Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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After serving as Boy Scout Troop 6's chaplain for the past seven years and being involved in many communitywide cross-cultural initiatives, Brian Collins of the Dr. Phillips community in Southwest Orlando, was presented the Shofar Award at the Court of Honor for Boy Scout Troop 6. Friend and fellow Scouter Michael Attardi (shown in the photo on the right), who nominated Collins, presented the medallion. Attardi is a former Troop 6 assistant Scoutmaster and is now with Troop 225. The National...
Former Broadway star and current channel 7 reporter to celebrate Shabbat with Southwest Orlando community WSVN News Anchor Rosh Lowe, named TV Reporter of the Year by The Miami New Times, will celebrate Shabbat with Chabad of South Orlando in honor of their 17th anniversary. A Grand Community Shabbaton in Chabad's new state-of-the-art building at 7347 W Sand Lake Road will bring dozens of families together for a weekend of celebration, entertainment, and great company on Oct. 23-24. Lowe will...
On Thursday, Oct. 22, hundreds of women will gather at The Pantry at Northview to participate in the Great Big Challah Bake, which is part of the global Shabbat Project, which aims to mobilize more than one million Jews worldwide to pause and observe the Sabbath together this Oct. 23 and 24. The Jewish community in Orlando is expected to play a major role in this global phenomenon. Think of The Shabbat Project as a holy global flash mob, a coordinated and choreographed happening which will take...
On Sunday, Nov. 1, Friends of the Israel Defense Forces invites the community to a special performance by Israeli Defense Forces soldiers, titled Yom L'Chayal-a Day to Salute Our Soldiers-featuring the IDF Musical Ensemble performing popular and traditional Israeli songs. This event is sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel for Florida and Puerto Rico, Congregation Ohev Shalom, Congregation of Reform Judaism, Hillel Central Florida, Jewish Academy of Orlando, Jewish Federation of Greater...
The heartbreaking murder of Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife Naama, gunned down by Palestinian terrorists in front of their children, will generate tear-filled eulogies and anguished recitations of tehillim (Psalms) throughout the Jewish world. As they should. But then what? The depressingly familiar post-terrorist attack ritual is already unfolding before our eyes. The Obama administration has issued a formalistic condemnation, adding its standard, amoral appeal: "We urge all sides to maintain...
BERLIN (JTA)—Israel’s government is in cahoots with Syrian President Bashar Assad. America wants to keep the Syrian civil war going for as long as possible. Russia is outmaneuvering the United States on the global stage. Those are some of the viewpoints you’re likely to hear if you talk politics with Syrians pouring out of their war-torn country and into Europe. When I went to Berlin recently to write about the wave of migrants arriving in Germany, one of the questions I was most curious about was something that had nagged at me since the r...
In the fourth shooting at a U.S. college campus since August, 10 people were killed Oct. 1 when a 26-year-old gunman opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon. Many would be surprised to learn that part of the solution to the American school shooting epidemic might be found in Israel. School shooters present a challenge to both forensic psychiatry and law enforcement agencies. But new research by Prof. Yair Neuman, a member of the Homeland Security Institute at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), is...
The Jewish Academy of Orlando is opening its award-winning day school for an open house featuring family innovation night. On Tuesday, Oct. 20 at 6:15 p.m., the Jewish Academy of Orlando will host current and prospective families. The event is designed for families with children ages 5-13 years old. Free babysitting will be available for families with younger children. Families can meet and mingle with the school’s distinguished staff and explore the Kindergarten through middle school curriculum, which includes our new social/emotional p...
The community is invited to participate in a Torah Study program sponsored by Florida Region of Women's League for Conservative Judaism (WLCJ) and the Temple Israel Adult Education Committee and Sisterhood of Temple Israel on Sunday, Oct. 25 at Temple Israel, 50 S. Moss Road, Winter Springs. The topic, "A Bountiful Harvest-From the seeds planted by the Matriarchs to the Judaism of Today," draws its inspiration from the Torah Fund theme for 5776-Nat'ah Karem, "she plants a vineyard." Torah Fund...
NEW YORK-Emmy award-winning filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum was driven to make her deeply personal documentary, "Look at Us Now, Mother!" (that premieres in downtown Orlando October 22nd at the Cobb Plaza Cinema Cafe as a part of the Orlando Film Festival) due to the overwhelming response and rave reviews of her humorous short "My Nose". The film chronicles her own highly charged relationship with her mother and asks: what happens to a girl when she is born into a family that was expecting a boy?...
The Zionistas invite the community to a presentation by Dr. Jonathan Matusitz on the update of "Terrorism and Communications" on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Woman's Club of Casselberry. The Club is located at 251 Overbrook Drive, Casselberry. Jonathan Matusitz (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 2006) is a tenured associate professor in the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Matusitz studies globalization, culture, terrorism and health communication. In...
By Ben Cohen JNS.org Remember how the terrorists fighting American forces during the occupation of Iraq gave us a chilling new acronym, IED, which stands for Improvised Explosive Device? The four-year war in neighboring Syria has now done the same. Syrian opposition activists are urging world leaders to pay heed to the favored weapon of the dictator Bashar al-Assad’s fighter planes and helicopters. It’s called a “barrel bomb,” and it’s the airborne equivalent of the IED—a crude, deadly, and unguided barrel casing, often made of metal and f...
Tensions, competition, or dust-up—call it what you will—between Russia and the U.S. presents a fascinating subject for analysis. No doubt, the U.S. is stronger by far economically and militarily. It was left standing at the end of the Cold War, while the Soviet Union disappeared. Now Russia is a fragment, albeit a significant fragment, of its former self, without the populations and resources of the Baltic Republics, Ukraine, Central Asian Republics, and tightly held allies of Eastern Europe. However, it has Vladimir Putin, who learned how to...
With the potential devastation and catastrophic deaths a nuclear bomb can cause you would think the first question needed to be answered in the affirmative, is can Iran be trusted to keep an agreement? According to Iran’s track record, clearly the answer is no. In May 2010 The Christian Science Monitor reported that Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, said Iran had violated the UN’s NPT101 that they had signed. A United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report said Iran has been pursuing nuclear weapons since before 2004,...
What is the value of spending our time on lost causes? As I watched the proceedings at the United Nations last week I couldn’t help but remember the story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and my father—and, most important of all, the lesson my father taught me I needed to learn from that historic moment. I would’ve liked to say the time my father met with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but that wouldn’t be true. That meeting should have happened, but it didn’t. And therein lies a remarkable tale that happened two days before Yom Kippur in 1943. It...
Every day now, I am waking up to news of more murders around Jerusalem. Outside my window, I hear screaming, and as my stomach twists in fright, I have to wonder whether I am hearing yet another Arab attack against Jews in my area. This violence is personal. Four Arabs and their pit bull chased my ulpan friend down the street the other day. Over the Jewish holidays, five Jews were killed in terror attacks in and near Jerusalem. And other than the Israeli media, the world is silent. I am sorry that I have to take up my weekly post this way, but...
Was the urgency of preventing a nuclear Iran truly embedded within AIPAC’s institutional DNA? If so, how could the fervent appeals, made year after year over the last decade, by 15,000 Policy Conference disciples, have been so callously ignored? Regardless of the unprecedented amount of pressure that the president brought to bear, the defection of 42 senators on an issue which carries such a cataclysmic downside, begs the question as to whether the conversations that needed to have been had inside of AIPAC were truly taking place. AIPAC has l...
MORNING AND EVENING MINYANS (Call synagogue to confirm time.) 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 of Orlando—Monday—Friday, 7:45 a.m.—8:30 a.m. Temple Israe...
Anyone can step up to the plate and honor a loved one, at the Jewish Pavilion's A Taste in the Park at the Maitland Civic Center-Venue on the Lake on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2015. For a donation of $50 to the Jewish Pavilion, donors can purchase a plate inscribed with the name of someone special in their lives. The Pavilion is offering a Three Course Special, with the purchase of three plates costing just $100. Larger donors can purchase larger signage in the form of a "Family Platter" for $180. Name...
A Nosh of Yiddish is hosted by Jewish Pavilion volunteer Joan Pohl and the entire community is invited and encouraged to join in. For several years this program has been ongoing on the third Thursday of the month at 10:30 a.m. It is held at Brookdale Island Lake at 160 Islander Court Longwood. A haymish group, probably a little meshuge, speaking and trying to remember how to speak mama loshen. Come shmooze, joke and reminisce days of long ago. Joan brings homemade nosh to warm attendee's...
(JNS.org) The Islamic State terror group is reportedly making gains in the Golan Heights region near the Israeli-Syrian border as rebel groups operating in the area face ammunition and weaponry shortages. According to a spokesman from the Free Syrian Army, the moderate group fighting both the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Islamic State, there are around 500-700 Islamic State fighters currently active in the Syrian Golan Heights towns of Jamlah and Ash-Shajarah, which are adjacent to the Israeli border, the Times of Israel...
Leonard Silbert, age 85, of Longwood, passed away on Monday, Sept. 28, 2015, at his residence. Born in Bronx, New York, on Oct. 1, 1929, to the late Nathan and Kate Rinker Silbert, he was a quality control engineer for the Lockheed-Martin Corporation for over 20 years, before retiring in 1992. On March 15, 1951, he and the former Sondra Goldfield, his wife of more than 64 years, who survives him, were married in Camden, New Jersey. They relocated from New Orleans to the Orlando area in 1985, and have been members of Temple Israel since that tim...
Thanks to the young teens of Congregation Ohev Shalom, the residents at Brookdale Island Lake community enjoyed a joyous and meaningful Rosh Hashanah service. For many seniors with limited transportation or patience to sit (and stand) for a traditional Yom Tov service, the prayers, singing and readings with the young teens was just perfect. For one of the residents who was once a USY adviser himself 'back in the day,' the presence and enthusiasm of the children brought him pure joy and...
When Michael Oren was 15 years old, he shook the hand of Yitzhak Rabin, who at the time was the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Oren vowed in that moment this was what he would be. Fast forward 40 years later, and Oren fulfilled his goal to become the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. Of course he didn't just wish it into being. He worked hard aiming at his goal. In his recently published book, "Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide," Oren shares in this partly...
A great movie. A great actress... I refer to Academy Award winning actress, HELEN MIRREN. I just received this information in a World Jewish Congress (WJC) digest: "Academy Award winning actress Helen Mirren was honored by the WJC for helping to publicize the issue of Nazi-looted art through her portrayal of Maria Altman in the acclaimed film 'Woman In Gold.' The movie tells the story of the Austrian-American woman who made headlines in 2006 for her winning legal battle against the Austrian...
