Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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Each year the Jewish community celebrates Sukkot together ... this year Chabad of Altamonte Springs brought it to the community. The Chabad of Altamonte Springs Sukkah Mobile visited homes or businesses for a 15-minute safe, socially distant, private Sukkah celebration for families. Shake the lulav, enjoy a fresh baked kosher bite, and enjoy the warmth and joy of the Sukkah! The Sukkah Mobile was generously sponsored by Darryl Baumstein of Construction Services, in loving memory of Roz...
WASHINGTON (JTA) - Wrapping up the feel-good-fest that marked the first anniversary of the Abraham Accords, the normalization agreements between Israel and four Arabs states, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a shout-out to the big guy who started it all. No, not Donald Trump, but Abraham himself. "Abraham, in our Bible, had the temerity to engage God, to argue with God, to ask why, and maybe more important, to ask why not," Blinken said at the virtual get-together Friday that marked...
Shelley Wilson Lauten will be the interim chief executive officer at the Holocaust Center. Lauten has a long track record of distinguished leadership in our community and is ideally suited for this role at this time. She began this past Monday, Sept. 27. Lauten is a pillar of the Orlando philanthropic and business communities and an innovative thinker and strategist who has played an important role in developing Orlando as the center of business, culture and tourism it has become. Her...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved an extra $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system, following a pushback effort from Israel-critical progressives that had limited reach. The vote Thursday was 420-9, with two voting present. The bill now goes to the Senate, where it is likely to be approved. Israel asked the Biden administration for $1 billion to replenish the batteries depleted during its conflict with Hamas in May. The Biden administration agreed, and the Democratic lea...
(JTA) — Los Angeles’ main teachers union voted Thursday to indefinitely postpone a motion in favor of boycotting Israel. For months, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, which has approximately 30,000 members, has been debating a motion to support BDS, or the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. The motion was first raised in the wake of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in May. It has since been adopted by several local chapters of the union. The resolution calls for the union to “endorse the international campa...
“Fradel’s Story,” my third book since 2016, is especially sweet as it was co-written with my mother, Frances Cohen. Ever since I could remember, my mother was the family storyteller. Give her an opening, and Fran, or “Fradel” as she was known to her close family, would regale any audience with family stories of her grandparents’ and parents’ lives in Russia, her early years of marriage to “My Bill” Cohen, and their life in small towns in the North Country. She told of raising four children, watc...
The Rosen JCC is known for its Early Childhood Learning Center but there are always exciting new things happening. This fall the Healthy Kids Running Series is coming to the Rosen JCC. This is a five-week running program for kids 2 years old to 8th grade. It offers age appropriate running events including the 50 & 75 yard dash, the 1/4 mile, the 1/2 mile and 1 mile run. Children compete for points and at the end of the series those with the most points in their respective distances will be awarded trophies. All participants receive a medal on...
(JNS) — Jewish Democratic Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) is introducing legislation that would make a two-state solution official U.S. policy. Named the “Two-State Solution Act,” it states that “only the outcome of a two-state solution can both ensure the state of Israel’s survival as a democratic state and a national home for the Jewish people and fulfill the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people for a state of their own,” Politico first reported. It further states that the West Bank, including eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, are...
(JTA) — A survey of members of AEPi and AEPhi, the most prominent national Jewish fraternity and sorority, found that large numbers of respondents have experienced antisemitism on campus. The survey also found that about half of respondents have felt the need to hide their Jewish identity on campus or in virtual campus settings. A slim majority said they “are somewhat or very reluctant to share their views on Israel,” according to the survey. The survey was commissioned by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a legal organ...
(JTA) — The man who opened fire on a synagogue in Poway, California in 2019, killing one and injuring three, has pleaded guilty to a 113-count federal hate crime indictment. The guilty plea comes with a recommended sentence of life in prison plus 30 years. The charges the shooter faced, which also relate to his arson of a mosque a month earlier, carried a maximum sentence of the death penalty. “The defendant entered a synagogue with the intent to kill all those inside because of his hatred for Jewish people, and days earlier used fire in an...
(JNS) — It’s been a year since Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, and many fans still mourn her loss. That’s not just because a true pioneer for women in the legal profession deserves to be honored as a role model or even because of the odd — and not entirely apt — pop-culture-icon status she achieved late in late as the “notorious RBG.” The recent passage of draconian restrictions on abortion by Texas in a piece of questionable legislation designed to evade judicial scrutiny has sent many of her liberal admirers into a state of panic. The “p...
(JNS) — The United Nations held a major international convening on Sept. 22 to mark the 20th anniversary of its World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa in 2001. In many ways, that conference has marked us more than we mark it. For supporters, it was an epoch-making event: an awakening about racism for a world then not yet “woke.” At the same time, it was what we might now call a super-spreader event, causing a new anti-Zionist variant of the world’s oldest hatred to go viral. This month, as we observe this anniver...
(JTA) — We are in an era of multiple interlocking crises. From record-breaking heat waves to wildfires to water shortages, from rising authoritarianism to a pandemic rampaging across the world, it is clear that, to survive, human beings will need to make urgent, major changes to how we live. Bold policy proposals already exist to address these problems, both nationally and in different states. Additionally, we — one of us a politician, the other a rabbi, and both progressives — want to suggest another possibility, gleaned from Jewish tradi...
Award-winning TV and radio host Larry King, with Rabbi Irwin Katsof, wrote “Powerful Prayers: Conversations on Faith, Hope, and the Human Spirit with Today’s Most Provocative People” in November 1999. King’s book examined the lives that were suddenly and permanently altered through prayer, and lives that are sustained by its everyday practice. I never read his book as I have always believed in the power of prayer, but I was happy to see that such an influential person took the time to draw attention to how powerful prayer is in a person...
At least twice this week, far-left Jew-hating Congressional Squad members again endangered Jewish (and Arab) lives. On Sept. 21, Squad members ― led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Betty McCollum (D-MN), and also including Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) ― coerced the Democratic House leadership to remove $1 billion of funding to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, by threatening to vote against a key Democratic bill to increase the debt ceiling and continue funding the...
(JNS) — The heroes of our generation are slipping away. And unless you were among the fortunate few to have gone to meet them in the former Soviet Union during the decades from 1970s to the 1990s, you probably don’t know about those Jewish heroes and heroines whose actions defined moral courage and stamina in the face of relentless government persecution. But for those Americans who did travel to the USSR, meeting with Jewish refuseniks denied the right to emigrate had a profound impact on them. Just ask anyone who ever met Ida Nudel. With her...
MORNING MINYANS (Please note, because of the coronavirus, some minyans have been canceled or held virtually.) Chabad of North Orlando and Chabad of Altamonte Springs are holding in-person minyans. 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. Congr...
(JTA) — Hundreds of Iraqi civic leaders and activists attended a conference calling for the country to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. But Iraq’s government rejected the call and is now seeking to arrest the leaders of the conference and may also try to arrest other attendees for the crime, under Iraqi law, of aiding and abetting ideas that support Zionism, according to Haaretz. Earlier, governmental leaders had said in a statement that the demand for normalization of ties with Israel “was not representative of the population’s...
(JTA) - This Friday, following a pandemic delay, Apple TV+ will debut "Foundation," the first-ever screen adaptation of Isaac Asimov's bestselling, award-winning science-fiction book series. First announced in 2018 and produced in association with Skydance Television, the TV show is one of the Apple streaming service's most expensive and ambitious productions to date. The series, which follows a mathematician struggling to convince a galactic federation that their society is on the brink of coll...
"Mike Etzkin was a 'Newspaper Guy' through and through. He could write a good story, lay out the paper, and then write the headlines. "He could do it all," said Loraine O'Connell about her former Orlando Sentinel co-worker and spouse of 26 years. Etzkin died on Aug. 17, 2021, in Altamonte Springs, Fla., at the age of 74. After retiring from the Sentinel in 2007, he served as an award-winning editor of the Heritage Florida Jewish News until 2013. O'Connell added, "Mike will always be remembered...
Wow! A favorite of mine ... One of my sons, a marketing manager, recently worked in New York City for a weekend. He met some very famous people and one of them was a favorite of mine, LARRY DAVID, who happens to be Jewish (but you knew that!) I loved Larry way back when he was one of the creators of "Seinfeld," most everyone's favorite television series. Then when his own TV show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm" was established, I fell in love with Larry David, especially his humor. (It hit home every ti...
(JTA) — The sponsor of a bill that would have made Burlington, Vermont, the first city in America to divest from Israel is withdrawing his legislation, citing concerns that it would promote antisemitism. Councilmember Ali Dieng, who sponsored the resolution, said Monday afternoon that he would withdraw it at the council meeting scheduled for the same evening, and refer the resolution for reconsideration at the council’s racial equity committee. The city’s Jewish mayor also publicly expressed concerns about the resolution. Dieng told the Jewis...
(JTA) - A century ago, communists shuttered the synagogues of Tomsk, one of the oldest cities in Siberia. It was a painful blow, especially to the local community of Jewish Cantonists - former soldiers who had been recruited against their will or abducted into the Russian Tsar's army and forbidden from practicing their faith. After many years of forced service and persecution, many of them returned to Judaism in Tomsk, a city of about 500,000. This week, local Jews feel a circle has been...
Under a perfectly blue sky, the campers gathered around Lillian Feldman-Hill as she showed them how to create a combustible mixture using water, soap and butane. Then she demonstrated how to blow huge fireballs with just cornstarch and a blowtorch. Welcome to Camp Nai Nai Nai, a Jewish summer camp experience for adults. Held on Labor Day weekend just before Rosh Hashanah, the camp drew some 100 adults in their 20s and 30s from throughout North America to have fun, make new friends and do...
(J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — The California Legislature last week passed a bill requiring ethnic studies for all California public school students, as Jewish lawmakers and activists continued to disagree on the merits of a model curriculum. The bill mandating ethnic studies would make the state the first in the nation to require such curricula, which examines race and ethnicity with a focus on people of color. The liberal California Legislative Jewish Caucus had criticized the original model of a proposed curriculum, in...
