Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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TEL AVIV (JTA)-Professional lacrosse player Chase Clark was told that there are three keys to survival in Israel: Realize that everyone else thinks their time is more important than yours, avoid the crazy drivers while crossing the road and enjoy yourself as much as possible. Before this week, Clark had never been to the Jewish state. But on Monday, the Grand Junction, Colorado, resident moved there-with big plans to play for the country's national indoor lacrosse team. "I found out later in...
Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of the Christian Zionist NPO Proclaiming Justice to the Nations (PJTN), is a force to be reckoned with. She is straight-forward and stands upon biblical principles to bring about change in her own state of Tennessee and the rest of the United States. Her latest endeavor has been campaigning to defend the Jewish state from the scourge of BDS that pushes to boycott and economically attack Israel. Last Wednesday evening, Cardoza-Moore was invited by the Zionistas to...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The nuclear deal with Iran, 20 months in the making, is now done-at least as far as negotiations go. The accord, announced early Tuesday, still faces hurdles, although they likely won't keep the deal from going ahead. So what happens next? We read the laws, perused the speeches, scanned the deal, canvassed congressional insiders and Iran experts, and here's what we found out. The U.N. Security Council Action: The U.N.'s sole lawmaking body must now endorse the deal. Likely...
The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando recognizes the strenuous diplomatic efforts by the United States and its fellow members of the P5+1 to address the challenge of a nuclear-armed Iran. We reiterate our support of a diplomatic process to find a peaceful resolution to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. We remain deeply concerned about the threats posed by a nuclear-armed Iran to Israel, the United States and the global community, particularly in light of Iran’s admitted track record...
While the ink dries on the newly signed nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, America's largest pro-Israel organization is seeking to help defeat the agreement in Congress through the work of its nascent office in Washington, DC. San Antonio-based Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which during 10 years of existence has grown to 2.2 million members, is beginning to hire staff for a new entity dubbed the "CUFI Action Fund." Headed by Gary Bauer-the U.S. under secretary of education in...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Cancel your summer vacations. That was the order AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, gave his employees in a staff meeting convened this week at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the United States announced the Iran nuclear deal. With the influential pro-Israel lobby group pushing for Congress to reject the deal negotiated by the Obama administration, it’s all hands on deck. Lay leaders, too, are canceling their summer plans, and AIPAC activists already are calling lawmakers and hitting synagogue lists...
According to a recent survey by Hillel International, Jewish college students from around the country, and around Florida in particular, are increasingly choosing UCF over any other university. With a conservatively estimated 6,000 Jewish students on campus, UCF has the second largest Jewish student population of any public University outside of the State of Israel. With such a robust and dynamic Jewish student population, the leadership of Central Florida Hillel changed their model to best serv...
NEW YORK-Eva London Ritt of Winter Park, Fla., has gifted her personal collection of materials from the Soviet Jewry movement to the Yeshiva University Archives. Ritt dedicated the donation of two archival boxes of correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs and artifacts of work to free Soviet Jews during the 1970s and 1980s in memory of her late husband David Elliott Ritt z"l who, she said, was her greatest supporter, and in honor of all those who participated with her in this effort....
The Kinneret Council on Aging's monthly program "Coffee and Conversation" featured guest speaker Mitch Bloomer, of the Holocaust Center, on Wednesday, July 15. The topic presented was "Rejected Art: Stolen Art. Why did the Nazis steal so much art that they didn't like anyway?" Over 25 residents attended the program that featured a slide presentation and discussion of the stolen art. "Coffee and Conversation" is a monthly program provided by the Kinneret Council on Aging to bring organizations...
Last week—and please forgive me for the graphic nature of this metaphor—Russian President Vladimir Putin pulled down his pants and urinated over the graves of the 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys exterminated by Serb forces in the enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. Twenty years after Bosnia was torn apart by the genocide committed by both Serb and Croatian forces, the Russians—who were the main backers of the regime of the late tyrant of Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic—are still playing the insidious role of denying the most monstrous crime t...
There aren’t any in the realms of politics or public policy, except in the books written for children, or childish adults. The world is too complex. We know too much to be heroic. There may be heroes on the field of battle, some of who survive their heroism, but that is a different story. Wise people, and perhaps most of those elected to high office, do not aspire to solve the big problems. They’ve learned to cope. That is, managing the problems, doing little things that make the big things less threatening. That leaves a lot of work for the...
By what form is a nation born? What makes its nationhood and citizenry stand out from all the others? Having just celebrated a birthday on July 4th, I am acutely aware of the rebellious group of British Subjects who declared independence from England and how and why they did it. Jews have a national identity that goes back a bit farther than 1776. Near as we can tell, we were a people almost six thousand years ago. We formed a nation a little over two thousand years ago (sorry, creationists). We built our capital city from the ground up on the...
By Alan Kornman The role of man in this world is to work, create, innovate, accumulate wealth, and elevate the material world while caring for those in need. Israel and Jews have a long-standing tradition of extending aid to alleviate hunger, disease and poverty, in the wake of natural disasters and terrorist attacks beyond its borders. Israel’s 200-strong relief team was the first on the scene after a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, saving thousands of lives. In March 2011, Israel was one of the first countries to set up field c...
By Chava Shervington NEW YORK (JTA)—When I was 24, an Orthodox matchmaker tried to set me up on a date with a man older than my parents. When I objected, she told me, “Stop being so picky. Not many guys are willing to consider a black girl.” As an African-American Orthodox Jew, this was hardly my first encounter with the questionable treatment I and my fellow Jews of color endure. “Why is the goy here?” one black Jewish parent overheard when taking her child to a Jewish children’s event. At one yeshiva in Brooklyn, the mother of a biracial st...
An Israeli soldier who shot back at an Arab who was trying to murder him is now under investigation, following protests by self-described human rights activists. Given the focus of the activists’ concern, perhaps it would be more accurate to call them terrorists’ rights activists. The activists, from the B’Tselem non-governmental organization, have released a highly edited five-second piece of security camera footage (from a nearby gas station) that shows part of the incident. Even with the selective editing, you can clearly see the terro...
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...
Frank Cutler, alias’ include Frankie, Anshel, Anshel Frankel, Dad, Grandpa, Grandpa Anchie and “My Man” died on Tuesday, July 14, 2015. He was deeply loved by his family, friends and any person who knew or had any interaction with him. As his first cousin, Bunny Mendelsohn, “your father was the last of the Mohicans.” She was dead on, he was. His name goes back to our family roots in the Mayaki section of Moscow Russia where a son of Anshel Kotlyar made his way to America and some dude at Ellis Island with a handle-bar mustache changed his last...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—AIPAC called on Congress to reject the Iran nuclear deal, saying it does not meet critical markers that the influential pro-Israel lobby outlined in recent weeks. But the liberal Jewish Middle East lobby J Street announced a multimillion-dollar campaign to support the agreement. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee made its case against in a statement Wednesday delivered after President Barack Obama conducted a news conference of more than an hour defending the deal achieved a day earlier. “We strongly believe that the...
Joshua Gray Lefkowitz, son of Aaron Lefkowitz of Winter Park and Elizabeth Lefkowitz of Casselberry, will be called to the Torah as a bar mitzvah on Saturday, Aug. 1, 2015 at Congregation Beth Am in Longwood. Joshua is entering the eighth grade at Lake Forrest Academy. He loves music, particularly Broadway music, and has performed in his school's musicals. He has also worked as a professional actor in plays at the Shakespeare Theatre, the Fringe Festival, and in local commercials, all while...
A story of jealousy, betrayal and suspense "The Winter Guest" by Pam Jenoff Available on amazon.com Life is a constant struggle for the impoverished eighteen-year-old Nowak twins as they raise their three young siblings under the shadow of the Nazi occupation. The constant threat of arrest for even the most minor infraction has made everyone in their village a spy, and turned neighbor against neighbor. They are faithful allies in protecting their family from the threats and hardships the war...
(JTA)-Former Israeli President Shimon Peres may be a big U2 fan, but it seems like Bono is an even bigger Shimon Peres fan. Peres was in Toronto for an economic conference and attended U2's performance at the Air Canada Centre there. During the encore, Bono took advantage of the opportunity to praise Peres-who also served as Israel's prime minister, among other roles -- for his efforts to broker a two-state solution. "There's somebody here who's got one of the hardest jobs on earth," Bono said,...
New research findings... This information comes directly from the World Jewish Congress (WJC) digest with asides by me in parenthesis. I find it very interesting but not at all surprising: "A recent report released by Pew Research Center and reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency found that Muslims will overtake Christians in the last half of the 21st century as the world's largest religious group in the United States. Muslims will comprise 2.3 percent of the population in 2050, up from 0.9...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, continuing his attack on the Iran nuclear deal, said the agreement has not changed Iran’s policy of calling for armed struggle against Israel and the United States. “If someone thought that the extraordinary concessions to Iran would lead to a change in its policy, they received an unequivocal answer over the weekend in Iranian ruler [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei’s aggressive and contrary speech,” Netanyahu said Sunday at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting. On Saturday, Khamenei...
TEL AVIV (JTA)-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decried an agreement over Iran's nuclear program hundreds of times-most notably in a March speech to a joint session of Congress. Now that the agreement is signed, experts say Netanyahu has one way left to block it: Go to Congress again and persuade it to reject the deal. The agreement finalized Tuesday morning in Vienna will relieve Iran of crippling international sanctions in return for Iran limiting its uranium enrichment, ridding...
(Jewniverse via JTA)-Long before Lady Gaga was pulling down her knickers on London stages, there was a bawdy blonde breaking boundaries named Sophie Tucker. Tucker was born Sonya Kalish in 1887. Her family soon fled czarist Russia and set up a new life in Hartford, Connecticut, where Tucker started out singing for tips at her parents' restaurant. When she tried to make it in the Big Apple, she was told she was too homely. But Tucker zipped up her sequined gown and kept on crooning. "The Outrageo...
