Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 31
(JNS) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited a synagogue in South Florida on Monday to sign legislation that had the support of many in the Jewish community there. At the Shul of Bal Harbour in Surfside, Fla., a Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue north of Miami, DeSantis ensured that faith-based, volunteer first-responder services, like the Orthodox-run Hatzalah ambulance corp., can operate more fully, including using lights and sirens in an emergency if they meet specific criteria and have been operating...
On June 14, at 7 p.m., an in-person and zoom meeting was hosted by Keith Dvorchik, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Orlando, and Aaron Weill, CEO of Central Florida Hillel, for a community discussion on "Israel and Antisemitism." In front of a live audience of 10 people and over the Internet, via Zoom and a Facebook link, with 84 viewers, they held a discussion driven by the concern in the tremendous growth of antisemitism over the past two years. "Anti-Semitism world-wide has been increasing...
Congregation Beth Am has engaged Rabbi David Barnett to be their interim rabbi. He started on June 15, 2021. The Rabbinic Search Committee chaired by Steven Gordon, after having interviewed many qualified candidates, recommended Rabbi Barnett to the congregation. Rabbi Barnett will serve for one year. A primary focus of an interim rabbi is to work with the congregation's leadership and membership to establish a strategic plan for the congregation's future and to use his experience and expertise...
(JNS) - Israel's Foreign Ministry is investigating a report that an Israeli woman had her birthplace changed from "Jerusalem" to "Occupied Palestinian Territories" upon renewing her U.K. passport. Ayelet Balaban, a dual Israeli-British citizen who has held a U.K. passport all her life, said she was shocked upon receiving the new document, according to Israel's Kan. According to Balaban, she sent her old passport to England about two weeks ago and received the new one on Monday. Upon discovering...
(JNS) - Groups of Jews and other community members in Arizona and Ohio gathered on Sunday to express their concern over the recent rise in anti-Semitism across the country and around the world. In Cincinnati, hundreds attended the "Under the Tent, Standing Against Antisemitism" event to stand in solidarity against Jew-hatred in Ohio and elsewhere. "We join together as Jews and allies to send a strong message that we will not tolerate hate and anti-Semitism in any form," said Gary Greenberg,...
The following virtual programs will be hosted by the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center. The first on Sunday, June 27 at 3 p.m. is with Holocaust survivor Claire Soria. Hear Soria's story as she remembers vividly, the tanks going down her street as the Nazis invaded Brussels. She recalls the armed soldiers marching into every government building to take down their precious Belgian flags and replacing them with flags with the swastika. Soon after, Jewish children of every age were...
(JNS) - The Jewish United Fund is taking the fight over antisemitism to residents of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs with a major media blitz that included TV ads, billboards, social-media posts and more. The "Stop Antisemitism" media campaign, which launched in late May, is being undertaken because of the rise of attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions across the country and in Western Europe. During Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza in mid-May, anti-Semitic attacks soared worldwide and...
Federation CEO and Executive Director Keith Dvorchik reached out to the Heritage about the Trader Joe’s incident saying that “a lot more happened that wasn’t included [in the article Heritage ran].” After learning of the anti-Israel discourtesy paid the shopper, Dvorchik reached out to Trader Joe’s CEO Dan Bane. Bane assigned the grievance to the regional manager, who failed to address the problem properly. It was then reassigned to their in-house council, who is the head of all Trader Joe’s legal issues and a top executive. Dvorchik contacted...
(Israel Hayom via JNS) - Some 5,000 new immigrants from the United States and Canada are scheduled to immigrate to Israel by the end of 2021, according to new data published by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization in conjunction with Israel's Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency for Israel and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael–Jewish National Fund USA. Nefesh B'Nefesh has reported a spike in the number of immigration requests and files opened during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, the o...
(Israel21c via JNS) — For the first time in 12 years, Israel’s Likud Party and its head, Benjamin Netanyahu, have moved from the prime minister’s seat to the opposition in the Knesset. The new government, sworn in Sunday night, brings into power a broad coalition of eight political parties, spanning the country’s political spectrum. Heading Israel’s 36th government is Yamina Party leader Naftali Bennett, the 13th Israeli prime minister. Bennett was sworn in along with Yesh Atid Party leader Yair Lapid, who will serve as alternate prime min...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday officially announced the nomination of Thomas Nides to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Nides, 60, has held prominent roles in the private and public sectors. From 2010-2013, he served as the State Department’s Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources. As part of the Obama administration, Nides played a key role in the administration’s approval of an extension on loan guarantees worth billions of dollars for Israel. He also led the push against Congress’s efforts to defund the U.N...
(JNS) — Regular readers of my column know that I like to bring some historical perspective to current affairs that is missing from most reporting and analysis. I happened upon some interesting tidbits that may help us understand the recent fighting between Israel and Palestinian terrorists in Gaza, and the real reason peace is unlikely, if not impossible. Israel has been complaining since the signing of the Oslo Accords (and before) about Palestinian incitement to violence against Israeli Jews. The Israelis and various outside analysts have r...
Since I moved to the “Deep South” my cultural education gets a rough shock almost daily. From governors trying to undo a legal election to who is eligible to vote and where and when you can vote to the newest twist on an old subject to be taught in the coming school year called “Critical Race Theory.” Now, I haven’t seen the textbook or any discussion guides. All I have learned so far is that it deals with attitudes on race and will modify the treatment of African Americans in our history so that periods like Reconstruction will not be taught...
A friend of mine and faithful reader of my column (I hope!) asked me to share with him my perspectives on the new political situation in Israel and the impact it will have on future relations between Israel and the U.S. government, American Jewish communities, and the Arab world. I told him I would love to respond to his request, but in truth given the complexities of the Mideast and my lack of a crystal ball, the most accurate answer I could respond with is “I don’t know!” However, as a columnist I do have literary license to speculate on wh...
(JTA) — The COVID-19 epidemic proves you cannot just treat a plague’s symptoms — you must root it out. Yet as incidents of Jew-bullying in the U.S. more than doubled in May compared to the same time period in 2020, too many American Jews complained about the symptoms while obscuring the cause. In a polarized polity, too many in the overwhelmingly liberal American Jewish community either ignore or cover up left-wing complicity in the New Antisemitism, meaning anti-Zionist Jew-hatred. Call it Zio-washing: bleaching the anti-Zionism out of moder...
(JNS) — Standing up to hatred is hard. When those who take a moral stand against it act together, however, it can be confronted to an impressive degree. What started as four Jewish Democrats in Congress attacking the comments of Rep. Ilhan Omar and other colleagues, not by name, as anti-Semitic, grew to 12 members specifically criticizing Omar, who had posted a tweet comparing the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, accompanied by a video in which she is seen questioning Secretary of State Antony Blinken on America’s opp...
(JNS) — The Washington Post’s support of the currently popular trend to call Americans racists is well-known. Its readers, including me and many others who do not share the Post’s premise, read its stories and opinion pages warily but are seldom surprised. The Post’s issue of June 6 (June 3 online) was, however, shockingly obscene. Over three pages, it contained an “Opinions Essay” written by Michele L. Norris that bemoaned America’s failure to “face its horrible past” as Germany has done. America, says Norris, has a “criminal past” t...
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. Congr...
(JTA) — Parents in Brazil are protesting a school’s teaching of Anne Frank’s famous Holocaust diary, citing what they say is sexual content inappropriate for seventh graders. In a letter sent to the management of the Sao Paulo branch of Escola Mobile, a network of private schools, more than 90 parents complained about Frank’s descriptions of female genitalia and her attraction to women, according to Revista Oeste magazine. The parents were complaining about passages in the latest edition of the official diary of Anne Frank. Her father, who was...
JTA - Israel's new prime minister is probably the first one who has stuck a wad of chewing gum to his head right before a public event. Naftali Bennett, who took office last week, is the first prime minister in the country's history to regularly wear a kippah, the Jewish ritual head covering (sometimes called a yarmulke or skullcap). Unlike his secular predecessors, he identifies as a religious Zionist and practices Modern Orthodox Judaism, which requires men to cover their heads. He's also...
(JNS) - "Israel, you are not alone. ... We represent 10 million-plus people in America and these people say to you Israel, we have your back." That was the message of Pastor John Hagee, chairman and founder of Christians United for Israel, the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States. Hagee was in Israel on a June 13-14 solidarity mission that included former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley. Haley, who served in that role from January 2017 to December 2018, stood...
So maybe that's why I'm funny? ... (I DIDN'T SAY FUNNY LOOKING!) Pointing out more Jewish funnymen of my day, I must include Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx. (Born in New York City, of course.) I also feel I must mention this super-talent, (although he's not Jewish), DICK VAN DYKE. I was watching the 43rd Kennedy Center honors on television (naturally. What else is there to do?) and he was one of those given the honor. I must mention him because he always gave me joy ... in his acting, his joking...
(JTA) - "The Shrink Next Door," a 2019 reported podcast about a Jewish psychiatrist on the Upper West Side of Manhattan who takes control of the life of one of his Jewish patients, is being made into a limited TV series. And it's starring two comedy stars who last collaborated on "Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues." The 8-episode adaptation will star Paul Rudd as Dr. Isaac "Ike" Herschkopf, the psychiatrist, and Will Ferrell as Marty Markowitz, the patient whose life he takes over. It will...
(JTA) – Pro-Palestinian activists were swarming the social media comments sections of Ben & Jerry's to demand the company boycott Israel. In response, Ben & Jerry's appears to have indeed entered a boycott - of social media itself. The international ice cream brand with hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales typically posts to its Twitter, Instagram or Facebook pages daily, including about the many progressive social causes that the company supports. But Ben & Jerry's fell silent on May...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A key Supreme Court decision on religious freedoms earned praise from Orthodox Jewish groups, and has more liberal groups breathing a sigh of relief that its scope was narrow. On Thursday, the court issued a unanimous decision overturning Philadelphia’s policy of refusing to work with a Catholic agency that will not place foster children with same-sex parents. Jewish groups had filed friend-of-the-court briefs on both sides of the case, known as Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. Orthodox groups, driven by concerns about religio...
