Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Times Square: The luminous crossroads of the world. The brightly lit up corner of the city is a universally known landmark. This year, at the seventh annual CTeen International Shabbaton, the lights of Times Square were made brighter and stronger by the presence of 1,500 Jewish teens from across the globe who gathered together to celebrate their heritage. Joining in the Shabbaton was a group of 40 teens from central Florida led by Rabbi Yanky Majesky of Chabad in Lake Mary, Rabbi Ed Liebowitz...
The theme of this year's 2015 Choices event is "It Takes A Woman," and this year's recipient of the Harriet Ginsburg Woman of Choice award, Ina Porth, has proven throughout the years that she is a woman who can get things done. Who is a Woman of Choice? The Mishna teaches that it is imperative not to be separate from the community. A Woman of Choice is connected to the Jewish community and is committed to Jewish life. She exhibits leadership qualities and is a committed volunteer with the...
The Holocaust Center has chosen local activists, Susan and Gordon Arkin, as honorees at this year's Dinner of Tribute. For decades, the couple has identified needs and inspired change throughout the community. "Susan and Gordon have done so much to better the lives of all who call Central Florida home. They are wonderful ambassadors of the Holocaust Center and our mission to create an inclusive, caring community where everyone feels welcome and valued, and that is why we're honoring them," said...
(JNS.org) After being listed as a speaker for the upcoming national conference of the left-wing J Street lobby, Hillel International President and CEO Eric Fingerhut announced that he will pull out of the conference due to concerns regarding other speakers' history of "inflammatory statements" against Israel. The current list of J Street conference speakers includes Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that collapsed in the spring of 2014. Erekat has...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-It was not the first time John Lewis had invoked the Jewish-black alliance that fought for equality during the civil rights era. But it was the first time that the Georgia congressman, a civil rights hero, invoked it to explain why he was skipping a speech by an Israeli prime minister. "In many occasions we have worked side by side to strengthen our democracy and fight for equality and justice in this country," Lewis (D-Ga.) said at a news conference March 3 where several...
A dozen prominent black pastors from across the country stood in support of Israel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he spoke on March 3 to a Joint session of Congress about Iran's nuclear ambitions. "The thing to me that makes no sense is why the Congressional Black Caucus has teamed up with this current administration against Israel," Pastor Dexter D. Sanders of Orlando, Florida, said in an interview with the Washington Times. "And yes, black caucus, I'm saying you have gone...
The Jewish Academy of Orlando is hosting its second annual Spring Fling festival on March 29, from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. at its Maitland campus. The festival will host food trucks, a video simulator, bounce houses, characters, and more. The centerpiece of the event is a unique marketplace inside the school featuring oils, jewelry, clothing and more. This exciting festival offers attractions for many age groups, from preschool to adults. Games2U will feature their movie simulator, while others...
Jewish National Fund (JNF)’s Women for Israel (WFI) will host a Wines of Israel Tasting on March 24 at a private home in Longwood. The event will feature wines that spotlight the vineyards of the Negev desert, Galilee, and the Golan Heights. JNF’s work in those areas will also be discussed, including the booming city of Be’er Sheva and JNF’s Go North initiative, which aims to attract new residents to the Galilee and strengthen the economic and social quality of the region, among other projects. “We look forward to having a wonderful group of...
Local children will participate in a hands-on pre-Passover experience as a Model Matzah Factory is set up for them in Ocala on Sunday, March 22, at 1 p.m. at The Chabad Jewish Center, 3509 SW 34th Ave. Circle. The children will re-enact the process of manufacturing matzah, from grinding the flour to kneading the dough, to baking the matzahs on a stone oven, all within 18 minutes, the time limit in which matzah must be made. Chabad Rabbi Yossi Hecht, director of the Chabad-Lubavitch Jewish Center of Marion County and The Villages, will...
Rabbi Joshua Neely of Temple Israel will continue his series, “Conversations with the Rabbi,” on Sunday, March 29, 4 p.m. at Brown’s New York Deli at the corner of Lake Avenue and 17-92 in Maitland (156 Lake Avenue). This month’s topic is True to the Text – Does God and Our Tradition Demand a Hyperliteral Reading of Torah and Other Texts? How Much Metaphor is Too Much? This program gives the community a chance to meet and talk with Rabbi Neely in an intimate group setting. There is no charge to attend, and everyone is welcome. For more info...
You say ISIL I say ISIS... There’s only one thing I can say I believe about ISIL, but before I do, listen to the litany of their accomplishments. They have captured land in two dysfunctional countries by force, murdering thousands of locals along the way. They have beheaded innocent foreigners from a wide range of countries—reporters, good Samaritans and health care workers. They have destroyed ancient artifacts and irreplaceable historical monuments. They have disseminated a video of a chi...
The latest news for those dreaming of a Palestinian state is the refusal of the United List, a group of four largely Arab parties, to sign an agreement with Meretz to provide to one of them the excess votes left over to each after the parceling out via Israel’s system of Proportional Representation. This would have been a standard technical agreement, common between parties close to one another on the political spectrum, to assure that their cluster does not lose any votes to the mechanics of dividing votes for the 120 Knesset seats. The U...
I probably shouldn’t admit this, given that my political views are fairly well-known, but one of my favorite songs is “I’m So Bored With the USA,” by British punk legends The Clash. “Yankee dollar talk to the dictators of the world,” spits vocalist Joe Strummer in the song’s opening verse. “In fact it’s giving orders, an’ they can’t afford to miss a word!” Oh how times have changed since “I’m So Bored” was released in 1977! The images of steely jawed, stone-hearted CIA officers conjured up by the song seem hopelessly dated. In today’s...
It felt like hitting the jackpot. After attending 10 AIPAC Policy Conferences over the past dozen years, I experienced three immensely rewarding moments in Washington earlier this month: 1. Being in attendance during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to Congress, 2. Functioning as group leader in lobbying two of our congressmen and 3. Joining the largest Orlando-area delegation in history. A remarkable 68 members strong, Central Florida was represented by an amazing cross-section of people: doctors, lawyers, homemakers, business leade...
In an op-ed headlined “The Two Israels” (New York Times, March 1, 2015), Nicholas Kristof made a rather broad accusation stating that Jewish National Fund (JNF) plants forests on land owned by Bedouin Arabs. Unfortunately, Mr. Kristof chose to subscribe to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s diatribe against Israel and used JNF as a straw man to do so. We take exception to such reporting, and let the Times know just that in a letter to the editor Red flags should be raised when considering the fact that no Israeli gover...
Favel (Philip) Blonder was a close friend of my Saba (Abe Engelstein, a”h). They both grew up in the town later called Auschwitz and spent their teenage years struggling for survival every day in the camps. Favel had remarkable physical strength; he walked miles around my town when he visited, could beat us all at hand-wrestling, and seemed unbreakable. Just like my Saba though, he had one of the most giving hearts and the tightest hugs that made you melt. Favel was set to turn 90 this spring. Truly one of the youngest and most spirited 90-year...
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, 7:30 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 Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, MARCH 20 Light...
Beulah Dworkin of Weston, Florida, passed away on Friday, March 6, 2015, at Boca Care Center of Trustbridge Hospice in Boca Raton. She was 100 years old. Mrs. Dworkin, a native of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was born on Oct. 1, 1914, to the late Israel and Ada Rachel Levenson Beerman. She was a high school graduate and the widow of the late Morris Dworkin, who passed away in 2001. Mr. and Mrs. Dworkin relocated to Indialantic, Fla., from Youngstown, Ohio, in 1968. Following the death of her husband, Mrs. Dworkin moved to the Orlando area to be...
Hedy Halbert of Altamonte Springs, passed away on Sunday, March 1, 2015, at her residence. She was 95 years old. Mrs. Halbert, a native of Vienna, Austria, was born on March 22, 1919, to the late Adolf and Teresa Schwartz Blumenfield. Mrs. Halbert and her family were witnesses to the horrors of the Shoah; she being the only member of her immediate family to survive. She was a homemaker and the widow of the late Henry Halbert, also a Holocaust survivor, who passed away in 1990. Mrs. Halbert was an elegant lady and always carried a box of...
Lillian Forkas Kaplan of Clermont, passed away on Friday, March 6, 2015, at the Lane Purcell Hospice House in Sumterville. She was 97 years old. Mrs. Kaplan was born on June 29, 1917, in New York, to the late Jacob and Rose Kramer Forkas. She worked as a manager in the insurance industry in New York. Mrs. Kaplan is survived by her daughter, Fern Lenon of Clermont. Funeral services were held at Woodridge Synagogue Cemetery in Glen Wild, New York. Arrangements entrusted to Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel, 640 Lee Road, Orlando 328...
Oscar Miller of Orlando, passed away on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, at his residence. He was 83 years old. Mr. Miller was born to the late Israel and Fannie Lichtman on Nov. 29, 1931, in Bronx, New York. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany. On Sept. 7, 1957, in New York, he married the former Sheila Posner, his wife of over 57 years who survives him. Mr. Miller was a natural salesman, working in his family’s leather business but ultimately striking out on his own. He became quite a successful salesman in the retail c...
Muriel “Marilyn” Sherman of Winter Park, passed away on Wednesday, March 11, 2015, at the Mayflower Health Care Center in Winter Park. She was 92 years old. A native of New York, Mrs. Sherman was born on Aug. 23, 1922, to the late Samuel and Bessie Lewis Weinberg. She was a homemaker and the widow of the late William Sherman who passed away in 1997. She relocated to the Winter Park area from Chicago in 2013 to be closer to family. Mrs. Sherman is survived by her sons, Steven (Diane Senese) Sherman of Winter Park and Leigh (Beryl) Sherman of...
Gordon David Simonds of Maitland, passed away at his residence on Monday, March 2, 2015. He was 75 years old. Mr. Simonds one of three children of the late Abraham and Ruth Gordon Simonds and was born on Aug. 23, 1939 in Boston, Mass. He was a certified public accountant and an attorney, receiving his juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Simonds is survived by his wife, Lori of Maitland, and his daughters Wendy of Atlanta and Lauren of Seattle. He is also survived by three grandchildren; his sister, Naomi; and brother,...
Rosen JCC pre-schoolers bring Purim joy to seniors The children in the Early Childhood Learning Center of the Rosen JCC decorated and filled Shalach Manot baskets to donate to the Jewish Pavilion for distribution to seniors in nursing homes, assisted living and rehabilitation facilities. Gloria Green, program director of the Jewish Pavilion for the Orlando Downtown to the Southwest sector of Orange County, was presented the baskets by two children from each class at a morning ceremony at the JCC...
Jewish Pavilion Program Director Gloria Green organized nine Purim parties at nine different assisted living facilities in the downtown Orlando and Southwest Orlando areas all in just eight days. "It was a wonderful experience, Purim is a happy holiday and it did indeed bring joy to these seniors," Green said of the events. Jewish Pavilion volunteers and Green gave Shalach Manot baskets, filled with goodies by the children of the Rosen JCC Early Childhood Learning Center, to the seniors at the...
