Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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With the approach of Passover, Orlando's Jewish community is in full pre-holiday-madness mode. So much has to be done-house cleaning, Seder preparation, shopping and more shopping. This year children will play a special role in ushering in the Passover holiday with the Model Matzah Bakery. The traditional matzah bread was round and hand baked, in contrast with the uniform store bought square variety. The eating of the matzah is one of the most fundamental of this holiday, commemorating the...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-This city's Rabin Square was full of young men wearing large knit kippahs and women in long skirts and long sleeves cheering as right-wing politicians declared their opposition to Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank. On Sunday night, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ascended the stage to address the crowd, he needed their votes. On Tuesday he got them. "[A]s long as I am prime minister, and as long as Likud is in government, the nationalist camp is in government," he said...
When the pitch for a campaign involves the phrase "serving the world," most teenagers would have a tendency to shrink away from the job. But for a group of Orlando Jewish teenagers, the magnitude of the job is what attracted them in the first place. J-Serve is a teen-led international day of Jewish youth service taking place in communities all across the world in the spring. From 12:30 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 12, all Jewish teens from sixth – 12th grade are invited to participate and open t...
At this year's Choices event, held on April 14, American writer, TV producer and former journalist Jennifer Weiner will charm the Choices audience with her wit as she discusses her books, personal experiences and women's search for a sense of self. She has authored nine best-selling books, including eight novels and a collection of short stories, with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries. She also was voted No. 14 on Time magazine's list of 140 Best Twitter Feeds. Her latest nov...
Join the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando (JGSGO) for a program featuring a presentation by Mitchell Bloomer of The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida on April 7 from 7 p.m.-9 p.m. at the Maitland Public Library, located at 501 South Maitland Ave., Maitland. The program is open to the public and admission is free. Millions of people were killed, and millions more suffered unbelievable horrors and persecution in The Holocaust. To help us learn more about...
There is no world leader more hated by bien-pensant liberals in America and Europe than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Whereas once the bile was directed at former U.S. President George W. Bush—for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, for identifying radical Islam in both its Shi’a and Sunni variations as an existential threat, and for backing Israel—it’s now largely focused on Netanyahu, an alleged “racist” and “war criminal” who just happens to have won a resounding vote of confidence from the Israeli electorate on March 17. Two N...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Transitions are never easy. You decide to leave one place that is known to you for some unfamiliar territory. You don’t feel quite like yourself (and probably won’t for a while). You try to act like everything is fine even though you know that your whole life has just been upended. It will take time until things begin to fall into place— when you start to integrate the “old” you into your new identity, when you can trust that your life will make sense as you take this step into the unknown. And while we all might experience...
If you look for the beginnings of the turmoil in the Middle East and the reason for the incredible upheaval of the past 10 years or so, you have to go back to the First World War. With the war raging in France and Germany, there was scant attention paid to the Middle East and the Caliphate. The Ottoman Empire had in essence, replaced the Holy Roman Empire as rulers of a great swath of the Middle East. They had declared neutrality in this European dust up and the Sultan in Istanbul hoped to keep it that way. But a couple of German war ships...
(JTA)—When Hillel International President Eric Fingerhut announced his decision to withdraw a commitment to speak to over 1,000 students at the upcoming J Street National Conference, he expressed only one major regret. In his statement last week, Fingerhut lamented that he would miss the opportunity to “thank those who have been active in the fight against BDS.” Indeed, he made clear that the reason he was interested in attending in the first place was “to thank those who have joined in the fight against BDS and anti-Semitism on college...
The incidents at my alma mater, UCLA, in the past weeks have shaken us all. As a Bruin, to hear that members of the student government were considering not electing a perfectly competent student to a position because she was Jewish is astounding and frightening. As a Jew and a Hillel supporter (having been the product of the leadership education, social and cultural and religious programming provided by Hillel organizations around the world) the accusations and inanity felt way too close to home for comfort. When fellow Kveller contributor...
Dear Bibi, I apologize for not calling you immediately after the election returns showed that you and the Likkud Party came in first place. Israel is, as I’ve often said, an important and long-time alley and the only true Democracy in the Middle-East, so I should not have listened to Valerie and I should have called you earlier. Mazel Tov! The people of Israel have spoken and, of course, we must and will support in the strongest way possible their decision. You and I have not had the best relationship these past six years. I’m sure that you...
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 27 Light...
Leave it to the Israelis... I've said it before and I'll say it again... the world would surely have had a cure for all cancers and so many other diseases and conditions threatening life and quality of life today, if the murder of millions of Jews during the Holocaust never happened. I am convinced of that. What a waste of so many brilliant minds. The entire world is being punished. I read this in a current issue of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) Digest and I pass it along to you: "'From the mo...
