Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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ROME (JTA)—Pope Benedict XVI’s eight-year reign as head of the world’s 1 billion Catholics sometimes was a bumpy one for the Vatican’s relations with Israel and the wider Jewish community. But it was also a period in which relations were consolidated and fervent pledges made to continue interfaith dialogue and bilateral cooperation. Both elements were evident in the tributes that flowed from Jewish leaders following the surprise announcement Monday that due to his advanced age and weakeni...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Is President Obama’s plan to visit Israel a sign that he’s ready to take another shot at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking? The White House announced Feb. 5 that Obama would visit Israel in the spring, his first trip there as president. He did visit in 2008, when he was a candidate for the Oval Office. This trip also will include meetings with Palestinian Authority leaders and a trip to Jordan, the White House said. Obama spoke of the visit in a conversation with Israeli Prime...
The 1970’s jingle for Enjoli perfume epitomizes Jewish Pavilion volunteer and honoree Marcie Katzen. The ubiquitous jingle requires just a few “kosherizing” modifications: “I can bring home the (turkey) bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never, ever forget my whole clan, ‘cause I’m a Jewish woman.…” Katzen will be honored by the Jewish Pavilion at its annual Spring Into Fashion at Bloomingdale’s Orlando at 10:45 a.m., March 7. Marc and Henrietta Katzen and family and the Slotsky-Kramer family will s...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Little kids will laugh at anything. The simplest knock-knock joke or a tickle fest—even the threat of one—can so easily end in hysterics. They laugh because they are surprised by something unexpected in a world they are constantly discovering. If only that kind of laughter came as easily as we got older. While the laughter of childhood is characterized by the element of surprise, the laughter in adulthood becomes a way of managing stress (filmmakers know this well and skill...
RAMALLAH—Six-month-old Muhamad Al-Zaben is already a celebrity among Palestinians, the so-called “Freedom Ambassador”. He is the result of smuggled sperm his father Ammar transferred to his mother Dalal during a prison visit in 2006. Now a Palestinian fertility specialist says four other Palestinian women have become pregnant using similar secret methods, as security prisoners and their wives find a way to become parents while the father is still behind bars. Faced with a ban against conjugal visits, the prisoners, accused of attacks against Is...
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (JTA)—For proponents of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, SodaStream would appear to be a straightforward target. The Israeli company, which sells a popular kitchen gadget that turns tap water into carbonated drinks, has a large factory in a West Bank settlement. When SodaStream announced that it would run an ad during the Super Bowl, the pro-Palestinian boycott campaign against the company reached a fever pitch. But for hundreds of Palestinians, SodaStream i...
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center has announced that its February Education Forum will feature a presentation by local writer Greg Dawson. He will be discussing his latest book, “Judgment Before Nuremberg.” The presentation is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21 at the Holocaust Center, 851 N. Maitland Ave. in Maitland. Dawson has been well received at the Holocaust Center discussing his earlier book, “Hiding in the Spotlight.” In it, he tells about his mother’s harrowing...
How do you entertain hundreds of Central Florida’s men? Good food, booze, fancy cars, luxury jets and a little bit of magic. The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando is hosting its Second Annual Man Cave from 7 p.m.- 9 p.m. Thursday, March 14 in the corporate hangar complex at ELJ Aviation, 4130 Centerline Lane, Sanford. The Man Cave is a Men’s Division fundraiser in support of the JFGO’s annual campaign. The event will feature cigars, a bourbon tasting and open bar, food trucks, private jets, exotic cars and more. Guests will schmooze in the c...
It’s time to make your child’s summer plans! Enroll your child in the most fun Jewish week of the year, MACHANEH OHEV for children entering Pk-8th grade in the fall. MACHANEH OHEV will take place the week of June 10-14. The camp day begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 3:30 p.m. with before and after care available for an additional charge. MACHANEH OHEV takes place at the Congregation Ohev Shalom at 613 Concourse Pkwy S. Maitland and is open to the entire Jewish community regardless of synagogue membership. What makes MACHANEH OHEV special? The...
These are the Central Florida Purim events that have been reported to the Heritage by press time. Check with your synagogue or Jewish organization to find out about others that may not have been reported to the paper. Chabad Jewish Center Purim Esters (Oscars) Award Dinner, celebrating “Purim in Hollywood” with comedian Joel Chasnoff. Megillah reading is at 5 p.m. followed by dinner and party at 5:30 p.m. Sunday Feb. 24 at 708 Lake Howell Road, Maitland. There will be a complete children’s program. The cost is $36 adults, $18 for children under...
And so the day has come. Our youngest child. Our last family bar mitzvah. I’m thinking less and less about what I’ll say to my son, more and more about remembering every moment as deeply as possible, because events like these don’t come around again. They are bookmarks, reference points, times that are easy to look back to and say yes, I recall that time in our lives. Gabriel will do just fine. He’s ready. Now all he has to do is be himself, enjoy the celebration along with his friends and fam...
One of the best-kept secrets in the New York Jewish community most certainly is the Museum of Tolerance in Midtown —and not by design. Opened a decade ago by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center and located on East 42nd Street, between Second and Third Avenues, the museum features exhibits and interactive programs challenging visitors to confront issues of bigotry and racism, with the Holocaust as a backdrop and tragic example of the price paid for passivity. There is much to engage the mind and emotions, but on the day I was there t...
In all the blather from politicians and media personalities following Israel’s indecisive election, it is possible to see two ideas that might provide a map to the country’s future. One is the equalizing of the burdens between the haredim and the rest of us. Prominent in the explanation of Yair Lapid’s 19 Knesset seat victory are the mass demonstrations that occurred during the summer of 2011. That was hardly a united movement. Chants and signs demanded too great a variety of injustices to be corrected. What was clear, however, was that there w...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Jewish identity and connection are the birthright of every Jew. So why do so many Jewish institutions discriminate against Jews with disabilities? It keeps happening because we let it happen. We make excuses by saying there isn’t enough support or enough dollars, or because we value children going to Harvard over those who won’t. With February being Jewish Disability Awareness Month, it’s time to ask how long we plan to provide the pearls of our heritage only to those capable of receiving them in the rote methods they are pre...
When I went to Hebrew school in the 1970s, we were still using textbooks from the 1950s. The girls in the illustrations wore short dresses and Mary Janes; the boys wore pie-sized yarmulkes, shorts, and neckties—in their homes! Somehow I grew up to live a highly engaged Jewish life, but not until I shook off a perception that Judaism was for, well, prim little girls and nerdy boys with neckties and gigantic yarmulkes. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Lately I’ve noticed a number of Jewish organizations and individuals marketing thems...
Sometimes you have to give politicians a little credit. If you heard through the grapevine that two of your friends had been discussing you, with one calling you a “liar” and the other one replying, “I have to deal with him even more often than you,” chances are you would cut ties. And that’s exactly what former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said, respectively, about the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an unguarded moment at the G20 Summit in France two years ago. Yet, in the aftermath of this e...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday and Thursday, 8 a.m. 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7 a.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m., 407-644-2500. Congregation Chabad Lubavitch of Greater Daytona—Monday, 8 a.m.; Thursday, 8 a.m., 904-672-9300. Congregation Ohev Shalom—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy of Orlando—Monday – Friday, 7:45 a.m. – 8:30 a.m. Temple Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055 FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15 Light Shabbat candles at 5:57...
Congregation Ohev Shalom will have a special presentation Sunday, Feb. 17 at 11 a.m. in the social hall with special guest professor Marcos Kerbel of Florida International University in Miami leading the program. Local residents Jamie Shujman and Justo Martinez will also contribute their experiences in leaving Cuba at an early age. Both Kerbel and Shujman are Cuban-Jews and Martinez is Catholic and also Cuban born. A number of interesting facts will be covered such as the history of Jewish life in Cuba, from the early 1900s until the early...
Dr. Norman Berdichevsky, who teaches Hebrew at UCF’s Judaic Studies Program, will present a lecture titled “Do You Speak Esperanto? A Created, Modern International Language and the Revival of Hebrew” at noon, Tuesday, Feb. 19 in the Psychology Building, room 105. Berdichevsky holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1974) and is the author of several books, among them: “The Danish-German Border Dispute” (Academica Press, 2002), “Nations, Language and Citizenship” (McFarland & Co., Inc., 2004), “Spanish Vign...
Sandra Gordon of Winter Park, Fla., died on Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. She was 96 years old. Mrs. Gordon was born on Sept. 25, 1917 in New York. She was a lifelong resident of New York until moving to Florida more than a decade ago. She was married to Sol Zorn and then to Daniel Gordon, both of whom were in the entertainment industry. She worked in New York City in retail with a specialty in cosmetics. Even in her 90s, she was impeccably well groomed and dressed maintaining her New York City panache, said those who knew her. She was very well...
Hedi Thomas Goldfarb of Winter Park, Fla., died on Wednesday, Feb. 6. She was 96 years old. Mrs. Goldfarb was born on Sept. 26, 1916, in Vienna, Austria, to the late Adolf and Bettina Reik Liebermann. Growing up between the two World Wars, she attended school and earned a college degree. She immigrated to England in 1938 and made her way to the United States in 1940. Mrs. Goldfarb was predeceased by her two husbands, Basil Thomas, who passed away in 1957, and Ruvin (Doc) Goldfarb, who passed away in 1987. A long time resident of the Orlando...
St. Johns County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson was charged with reading the motion of the Board proclaiming “St. Johns County Jewish History Month,” but she could not finish without stopping to express heartfelt gratitude for the role played by Jews in 1831. That was when St. Augustine’s Moses Elias Levy led the movement to establish free public education in the nation’s oldest city, a model to be followed throughout the United States. In the midst of nearly a dozen paragraphs, each beginning wit...
On Jan. 27, the Jewish Community Center’s Jack & Lee Rosen Southwest Orlando Campus hosted its 4th Annual Winter Festival, featuring wintery activities and snowy delights....
After 13 years of research and writing her family history book, “La dor v’dor From Generation to Generation,” Edith Lefkovits Schulman, a former associate edidtor at the Heritage Florida Jewish News, is finally finished—though not complete. There are endless ways to write a history of your family, Schulman explained. She chose to tell the story of her four grandparents, and in doing so, related the stories of her ancestors and the relatives who came after them, why and when they came to America...
Most Jews know about the Four Questions that are central to the celebration of Passover. But many of us have much more than four questions when it comes to understanding the Passover story and all of its traditions. What do I serve for dinner? How do I make a seder plate? Which haggadot should I use? How do I make matzah balls? If you have absolutely any questions regarding Passover, the Congregation of Reform Judaism has the answers! CRJ will be hosting its first “A to Z Passover Festival” fro...
