Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 30
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Benjamin Netanyahu has complained for years about Arab leaders telling their people one thing in Arabic and diplomats saying another to Western audiences in English. Not on Tuesday. Abdullah bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates, was on the White House lawn speaking - in Arabic - about the "innate principle" of peace and thanking the Israeli prime minister for helping to bring it about. If the agreements signed Tuesday by leaders of t...
(JNS) - The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, better known as HIAS, was for the better part of a century responsible for helping settle generations of Jewish refugees in their new homes in the United States. From 1881 through the release of Jews from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, the organization worked not only to resettle the new arrivals, but was involved in assisting them legally as well. Yet in a way, HIAS was a product of its own success and the success of the American Jewish...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman to serve on the Supreme Court and a tireless advocate for gender equality, has died at 87. A fierce jurist known for her outsized presence and outspokenness, Ginsburg died from "complications of metastatic pancreas cancer," the Supreme Court announced Friday night. She had survived multiple bouts of different cancers over the course of two decades, vowing that she was healthy enough to continue her work and at times returning to the...
For the past four years, Orlando synagogue Men's Clubs, with support from the Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando, generous premier sponsors Alan Ginsburg and Aaron Gorovitz, and several other sponsors, have brought three generations of Jewish men together for an evening of camaraderie, top-shelf cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, prime rib dinner (catered by Arthur's) and entertainment by a recognized comedian. This year we will be hosting the event via a commercial version of Zoom. So save the date,...
Jewish Academy of Orlando students prepared for the High Holidays by creating artwork on jars to hold the honey that they would dip their apples into, anticipating a sweet year (let us hope it will be sans masks!) Shown here are a few students decked out in colorful masks. Jewish Academy of Orlando serves central Florida students of all faiths from kindergarten through fifth grade. The school delivers a whole-child education fostering academic excellence and character education rooted in Jewish...
(JTA) - Abraham Foxman, the former longtime leader of the Anti-Defamation League, has broken his tradition of not endorsing political candidates to back Joe Biden, arguing that President Donald Trump is a "demagogue" whose reelection would be a "body blow for our country and our community." Foxman laid out his thinking in an opinion piece for The Times of Israel in which he asserted that Trump's presidency has "given succor to bigots, supremacists, and those seeking to divide our society" and...
Washington, D.C. — More than 200 local, state and national organizations are calling on Congress to examine issues arising from the current spate of federal executions, and ultimately to abolish the federal death penalty. A growing number of Jewish organizations and clergy have joined the effort. “These executions are set to take place during a time when Jews are focused on repentance, forgiveness, mercy and charity,” said Cantor Mike Zoosman, a member of the Board of Advisors of Death Penalty Action. “I am one of those who used to support...
(JTA) — A survey of Jewish voters shows 67 percent plan to vote for Joe Biden in November and 30 percent plan to vote for Donald Trump. The numbers in the survey released Monday by the Jewish Electorate Institute broke the same way when voters were asked about President Trump’s performance: 67 percent said they disapprove and 30 percent said they approve. The survey suggested gains for Trump among Jewish voters since 2016, when Hillary Clinton won 71 percent of the vote to Trump’s 24 percent. Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate in 2012, won 3...
There’s a whole long list anyone can come up with that marks, for them, the clock of their lives ticking away. Leaves change color in the fall (at least some do further north). Crow’s feet appear at the corner of eyes. A step somehow gets lost, and we notice it when we play tennis or basketball or simply walk around the block, even though we have no idea where it went. An accounting begins of all the things that have come and gone, all the people of blessed memory, all the friends with whom we...
The strength and survivability of the Jewish people has always been their ability to simultaneously exist in three time “dimensions.” Not un-coincidently, the Torah’s narrative also speaks to us in the past, the present and the future. The Torah begins with a history of the evolutionary creation of the universe and our planet Earth (time frame of six biblical days); including the creation of primitive humans. God “rested” on the seventh day, which suggests creation is a work still in progress. These early humans evolved into curious, intellige...
So, I was in the gym at my Sports Club one day, getting dressed next to my locker mate, nice guy named Jay. Jay is head of technology at a large hospital chain in our town. I know he’s got two boys just entering middle teens. I know this because he talks about them on a regular basis. Jay happens to be African-American although his family goes back over a hundred years in America. My family has not been in this country for more than three generations. We came in the late 1890s. We came from what is now the Ukraine. I was born in Brooklyn, N...
Attending the White House signing ceremony on Tuesday of the Abraham Accords – which normalize relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – was both moving and jarring. Standing at the South Lawn, just meters from the Rose Garden where the Oslo Accord were signed 27 years ago on Sept. 13, 1993, the comparison between the two agreements was inescapable. That ceremony was an act of political theater unsurpassed in the history of Israel. Yasser Arafat, chairman of the PLO, and architect of modern terrorism, grinned ear to...
(JTA) — As my calendar announced the approach of September, I began to relive an event that took place exactly 50 years ago. On Sept. 6, 1970, my mother, my four siblings and I were on a plane that was hijacked by terrorists. TWA flight 741 was one of three planes successfully hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that day — the hijacking of an El Al plane was foiled by the onboard sky marshals. At the time, I was a 14-year-old kid living in Trenton, New Jersey, whose only care was how the Baltimore Orioles were doi...
Israel-haters must not be very happy these days. All of a sudden, the big lie that nourished their anti-Zionist venom for so long is slipping away. For more than 50 years, diplomatic geniuses kept telling the world that “the key to peace in the Middle East is to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The convenient corollary was that the solution was all in Israel’s hands, which kept the Jewish state constantly on the receiving end of global condemnation. This brilliant maneuver sought to camouflage the plain truth that the deepest ills...
Dear Editor: I am amazed that some Jewish people do not appreciate all that our President has done for us. I attribute that to several entities that malign the President constantly. These entities are NYTimes, MSNBC, and CNN. Whatever the President says they take out of context and distort his words. They have such hate for our President even before he took office. These entities never write or talk about Biden’s misdeeds, his sexual harassment, the enrichment of his family, his 48 years as a politician when he has accomplished nothing of n...
MORNING MINYANS (Please note, because of the coronavirus, all minyans have been canceled or held virtually.) 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...
(JTA) — The main foreign policy umbrella for the U.S. Jewish community came to a decision to not come to a decision on whether its members inappropriately disparage one another. Earlier this year, HIAS, the Jewish community’s lead immigration advocacy group, accused the Zionist Organization of America, its fellow member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, of disparagement. Klein had among other things said HIAS was not a Jewish organization. HIAS sought redress under the Conference’s rules, which could result...
(JTA) - For Flori Dedoni, a member of the tiny Jewish community of Kosovo, the news that his country is establishing formal diplomatic ties with Israel is cause for celebration. Until last week, Israel was among the dozens of countries that had not recognized the Muslim-majority territory sandwiched between Albania and Serbia. "When someone learns I'm Jewish, they usually ask sometime during the conversation why Israel doesn't recognize us," Dedoni said. "Now, finally it's happening and the...
(JTA) - On the border of Belarus and Ukraine, Avremi Vitman tried to shake off the morning chill as he prayed earlier this week. Vitman was hungry and uncomfortable after yet another night sleeping in his coat, two weeks after arriving in Belarus en route, he hoped, to Uman, the Ukrainian city that is the site of an annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage for followers of Rabbi Nachman, founder of the Breslov Hasidic movement. "Nights are cold here, we sleep in our coats," Vitman told the Jewish...
How lucky I am! ... The music, the performers of my time ... thank goodness I grew up in the 40s, 50s and 60s. The great American songbook is the BEST! The performers were the BEST! (If you are willing to admit to being that old, you would agree!) Anyway, I just heard MICHAEL FEINSTEIN singing Gershwin on the radio! (Yup, Jewish.) And I just learned that billionaire MARK CUBAN of "Shark Tank" the TV show, with his great looks and personality is also Jewish! (And he is super rich!) Difficult...
(JTA) - From Hank Greenberg to Sandy Koufax to Alex Bregman, Jews and baseball go way back, to the 19th century. It's not just players and fans - the participation even extends to the role of official baseball historian of Major League Baseball. The first man to hold the title, the legendary Chicago sportswriter Jerome Holtzman, was Jewish, and an inductee to the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. Holtzman died in 2008, and in early 2011, the official baseball historian role went to John...
Proof positive that Jewish learning is a life-long commitment as Kinneret resident, Michael Blaher, decided to learn how to blow the shofar this year and did so on the second day of Rosh Hashanah to the delight of the residents....
(JTA) — At a virtual fundraiser organized by J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East policy group, Joe Biden said that President Donald Trump is bad for Israel because he runs a feckless foreign policy. “Trump’s put Israel in danger by tearing up the Iran nuclear deal and replaced it with nothing,” Biden said Thursday. “He’s allowed Israel’s foes to take residence in Syria, a dangerous power vacuum has formed. He’s undermined the stability of self-determination for the Palestinians, undercutting hope for a viable two-state solution any ch...
Submitted by the family Leonard Goldman, age 83, passed away on Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2020, at AdventHealth Orlando Hospital after surgery and a heroic fight to keep spending more days with his best friend and love of his life, Marilyn D Goldman. Marilyn and Leonard were married for 58 years. While he had some health challenges during his later years, he was strong and determined to live life to the fullest. Leonard always said his best accomplishments were his family. Even through many years of hard work as a corporate attorney, he was able to...
Submitted by the family Ruth Margaret Wallace passed away on Sept. 11, 2020. Ruth was a very special person. She was smart, kind and loving. She loved her children, grandchildren, her brothers, her brothers’ spouses, children and their children, her dog and her friends. She was a labor and delivery nurse at Florida Hospital for over 35 years and she was extremely well respected for the work she did there. Ruth is survived by her three children — David, Beth and Ben; her grandchildren— Emma, Ty, Daniel and Jacob; her brothers, Leon and Ross...
