Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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KIEV, Ukraine (JTA)—Hours after assailants shot Rabbi Artur Ovadia Isakov on a street in the Russian republic of Dagestan two weeks ago, mainstream Russian media were still scrambling to ascertain his identity. But Isakov’s name and condition already were known to the readers of Jewishnet.ru, a growing social network with 80,000 daily users that has relied on user participation to cover Jewish news and help connect fast-assimilating Jews across the Russian-speaking world. The first report abo...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—Israel handily won the most medals at the 19th Maccabiah Games, which came to a close in Jerusalem. The games closing ceremony last Tuesday at Teddy Stadium featured some of Israel’s most popular pop music groups, such as Balkan Beat Box and Infected Mushroom. Speakers urged the athletes to consider making Israel their permanent home. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and Omri Casspi, the first Israeli to play in the National Basketball Association, presented the Most Outstanding Ath...
BALTIMORE (JTA)—For Howie Perlman, a kibbutznik in Israel, hearing about the New York reunion of his Yeshiva of Central Queens Class of 1973 spurred him to post a few period photographs on Facebook. Then he had an idea: Let’s hold a reunion in Israel of the 15 or so YCQ graduates living there. Perlman was looking for a way to honor his parents, Martin and Zelda, who had died one month apart last fall. What better way to remember them, he figured, than recalling his time at a school for whi...
On June 1, 2010, the day after the Gaza flotilla incident in which nine Turkish militants were killed after attacking Israeli soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara, famed reporter Helen Thomas didn’t hide her opinions about Israel in a briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “The initial reaction to the flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an international crime, was pitiful. What do you mean you regret something that should be so strongly condemned? And if any other nation in the...
West Bank settlements join Israel’s list of national priority communities JERUSALEM (JTA)—Fifteen West Bank settlements were added to the list of communities approved by Israel’s Cabinet that are entitled to extra government benefits. Some 90 settlements were among the 600 national priority communities on the list that was approved Sunday by a vote of 15-0 with four abstentions, including Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, Israel’s lead negotiator in the revived peace talks with the Palestinians. Four of the settlements were legalized this year. S...
Seeing the green scaly skin and long snouts on the characters, you might not guess at first that Ed Shankman’s latest book is about a child’s visit to his grandmother in the Sunshine State—inspired, in fact, by his own two Jewish bubbes, one assimilated and sophisticated, the other the embodiment of Yiddishkeit to her core. “Both these women were amazingly influential in my life, taught me all kinds of stuff, and showered me with unconditional love and appreciation,” he told N.J. Jewish Ne...
Suppose that Israeli President Shimon Peres and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat entered therapy together. “What keeps you up at night?” the American therapist asks the 90-year-old Israeli president in a soothing voice. “My prostate, heartburn, and Iran—to bomb or not to bomb?” Peres answers in his characteristic Polish accent. She then turned to Arafat. “You’re in a safe place here,” she promises. “He is trying to kill me—to poison me!” Arafat yells about Peres. Many Palestinians still believe that Israel poisoned Arafat, who...
WASHINGTON, DC—Sam Bain knew that life could be dangerous in southern Israel, with rockets fired indiscriminately across the border from Gaza. But it wasn’t until the Ohio college student visited an Israeli day care center near the Gaza border that the reality truly hit him. This day care center was a bomb-safe facility. “We don’t have bomb-safe day care centers in America,” Bain told JNS.org. “It was almost a wake-up call” about the reality of life in Israel, he said. Bain visited the Jewish st...
By Abigail Klein Leichman Israeli rescue equipment helped workers save the lives of at least eight trapped miners in South Africa on July 28, after a nightmarish three-day ordeal underground that left three dead, allegedly at the hands of an armed rival illegal mining crew. The Agilite Instant Harness was used by Riga Rescue volunteer Graham Holmquist to lower a South African police interpreter down into the shaft to communicate with the injured miners regarding the procedures to follow. The product is designed for scenarios where military,...
Inviting the museum visitor down hallways and through rooms of rendered memories and memorials, the Gary Baseman show at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles uses a design based on the artist’s Jewish childhood home to offer up a retrospective of his extended family of characters, related artworks, and family memorabilia. The show’s title, “The Door is Always Open,” is taken from a remark Baseman’s Yiddish speaking father made while explaining his attitude about hospitality: “Gary, th...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The inauguration of a new Iranian president is an opportunity to address international concern over Iran’s nuclear program, the White House said. The White House statement Sunday, a day after Hassan Rohani was inaugurated, was notably not in President Obama’s name and did not congratulate Rohani but the “Iranian people.” “We again congratulate the Iranian people for making their voices heard during Iran’s election,” the statement said. “The inauguration of President Rohani presents an opportunity for Iran to act quickly to re...
NEW YORK (JTA)—If you want to lead a major Reform Jewish organization, here’s a piece of advice: Go to the Westchester Reform Temple. With this week’s announcement that Rabbi Aaron Panken will be the new president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the temple in suburban New York now has produced two major Reform leaders in two years. (The other is Rabbi Rick Jacobs, who two years ago ceded the pulpit of the Scarsdale synagogue to become president of the Union for Refor...
Almost 70 years after the Holocaust and 50 years after Germany and Israel established diplomatic relations, a textbook commission is shedding light on how the two countries are promoting their sustained cultural and historical connection. Dirk Sawdowski, chairman of the German-Israeli Textbook Commission, describes that there is a fundamental difference between the German education system and the Israeli education system that “finds expression in each country’s secondary and high school textbooks.” “Although both systems try to impart western...
Jewish names speak to our very essence. As the world celebrates with William and Kate over the birth of their baby boy, speculation over what they will name their son is over. They chose George Alexander Louis. But you can call him His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge for short. A name is one of the first gifts new parents bestow on their children. Names convey powerful symbolism about our hopes and dreams for our kids. Modern researchers have even found that names can correspond to our life choices and circumstances, indicating how...
Tel Aviv—The ionosphere, one of the regions of the upper atmosphere, plays an important role in global communications. Ionized by solar radiation, this electricity-rich region is used for the transmission of long wave communications, such as radio waves. Now Professor Colin Price of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Geophysical, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, working alongside Ph.D. candidate Israel Silber, has discovered that the radio waves reflecting back to Earth from the ionosphere offer valuable news on climate change as well. The...
