevo, a Muslim woman hid her Jewish friend from fascist roundups. Half a century later, that same Muslim woman was trapped in the besieged capital during the 1992-1995 Bosnian War - and her Jewish friend made sure she got out. These real events inspired "Sevap/Mitzvah," a short film directed by Sabina Vajrača that won the 2023 Humanitas Prize, among other awards, and has qualified to be considered for the 2024 Oscar for best live action short. The film has been shown across...
(JTA) - To prepare for their role in creating Adam Sandler's latest movie, crew members hit the Toronto bar and bat mitzvah circuit. Production designer Perry Blake and set decorator Julia Altschul, guided by a local consultant on the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, crashed 10 parties within a matter of weeks. "We saw how amazing and big and outlandish and extravagant they were," Blake told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "With a movie, you usually set your sights high - bigger than the real...
(JTA) - Today is not just "Barbie" release day - moviegoers are also planning to fill theaters across the United States to see Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" biopic. Many hope it will answer a question that has long divided Americans and the country's understanding of its history: Who exactly was J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb? Oppenheimer's name has become "a metaphor for mass death beneath a mushroom cloud," in the words of Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, whose 2005...
(JTA) - Long before the craze over the upcoming "Barbie" movie, most people could conjure an image of the doll: She was the beauty standard and the popular girl, a perky, white, ever-smiling brand of Americana. She was also the child of a hard-nosed Jewish businesswoman, Ruth Handler, whose family fled impoverishment and antisemitism in Poland. And some see the original Barbie as Jewish like Handler, a complex symbol of assimilation in the mid-20th-century United States. The doll's latest...
(JTA) — One spring morning in 1934, two little girls followed their mothers to a corner grocery store in Amsterdam. The mothers, hearing each other speak German to their daughters, discovered they were both Jewish refugees who had recently fled Nazi Germany. The two girls peeked shyly at each other from behind their mothers’ skirts, one of them slight with dark, glossy hair, the other taller and fairer. Those two girls were Anne Frank and Hannah Pick-Goslar. One was to become the most fam...
(JTA) - Toronto is home to one of the world's largest Jewish communities, nearly half of the 335,000 Jews in Canada. But until last week, the city did not have a dedicated Holocaust museum. The Toronto Holocaust Museum opened its doors on Friday, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by an array of dignitaries and Holocaust survivors. Aimed at young learners who will inherit a post-survivor world, the space centers around 11 kiosks where large-as-life survivors share their testimonies through...
(JTA) - After five seasons, 20 Emmy awards and plenty of Jewish jokes, "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" aired its final episode. The lauded Amazon Prime show from Amy Sherman-Palladino has enveloped viewers in a shimmering, candy-colored version of New York during the late 1950s and early 1960s - a world in which "humor" has meant Jewish humor and "culture" has meant Jewish culture. But as it comes to an end, the show's Jewish legacy is still up for debate: Did its representation of Jews on...
(JTA) - While the United States swung its door shut to most refugees during World War II, a young American in France saved thousands, including some of the 20th century's defining artists and thinkers - such as Marc Chagall and Hannah Arendt - from the Nazis. The rescue mission of Varian Fry, which went largely unrecognized during his life, is the subject of Netflix's new drama "Transatlantic," from "Unorthodox" creator Anna Winger. Starring Cory Michael Smith as Fry, the seven-episode...
(JTA) — Dylan Geller has taken great pride in his work as a student manager of Duke University’s men’s basketball team since landing the gig as a freshman in 2019. But things felt different this season, and not just because the Blue Devils had a new head coach, Jon Scheyer, after 42 years under the legendary Mike Krzyzewski. “Coach Scheyer is such a role model to me, being a young Jewish man myself with aspiring hopes and dreams in basketball,” said Geller, a senior from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Seeing him do it so successfully, he’s defini...
