Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 34 of 34
Josh was 8 years old when his parents sent him to Jewish summer camp for the first time. Even though he had issues like ADHD that made school challenging, they figured the informal, open environment of summer camp - together with a little extra care from staff - would enable him to find his place. They were wrong. After just six days, he was sent home. Meredith Englander Polsky, who had attended that same overnight camp throughout her childhood, was working there as a counselor that summer. "I...
It is with profound sorrow, the family announced the passing of Gordon Allen Engel, z”l, on May 30, 2021. Born Oct. 30, 1924, as the only child to Jack and Irene Engel, he enjoyed a happy childhood in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Gordon married Shirley Weinberg, the love of his life, in 1957; moved with their new daughter in 1959 to Keystone Point, North Miami, Florida; and welcomed another daughter in 1962. A trained pharmacist, he eventually worked for Endo Laboratories (Dupont) as a well-respected, pharmaceutical sales representative. Gordon b...
The earliest Jews in the North American colonies related to Africans and their American-born offspring in the same ways most other white European colonists did. These Jews, largely immigrants from Spain and Portugal, derived much of their livelihood, directly or indirectly, from the slave trade. Approximately one third held slaves themselves, though few owned large plantations, and none publicly opposed the institution of slavery, even as enslaved Blacks increasingly came to identify with the...
By NEW ORLEANS (JTA) - Janis Rabin's family emigrated from Poland, eventually settling in Bogalusa, Louisiana. For years, she and her relatives had kept memories and stories of their family's Jewish experience to themselves, or shared them casually with friends. So when Rabin entered this city's Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience the day it opened to the public, she was moved by seeing her family's history represented more formally. "I look at the museum and it is such a beautiful...
Mayim Bialik makes ‘Jeopardy!’ guest host debut By Gabe Friedman (JTA) — Jewish actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik began her two-week stint as a guest host on “Jeopardy!” Monday night, paying tribute to her “creative and academic family” and the show’s late host Alex Trebek in her opening remarks. Bialik, who has written about her Jewish identity in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and beyond, drew praise on social media after the first night of her run, which goes through June 11. The show is matching the amount won by contestants to...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) - Tucked between a dance school and a '60s retro lounge on a quiet street in Tucson, Arizona, sits a small Middle Eastern and African foods store. But the Al Basha Grocery isn't just a place to get kosher meats and hard-to-find ingredients. "It provides an opportunity for people to see each other as real people and have a normal interaction with people who ordinarily might not interact in their day-to-day lives," said Jesse Davis, a regular Al Basha...
(JNS) — Kamau Bobb “will no longer be part of our diversity team going forward,” the tech giant Google announced Wednesday, after the surfacing of an antisemitic blog post its Global Lead for Diversity, Strategy and Research wrote in 2007. In a statement obtained by the Jewish Journal, Google said: “We unequivocally condemn the past writings by a member of our diversity team that are causing deep offense and pain to members of our Jewish community and our LGBTQ+ community. These writings are unquestionably hurtful. The author acknowl...
AMSTERDAM (JTA) - In Germany, a man wearing a kippah was beaten on the street. In Austria, a student was harassed on the train for reading a book mentioning Jews in the title. In London, a nurse said she was threatened at her hospital for wearing a Star of David necklace. And in Belgium, an Orthodox Jewish woman was told "Get away, dirty Jewess" by a man with whom she tried to share a park bench. The full dimensions of Europe's current surge in antisemitic activity are not yet clear, but by...
(JTA) — The chancellor of New Jersey’s flagship public university condemned antisemitism and then, following protest from a pro-Palestinian student group, apologized for the condemnation. On Wednesday, the chancellor of Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Christopher J. Molloy, released a statement condemning antisemitism, which spiked across the country during and after the recent fighting in Israel and Gaza. The statement also condemned “all forms of bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, xenophobia, and oppression, in whatever ways they may be ex...
