Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 37
Due to the added costs resulting from the recent bomb threats that JCCs have received since Jan. 4, The Roth Family Jewish Community Center took a risk. In order to raise the needed monies to cover the operating expenses of the JCC impacted by the threats, a 24-hour online fundraiser for a total goal of $200,000 was set up. If the goal was not met in that timeframe, all the donations would be returned. To reach this goal, three anonymous friends of the JCC had set up matching gifts of 3:1 (a $25... Full story
KISSIMMEE-Give Kids the World Village's Ice Cream Palace is getting a new look and new name to honor the 90th birthday of Village founder Henri Landwirth. The Ice Cream Palace will become "Henri's Starlite Scoops," the nonprofit resort for children with life-threatening illnesses announced. The name is a nod to The Starlite Motel, the Cocoa Beach property Landwirth managed during his early years in the hospitality industry. During the Mercury era, the Starlite was popular with astronauts and... Full story
Israel's Knesset last week passed landmark legislation against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, representing just one of several setbacks this month for BDS around the world. The Israeli bill, which passed its third and final reading with a 46-28 vote, grants the interior minister authority to deny entry visas to non-Israeli citizens who actively support boycotts of the Jewish state. Conveying the rationale for the anti-BDS measure, Member of Knesset David... Full story
March 26 through 28 over 18,000 pro-Israel activists will come together in Washington, D.C. for AIPAC's Policy Conference, the largest annual gathering of America's pro-Israel community. Through presentations of groundbreaking Israeli innovations, keynote speeches by American and Israeli leaders, inspiring moments on stage, and intimate educational sessions, Policy Conference delegates experience the full scale of pro-Israel activism in three powerful days. The conference culminates with the... Full story
By Ben Sales (JTA)—When Cincinnati’s Mayerson Jewish Community Center was hit with a bomb threat on Jan. 18, Adam Bellows was satisfied with how the staff handled the preschool kids, including his two-year-old son. The kids, said Bellows, had no idea the threat had happened. They were evacuated and taken to a secure location where they watched cartoons. But after he got home, Bellow’s son started having a tough time. He couldn’t sleep, and was scared to return to preschool the next day. “It was hard to see how much it disturbed him,” Bellows sa... Full story
The Bruce and Cynthia Sherman Charitable Foundation today announced that online nominations are now being accepted for the 2017 Sherman Prize, the first prize of its kind created to honor outstanding individuals who go above and beyond to make exceptional and pioneering contributions in the fight to overcome Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The Sherman Prize recognizes and rewards healthcare providers, medical researchers, public health advocates, and educators who are advancing patient care, medical research, public service, and p... Full story
(JTA)—The Federal Communications Commission has granted Jewish Community Centers throughout the country a temporary waiver allowing them to receive caller information, in response to the recent series of bomb threats on the Jewish institutions. The waiver, approved on Friday, comes days after 29 JCCs and Jewish schools across the country received called-in bomb threats, the fifth such incident in less than two months. It was also approved the same day that a St. Louis man was charged for making at least eight bomb threats against Jewish C... Full story
(JNS.org) The Israeli government voted in favor of decriminalizing recreational marijuana use, joining several other European countries and U.S. states that have adopted similar measures. At Israel's weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a team of experts had studied the issue and that "this obviously needs to be done in a careful and controlled manner." "On one hand, we are opening ourselves up to the future. On the other hand, we understand the dangers and... Full story
"It was a time square takeover! The Jewish pride was epic!" This was just one of the many comments made by the Orlando teens who participated in the annual CTeen NYC Shabbaton. CTeen, the fastest growing Jewish youth organization in the world, hosted a four-day event in New York, which drew in a record breaking 2300 people. Teens from the three participating CTeen chapters of Lake Mary, Maitland and South Olando joined with other Jewish teens from around the world for a weekend of empowerment,... Full story
Students interested in applying for an Israel travel scholarship through the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando have until midnight March 31 to complete an online application. The Ronald Colman Israel Scholarship Fund was made possible by a generous endowment established by the Colman family to encourage Jewish teens in the Greater Orlando area to participate in educational experiences in Israel. The scholarship is open to all Jewish teens in 9th—12th grades who are permanent residents of Central Florida. Gap-year programs are not e... Full story
Can you believe that Passover is just around the corner? With the Orange County Public Schools on Spring Break, Orlando Torah Academy is excited to offer children a one day “Passover Experience” to prepare them for the special holiday. Every child will be “Passover ready” by the end of his or her fun-filled experience! Drop your kindergarten through third-grade child off on Friday, March 24, and they will “pass” from one workshop to the next, making their own seder plate, joining a sing-a-long, experience the baking lab, and even come home w... Full story
In light of recent incidents of anti-Semitism, students at Lake Brantley High School's Club L'Chaim joined a discussion about anti-Semitism and Purim, and what they could do to make a difference. The discussion was led by Rabbi Mendy Bronstein of Chabad of Altamonte Springs, and was coordinated by Dan Smith, a teacher at Lake Brantley. While enjoying delicious hamantashen, the group discussed that strengthening their Jewish pride was the best response to hate, and brain stormed ideas of how to... Full story
The Jewish Chamber of Commerce will be hosting an event on Thursday, March 23, at 5:30 p.m. at the Dovecoat restaurant in the Bank of America building. The event will be attended by the Director of Multicultural Affairs for the City of Orlando, Luis Martinez. He will be presenting the chamber with a letter from Mayor Buddy Dyer. Additional information about the event is below: The Orlando Jewish Chamber of Commerce is a nondenominational organization that stands behind its motto as “Business Minded, Culturally Connected” and promotes the att... Full story
Are your mom and dad spending time with the Jewish Pavilion? This past Shabbat, Don, a resident of an Altamonte care home, enjoyed the warmth and companionship of volunteers Morris and Sheila Rashy, as well as Dolores Indek. Help the Jewish Pavilion fulfill its mission of being the Jewish connection to senior-living community residents like Don. "Please contact us and let us know if you have a mom, dad, friend, or neighbor residing in a senior-care home or is temporarily in a rehabilitation... Full story
French President François Hollande is disturbed that President Donald Trump criticized a U.S. ally, describing the terrorism that has plagued France in recent years as the product of an open border policy. Yet it is Hollande who should self-reflect on his own criticism of a French ally. “Take a look at what’s happening in Germany,” Trump said at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. “Take a look at what’s happened in France. Take a look at Nice and Paris. We fully understand that national security begins with border security.... Full story
(JTA)—Shots fired into a classroom window at an Indiana synagogue. Cemeteries desecrated in Pennsylvania, Missouri, and New York. Swastikas scrawled on Jewish buildings. More than 100 bomb threats called in to Jewish community centers. History doesn’t always repeat itself, but echoes of the darkest chapters serve as warnings. We study the past and preserve our tradition so that we’ll recognize the signs. For these troubled days, the observance of Purim—commemorating the defeat of a plot to massacre the Jews in ancient Persia—is a timely re... Full story
An extremist Arab Knesset member who endorses violence and has been condemned by the Likud and Labor parties alike was cheered at the recent J Street national conference. For an organization that supposedly promotes peaceful coexistence, they sure have some strange bedfellows! The object of J Street’s enthusiastic applause was Member of Knesset Ayman Odeh, leader of the parliamentary bloc known as the Joint Arab List. Odeh is well-known in Israel for his extremist rhetoric. Last year, for example, he claimed that Israel murdered Yasser Arafat.... Full story
American Jewry is under assault. A wave of bomb threats called into Jewish community centers and schools, cemetery desecrations and vandalism aimed at other identifiable targets such as synagogues has created an atmosphere of fear about anti-Semitism unmatched in recent memory. The incidents have caught the attention of the entire nation and brought home to a not insignificant percentage of the Jewish population the possibility that their gathering places have become a target for extremists. But like everything else in our hyper-partisan era... Full story
(JTA)—The “fear itself” thing? FDR was on to something. The rash of JCC bomb threats and cemetery desecrations, combined with a general sense that the country is becoming more intolerant, has Jews on edge in ways they haven’t been in years. The head of a major American Jewish organization wrote to me that the recent outbreak of anti-Semitic activity “is the worst America has seen since the 1930s.” (It’s not.) Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress has declared that “in recent weeks and months we have witnessed an unprecedented a... Full story
(JTA)—Almost daily accounts of vandalized cemeteries, spray-painted swastikas and bomb threats to JCCs and other Jewish agencies have naturally evoked considerable alarm. Clearly, we must never reconcile ourselves to an America where this is considered normal. Yet we must not succumb to the opposite tendency to see these recent incidents through a 2,000-year-old lens and draw comparisons to darker days, when Jews felt powerless and alone in the fight against anti-Semitism. There is no nation—other than Israel, of course—that has been more hospi... Full story
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday—Friday, 8 a.m. and 10 minutes before sunset; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 8:15 a.m., 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday—Friday, 7:30 a.m.; Saturday, 9:30 a.m.; Sunday, 9 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 Israe... Full story
The Orlando Chapter of Hadassah recently held the Bunny Rosen Women's Heart Health Fashion Show Luncheon at the Westin Hotel in Lake Mary/Heathrow. Once again this annual event proved to be a great success. In keeping with Hadassah's 2016-2017 "Celebration of Women," the theme of "My Fair Lady-Race Day at Royal Ascot" made for an entertaining afternoon with genial company, excellent food and a beautiful venue. This event contributes charitable funds to promote heart-health awareness, training... Full story
What do you get when 100 Jewish women spend the weekend together learning and laughing in luxury? A SPARK! The weekend of Feb. 24-26 was the first SPARK Women's Retreat, where all of the women experienced how to #BetheSpark. SPARK is the Women's Division of JOIN Orlando, and their mission is to engage, educate, enlighten, and empower every Orlando Jewish woman regardless of background or affiliation, through a variety of exciting programming, events, classes, and experiences. "This event was... Full story
On Feb. 15, five members of Congregation Beth Am's Mitzvah Brigade joined together with other faith communities as members of the IDignity Seminole Program. The IDignity goal is to help individuals in need, such as being homeless, regain their dignity through its services, which include obtaining birth certificates, drivers licenses and social security cards. The volunteers help guide individuals through the process by helping them fill out forms, notarizing papers and assisting with obtaining... Full story
Jewish Academy of Orlando's kindergarten hosted a program, "Shema Pillowcase." This program is the culminating activity for the Shabbat and Havdalah units in kindergarten. All year the kindergarteners have a separate Shabbat celebration in their class on Fridays. This is a teaching Shabbat where they learn the prayers and traditions associated with Shabbat. They even role play and have "ima" and "aba" while celebrating. Following that, they learned how Shabbat ends and how the start of the week... Full story
