Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 36 of 36
Daniel and Jason Franzel, sons of Steven and Karen Franzel of Maitland, will be called to the Torah as b’nai mitzvah on Friday, Feb. 19, 2016 and Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016, at Congregation Beth Am in Longwood. Daniel is in the eighth grade at Quest Kids Academy, and is a member of Central Florida Buddy Ball and OCA Special Olympics. He enjoys horseback riding and circus acrobatics. Jason is in the seventh grade at Orange County Virtual School, and is a member of Maitland Little League Intermediate Division and Quinco Baseball Academy. He enjoys f...
Jenna Marie Richman, daughter of Scott and Gwen Richman of Gotha, will be called to the Torah as a bat mitzvah on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2016, at Congregation of Reform Judaism. Jenna is in the seventh grade at Gotha Middle School where she is a member of the National Junior Honor Society and plays cello in the school orchestra. Her hobbies and interests include dance, volleyball, reading and spending time with her friends. She has been a Girl Scout for seven years. Sharing in the family's simcha...
BERLIN (JTA) - Set amid a 1944 prisoner uprising at Auschwitz, "Son of Saul" stood out as a long shot when its producers first applied for funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The film's director, Laszlo Nemes, had no experience with feature films; its lead actor hadn't been on a film set in 15 years; and its script included long, silent and out-of-focus shots. But the Claims Conference, which negotiates restitution for Nazi victims, ultimately decided to help...
Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org)—A senior Hamas official warned Wednesday that the Palestinian terrorist group’s efforts to rebuild the Gaza Strip’s terror tunnel grid are advancing rapidly, and that some tunnels dug under the border already run deep into Israeli territory. “Israeli technology will not be able to stop the resistance as long as Hamas exists,” Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar told Oman-based Alwatan News. “Even if Israel is able to uncover a tunnel, or two, or 10, they [the tunnels] run deep under Israel, beyond Gaza, into...
RAANANA, Israel (JTA)-Before she traded her native France for Israel, Catherine Berdah ran a successful drug store in an affluent suburb on the eastern edge of Paris. A 50-year-old pharmacist with a master's degree in business and decades of experience, Berdah earned over $6,000 per month and presided over an expanding business with 14 employees. But Berdah sold out last year and moved with her husband and two teenage daughters to this central Israeli city because she feared for their future in...
(Kveller via JTA)-My first transgression was a cheesesteak. I was 6 years old, maybe younger, staring down the gateway to deviance. If my dinner plate were the back page of Highlights for Children, I had the answer in the bag. What was wrong with the picture? A gross violation of church and state. The flagrant commingling, no-outright canoodling-of two items that had no business being together: milk and meat. At home, we observed the laws of kashrut: two sets of silverware, two sets of...
(JNS.org)- On International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei published a video titled "Are The Dark Ages Over," expressing doubt whether the Holocaust took place and complaining about European nations' ban on Holocaust denial. Khamenei laments that the Holocaust denial bans are not justified by European laws regarding free speech. In the video, which was translated by the Middle East Media Research...
Knesset foreign affairs chief: Ex-settler leader will not be Israel’s envoy to Brazil JERUSALEM (JTA)—Former settler leader Dani Dayan will not become Israel’s ambassador to Brazil, a top Israeli government official reportedly said. “We needn’t delude ourselves; Dani Dayan will not be the ambassador to Brazil. We condemn Brazil’s behavior,” Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said Sunday during a committee discussion on Brazil’s refusal to accept Dayan’s credentials, the Times of Israel reported. Ha...
By Cnaan Liphshiz KAZAN, Russia (JTA)-When the six members of the Simcha klezmer band hauled their instruments into a dilapidated rehearsal space, no one suspected they were about to hijack a government building in this large, clean city some 450 miles east of Moscow. But that's exactly what happened in 1995 when this popular ensemble-founded in 1989 by Jewish musicians during the Soviet Union's twilight years-entered the Teacher's House, a government-controlled building that had once been a syn...
(JTA)—The Iowa caucuses are over—and the first real test of the presidential candidates’ viability gave us more questions than answers. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, won the Republican caucus on Monday night, relegating Donald Trump, the real estate billionaire, to second place. Both Trump and Cruz ran insurgent anti-establishment campaigns. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., made a strong showing for third place, well ahead of the other “establishment” candidates. On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., effective...
The story of the modern exodus of "Beta Israel" the Jews of Ethiopia during Operations Moses and Solomon, which together airlifted some 22,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, is well known. Less well known is the dramatic exodus of over 48,000 Jews from Yemen. Almost unknown is the role played by Alaska Airlines. No one knows for certain when the first Jews came to Yemen. Local legend has them being sent as traders by King Solomon. In any event, Jews have lived in Yemen for many centuries. In that...
