Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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WASHINGTON (JTA)—A slight bump up on affirmative action, a plunge on voting rights, and on gay marriage, the mountaintop: federal legitimacy. It’s been a week of roller-coaster highs and lows at the Supreme Court for liberal Jewish groups. Their collective pledge: Stick it out. “These are critical decisions and it’s going to be a fight” on voting rights, said Sammie Moshenberg, the director of the National Council of Jewish Women, one of several groups that had weighed in on the recent ca...
In critical condition with severe shrapnel injuries to their torso and limbs, bullet wounds from head to toe and open fractures—this is how Syrian patients arrive at Israeli hospitals in the north of the country. And they are all treated like any other patient. “It’s our duty as a regional hospital, where we are located along the Lebanese border on one side and the Syrian border on the other side,” Dr. Amram Hadary, director of the trauma unit at Ziv Medical Center in Safed, tells ISRAEL2...
Larry Marini, president of Congregation Bet Chaim (CBC), has announced the appointment of longtime Central Florida resident Rabbi Thomas (Thom) Werthman as spiritual leader of the Reform synagogue in Casselberry. A native of Pittsburgh, Rabbi Thom, as he is known, graduated in 1970 from Clarion (Pa.) State University with a degree in education, although his final credits came from studying abroad during his final year at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Yeshiva Shomrei Emunim. During the e...
Google’s $1.3 billion acquisition of Waze, the Israeli-developed traffic crowdsourcing app that has won the hearts of 50 million users in 193 countries, is perhaps now recognized more for keeping the company in its Tel Aviv headquarters than for its nine zeroes, and is being touted as a national victory for Israel. Yet, the pride that flowed from the agreement to keep Waze’s talent put (Netanyahu himself called company heads to say “You’ve reach your destination!”) indicates an underlyin...
As technology grows by leaps and bounds, leading thinkers gathered last week at the 2013 Israeli Presidential Conference to discuss the future of warfare. Israel’s cyber weapons will eventually replace the pre-emptive strike role the Israel Air Force famously played in the 1967 Six Day War, according to Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Yair Cohen, former commander of Israel’s much-vaunted signal intelligence corps Unit 8200. Cohen predicted that in the future, Israel would be able to neutralize enemy weapons systems and units with “a...
Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah remarked when he was sworn-in to succeed Salam Fayyad at the helm of the Palestinian government last month that his government’s life will by necessity be short-lived. It was intended to last until August, at which time it would be dissolved in order to pave the way for a long-awaited national consensus government comprised of both Fatah and Hamas loyalists. Doubtless, not even Hamdallah expected his tenure to last merely 18-days. Following intense back-and-forth between the recently appointed prime minister and P...
Chabad of North Orlando in Lake Mary is about to meet an important milestone. An authentic scribe has been commissioned to begin writing a new Torah scroll. The Torah is the most precious article in Jewish life. It is perfectly intact just as it was received some 3,300 years ago, transcribed by Moses from the words of God. Not one of the Torah’s 304,805 letters has ever been changed. The words read in synagogues today are the exact words recorded by Moses. In addition to the original Torah kept in the Holy Ark, each of the 12 Tribes received a...
Between May 14 and July 9, 1944, more than 430,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Yadveshem.org In a recent visit to the Orlando area former Miami resident Dr. Jill Klein, author of a newly released Holocaust memoir, “We Got the Water,” shared the details of her family’s path through Auschwitz, possibly as passengers on one of the first transports from Hungary to the infamous death camp. Throughout her book, Klein, a social psychologist and faculty member of Melbourne Business Schoo...
Jewish residents at Savannah Court look forward to their monthly Shabbat luncheons with their Jewish Pavilion friends. The meals enable them to feel connected to their Jewish roots while they enjoy a lox and bagel sandwich. Pictured are residents and Pavilion volunteers at the Shabbat table....
When ill health prevents someone from Chambrel from going to shul, the Jewish Pavilion steps in. The Pavilion provides weekly Shabbat services at Chambrel, an independent and assisted living facility in Longwood. Pictured, from left, are Cliff Schilling, Emma Bookspan and Miriam Van. Prior to her move to Chambrel, Miriam was a dedicated and beloved Jewish Pavilion office volunteer with exquisite handwriting. She hand-addressed thousands of cards and envelopes over the years. Although she was...
NEW YORK (JTA)—In the early 1970s, while I was CEO of the Seagram Co., public dialogue about gay rights was largely nonexistent in corporate America. Social discourse had not yet even evolved into the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ethos that dominated the following decades. Homosexuality was simply not discussed and therefore, by implication, was shameful. During that time, as the head of a company with thousands of employees, personnel issues often came across my desk. One day, the director of human resources came into my office with a recommend...
It’s a familiar pattern. The citizens of a Middle Eastern state explode with frustration against their corrupt, repressive government. They gather for noisy, impassioned demonstrations in their capital city. The authorities react violently. Images of middle-aged women and wheelchair-bound individuals being tear-gassed, clubbed, and sprayed with water cannon race across social media platforms like wildfire. The protests then spread to other cities. The authorities step up their repression. And then, inevitably, the country’s political lea...
The IRS’s targeting of organizations connected to the Tea Party reminded me of the 1960s and ’70s, only in reverse. This time, the IRS was investigating right-wing groups. During the Nixon presidency, left-wing groups—particularly those who opposed the war in Vietnam—were deliberately selected for audits. Even worse, the FBI spied on those who marched in protests or signed petitions against the war. The reason behind the IRS and FBI selections is the same in all these cases: The people or groups oppose the current government’s stance on an iss...
The name “Evian” will forever be remembered as the site of an international conference, 75 years ago last week, that was supposed to save the Jews of Germany—but instead sealed their doom. Evian, however, should also be remembered for its link to the rescue of a different group of refugees in the 1970s, the so-called “boat people” fleeing the Communist takeover of Southeast Asia. Now, perhaps Evian will go down in the history books for yet another reason—as a turning point in addressing the problem of the tens of thousands of African ref...
Over the last few weeks, there has been much reflection on the legacy of the former South African president, Nelson Mandela, as his health has deteriorated. And in the coming weeks, we can anticipate a febrile exchange over his true views on Israel and the Middle East. We shouldn’t underestimate the significance of such a debate. Mandela has entered the pantheon of 20th-century figures that exercised the most extraordinary influence over global events, touching the lives of ordinary mortals in the process. In the 1940s, many Britons could t...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Is Judaism the problem or the solution to women’s equality? Try telling agunot, women who are chained to their husbands unable to obtain a get, a religious divorce, that they are equal to men. Overarching Jewish values like b’tzelem Elohim—that all people are created in the image of God—may teach equality, but the day-to-day reality of too many women tells us of a struggle that is far from complete. Is the pervasive inequality of women in Israel and in many other societies God’s will or men’s will? The majority of God language...
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, JULY 5 Light Shabbat candles at 8:09...
When it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, everything, even a hamburger, is political. Israelis who live in areas that Israel acquired in 1967 are up in arms over McDonald’s decision not to open a branch in the mall that will be built in Ariel over the next year. In Israel, the McDonald’s franchise is private and is owned by Omri Padan, one of the founders of the dovish group Peace Now, which opposes Israeli building in post-1967 areas. There are 170 McDonald’s restaurants in Israel, about 40 of which are kosher. The company’s website...
BALTIMORE (JTA)—In their Tel Aviv boarding school a half-century ago, Moshe Zarchi and Zvi Halevy spent time together doing homework, playing hide-and-seek and enjoying Chamisha Avanim, a jacks-like game involving five gold cubes. Halevy, 62 and a resident of Netanya, Israel, fondly recalls their friendship. It may have meant even more to Zarchi, whose parents gave him up for adoption. Halevy learned only recently that Zarchi died in the United States more than 30 years ago—and perhaps was mur...
Silverman’s dad rips JAPs NEW YORK—Thanks to the cultural gem that is “Princesses: Long Island,” lately the term JAP—Jewish American Princess—has been bandied around with a vigor that hasn’t been seen since the lavish bat mitzvah and nose job-filled days of our adolescence. Those not happy about the development have company in Donald Silverman, the father of JAC (Jewish American Comedian) Sarah Silverman. The elder Silverman finds it infuriating that anyone would proudly own a label that im...
Haydn Emmerson Cohen, son of Dawn and Joseph Cohen of Orlando, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on Saturday, July 6, 2013 at Congregation Beth Emeth in Orlando. Haydn is in the eighth grade at Legacy Middle School, where he is an honor roll student and plays with the jazz and symphonic bands. He also enjoys swimming, going to parks, camping and is a star rank Boy Scout. Sharing in the family’s simcha will be Haydn’s sister, Morgyn; his brother, Massin; grandparents, Arlene and Cha...
Why a resurgence?... Almost 70 years after Hitler’s hateful atrocities before and during WWII, why is anti-Semitism still going on? The national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN gives us some answers. In his words: “Beginning with 9/11 a new era of ‘anxiety’ hit the world and since then, a wave of anti-Jewish scapegoating has emerged. The combination of international terror, financial collapse, Islamic extremism and turmoil in the Middle East has created the per...
In the past, the major literary distinction was between prose (defined as ordinary speech or language) and poetry. The recent boom in graphic works offers yet another literary possibility. Although graphic novels and memoirs were once dismissed by some critics as high-brow comic books, authors and illustrators currently aspire to something far greater. Three recent books show just how far the genre has expanded: the works being reviewed offer a family portrait of Jerusalem in the 1940s, a...
Kerry leaves Israel without deal for peace talks, sees progress JERUSALEM (JTA)—U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry left Israel without bringing Israeli and Palestinian officials back to the peace negotiating table. Kerry said, however, that “real progress” had been made during his whirlwind trip and he would return to the region. He left Israel for Asia on Sunday afternoon following three meetings each with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmo...
The scene in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, was not typical. Dozens of Arab women, most of them from villages in northern Israel wearing traditional dress, packed into the Galil Hall for a discussion about Israel’s national anthem, “Hatikva,” (“The Hope”). They came alone, without their husbands, and participated frequently in the discussion. Many of the speakers, which included several Arab members of Knesset, said the lyrics of the anthem are alien to them. The verses in question, written by Naftali Herz Imbar, who immigrated to Palestin...
