Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JERUSALEM—Not every Israeli observes Passover, but every Israeli knows Passover is coming. Preparations for the seven-day holiday are impossible to ignore and encroach on almost every facet of life in the weeks leading up to Seder night. Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics reveals that 88 percent of Israelis will take part in a Seder and 47 percent will eat only kosher for Passover items during the holiday. As for Israel’s army, some 200 IDF chaplains, including reservists, are pressed into...
JERUSALEM—When most Israeli Jews sit down for the Passover seder on the night of March 25, the 14th of the Hebrew month of Nissan, they’ll wait for the kids to recite Mah Nishtana, the four questions; pucker up to inhale the bitter herbs; relish the sweet Charoset; dip herbs in salt water; sing rousing renditions of Dayenu and Chad Gadya; and knock back four cups of wine. But none of these rituals are part of the Passover observance of Israel’s Karaite and Samaritan believers, who observe the b...
NEW YORK (JTA)—We have a love-hate relationship with boundaries. We hate being confined or told what to do. Many adults don’t like having a boss, and many schoolchildren get annoyed when the answer is “no.” Boundaries limit our individuality, intrude upon what we want to do and sometimes feel like an arbitrary obstacle to getting what we want. For children, limits of time (bedtime), sources of enjoyment (how much ice cream for dessert) or behavior (being scolded for shooting a toy bow and arrow around the living room) can seem like arbitra...
Passover means seders. They are important Jewish traditions, but also social and hunger-filled minefields. These tips will help you navigate the time between when you show up and avoid questions about your career/relationship to when you shout “Next year in Jerusalem!” and run out with all the flourless desserts. Staying full during the long wait for the Passover meal Why did I starve myself in anticipation of dinner tonight? Can’t I just nibble on some brisket while we get through this seder...
BOSTON (JTA)—Years ago, Nancy Steiner set out to make her family seder a bit more entertaining for her own young kids. She wrote a poem that became very popular among family and friends. “On This Night: The Steps of the Seder in Rhyme,” Steiner’s first published children’s book, is an updated version of that poem with large format, brightly colored illustrations by Wendy Edelson that will appeal to religiously observant families. Along with “Lotsa Matzah,” it’s one of two new Passover books...
Passover at Irma Lindheim’s Long Island home in the 1920s was not your standard Jewish holiday experience. There was plenty of matzo ball soup and brisket, to be sure. But the dining room was occupied by a makeshift tent, the Passover table was replaced by a pile of sheepskin rugs, and the Lindheim children were dressed in Arab garb. For Mrs. Lindheim, the national president of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization, from 1926 to 1928, Passover was an opportunity to make a dramatic sta...
(JTA)—For the many who feel overwhelmed by Passover because of the demands of cooking without leaven, a word or two: That should not be an obstacle. After all, on this most celebrated of Jewish holidays, we are allowed to eat fish, meat, poultry, eggs, nuts, fruits, most vegetables and fresh herbs. All of the recipes featured here are nutritious, attractive, flavorful and easy to prepare. They emphasize fresh, seasonal ingredients, fewer complicated techniques, and stylish, elegant dishes. W...
While planning what to cook to feed the whole mishpucha (family) on Passover’s big seder night, it’s easy to forget to plan your meals for the rest of the holiday week. Suddenly, lo and behold, you find yourself staring at the wide-open cupboard with nothing but matzah staring back at you. But not to worry! Passover isn’t Yom Kippur, and with the right preparation, you can still eat a decent meal. With more than 6 million books in print, Mollie Katzen is listed by the New York Times as one of the best-selling cookbook authors of all time and ha...
NEW YORK (JTA)—On any given day, a wind might blow through the farmlands of South America, pick up an errant grain of barley and deposit it nearby among the vast rows of cultivated quinoa. If that barley manages to make its way into a sifted batch of quinoa, and avoid detection during repackaging, it could wind up gracing your seder table on Passover night. However dubious it might seem, the scenario is among the reasons that the world’s largest kosher certification agency is refusing to san...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Karl and Ruth Albrecht, a couple who fled Nazi Germany, were given shelter in 1941 or 1942 at Santa Maria de La Vid, a monastery in Spain. He was Catholic, she was Jewish. Santiago Arroyo, a resident of Burgos, a northern Castile city near the monastery for Augustinian monks, tells of a connection his family has to the period and wonders what became of the couple. Don Grigorio Arranz became friendly with the couple because as a physician, his work often took him to the m...
After most of Daher Dhudy’s family was murdered in a bloody civil war in Somalia, the teen fled with his only surviving brother on a perilous journey through Egypt, reaching safety only when they crossed the border into Israel. “I never found any racism or discrimination” in Israel, the 27-year-old, who is black and Muslim, told a March 7 gathering at the Rutgers University student center in New Brunswick, N.J. Dhudy spoke of an Israel where he was able to find a safe haven, work, and receive a college scholarship, earning a degree in gover...
ROME (JTA)—When the white smoke rose last week at the Vatican, signaling to the world that the College of Cardinals had chosen a new pope, Catholics weren’t the only ones waiting with bated breath. Jews, too, were eager to see whether the new pontiff would be someone familiar with their concerns. Would he be a non-European unfamiliar with the Jewish people and the weighty legacy of the Holocaust? Would he carry on the legacy of his immediate predecessors and work to further Jewish-Catholic relat...
Joan Rivers helps Israeli gay couple NEW YORK (6NoBacon)—Yuval and Liran, a gay Israeli couple, want to have a child—and they are using any help they can get, even from Hollywood. Joan Rivers and Kelly Osbourne have joined a campaign to help the couple by posting photos of themselves holding a sign in Hebrew showing their support. A Wider Bridge, an organization that connects the Israeli and American LGBT communities, first brought the story of Yuval and Liran to the Internet. The couple sta...
Streisand to perform two stadium concerts in Tel Aviv JERUSALEM (JTA)—Barbra Streisand will perform two Tel Aviv concerts in Israel in addition to performing at the 90th birthday celebration for President Shimon Peres. The concerts will take place June 15-16 at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium, the Israel media reported. On June 18, Streisand will perform at the opening ceremony of the Israeli Presidential Conference, which will be marking Peres’ milestone birthday. Streisand reportedly has visited Israel many times, and is a strong supporter of I...
