Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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NEW YORK (JTA)—When the nation’s largest Jewish federation convened its first-ever conference recently on engaging interfaith families, perhaps the most notable thing about it was the utter lack of controversy that greeted the event. There was a time when the stereotypical Jewish approach to intermarriage was to shun the offender and sit shiva. A generation ago, the publication of the 1990 National Jewish Population Survey showing intermarriage at the alarmingly high rate of 52 percent tur...
This month, the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando is recognizing outstanding leaders who have made an impact in Jewish Orlando this past year. Three awards will be given out in recognition of individuals who devote their time to make the Jewish community a better place. Two awards recognize young and senior leaders. This year’s Byron B. Selber Young Leadership Award will be given to Jeremy Udell and the Jerome J. Bornstein Senior Leadership Award will be awarded to Ina Porth. Eli B...
It was September 1982 when 31-year-old Eli Bercovici arrived in Orlando to begin his new career as the Sports and Wellness director of the Jewish Community Center. There was no gym, no fitness center, only the Early Childhood Learning Center, housed in a small building (what is now to the right of the main entrance to the JCC) and orange groves. But the JCC executive director at the time, Marvin Friedman, had an eye for people and must have known Bercovici would help to conceive and develop the...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Adviser Susan Rice briefed Jewish leaders on Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. The Aug. 8 evening meeting at the White House lasted 90 minutes, participants said, and was characterized mostly by Kerry’s enthusiasm for the resumed talks and the serious commitment he said he saw from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Kerry appeared bullish about talks he has worked assiduously to revive since becoming secretary of state i...
NEW YORK (JTA)—When the world’s first lab-grown burger was introduced and taste-tested last week, the event seemed full of promise for environmentalists, animal lovers and vegetarians. Another group that had good reason to be excited? Kosher consumers. The burger was created by harvesting stem cells from a portion of cow shoulder muscle that were multiplied in petri dishes to form tiny strips of muscle fiber. About 20,000 of the strips were needed to create the five-ounce burger, which was finan...
(JTA)—A few weeks before Poland’s parliament voted last month on whether to overturn a ban on ritual slaughter, Rabbi Menachem Margolin was scheduled to meet the Polish president in an effort to find a solution to the problem. The ban had been imposed in January, when a Polish constitutional court outlawed Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter in response to a petition filed by animal welfare activists. But shortly before Margolin’s meeting was to take place, President Bronislaw Komorowski’s office unexpectedly canceled. Margolin, directo...
In a major new report on “next-gen” Jewish giving whose findings are likely to produce a collective sigh of relief among nervous communal professionals, young Jews of means appear seriously committed to donating to Jewish causes. And they are often moved to do so by a strong sense of Jewish and secular values passed down from their families. Yet the report, “Next Gen Donors: The Future of Jewish Giving,” a collaboration among the nonprofit group 21/64, the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and the Jewish Funders Network, finds that yo...
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Dr. Mehmet Oz sat down to talk with JTA on the Tel Aviv coast last week, but what he really wanted to do was go to the beach. Oz, the surgeon and well-known TV personality, was in Israel for the first time and had a packed itinerary. He traversed the country from the Red Sea to the Golan, lectured Israeli physicians in a northern Israeli hospital and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His host on this whirlwind tour was Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author and sexpert who l...
NEW YORK—Ninety students from 37 colleges and universities across the country have successfully completed the 2011-2013 Taglit-Birthright Israel Excel Fellowship program, an elite fellowship program beginning with a 10-week business internship in Israel for talented Jewish college sophomores, juniors, and select seniors pursuing careers in business and/or technology. During the all-expense paid program, each Birthright Israel Excel Fellow interns at a prominent, global Israeli company from within a wide range of industries, including f...
The Holocaust Center in Maitland often uses personal stories and eye-witness accounts as an effective way to share the history of the Shoah. Those individual voices, telling their own experiences, can make that tragic time easier to grasp. Art exhibits, films and speakers at the center’s community commemorations often use the innocent faces and poignant testimony of victims, survivors, rescuers and liberators to explain the real cost of intolerance. In preparing for the observance of K...
The Zionistas of Orlando, a coalition of Christian and Jewish women united for Israel, will hold their inaugural meeting at Temple Israel on Sunday, Aug. 25, from 2 – 4 p.m. The guest speaker,Wallace S. Bruschweiler, Sr., will speak on Israel’s Counter Terrorism Program—the right approach and solutions. Mr. Bruschweiler, who was targeted for assassination by the Red Brigades for successfully profiling their terrorist operations, will share his counter terrorism experiences usually reser...
Among the handful of post-war leaders who could always be relied upon to support the United States unstintingly, the name of Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, stands out. Blair wasn’t content to merely support U.S. foreign policy. He energetically advocated for American engagement and warned of the negative global consequences of an America in retreat. In April 1999, at the height of the NATO operation against the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo carried out by Serbian forces, Blair delivered an historic speech to the Chicago Council o...
Like most Israelis, I am an eternal optimist. Living day to day in our neighborhood and faced with continued threats to our legitimacy and even our existence, what choice do we have? That being said, I am extremely pessimistic about the latest round of peace talks that have been initiated in Washington, D.C. There is no shortage of reasons why I should be skeptical, but what worries me most are the personalities involved in these talks and the faulty premises they represent. Almost 20 years after the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin attempted...
The privacy bugaboo has struck twice at the summit of Israel’s government. Two nominees for the important post of Governor of the Bank of Israel have had to withdraw their candidacy after embarrassing details began circulating in the media. One had been caught leaving a Duty Free shop in the Hong Kong airport without paying for a garment bag. He held on for a couple of weeks, saying it was all a misunderstanding, but was tripped by a sloppy cover-up. The story he told was plundered by journalists who found more holes than substance. It might h...
Common sense suggests that one of the most effective ways of heightening Jewish identity and Israel engagement among young people is through summer teen trips to the Jewish state. The younger our kids are exposed to the miracles and challenges of Israel today, the better, and longer, their connection. And the more involved they and their families will be. But the reality is that summer travel programs to Israel for teens are “languishing,” according to experts in the field, who cite the fact that the numbers have decreased dramatically fro...
In Israel’s history, hawkish leaders have often ended up advocating tough concessions for the sake of peace. Think Menachem Begin at Camp David, Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo Accords and Ariel Sharon who at the end of his career found himself mulling a withdrawal from the West Bank. Add Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizmann to the list—military heroes both of whom came to see that Israel’s future could only be assured through peace agreements with its neighbors. And let’s not forget President Shimon Peres, who for much of his career was a tough guy, until...
If a whistle sounds in a crowded space where everybody can’t help but to hear it, does it matter? What about dozens of whistles? Yesterday, for over an hour, I stood behind barricades with Women of the Wall, guarded by police, from my people. Our people. People (haredim) who are absolutely certain that our female voices, and our prayers, said out loud for the world to hear in “their” place, are designed to be the downfall of our religion. Having elected to wear “modest” clothing this morning, I threw on a floor length long black maxi skirt at...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) Chabad of South Orlando—Monday and Thursday, 8 a.m. 407-354-3660. Congregation Ahavas Yisrael—Monday - Friday, 7 a.m.; Sunday, 8 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 Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, AUGUST 16 Light Shabbat candles at 7:46 p.m....
This is the way the Bible ought to be read. In graduate schools and in theological seminaries, the Bible is usually read by comparing manuscripts and by studying the parallel literatures of the ancient world. The result is an accurate text, but one that has very little to say to the modern reader. In yeshivot, the Bible is usually read as a prelude to the Oral Torah. The result is a text that has no independent meaning, but is only understood through the eyes of the Sages. In Israel, the Bible is often read as the document that serves as the...
Iconic Israeli costume jeweler Michal Negrin, who for more than 25 years has been bringing romantic and vintage-inspired designs to the global fashion scene, is expanding her brand to a new level in the U.S. this summer. Negrin plans to open more than two-dozen U.S. boutique locations over the next few years. June 21 marked the opening of a location at the Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus, N.J., and Negrin’s New York City flagship shop, in the fashion-focused SoHo area, launched Aug. 15....
Big bucks for Portman and Kunis NEW YORK (6nobacon.com)—Forbes just released its list of Hollywood’s highest paid actresses, and (drumroll, please) two of the 10 stars are Jewish. Not bad, ladies! Natalie Portman comes in at No. 8, having earned $14 million this year. While the Oscar winner has been in the news lately for her upcoming directorial debut, it’s blockbusters like “Thor” that are bolstering her impressive paycheck. A spot behind Portman is the Ukraine-born Mila Kunis with $11 million. Kunis is a newcomer to the Forbes list than...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—Yehuda Lev, an iconoclastic journalist and veteran of World War II and Israel’s War of Independence who established a European underground route to smuggle Holocaust survivors to Palestine, died Aug. 33 in Providence, R.I., following a prolonged illness. He was 86 years old. Lev became the first associate editor of the newly founded Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles in 1986, continuing until 1993. He was best known for his column “A Majority of One,” which went after the Jewish community’s sacred cows. Moved by the pligh...
Yet another well-deserved honor... This comes directly from the World Jewish Congress Digest: “Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish ambassador to Berlin who saved many thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, has received yet another posthumous recognition... Australia’s conferral of its first-ever honorary citizenship.” In announcing the honor, Prime Minister JULIA GILLARD said, “The lives of those he rescued are Mr. Wallenberg’s greatest memorial, and Australia is honored to have survivors he rescue...
NEW YORK (JTA)—“You live in Brooklyn now. Stay there!” my father screamed at me. He slammed the door to my parents’ renovated tenement apartment in my face, exiling me from the Manhattan home and Lower East Side neighborhood in which I had grown up. I was a 20-year-old college dropout, a disgrace to my education-obsessed Jewish family. My mother had earned her doctorate in neuropsychology and spoke fluent Yiddish, Hebrew, German and Spanish. Her mother, my bubbe, had a doctorate in child p...
The following synagogues provided information about their High Holiday services to the Heritage by press time. For information about services at other local synagogues, contact the individual congregations. Most synagogues require tickets for admission, and their cost varies from congregation to congregation. Some may open one or more of their holiday services to the community. For tickets or information, contact the individual synagogue. Candlelighting At least two candles should be lit, representing the dual commandments to remember and to...
