Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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This article will be updated as more names are identified by authorities in Florida. (JTA) - The Champlain Towers South building collapse is a national tragedy, one that has claimed nearly 20 lives so far and left over 140 still missing in the rubble as of Thursday. Among other groups, it struck a unique nexus of the American Jewish community in South Florida, home to a mix of Latin American immigrants, Israelis and retirees from the Northeast. The town of Surfside, the site of the collapse, is...
SURFSIDE, Fla. (JTA) - Nachman Shai's first visit to the United States as Israel's new minister for Diaspora affairs was not under normal circumstances. "In hard times, in times of disaster, we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with Americans," he said in an interview on Sunday in The Shul, the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue located about a mile from the remains of the collapsed Champlain Towers building here that has left over 150 people unaccounted for. Shai, 74, was previously best known as the...
Hunter Gold was selected to be the next executive director of Central Florida Hillel and will be starting on July 28. Originally from Long Island, he moved to Florida for college, and has maintained a love of Florida ever since. He received his MBA from UCF after obtaining his BS in accounting at the University of Florida, where he was a member of AEPi and active in Hillel. Gold is excited about meeting UCF Hillel students and helping prepare them to become the next generation of leaders in the...
By (JNS) — Days before the start of the annual Tour de France, cycling’s most prestigious race, the Israeli national team’s star rider and four-time winner of the event, Chris Froome, was enthusiastic and optimistic. Froome has been working hard to return to his previous level of performance following the severe injuries he sustained in a 2019 crash that occurred while he was previewing the time trial course at the 2019 Critérium du Dauphiné. He suffered a double femur fracture to his right leg, multiple additional fractures and a collaps...
(JNS) Passersby were treated to a striking sight outside Jerusalem's City Hall on Tuesday. One-hundred and fifty bright orange "ambucycles" – motorcycles and scooters equipped with lifesaving medical equipment – were lined in neat rows at Safra Square to celebrate the dedication of the Dr. Miriam & Sheldon G. Adelson Ambucycle Unit of United Hatzalah. Hundreds of United Hatzalah volunteers attended the event, and Channel 12 news anchor Ofer Hadad served as master of ceremonies. The 150 amb...
Who thought the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls could be so entertaining? Natural story-teller Kenneth Hanson, Ph.D., as done just that. In addition to being an associate professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Central Florida, he is a brilliant actor who brings to life academic topics such as archeology finds in Israel and the Dead Sea Scrolls through his characters known as Jerusalem Jones and Menachem the Essene, also known as the 2,001-year-old man. He shares insights, mixed with a lo...
The Rosen JCC is known for their Early Childhood Learning Center program. For years their mission has been to guide children in their development of social, emotional, academic, creative, cultural and physical skills so that they embrace a love of learning. They now offer kindergarten classes. This accredited kindergarten offers a low student to teacher ratio to allow for small groups and to tailor instruction to individual needs. This helps to build a solid foundation for reading, writing and...
JFS Orlando is pleased to announce its first-ever Summer Recipe Raffle! Starting July 7 through Aug. 18, JFS will be raffling out a different prize every week with a final Grand Prize at the end of the summer. There are two ways to enter the raffle: submit your own recipe or donate $36 (each $36 donation counts as an entry, i.e. $360:10 entries). Whichever way you choose, you will automatically be entered for that week's prize, future weekly prizes, and the final Grand Prize. So, now is the...
(JNS) - Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid flew to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday in a historic first official visit by an Israeli minister to the Gulf State. "What we are doing here today isn't the end of the road, it's the beginning. From here, from this place, we are setting out on the road," Lapid said at a ceremony inaugurating Israel's Embassy in Abu Dhabi. "Israel wants peace with its neighbors. With all its neighbors," the foreign minister said. "We aren't going anywhere. The...
(JNS) — “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon on my watch.” At least this is what U.S. President Joe Biden told Israeli President Reuven Rivlin during his visit to the White House on Monday. Biden also reportedly said Israel has the right to decide how to proceed with Iran. This message was meant to assuage Israel’s fears over the U.S. approach to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. But Iran’s recent announcement that it has started enriching uranium at 60 percent, and Tehran’s continued use of proxies to spread terror and instabi...
(JTA) — Vladimir Putin clearly likes to talk about Jews and Israel. This time he suggested that Israel offered a good model for his designs on Ukraine. The Russian president’s previous remarks about Jews include the joke he told at a panel on energy in 2017, about a smartass Israeli soldier who was quizzed by his commander on how to engage multiple enemies. The soldier’s advice: Send more troops. In 2019, hearing about the financial challenges of a rabbi in Crimea, Putin joked: “So the Jews have problems with finances!” Then he told the rabbi...
(JNS) — As far as some of Israel’s most vicious critics were concerned, it was the sort of thing that gave their critiques of Zionism a bad name. It was difficult to pretend that the decision of organizers of a Philadelphia food festival to disinvite an Israeli-owned food truck from participating was rooted in anything other than prejudice against Israel and Jews. Those who run the “Taste of Home” event that had been scheduled to take place in the Kensington section of the City of Brotherly Love thought they were being prudent when they to...
Sometimes it takes time to get there, but as history shows, in the end, level heads prevail and justice is served. And so on that note, we say it’s wonderful that there is finally national recognition of the end of slavery in the U.S. with Juneteenth now a national holiday. But with over 62 million innocent human lives already having been brutally ended thanks to the most misguided and pernicious Supreme Court decision in American history, we will need a national holiday to commemorate the poor helpless unborn children who never got a chance t...
(JNS) — While the Jewish left keeps trying to convince us that most anti-Israel hatred is not antisemitism, a new poll has found that a large majority of American Jews see things such more clearly. The poll, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, asked Jews whether certain types of anti-Israel statements or actions are antisemitic: “Saying Israel should not exist as a Jewish state” — 75 percent say it’s antisemitic “Comparing Israel’s actions to those of the Nazis” — 70 percent “Protesting Israeli actions outside an American synagogue” — 67 p...
(JNS) — According to the establishment media, critical race theory, or CRT, is a distraction. It is a right-wing smear. It is a conservative attempt to quash the dark side of American history. Most of all, according to the establishment media, you must never pay attention to the infusion of CRT into the nation’s institutions of power. According to MSNBC‘s Chuck Todd, controversy over CRT is a “creation … It keeps people watching or it keeps people clicking.” According to CNN‘s Bakari Sellers, CRT is just “America’s history.” Accordi...
I preface this piece by acknowledging that I do not pit one group’s injustice against another. This piece does not diminish the injustice and pain felt by other minorities. I want to open your eyes to the way I, and many others, feel right now. American Jews born in the 1990s grew up in a quiet time. We were born after the fall of the Soviet Union, the dawn of the internet was approaching, and lack of overt antisemitism. The first time I heard anything anti-Semitic was my freshman year of college. My World Religions teacher harshly critiqued J...
Dear Editor: As a Yankee from Pennsylvania moving to Ormond Beach, Fla., perhaps I did not experience the same culture shock as did Heritage columnist Jim Shipley’s move to Louisiana. Wherever I lived, with the exception of Israel for 12 years, I was always a minority and have witnessed anti-Jew incidents even decades before when I lived in NYC. They still haven’t changed and have gotten much worse today. Shipley states in his column (Shipley Speaks, June 25, 2021) that the Jewish community has fought all this type of racism or exclusion and...
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...
(JNS) - Controlled explosives on Sunday brought down the rest of the condominium in Surfside, Fla., that collapsed on June 24, leaving more than 140 people dead or missing. The confirmed death toll rose to 24 on Saturday with 121 still missing at the site in the heavily Jewish area. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava signed an emergency order to bring down the building due to the approach of Tropical Storm Elsa, which is expected to hit the Florida coast on Tuesday. Officials feared...
(Israel21C via JNS) - "I saw in the news that you were coming from Israel for us, and I was waiting for you," said a tearful young woman in Surfside, Florida, to members of the Psychotrauma and Crisis Response Unit from United Hatzalah of Israel. "People kept coming up to us and saying how happy they were that we arrived," said Batya Jaffe, who was on the scene with her therapy dog, Lucy. They were part of the six-person PCRU team that landed in Miami Sunday morning, along with a search-and-resc...
(JTA) - For Rabbi Michael Perice, the hardest thing about counseling congregants who have family members dealing with addiction had been holding back his own experience with substance abuse. "I really wanted to let people know in these conversations that I understand. And I couldn't do that," Perice said. Perice, the spiritual leader at Temple Sinai of Cinnaminson, New Jersey, decided to change that by telling his congregation the story of his four-year struggle with opioid addiction. He...
(JTA) - As he ends his tenure as the director of the largest Hillel in the country after 20 years in the post, Andrew Getraer says Jews at Rutgers University face a reality out of Dickens: the best of times and the worst of times. Jewish life at the school, New Jersey's flagship university, is thriving. There are 6,000 Jews on campus, and it's known as a destination for students seeking a vibrant Jewish community with a range of services, religious communities and clubs. But it's also been a...
Brilliant and Jewish ... Jonas Salk was an American virologist and medical researcher who developed one of the first successful polio vaccines. He was born in New York City and attended the City College of New York and New York University School of Medicine. Of course, Jewish! Sigmund Freud, born Sigismund Schlomo Freud on May 6, 1856 and died Sept. 23, 1939. He was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between...
At the turn of the 20th century, the city of Monastir, present-day Bitola in North Macedonia, was home to the country's largest Jewish community, 11,000 people. That's about half of the current Jewish population of Turkey, most of whom share the Ladino language and its music with Balkan Jewish communities like Monastir. But in March 1943, Monastir's Jews suffered genocide when the Nazis deported 98% of their people to Treblinka. None returned. In 2017, Sephardic singer Sarah Aroeste received une...
(Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) - When Michael Beller set out three years ago to get a law passed in Arizona requiring Holocaust education in public schools, the response he got was clear. "People told me this would never happen. They were like, 'Not now, not ever. It will never happen in Arizona.' And that was inside the Jewish community and out," he said. But on Wednesday, it happened. After a rollercoaster ride in the State Legislature - including a debate over a controversial defini...
