Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Ian Tasman traveled to Israel with his brother, Ory Tasman, to watch the 20th Maccabiah Games. The following article is exclusive for the Heritage.The Games were over July 18. Ory Tasman played for the USA water polo team. As of this writing, the 20th Maccabiah Games were well underway throughout Israel, with competitions taking place from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to Tiberias. This year's games were host to more than a record of 10,000 athletes from 80 countries, with a first ever appearance from...
Next week, July 23 to 28, a thousand or more avid Jewish genealogists will gather for the annual International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies conference at the Swan Resort in Orlando. Attendees are in for a special treat. The Thursday night banquet speaker is Harvard Professor Henry Louis "Skip" Gates, host of the widely popular Public Broadcasting Association television show, "Finding Your Roots." His topic is "Genealogy and Genetics in America." Gates and I both spend our summers...
Two Israeli policemen in their 20s were critically wounded in the Old City of Jerusalem Friday morning when three Palestinian terrorists opened fire near the entrance to the Temple Mount. Two other victims were lightly injured. Police shot and killed all three assailants. Nidal Seder, a United Hatzalah volunteer who lives in the Old City, was the first to arrive at the scene, according to the emergency medical services organization. "I began performing CPR on one of the victims near the [Al...
An award-winning journalist who broke the story of the group of Jewish women ejected from an LGBTQ march in Chicago last month has been reassigned to non-journalistic duties at the paper which ran the original report, the Windy City Times. Gretchen Rachel Hammond-whose June 24 story caused a national storm after she detailed how three women flying Jewish Pride flags embossed with the Star of David were instructed to leave the gathering by organizers from the Dyke March Collective-confirmed to...
Savor the last bit of summer at Temple Israel's fourth annual Sha-Ba-BQ on Friday, Aug. 4 at 6 p.m. at 50 South Moss Road in Winter Springs. This special indoor and outdoor celebration features great food, drinks, music, and children's activities, all for free. Grab a bite to eat hot off the grills by the newly renovated fire pit, and then cool off as you dine inside the air-conditioned social hall. Check out the kids' crafts and games inside the classrooms before heading to the sanctuary for...
Mayim Bialik, a star on the CBS hit sitcom "The Big Bang Theory," launched a witty new video campaign this week for SodaStream, succeeding actress Scarlett Johansson as the official pitchwoman for the Israeli beverage carbonation company. Bialik, a self-described "observant-ish" Jew and a doctorate-holding neuroscientist, is uniquely suited for the new SodaStream promotion. In the video, the actress finds herself in the year 2136 working as a research scientist, deeply consumed in the study of...
It's been a long, hot summer so far. But don't let the dog days get you down-there's a chance to cool off. On Friday evening, July 28, at 7:30 p.m., Congregation Ohev Shalom will host Shabbat Sababa, a laid-back Erev Shabbat service with the emphasis on "cool." "Florida in the summer is the perfect time take it easy," says Rabbi David Kay, who will coordinate the service. "We already declared this month 'No-Tie July.' It's hard to relax and focus on the joy of Shabbat when it's 90 degrees and hu...
There were 355 Tuskegee airmen pilots in World War II. Their mission was to escort bombers to their destinations. Only 66 airmen lost their lives, and the group lost the fewest number of bombers to the enemy. As one pilot said, "Our mission was to escort the bombers. Stay with the bombers-protect them with our lives." On Sunday, July 23, at 2 p.m., the Holocaust Center will host a showing of "Red Tails," the film about these extraordinary men who protected fellow soldiers. Back in the late...
JERUSALEM (JTA)-Israel has already defeated the Palestinians. All that's left is for them to surrender. That, at least, was an argument being made in Jerusalem last week. Led by the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum, pro-Israel leaders and analysts gathered here to highlight local support for their aim of reframing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict internationally. "After more than a century, the conflict is really over," Daniel Pipes, the forum's president told JTA. "As an American, I would...
(JTA)-The Israeli chief rabbinate says that its list of foreign rabbis has been misconstrued, and that the list does not imply that those rabbis cannot be trusted to vouch for the Jewish identities of their followers. On Saturday, JTA reported on a list of some 160 rabbis whose efforts to confirm the Jewish identities of immigrants were rejected by Israel's haredi Orthodox-dominated Chief Rabbinate. In order to get married in Israel, immigrants must provide the rabbinate proof of their Jewish...
A meeting between Trump’s negotiating team and Palestinian officials took place in Jerusalem instead of Ramallah because of the PA’s refusal to host the U.S. ambassador to Israel. In an unusual occurrence, United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman attended a meeting with Palestinian Authority officials alongside President Donald Trump’s special representative for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel on Tuesday, July 11. Explaining the unexpected inclusion of Friedman, a senior White House officia...
(JTA)—Last year, I wrote an opinion piece for JTA about a term and a trend few Jews over the age of 30 had ever heard of: intersectionality. Coined in the late 1980s, intersectionality posits that various forms of oppression—racism, sexism, classism, ableism and homophobia—are all interconnected. According to the theory, a black female is doubly marginalized by racism and sexism, for example. As a result, it is necessary for activists to connect these multiple forms of oppression in their advocacy. Rising in popularity in the wake of the prote...
The U.S. consul general in Jerusalem recently set off on the first leg of a 200-mile hike that will simultaneously promote one pro-Palestinian myth while inadvertently exploding another. That’s quite a “twofer!” Consul General Donald Blome is an avid hiker. For some reason, he has decided to ignore Israeli hiking trails in Judea and Samaria, and instead is making his way across the “Masar Ibrahim Al-Khalil,” or the Ibrahim Path, which runs from northern Samaria to southern Judea. The website of the U.S. consulate general in Jerusalem quotes Bl...
Malcolm Gladwell’s “Saigon 1965,” a chapter in his podcast Revisionist History, brought me back to the University of Wisconsin 1968-75. I participated in campus discussions on Vietnam, and smelled the tear gas used against mass protests. Gladwell’s message is that a mass of information about the Vietcong lent itself to widely different conclusions by intelligence personnel influenced by their own experiences, with their political superiors screening assessments through their own self-interests. Some saw the U.S. as winning, while others...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Over the weekend, JTA and others reported on a “blacklist of rabbis” maintained by Israel’s chief rabbinate. The list contains the names of more than 160 rabbis whom the rabbinate does not trust to confirm the Jewish identity of immigrants to Israel. The list, obtained by Itim from the rabbinate after a protracted legal battle, has sparked an uproar in Israel and around the Jewish world. I have been contacted by rabbis, politicians, Israeli and American consuls general and ambassadors, asking one question: Who is respons...
Donald Trump made an important speech on May 21at the Arab Islamic Summit in Saudi Arabia that was quickly forgotten in the cacophony of tweets, accusations and other news surrounding the president. It is worth looking at that address more closely, however, because he laid out in the starkest terms yet the truth about what amounts to a world war that few people want to acknowledge. The speech also clearly distinguishes Trump’s policies from those of his predecessor by explicitly identifying Islamic extremism as a global threat, acknowledging J...
Dear Editor: As a member of the Jewish community, I would like to bring exposure to Kids of Courage because I feel this organization is essential and so many people can benefit from their services. Kids of Courage is a Jewish innovative volunteer-based organization, dedicated to improving the lives of children and young adults with serious medical diagnoses. One of our many events that we sponsor will take place in the summer. This upcoming Aug. 3-10 we will be taking 130 sick children and young adults with all their required medical supervisio...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) 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. 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 I...
In the July 14 issue of The Heritage, the article about Sgt. Richard R. Hall, Jr., (Holocaust Center welcomes Tuskegee airman on July 23, page 2A) stated that he received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007. The medal was awarded to the Tuskegee Airmen collectively, not individually. According to Ron Brewington, a Tuskegee Airmen historian, “...all of the estimated 16-19,000 participants [both living and deceased] of the “Tuskegee Experience,” including Hall, Jr., who are known as Tuskegee Airmen, were collectively, not individually, award...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Alan Gross contacted me a couple of months ago over Facebook Messenger. There was something he thought I should know. I was pleasantly surprised. I’d only exchanged pleasantries with Gross in the several times I’d seen him since his release from a Cuban prison in December 2014, ending five years of imprisonment for his work connecting Cuba’s Jewish community to the Internet. Gross, 68, wanted to tell me his news: He and his wife, Judy, had made aliyah, immigrating to Israel under the Law of Return. “It came through on May 3,...
Anti-Israel bias in the textbooks used by many American high schools may be to blame for the decrease in sympathy for Israel among young adults. According to the Brand Israel Group, only 54 percent of U.S. college students lean more toward Israel than the Palestinians, down from 73 percent in 2010. The decrease was even sharper among Jewish college students, dropping from 84 percent to 57 percent. “The problem starts in high school,” Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, founder of Hadassah’s Curriculum Watch division, told JNS.org. “There’s no doubt the lack...
(JTA)-Not much could have prepared Molly Yeh for moving from New York City to Grand Forks, North Dakota-a city of a little over 50,000 residents near the state's eastern border with Minnesota. At the time of her move in 2013, Yeh (pronounced "yay," as her website explains with several exclamation points) was a Juilliard graduate and classically trained percussionist playing professional gigs around New York City. She often hosted concerts in her Brooklyn apartment and enjoyed biking around the c...
"Whoever saves a single life is as if one saves the entire world"... This magnificent saying comes from the Talmud. I received the following from the Southwest Outreach, a newsletter of the Southwest Indian Relief Council: You would be surprised by how many Americans don't realize the need or the challenging conditions that exist on American Indian reservations. Many don't know that unemployment averages 50 percent; The National Congress of American Indians says real per-capita income of...
(Kveller via JTA)—On June 28, 1998, my mother sat down to be interviewed for the Shoah Foundation. It was her 68th birthday. The interview took two days. She and the interviewer sat comfortably in my mother’s living room, her pride and joy. This was where she showcased her best furniture, the furniture she had bought as a new homeowner in Skokie, Illinois, in 1960 and which had moved to Arizona with us in 1973. The room was filled with her most precious items: china and glassware, marble tables and ornate damask couches. These items declared my...
It's early morning in the Sardinian countryside and a farmer is milking his sheep while an Orthodox Jewish kosher supervisor looks on. The supervisor, known as a mashgiach, is sleeping in the farmer's barn, and he'll be there all week. Welcome to the world of kosher cheesemaking. The weeklong kosher cheese run in Sardinia is just one of a number of methods that artisanal kosher cheesemaker Brent Delman, owner and founder of The Cheese Guy, uses to manufacture products for kosher consumers who...
