Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JERUSALEM (JTA)—The Sarah Wetsman Davidson Hospital Tower stretches 223 feet skyward, welcoming visitors in a bright, expansive lobby strung with banners celebrating both the State of Israel and its premier hospital, the Hadassah Medical Organization. Opened in late 2012 at a total cost of $363 million, the tower is the largest building project undertaken at Hadassah in 50 years and a symbol of the hospital’s ambitions for the future. Now that future is in peril as the hospital, saddled with nearly $370 million in debt and an annual def...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The battle between members of Congress and the State Department over tourist visas for Israelis features two competing archetypes of the young Israeli traveler. The lawmakers paint a picture of a world traveler, matured by service to country, who deserves a break from the stresses of the Middle East. U.S. consular officials, meanwhile, have warned of lawbreakers hawking dubious Dead Sea beauty products in malls and at rest stops. The debate surfaced publicly with a March 6 letter from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to Secretary o...
Temple Israel Sisterhood presents An Evening with Mary Glickman, National Jewish Book Award finalist for "One More River," as its second annual author event, which will take place on Wednesday evening, April 2, at 7 p.m. in the newly renovated Roth Social Hall. The cost is $10 per person and includes a dessert reception. Glickman is the author of three books that address the "disconnect" between Southern and Northern attitudes about the South. "I've found that most Northerners view the South as...
The Holocaust Center in Maitland will host guest speaker Joanie Holzer Schirm, author of "Adventurers Against Their Will," at its annual Yom HaShoah program. This annual International Day of Remembrance commemorates the lives of the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust and honors the survivors, liberators, and rescuers who keep their memories alive. Schirm will share the lessons learned from the Holocaust-era letters she inherited from her father, Dr. Oswald A. Holzer. Through her...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Gisela Kohn Dollinger tricked death twice. Soon after Kristallnacht, when she was 36, Dollinger persuaded the Gestapo to release her husband, rather than send him to a concentration camp, and the two of them fled Austria for Shanghai, where she almost died of typhus. After that, death seemed to forget all about her-until last week, when Dollinger passed away peacefully at Manhattan's Beth Israel Hospital. She was 111 years old. Dollinger's passing came just weeks after Alice...
A film is coming your way called “The J Street Challenge.” A production of Americans for Peace and Tolerance, with APT’s Charles Jacobs as special consultant; produced, directed and written by Avi Goldwasser and Ilya Feoktistov, “The J Street Challenge” lines up a phalanx of illustrious academics and activists to expose the deception, the lies, and the anti-Israel animus behind J Street. But the film is not a snooze-parade of talking heads; ideas—important ideas—are supplemented with illustrations, maps, videos, and images both heartwarming and...
Just a couple weeks ago, I had the fortunate opportunity to experience nearly 2,000 Jewish teens from around the world come together in Dallas, Texas, at BBYO International Convention (IC) 2014. Just as the teen participants were, I was "welcomed home" with hundreds of staff, volunteers, advisors, community partners, supporters, and alumni. I was motivated and inspired to see teens leading 20+ varieties of Shabbat services that they created, learning sessions on Saturday afternoon, and teen lead...
This article was reprinted with permission from Lake Mary Life Magazine. When a loved one dies, sorrow can overcome us while our hearts long for one more moment together. Yet, through our time of grief, we must contend with resolving the legal and financial aspects of our loved one’s estate. Where does one begin? Locating your loved one’s estate plan documents, such as a last will and testament and trust, will begin the process. These documents direct the passing of property to the beneficiaries who will inherit the property. Other imp...
The Holocaust Memorial Center in Maitland is honoring Harris Rosen at its annual Dinner of Tribute on Wednesday, April 30. The theme for the event is "What If," with stories, visuals and entertainment that explore how the world would be different if individuals like Rosen had not shown the compassion, courage and generosity it takes to create a better community. Featured entertainment will be Michael Andrew & The Atomic Big Band. Andrew, whose vocal style has delighted audiences in major cities...
It’s getting harder these days to survey the latest developments in the Middle East without feeling anxiety about the negative impact they will have on our own policy debate. I see a pattern—some may call it “Obama’s Law,” though I hesitate to do so—whereby the worse things get for Israel in a strategic sense, the more pressure there is on Jerusalem to make concessions. And because Israel cannot make concessions when Palestinian terrorists in Gaza shower the south of the country with missiles, or when Iran tries to smuggle in rockets to...
One of the best known and most useful lines in the analysis of things political and military comes from Carl von Clausewitz, a Prussian general who died in 1831. His treatise “On War” contains the phrase that still guides realists, “War is the continuation of Politik by other means” Politik can be translated as “policy” or “politics.” The terms may be close cousins, but they have different implications. Americans and others schooled by images of overwhelming power, enormous numbers of military and civilian casualties, and demands for unc...
In Herzl’s dream, Israel was to be the home of the Jewish people. A home for the Jewish people. Herzl pictured a utopian libertarian place where creative, literary and academic Jews could be Jews. Where their knowledge, their inventiveness would no longer have to deal with anti-Semitism or prejudice of any kind. Ah, but where in the world would this place be? And what about the Jews who did not fit the literary, academic profile? The gentile minds of the time felt that location was secondary to just getting the Jews out of their hair. As t...
Rabbi Rick Sherwin (Rabbi Rick), spiritual leader at Congregation Beth Am in Longwood, had the privilege of attending the 2014 AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., on March 2-4. The largest gathering of America’s pro-Israel community, the policy conference highlighted the importance of the partnership between the United States and Israel and showcased the two nations’ common interests in making the world a better place. Through demonstrations of groundbreaking Israeli innovations, keynote speeches by leaders from both the U.S. and Isr...
What would you do if you saw someone drowning in a river? Or witnessed someone being torn limb from limb by wild beasts? Or if you stumbled upon someone who was under attack by armed robbers? Judaism is clear in its answer; you intervene to save them. The Jewish sages use these cases as the springboard to teach that we always have an obligation to save a life. Health insurance saves lives. That is why we have an obligation to try to reach every American who needs access to quality, affordable insurance, and to help each sign up through the new...
In March, the Obama administration reported on Obamacare’s enrollment numbers. Fewer people have signed up than the administration had hoped, especially among the young and healthy. For many people, even the previously uninsured, the choices in the Obamacare market are simply not what they’re looking for in a health insurance plan. It’s easy to understand why. Obamacare replaces a wide variety of market-determined plans with a limited number of plans containing narrow networks of doctors and hospitals and a required set of items covered. No mor...
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 28 Light Shabbat c...
Rabbi Shana Goldstein Mackler, daughter of Sammy Goldstein and Bill Yahner, will be honored at Shabbat evening services at The Temple, Congregation Ohabai Shalom, in Nashville, Tenn., on Friday, March 28. The congregation will be celebrating her tenth year with the synagogue. Sammy Goldstein is the executive director of Beth Shalom Memorial Chapel here in Orlando. Rabbi Mackler was ordained from Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, in May 2004. She has been a rabbi at...
Jay Scott Friedman of Lake Mary, passed away at Central Florida Regional Hospital, Sanford, on Wednesday, March 12, 2014. He was 55 years old. Mr. Friedman was born in Milwaukee, Wis., on February 9, 1959, to Beverly Yaillen Lessing and the late Herbert Friedman. Mr. Friedman worked in tech support for a local cable company. He is survived by his mother, Beverly, of Lake Mary; his daughter, Kristina Friedman of Washington D.C.; his brother, Rob (Diane) Lessing of Orlando; and his sister, Vicki Stott of Lake Mary. A memorial service was held at...
Rose L. Gross of Longwood, passed away on Thursday, March 13, 2014, at Winnie Palmer Hospital in Orlando. She was 90 years old. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Mrs. Gross was the second youngest, and last surviving child, of five children born to the late Benjamin and Sarah Zychick Sherman. She relocated to the Orlando area from Cleveland, moving into Chambrel, following the death of her husband, Paul, last year. Mrs. Gross worked as a bookkeeper for many years in the electronics industry. A loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, Rose...
Mindy Moss of Maitland, passed away on Wednesday, March 19, 2014, at Florida Hospital—Orlando. She was 48 years old. Mrs. Moss was born in Long Island, N.Y., on June 20, 1965 to Barbara Zelkowitz Fields and the late Laurence Fields. She was a graduate of the University of South Florida with a degree in finance. She relocated to the Orlando area from Tampa in 1986 and married her husband, Jeffrey, who survives her, in Pembroke Pines, Fla., on Nov. 25, 1989. Mindy and Jeff worked together in their family business, Moss & Company PA, a private w...
David H. Skorman of Maitland, passed away at the Rehabilitation Center of Winter Park in Maitland on Monday, March 17, 2014. He was 90 years old. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he was born on Jan. 9, 1924, to the late Isadore and Sophie Beider Skorman. He was married to the former Sylviann Goodman, his wife of 66 years who survives him. Mr. Skorman was a well-known consultant in the entertainment industry; booking music and comedy shows around the world and for Disney Cruises, among others. He and Sylviann relocated to the Orlando area from San...
Saul R. Weiss of Altamonte Springs, passed away on Friday, March 14, 2014, at his residence. He was 97 years old. Born on Oct. 7, 1916, in New York City, to the late Max and Celia Rappaport Weiss, he was the eldest of three siblings. He attended City College of New York and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Mr. Weiss was a menswear executive with the Warnaco Group in New York, retiring to the Orlando area in 1994 from Long Island, N.Y. He was married to his late wife Isabelle for 64 years when she passed away in 2005. Mr. Weiss is...
Two world-renowned performers, Michael Ochs and Alaa Ali, integrated their Pursuit of Harmony experience into a beautiful Friday night Shabbat service filled with their music and their story. Almost 200 people attended the service, held by Temple Shir Shalom at the First United Methodist Church of Oviedo. Those in attendance welcomed Shabbat with a new twist on a traditional melody. Ali and Ochs, joined by Beth Schafer and the TSS choir, led a stirring rendition of "Hinei Ma Tov" in the round wi...
Zachary Shenkman, son of Jason and Lisa Shenkman of Sanford, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on April 6, 2014, at Congregation Beth Am in Longwood. Zach is in the seventh grade at Lake Mary Preparatory School where he is a member of the National Honor Society, the swim team and the junior varsity baseball team. His hobbies and interests include reading, playing video games, playing football and learning computer programming. Sharing in the family's simcha are Zach's sister,...
Elise Hoffeld Schilowitz of Maitland remembers pop icon, Paul Simon, from her sixth grade classroom at P.S. 164 in Kew Gardens Hills, New York, where he also was a fellow congregant at the Jewish Center. Schilowitz dug up an old class photo, and noted, "Paul Simon is still easy to pick out from our class picture. Though I haven't seen him in 50 years, he hasn't seemed to change all that much." Fortunately for Simon's voluminous fans, his crowd-pleasing vocals and iconic harmonies haven't...
