Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - Holocaust remembrance day programs in Jewish communities have stuck to a familiar form for decades, featuring Holocaust survivors sharing their stories followed by the lighting of yahrzeit candles and the recitation of commemorative prayers. But that model of memorial faces a problem that is growing more pressing each year: the dwindling number of survivors still living and able to share accounts of their painful past. That reality drove Michal Govrin, an Israeli writer and professor,...
In 1994 the state legislature mandated that Holocaust education must be taught in Florida public schools. At that time, the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center was one of 27 members of the Florida Department of Education's Task Force on Holocaust Education. Under the leadership of Tess Wise, founder of the Center, they provided educational resources to a 13-county area, which included instructional materials, best practices and professional development. According to the Center's...
(JTA) - Prince Philip, perhaps the closest member of the British royal family to Jews and Jewish causes, has died at 99. Buckingham Palace announced his death on Friday, April 9. Philip, who had been married to Queen Elizabeth II for 74 years, since five years before she ascended to the throne, had been in declining health for some time. Also known as the Duke of Edinburgh, Philip's support for Jewish and pro-Israel causes ran deep. His mother, Princess Alice of Greece, sheltered a Jewish...
Heritage Florida Jewish News is accepting nominations for the 2021 Heritage Human Service Award, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando this summer. “For more than 30 years, individuals who have made major, voluntary contributions of their talent, time, energy and effort to the Central Florida community have been honored with the selection and presentation of this award,” said Jeff Gaeser, editor and publisher of the Heritage. Last year’s recipient was Hank Katzen. Former recipients have inclu...
At the end of April, Chabad centers throughout metro Orlando will offer "This Can Happen," a new six-session course, running from April 27-June 1, by the acclaimed Rohr Jewish Learning Institute that will address a pressing question on many minds: Is the current situation going to get any better? "Many people nurse this idea that matters are getting progressively worse, and, fostered by much hysterical media and general dialogue, an environment of fear and despair is all too rampant," Rabbi...
The next Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Orlando Zoom meeting will be held May 4 at 7 p.m. The guest speaker will be Adam Brown, founder and director of the Avotaynu DNA Project, an academic multi-disciplinary study of the origins and migrations of the Jewish people with over 8,000 participants. DNA testing is now a well-established tool in the genealogist’s toolbox, and success stories appear almost daily announcing the reunion of long lost relatives and the solution to cold cases. Among Ashkenazi Jews, it also leads to challenges to u...
Losing a loved one can be very challenging and during the pandemic it was even worse. Families were unable to bury their loved ones or get together with friends and family for Shiva. While Zoom funerals and memorial services are better than nothing, they are not the same as in-person gatherings. The Jewish Pavilion is excited to announce that a free grief support group will be held outside at Cascade Heights in Longwood beginning the first week in May at 10:30 a.m. The dates are: May 5, May 12,...
Now is the time to register for Camp J this summer at the Rosen JCC, It runs June 7 to Aug. 6. Camp J offers a variety of summer camp options including Early Childhood, Basketball, Dance, Sports, Art and Rock N’ Roll sessions. To learn more about the best options for your kids check out https://camp.rosenjcc.org/ or camp@rosenjcc.org. The Rosen JCC is a non-profit operating in the Dr. Phillips area in southwest Orlando....
(JTA) — Drawing a line between its mission of Holocaust remembrance and the ravages inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic, the March of the Living honored Dr. Anthony Fauci with an award for “moral courage in medicine” on the eve of Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust commemoration day. The award to Fauci, who for decades has been the top U.S. official handling infectious diseases, culminated in an online program on Wednesday called “Medicine and Morality.” In his acceptance remarks, Fauci referred to Maimonides, the medieval Jewish scholar and...
(JTA) — Iran and the United States will join talks in Vienna next week that aim to return all parties to the terms of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. There will not be direct contact between Iran and the United States at the in-person meeting, according to a European Union statement issued after a virtual meeting Thursday of the countries left in the deal — China, Russia, Iran, Britain, Germany and France. Instead, a coordinator will make “separate contacts” with “all JCPOA participants and the United States.” The Trump administration pulled the Un...
(JTA) — The Biden administration removed sanctions that President Donald Trump had imposed on International Criminal Court officials while continuing to decry the ICC’s work targeting U.S. and Israeli personnel. “These decisions reflect our assessment that the measures adopted were inappropriate and ineffective,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday in a statement. “We continue to disagree strongly with the ICC’s actions relating to the Afghanistan and Palestinian situations,” Blinken said, referring to separate investigation...
(JNS) — The head of Public Health at Israel’s Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the COVID-19 virus was “dying out” in the country, albeit slowly. Dr. Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of Public Health at Israel’s Health Ministry, said on Tuesday that the coronavirus in the country is “dying out” at a slower pace. “We currently have a little over 300 daily COVID cases. This is a very significant decline. Most of the localities in Israel have low morbidity. Meanwhile, there are almost no significant virus concentrations and no hotspots at all...
(JNS) — In case you haven’t heard, people who want to eliminate Israel are very interested in stopping anti-Semitism. In other words, the same people who want to deny rights to the Jewish people that they don’t think of trying to deny to anyone else in the same manner believe they are entitled to declare themselves friends and protectors of Jews. And no, I’m not kidding about this. This goes for Jewish Voice for Peace and the participants in an online panel held this week about “Dismantling Anti-Semitism, Winning Justice.” The leftist group and...
As the Holocaust recedes further and further into the past, the anti-Semites of the future (and for sure they will exist) will have an easier time promoting the falsehood that the Holocaust never occurred. Who will replace the first generation of survivors to bear witness and to challenge the current and future Holocaust deniers? Who will perpetuate the truth that the darkest event in human history actually occurred? In order for “Never Again” to be a continuing reality, and not just a slogan, the World must “Never Forget”! Can World Jewry rely...
(JNS) — Yom Hashoah is a day when Jews in their homeland and around the world remember their 6 million brothers and sisters who were so cruelly persecuted, hunted and murdered during the Holocaust. As we contemplate the future of this solemn and meaningful day of remembrance, and how it may be maintained as the years and generations pass, we must look at how we educate the next generation about the events of the Holocaust. Critical to the future of Holocaust remembrance, education only works to sustain those lessons learned if students — now...
President Rivlin tapped Benjamin Netanyahu to form a government. He has 28 days to try to put together a coalition and if he doesn’t succeed, the president can designate another person with a period of two weeks to do so, and then yet another attempt can be made. A friend asked recently how anyone who supports the right-wing in Israel could advocate for anything other than two right-of-center parties headed by Naftali Bennett and Gideon Sa’ar to join a government lead by the Likud party with Benjamin Netanyahu remaining as prime minister. Combi...
(JNS) — Jordan’s recent domestic upheaval reportedly involved members of the royal Jordanian family and prominent Bedouin tribesmen, who were arrested and charged with an attempted regime change. Other Arab countries were also said to be involved. Regime change in Jordan could transform the strategically located country into another haven for Palestinian and Islamic terrorism. It would threaten the existence of the current regimes in Saudi Arabia, all other pro-U.S. Gulf states and Egypt, advancing the interests of Iran, Turkey, the Muslim Bro...
(JTA) — Not long after the gruesome reality of the Holocaust had burst onto the world’s consciousness, the philosopher and social theorist Theodor Adorno famously observed in 1949 that writing poetry after Auschwitz was barbaric — “nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch.” Less well known but equally insightful was Adorno’s subsequent conclusion, expressed in a 1966 radio address in Germany, that Auschwitz itself constituted nothing less than a “relapse into barbarism.” Adorno understood that the Shoah’s calculated, systematic s...
MORNING MINYANS (Please note, because of the coronavirus, some minyans have been canceled or held virtually.) Chabad of North Orlando and Chabad of Altamonte Springs are holding in-person minyans. 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. Congregatio...
(JNS) — The former CEO of Israel’s Walla news website on Tuesday resumed his testimony before the Jerusalem District Court in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial. Ilan Yeshua is a key witness for the prosecution in Case 4000, in which Netanyahu is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust for allegedly promoting regulatory decisions that favored the interests of Shaul Elovitch, then the controlling shareholder of telecom giant Bezeq, in exchange for positive coverage in Walla, which was then owned by Bezeq. The c...
(JTA) - Following yet another Israeli election, voters are getting to know an unlikely kingmaker: Mansour Abbas, an Arab-Israeli lawmaker who might be the one to break Israel's two-year political stalemate. Abbas, head of the United Arab List political party, is not the kind of politician who usually wields power in the Jewish state. He's an Islamist who has more in common ideologically with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood than with any of Israel's establishment political parties. But through...
When Aaron Feinblatt moved to Israel in late February 2020, just as the first signs of the worldwide coronavirus outbreak were emerging, only one person wore a mask on his aliyah flight. Feinblatt had no idea that masks would soon become the norm for him and everyone else, nor how COVID-19 would affect the first year in his new home. "I got here two weeks before the country completely shut down," he said. "With all the lockdowns and restrictions in the last year, I feel like I have been...
Once again, I repeat, "getting old is not for sissies ...(me) I am astounded by all the famous folks that I didn't know were Jewish. For instance, WILLIAM SHATNER. I just learned that he was from Montreal, Canada (where my mom was born! His ancestry is identical to mine ... Canada, Russia, Ukraine, maybe Austria, maybe Poland.) He is about 90 years old ... NOT ME!! And, because I'm thinking about me (what else is new?), I want to mention two of my favorite songwriters who are also Jewish ......
Shortly after the liberating feeling of celebration during the Passover holiday, the Jewish community is reminded, once again, that liberation can carry with it many scars that never go away. The Jewish community takes time out four days after the joyful Passover week to stand in silence, prayer and reflection to remember all those who lost their lives during the Holocaust in Europe. Several displays have been set up in senior living facilities by the Jewish Pavilion to help keep this solemn...
"A Place at the Table" tells the story of two middle-school girls, Elizabeth and Sara - one Jewish and one Muslim - whose friendship begins in a South Asian cooking class taught by Sara's mother. Elizabeth is a budding chef and Sara is the new kid in school. Both girls have mothers who are studying to become American citizens, and as the girls gravitate toward each other, they must learn to ask awkward questions, be open to honest answers and comfortable standing up for each other even at the ex...
