Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Like the biblical Jacob, U.S. President Barack Obama sees a ladder in his dreams. But instead of God at the top, the American president sees his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. The Russian president, with his proposal that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad transfer his chemical weapons stockpile to international hands, will ultimately save Obama from ordering an attack. It’s not clear what is preferable to Obama—Putin’s solution or a “no” vote from Congress. Either way, Obama—regardless of wh...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Nine months ago, Natalia Demidova crouched on the second floor of her Staten Island home and watched her neighbor’s SUV race a 10-foot wave down the street. The wave crashed through Demidova’s quiet residential block in the South Beach neighborhood and flooded her home with more than two feet of water. Demidova is among the many residents of South Beach still struggling to restore the life she had before Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastern United States last October. For most...
The Jewish Pavilion’s annual “Walk in the Park” will be co-sponsored this year by philanthropists Harvey Kobrin and Chuck Steinmetz, in honor of their wives, Nancye Kobrin and Lynn Steinmetz. This free event will be held Oct. 27, beginning at 9:30 a.m. at Cranes Roost Park in Altamonte Springs. Kobrin has a long history of giving in the Jewish community. Most notably, in 1972 Harvey and brother, Phillip, donated the Maitland property on which the Roth Jewish Community Center is housed. Longt...
With Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in our rearview mirror, Congregation Beth Am in Longwood sets out an ambitious schedule of events to celebrate the week-long festival of Sukkot. The holiday, which starts on the evening of Sept.18 is one of the three biblically mandated festivals. During the seven days of Sukkot we spend time and eat meals in a sukka, a temporary structure reminiscent of the fragile dwellings of the Israelites in their 40-year travels in the desert. The sukka also recalls the...
With the start of a new school year, there’s reason to be concerned: Anti-Semitism is a serious problem on some college campuses, causing Jewish students to feel threatened and even fear for their safety. Yet the U.S. government is not enforcing the law to protect them. Legal protection exists, at least in theory. After a six-year battle by ZOA and others, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a 2010 policy that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act would be enforced to protect Jewish students and students of oth...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Jewish groups backing President Obama’s call to strike Syria militarily are citing moral outrage and U.S. national security as primary considerations, but concern for Israel—however muted—also looms large in their thinking. A lingering sensitivity over misrepresentations of the role of the pro-Israel community in the lead-up to the Iraq War in 2003 kept Jewish groups from weighing in on Syria until it was clear that President Obama was determined to strike. Now that same sensitivity is leading them to downplay any mention of Is...
The first comprehensive nationwide study of Jewish and religious giving, “Connected to Give,” finds that social engagement with Jewish community is a key predictor of giving to all causes, not just Jewish ones Jumpstart released Connected to Give: Key Findings Today, the first in a series of reports detailing the giving habits and motivations of American Jews across all ages, economic groups and geographies. Findings are based on a survey of nearly 3,000 American Jewish households plus 2,000 households from other religious groups, as well as...
As the Jewish Academy of Orlando staff gathered early in the morning before Meet & Greet, Rabbi Sharon Barr Skolnik, the new Hebrew/Judaic curriculum coordinator, offered a prayer to begin the year. She spoke about the connection between the number 36 and the very first question asked in the Torah by God to Adam. When Adam and Eve broke God’s rule and ate from the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, they felt guilty and hid from God. God then asked, “ayeka,” “Where are you?” Although...
Prior to the S’lichot services this year, which fell on a rainy Saturday on the last night of August, five distinguished Central Florida Conservative rabbis met at Congregation Ohev Shalom in Maitland for a panel discussion open to the public. The rabbis—Joshua Neely, from Temple Israel; Richard Margolis from Melbourne; Moe Kaprow, a retired chaplain from the U.S. Navy; and Aaron Rubinger and David Kay from Ohev Shalom—were asked “What are the most pressing issues facing the Jewish community in the New Year?” The rabbis first spoke in alphab...
Few sounds are more mystical and breathtaking than the sound of the shofar heard daily during the month of Elul. And no shofar blast was perhaps more awe-inspiring than the blast heard at the conclusion of the S’lichot service. Congregation Beth Am in Longwood and the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation (SOJC) joined together for a very special S’lichot program and service on Saturday night, Aug.31 at Beth Am. This unique “S’lichot of Memories” was a night to remember. Havdalah, marking t...
The girlfriend had been living with her boyfriend for nearly seven years. They lived a good life. He owned a successful business he’d built up himself. She worked at a highly respected international environmental organization. She was extremely cool—bright, funny, well liked by all. Neither was young anymore. They’d both been married once, and though they loved one another, they hadn’t yet gotten over the bad taste their previous, difficult relationships had left. So, while they didn’t...
By Ira Sharkansky The people of Israel continue to live in a condition that is marked on the one side by the theme of the national anthem, Hope, and on the other by the national slogan, oy gevalt. Once again, this New Year has its reasons for optimism, not unblemished by worries. Life is good for most of us. Measures of health rank Israelis as one of the most long-lived of people (Jews and others), with a medical system considered among the best in the world. Hospital care does not provide the luxuries associated with private rooms enjoyed by...
If our prayers are heartfelt, they will resonate on high, and be answered favorably. One of the loveliest aspects of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is the concept of forgiveness, the notion that if we are sincere in our commitment to make atonement for past sins and try to improve our ways, God will, in effect, wipe our slate clean at the outset of the new Jewish year. But too often, despite our best efforts, human nature intervenes and we are back to our old ways before we know it. That’s why one particular, and often neglected, passage of t...
“Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon/The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave/They buried us without shroud or coffin/And in August the barley grew up out of our grave.” These lines are from the poem “Requiem for the Croppies,” by the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who died last week. They were pointed out to me by a dear friend of mine, also an Irishman, who instructively observed how Heaney’s verse—which commemorated the merciless British crushing of an Irish uprising in 1798—eerily conjures up the terrible real...
LOS ANGELES—I started building my sukkah in December. To those of you who are sukkah DIYers, you know how ridiculous this sounds. A sukkah is the ritual hut that Jews build each year on the holiday of Sukkot, which begins this year on the evening of Sept. 18. You set it up after Yom Kippur, you take it down after the eight days of Sukkot are over. Most sukkahs come as easy-to-make pre-fab kits—setting one up takes all of 30 minutes, even for a tool-challenged people. So why did I start making mine eight months ago? Because this year, I’m makin...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Each year when I sit in synagogue during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I’m struck by the complex stories we read about biblical women and by the wisdom these stories offer about ensuring the dignity of women and girls today. The past year was one of paradoxes. At a time when Sheryl Sandberg, Malala Yousafzai, Wendy Davis and countless others reinvigorated conversations about women’s leadership, health and safety, rape and sexual violence continued to escalate all over the world. As I try to grasp these contradictions, I’m r...
Effective Sept. 27 Congregation Beth Israel of Ocala is moving its meeting place from the Collins Center to its new home at the First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, 7171 Highway 200 in Ocala. Services will be held in the main building of the church in the choir room, which is to the left of the main lobby. The facility is handicapped accessible with plenty of close parking. The church is located southwest of I-75 at exit 350. The first service in the new facility—a special Shabbat-Simchat Torah service led by the c...
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, SEPTEMBER 13 Light candles at 7:15 p.m. Erev Yom...
“That’s a bunch of baloney” was the expected response to the theories proposed by the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society when they were published in Journal of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian Crypto Jews. “Instead, we received accolades from across the country. Even some Israeli academics are interested in our work!” said Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, Society president. The Journal is a publication of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies in collaboration with Florida International University. Its editor, FIU Professor of Sociology Dr. Abraham L...
Another High Holidays season is upon us, which means Sukkot is right around the corner. In no time you’ll be ordering your annual bouquet of palm fronds, citrons, myrtle, and willows—the famous Four Species. Given the state of the economy these days, it’s painful to buy anything that you can only use once. Why not stretch the value of your lulav and etrog this year with a little creative repurposing post-festival? When they can be shaken and blessed no more, try one or all of these sugge...
The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando hosted an Israel seminar presented by Chaim Shacham, consulate general of Israel to Florida and Puerto Rico. On Tuesday, Aug. 27, leaders of local Jewish organizations, political staffers and members of Israel advocacy committees were invited for a full day of briefings on legislative issues related to Israel and the Middle East. The seminar began with welcoming remarks from Michael Soll, board president of JFGO and Shacham. Immediately after, David...
Sukkot is the early Thanksgiving, that perfect season when we might still have access to late tomatoes and zucchini, but the winter squash is coming in as well, heralding the impending chillier autumn. While Sukkot is not associated with specific foods or dishes in the same way as Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah or Passover are, vegetarian (or, at least, vegetable-based) dishes can still be enjoyed in the humble, makeshift setting of a sukkah, embracing this holiday as a celebration of the garden and...
Can you imagine?... Just picture this: Instead of the gassing of innocent Syrian people including children, Congress (especially members of the House of Representatives) had to vote on whether or not to save Jews from the Holocaust. Can you imagine how that vote would go? (I’m just saying.) And on the subject of the Holocaust... This article caught my eye. It’s from the current issue of The World Jewish Congress Digest under the title “WJC President to Marchers: ‘Hitler Did Not Win.’”:...
According to one of the foremost experts on American Judaism, Dr. Jonathan Sarna, the biblical holiday did not exactly guide the Puritans’ thinking during colonial times, but they were generally influenced by the idea of thanking God for their bounty. “The Puritans did not believe in fixed holidays,” Sarna, the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University and chief historian of the Philadelphia-based National Museum of American Jewish History, told...
Louise Wagman Blau of Altamonte Springs, passed away in the early morning hours of Sept. 9, 2013. She was 75 years old. Mrs. Blau passed away suddenly from complications following a heart attack while being visited and comforted by family at Florida Hospital Altamonte. Mrs. Blau was a resident of Altamonte Springs for more than 40 years. She worked for Seminole County Public Schools for 25 years and dedicated her professional career to helping students with speech and language disabilities. In retirement, she was a committed volunteer at Semino...
