Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JNS) - More than 3,000 people from across the country gathered near the U.S. Capitol on Sunday to stand in solidarity against the rising tide of antisemitism across the United States. "No Fear: A Rally in Solidarity With the Jewish People" was organized by more than 100 Jewish and interfaith organizations from across the political and religious spectrum, under the leadership of business executive Elisha Wiesel, son of Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. "Looking out at all of...
(JNS) - SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit organization that strives to inspire the next generation of scientists, engineers, and dreamers through innovative space missions, announced this week that it has secured crucial funding towards the launch of the "Beresheet 2" Spacecraft mission in 2024 with the goal of sending Israel back to the moon. In 2019, with its first "Beresheet" spacecraft, the organization became the first private entity in history to reach the moon, thereby securing Israel's...
In case a pandemic wasn't quite enough, over the past year we watched the world erupt with desperate calls for social justice, and our society turned an eye toward the tensions of belonging. The Black Lives Matter protests over the summer of 2020 shed a bright light on racial inequality in the U.S. This examination of systemic racism occurred amidst wider turbulence that also saw a surge of anti-Asian and antisemitic hate crimes. As we reaffirm the diversity of what it means to be "American,"...
JFS Orlando's Pearlman Emergency Food Pantry is excited to share that food pick-ups from Aldi at Aloma Square Shopping Center and The Fresh Market on N Mills Ave have resumed as of late-June 2021. For the majority of last year, food donation pick-ups from all grocery partners were suspended due to safety concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Pearlman Emergency Food Pantry was able to stay stocked by purchasing food from Second Harvest Food Bank. Now, by resuming food pick-ups from grocery...
After being apart, many of us long for reconnection to community. This is exactly what Temple Israel is aiming to achieve this summer with activities for the very young to the young at heart. Senior Schmooze Seniors can get together for the Senior Schmooze program, created by Laurence Morrell, covering topics from old Jewish Jokes and growing up Jewish around the country to financial needs and downsizing. These hour-long, informal social events take place at Temple Israel in the Roth Social...
The Heritage Florida Jewish news took away two awards at the Florida Press Association’s annual weekly newspaper contest. “The temple of Zoom (Video Conferencing) is upon us” by Christine DeSouza won second place for Best Headline. In the Faith and Family Reporting category, writer Marilyn Shapiro took third place for her article titled “Purim — a time to be drunk on happiness....
Mahjong was the popular game played by my mother and most Jewish woman of her generation. I heard somewhere that it originated in China and that Chinese men are those who have played it religiously. Only recently was I given an article from Newsweek magazine by June Brown, a resident of Cascade Heights, describing the true nature of the game. It stated, “Mahjong was not invented by the Chinese, but by the Jews in early Palestine. The game began about the year 200 BCE among the more assimilated Jews, but was frowned on as a sinister d...
"Bim Bam" by Nachum Frabkel is a simple Jewish song that has become a well-known anthem to children of all ages in many different communities. It is also a favorite song at Shabbat services led by Jewish Pavilion staff and volunteers. At Cascade Heights in Longwood (formerly known as Chambrel), Shirley Schoenberger is known as the "Bim Bam Queen," because she leads the song with so much warmth and enthusiasm. Lyrics: Bim bam bim bim bim bam/Bim bim bim bim bim bam Shabbat shalom Shabbat shalom...
(JNS) Israel’s Security Cabinet voted on Sunday to withhold 597 million shekels ($182 million) from the tax revenues it collects for the Palestinian Authority, in accordance with a terror finance law passed in 2018. The amount is equivalent to what the P.A. spent on “indirect support for terrorism” the previous year, according to an annual report prepared by the Defense Ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing and submitted by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. Israel collects taxes on behalf of the P.A. and transfers them on...
(JNS) — The antisemitism watchdog AMCHA Initiative is urging the California Senate Education Committee to vote against a bill that allows high school districts to adopt an antisemitic draft of an ethnic-studies curriculum. “Especially now, as violence in the Middle East is spilling over into vicious attacks on Jews all over the world, including in California, we believe AB 101 directly threatens the safety and well-being of Jewish students in our state, and we urge you to vote ‘no’ on this bill,” said AMCHA Initiative director Tammi Rossman-B...
(JNS) — The Palestinian Authority has prepared an extensive “grocery list” of demands to present this week to the United States as a precondition for a renewal of talks with Israel, Channel 12 reported on Sunday. At the top of the list, a copy of which Channel 12 says will be sent to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, is the reopening of Orient House and other Palestinian institutions in eastern Jerusalem that have been closed since 2001, and whose political activities the Israel Police and Shin Bet have been preventing. Other P.A. deman...
(JTA) — The suspect in the stabbing of a Boston Chabad rabbi has been charged with committing a hate crime and civil rights offense. Khaled Awad, 24, was arrested Thursday after allegedly stabbing Rabbi Shlomo Noginski outside of his school and synagogue in the Brighton neighborhood. Noginski survived the stabbing and has been released from the hospital, which he called a “miracle.” Awad was charged initially with assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery on a police officer. Prosecutors now have added the h...
(The Jewish Journal via JNS) — Whose job is it to define who I am? Is it an institution’s job or is it mine? In all the brouhaha over critical race theory, this question is rarely asked. That may be because much of the controversy over CRT has been about defining a nation and a system. CRT is a theoretical genre within the larger realm of critical theory that has become a mainstream movement. It teaches that the United States was founded on racism, oppression and white supremacy — and that these forces are still rooted in our society. What...
(JTA) — The Arizona Diamondbacks made baseball history Monday when they made Jacob Steinmetz, a 17-year-old right-handed pitcher from Woodmere, New York, their third round pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Steinmetz, who lists at 6-feet-5 and 220 pounds, is the first Orthodox Jewish player to be selected in baseball’s annual talent hunt, which dates back to 1965. The media made a big deal that he “keeps the Sabbath and eats only kosher food,” although the teen does play on Shabbat and holidays — he walks to the fields in those situation...
(JNS) — The first thing to be said about the “No Fear” rally against antisemitism held in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sunday was that it was a noble effort. The organizers and those who showed up deserve credit for trying to shine a spotlight on a surge in hate crimes against Jews. A new group called Alliance for Israel was the primary organizer of the effort; it was launched in the aftermath of the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in mid-May that led to a torrent of incidents of antisemitic incitement and violence acros...
(JTA) — Anyone teaching the past by skipping over the unpleasant parts isn’t teaching history. They are engaged in propaganda. Jewish tradition understands this: Refusing to sugarcoat their own people’s culpability, the Sages themselves teach that the destruction of the Temple by the Romans is a consequence of baseless hatred — among Jews. Yet in nearly two-dozen states, the movement to impose restrictions on the teaching of history is gaining momentum. Incited by a national hysteria over “critical race theory,” advocates of these educational f...
(JNS) — The decline of polling firms has been part and parcel of the general decline of institutional trustworthiness. There’s still a market for “internal polls” for political campaigns, but there’s also an abundance of “poll trolls” and highly dubious clickbait polls. The media is happy to pick up the clicks from the clickbait without reporting basic questions about the firms behind the numbers. Take this latest one loudly promoted by the JTA, with a bold headline: “Poll finds a quarter of US Jews think Israel is ‘apartheid state.’” The JTA d...
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) — During a symposium about online anti-Semitism sponsored by the U.S. State Department last year, a representative from the social-media platform TikTok assured that his company was working to combat hate. Speaking in October 2020, Jeff Collins said TikTok’s mission is “to inspire and bring joy. … There’s no place for hate on TikTok, and we are investing a lot in people and tech to really get this right.” The goal, stated Collins, was to “disrupt the ecosystem of hate” by limiting the “discoverability” of such content. His commen...
It was just 36 years before the Munich Olympics in 1972 when Hitler used the event as a means to push Nazi propaganda onto the world. It was now Germany's moment to show the world how much they changed, they even called it "The Olympics of Peace & Joy." They needed to show as little military as possible in order to showcase how peaceful they had become, and this meant a significant lack of security. It had not been 27 years since the horrific events of the Holocaust, which made the Israeli...
(JTA) - A survey of U.S. Jewish voters taken after the Israel-Gaza conflict finds that a sizable minority believe some of the harshest criticisms of Israel, including that it is committing genocide and apartheid. Among respondents to the survey commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute, a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats, 34 percent agreed that "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States," 25 percent agreed that "Israel is an apartheid state" and 22...
This is sooo personal ... It actually hurts to write about, but I will. I refer to the beautiful love song, "Our Love is Here to Stay." There is a very interesting story connected to this song. First, let me write the verse for you: "The more I read the papers, the less I comprehend, the world and all its capers, and how it all will end. Nothing seems to be lasting, but that isn't our affair. We've got something permanent, I mean in the way we care ..." This verse was written by well-known (and...
(JTA) - The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are finally happening, a full year after they were planned. And yes, they're still being called the 2020 Olympics, even though they're happening in 2021. The Jewish athletes competing this year - and there are many - are the products of inspiring journeys. There's the fencer looking for redemption, Israel's first Olympic surfer, one of the greatest canoe paddlers of all time, a teen track star para-athlete, and so many more. The games run July 23 through Aug. 8;...
"It's like when one person likes chocolate and one person likes vanilla, but they both hate bigotry," I said, explaining to my father how his son, a Hillel director, was dating an ordained Christian minister. Our faiths may be different, but our values are the same. Jen and I first met in January 2020, just three months before the start of the first COVID-19 quarantines in the United States. Our first date was a whirlwind of excited conversation around spirituality, ethics and how funny it was...
With local shops and artisanal businesses, stunning artwork, boutique wines, and scrumptious food, it is easy to see how Israel's Western Galilee region was welcoming over 2 million tourists annually before the pandemic. And with the tourism industry employing 40 percent of the Western Galilee's residents, the region is pinning its hopes on a swift post-pandemic recovery. Supporting the region's economic recovery is Jewish National Fund-USA through its Go North initiative. With the organization'...
