Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 38
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Twice in three days, Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace and fired on suspected weapons caches bound for Hezbollah—and nothing has happened in response. Some experts are predicting that will continue to be the case following airstrikes near Damascus last Friday and Sunday that are widely believed to be the work of the Israel Defense Forces. According to reports, the strikes targeted shipments of long-range, Iranian-made Fateh-110 missiles capable of striking deep into Isr...
When President Bill Clinton stepped to the podium at the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., 20 years ago, most of the audience no doubt expected him to offer the usual generalities about the importance of not forgetting the past. Instead, Clinton went much further, delivering the harshest words ever uttered by an American president about our country’s response to the Nazi genocide. Clinton made clear that the response of the U.S. to news of the Holocaust was an important part of the events that need t...
Seminole County Teacher of the Year Adam Sherman could easily be awarded “Seminole County Mensch of the Year,” as well. Though only 29, Sherman is a seasoned educator who loves his job teaching English and Leadership Development at Lake Brantley High School. Sherman is a leader, himself, serving as an interim dean in fall 2012, as well as bringing anti-bullying and character building programs to promote toleration of ideas and differences among Lake Brantley High School (LBHS) students. Sherman...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Following a court ruling in their favor, leaders of an organization pushing for women’s prayer rights at the Western Wall have withdrawn their endorsement of Natan Sharansky’s compromise proposal to expand the egalitarian section there. A Jerusalem District Court ruled two weeks ago that Women of the Wall members who pray together in the regular women’s section of the Western Wall are not contravening the law. That was teh ruling at the Heritage deadline. Members of the group have been routinely arrested or detained in recent...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—To get married in Israel, Dima Motel had to bring his family photo album and two of his ancestors’ birth certificates to a rabbinical court. Then an investigator quizzed his mother in Yiddish. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate often asks Russian immigrants like Motel to prove that they’re Jewish, sometimes requiring documentary evidence that can be hard to obtain. Those who won’t submit to the process or who can’t firmly establish their Jewish bona fides can’t get legally married in th...
NEW YORK—More than three years after the discovery of fraudulent activity at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (“Claims Conference”) that continued for about a decade-and-a-half and allegedly deprived Holocaust survivors of more than $57 million, the trial of 31 accused of participating in the fraud is under way. During the course of a prolonged investigation that began in 2009, 31 people—including 11 employees of the Claims Conference—were criminally charged and arrested in the conspiracy. Twenty-eight defendant...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—The museum dedicated to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin raises nearly half its money from labor leaders. It’s just not the labor you think. Members of U.S. labor unions raised $1.4 million for the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv last year, 45 percent of the center’s total 2012 fundraising. Since 2005, American unions have raised $12 million for the center. Labor leaders say programs at the center, which celebrates the slain Labor Party prime minister who signed the 1993 Oslo Accor...
Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A. announced that Aaron J. Gorovitz, a long-time real estate partner with the firm, has been appointed to the board of directors of Meritas, a global alliance of 7,124 experienced lawyers in 175 full-service law firms serving 236 markets—all rigorously qualified, independent and collaborative. Gorovitz has been involved with Meritas for several years. He is one of seven elected board members who will serve for a three-year term. Most recently, he s...
Celebrating 40 years is a very special simcha. The Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando is turning 40 this year. Over the last 40 years, the JCC has had many fundraisers, but none is as special or fun as the J Ball, which will take place at the Rosen Plaza Hotel at 8 p.m. Saturday, May 18. The JCC’s previous executive director, Marvin Friedman, had this to say when asked why he plans on attending this year’s J Ball: “For as long as I can remember, Jerry and Susan Roth have been treme...
Jewish National Fund Orlando board member and JNF Doctors for Israel Chair Dr. Shari Yudenfreund-Sujka, left, accepts her coveted Sapphire Society pin from JNF Women’s Campaign for Israel assistant vice president Louise Dabrow. The Sapphire Society, a major gift women’s division of JNF, is an elite group that has raised millions of dollars for a wide variety of projects in Israel. Each member receives a Sapphire Society pin upon becoming a member....
Sergeant Benjamin Anthony is a combat reservist in the Israel Defense Forces. Born in England, he experienced a brutal anti-Semitic attack that changed the course of his life. He and his brothers made aliyah and joined the IDF, defending Israel in every recent military campaign. After completing his military service, Sgt. Anthony founded Our Soldiers Speak to “separate fact from sensationalism, to distinguish between perception and reality, and to compare the media headlines to the truth.” He...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Until recently, I thought of Ruth, the heroine of Shavuot, as a positive role model, a woman who made good choices, was strong and fulfilled. But lately I’ve been rethinking this and focusing on the strange dynamics of what appears to be an unhealthy, possibly abusive, relationship between Ruth and Naomi, her mother-in-law. Abuse is about power and control, and abusive relationships are not limited to romantic situations. Any relationship has the potential to be abusive, including relationships among friends and families or bet...
By Ed Ziegler The United States is known for welcoming immigrants seeking freedom and a better life. The vast majority of immigrants embrace our language, customs and laws. However it appears that many Muslims have developed a pattern to change our way of life to satisfy their religion and customs. In 2010 Safoorah Kahn, a new teacher (a Muslim) in the Berkeley, Ill., School District filed a law suit against the school for refusing her a 19-day leave in mid-semester to travel to Mecca. Her request did not meet those set forth in the...
NEW YORK (JTA)—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is correct to describe a new proposal by the Arab League to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks as “a very big step forward.” Yet there will be no serious movement toward peace until Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responds to the Arab League initiative by evoking the words of the late Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat before traveling to Jerusalem in the later 1970s, vowing “to go to the ends of the earth”—even to the Qatari capital of Doha or the Saudi capital of Riyadh—in o...
Tolerance is justifiably one of liberal Democracy’s most cherished values. But what do we do when tolerance, with its openness to multiple views, permits and even supports intolerance? This is particularly an issue today when open prejudice against Jews and Israel, and anti-Semitism, go unchallenged. Fundamentalism and prejudice are rife in the Middle East, where many countries practice forms of gender, religious, ethnic and sexual apartheid. Yet, Saudi Arabia remains a U.S. ally despite the fact that women there are subjugated and it is i...
FALLS VILLAGE, Conn. (JTA)—Judaism is designed to be a person’s operating system, the platform on which other areas of one’s life functions. But for many Jews, religious practice sits on a shelf alongside theater subscriptions, gym memberships and soccer practice, relegated to one of many offerings from which we can pick and choose. For Jewish educators like myself, this mindset poses particular challenges, forcing us to adopt the tactics of public relations agencies to induce Jews to participate in Jewish life. Why can’t these opportu...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—It’s that time of year, when Jewish institutions pull out their 2013-14 calendars and fill them with events. Many of the programs are very good, with clever names and slick marketing: Jews and Brews, for young Federation leadership; L’mazeltov, for expectant parents; Torah and Tacos, for synagogue members who favor a certain southwestern cuisine with their Bible study. And yet, after all this well-meaning effort, membership in synagogues and JCCs is declining, federation campaigns are flat and a generation of young Jewis...
Dear editor: The executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Tampa, Mr. Shibly, was extremely troubled by a letter from Sandra Solomon, advising us to Stand Strong Against Islam [Heritage Florida Jewish News, April 12, 2013]. I am extremely troubled that CAIR never really condemns the terrible crimes committed in the name of Islam, and the evil influence of comfortably situated imans in our free society on young idealistic people to convert them to mass murderers. Most recently a 30-year-old student who was...
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 a.m.; Sunday, 8 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, MAY 10 Light Shabbat candles at 7:48...
My son, Donald Soldinger, head football coach for Miami Southridge High school and then an assistant coach at the University of Miami from 1984-1988 and 1995-2005, was inducted April 11 into the university’s Hall of Fame, along with six others. My daughter, Vicki, and I were among 500 guests, including former inductees. As he thanked his family for allowing him to be a football coach, I remembered the day he told me he wanted to be a player and a coach at age 9. My response as a Jewish mother wa...
Dual residency in London and Heathrow led to the formation of the Pavilion Golf Society here in Orlando. Lloyd Green, an active member of the Jewish community in London, shares a passion for the elderly with Ken Davis, another new member of the local Jewish community. Both men are active in the Congregation Ohev Shalom Men’s Club. Together, along with several members of the COS Brotherhood, they decided to plan a golf tournament with proceeds going to the Jewish Pavilion. The tournament will follow in the footsteps of a successful golf t...
The Maimonides Medical and Cardozo Legal societies gathered April 25 at Tim’s Wine Market on Orange Avenue in Orlando to raise a glass for Israel’s 65th birthday. Guests enjoyed Israeli wines, delicious food and delightful entertainment from a local jazz band, The Downbeat Quartet. For more information on how you can get involved with the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando’s business and professional societies, visit www.JFGO.org....
Stanley M. Balch of Clermont died on Tuesday, April 30, 2013. He was 72 years old. A Brooklyn native, Mr. Balch was born on June 30, 1940 to Miriam Goodman Balch and the late Julius Balch. He attended high school in Brooklyn and was a graduate of City University of New York Baruch School of Business, earning a bachelor’s of business administration. On Oct. 19, 1963, at the Madison Jewish Center in Brooklyn, he married the former Roberta Gerber, his wife of nearly 50 years who survives him. Mr. Balch was a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, being...
MIAMI BEACH—On Saturday morning, March 18, 1922—two years after American women received the right to vote—Judith Kaplan, daughter of Rabbi Mordecai M. Kaplan, became the first American girl to mark her bat mitzvah during a public worship service. With this revolutionary act, she and her father initiated what would become the widespread American Jewish practice of bat mitzvah. To mark the 90th anniversary of Judith Kaplan’s bat mitzvah, the National Museum of American Jewish History and Moving...
BALTIMORE (JTA)—A “Seeking Kin” column in April 2012 excited Gal Adam Spinrad—and now the Cincinnati woman has cause to be happy anew. Adam Spinrad has long been fascinated by the legend of her relative, Jacques Faitlovitch, who more than a century ago left his native Lodz, Poland, bound for Ethiopia. He devoted much of his life to the Jews living there, becoming one of the first European Jews to vouch for them as co-religionists and bring them into the fold. As a UCLA student in 1992, Adam Sp...
