Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - Plans are under way to find a home for a huge trove of works by a nearly forgotten Jewish artist that was uncovered 78 years after her death in a Nazi concentration camp. The works of Czech artist Gertrud Kauders (1883-1942) were found during the demolition of an old house near Prague in 2018, when 30 paintings tumbled onto the head of a worker. Hundreds more canvases were found in the walls and under floorboards of the home where the artist had stashed them to keep them out of Nazi...
(Tel Aviv) - The Israel Start-Up Nation cycling team made history, recording its first ever stage victory in a Grand Tour race, just five years after the team's establishment. Alex Dowsett finished first on Stage 8 of the Giro d'Italia. The Giro is one of professional cycling's three prestigious Grand Tour races, alongside the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana. Dowsett was part of a breakaway group of six riders, alongside ISN team-mate Matthias Brändle, during the 200km stage from Giovinaz...
(JNS) - The American Jewish Congress announced on Tuesday that it has picked Joel Rubin, who served as the liaison to the Jewish community for the Democratic presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), as its next executive director. Rubin, 49, a co-founder of the American Jewish lobby group J Street, is AJCongress's first Washington-based director in a decade. Jack Rosen, president of the 102-year-old organization, said in a statement, "The Jewish community is facing significant risks...
(JTA) — Facebook announced that it will now ban any posts that deny or distort the Holocaust, a landmark change from its previous policy. For years, Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, had defended Holocaust denial as a misguided but legitimate form of expression. In 2018, regarding Holocaust denial, he said, “I don’t believe that our platform should take that down because I think there are things that different people get wrong.” That approach garnered widespread outcry from scholars and anti-Semitism watchdogs. On Monday, Zuckerberg wrote...
She is NOT wearing an underwire. And so are many other women. Yes, we have expunged our Exquisite Forms, ousted our Olgas and wiped out our Warners. Instead, we have traded our confining, pokey attire for the comfort of sports bras, bralettes, or maybe even nothing! Not since the 60s, when we were burning our Balis have women felt so liberated! I conducted a very scientific research study by posting the following question to my women friends on FaceBook: "Have you liberated your 'girls' since...
In his own words, Laurence Morrell is the "last of the Jewish Red Necks." This coming Oct. 30, 2020, will be not only his 78 birthday, but also the 65th anniversary of his bar mitzvah at Temple Israel where it was celebrated originally....
(JNS) — A Jewish American economist was one of two winners of the 2020 Nobel Prize in economics for studying how auctions work, announced the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on Monday. Paul Milgrom, along with American economist Robert Wilson, won the prestigious annual prize “for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats,” announced the academy. Both professors at Stanford University, they “have also used their insights to design new auction formats for goods a...
The Jews of Color Career Development Program announced its first cohort members today — on Indigenous People’s Day — who will work in Jewish ventures and institutions across the country, developing their skills as entrepreneurial leaders working toward system-level change in the Jewish community. A partnership between UpStart and the Jews of Color Initiative, the six-week part-time paid program will nurture the growth of emerging JOC leaders, increase access to talent, and deepen investment within the Jewish innovation ecosystem to develop a th...
(JNS) — The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) regarding the creation of a regional support office for UNOOSA’s UN-SPIDER program, the United Nations announced in a statement on Monday. The program, the full name of which is “United Nations Platform for Space-Based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response,” is, as its name suggests, geared towards leveraging space for disaster management and risk reduction. Regional support...
(JNS) — World Jewish Congress president Ronald S. Lauder met with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, announced a Palestinian minister. In a Twitter post, P.A. Civil Affairs Minister Hussein al-Sheikh disclosed the information, though provided no specifics. The billionaire philanthropist and former U.S. ambassador to Austria went to the West Bank for what the WJC said was “a private visit at Abbas’s invitation to discuss a range of issues regarding Palestine and the Middle East.” A friend of U.S. President Donald Trump,...
(JNS) — Every year, Shi’ite Muslims in Flushing, Queens, conduct the Arba’een, a procession in honor of Mohammed’s grandson whose death at the hands of a Sunni caliph marked the pivotal break between Shi’ites and Sunnis, slapping their faces and chests for their beheaded Imam Hussein. Queens, once the borough that gave birth to President Trump and David Horowitz, now has a large Muslim population, and the fall processions of wailing crowds are a regular event. The coronavirus didn’t change that. On Oct. 4, a huge knot of Muslim men packed close...
(JNS) — The British essayist, novelist and critic Eric Arthur Blair, best known to the world as George Orwell, died in 1950. A year before his death from tuberculosis, he used his unique insight to write his classic dystopian novel “1984.” That book, published in 1949, eerily predicted the totalitarian threats that the United States is facing today. It dealt with the consequences of a totalitarian government, mass surveillance, unending propaganda to distort the truth, and the suppression of freedom, including even the freedom of thoug...
(JNS) — The question I receive more than any other from non-Jews is: Why are so many Jews on the left? Before addressing it, I should note that the same question could be asked of Christians and other non-Jews. Why have so many mainstream Protestants and Catholics (up to and including the pope) embraced the left? Why have nearly all Blacks, the majority of Hispanics and Asian Americans, the most successful ethnic group in America, embraced the left? And, outside of the United States, why have most Germans, French, Canadians, Australians and oth...
(JNS) — A lighthearted conversation between two Jewish comedians, Seth Rogen and Marc Maron, aimed to promote a new film, “An American Pickle,” recently landed actor Seth Rogen in a pickle with the Jewish community. Rogen stated, “You don’t keep something you’re trying to preserve all in one place.” Rogen dismissed rather perfunctorily one of the most compelling arguments for modern-day Zionism, which Golda Meir summarized best: “Israel itself is the strongest guarantee against another Holocaust.” Unfortunately, Rogen’s ambivalent position...
(JNS) — The most scathing book review I have read in a very long time appears in the Sept.18 edition of the London-based journal, the Times Literary Supplement. You might want to read it, too, if only for an illustration of what a comprehensive demolition looks like. The book under discussion is titled “An Army Like No Other,” a lengthy history of the Israeli Defense Forces authored by an Israeli anti-Zionist long resident in London, Haim Bresheeth-Zabner, and published by the left-wing imprint Verso. The TLS reviewer, the grand strat...
(JNS) — The Internet is alight with the accusation made by reporter Greg Miller in The Washington Post that U.S. President Donald Trump declared that Jews “stick together” and are “only in it for themselves.” Indeed, such statements represent a classically antisemitic ideology, so if I thought the president actually said them (at least about Jews, rather than a group of political opponents), I would be seriously troubled. The problem with this claim, along with the larger narrative accusing Trump of racism and antisemitism, is that it is con...
Dear Editor: In her letter advising us that “Trump is bad for the Jews,” (“Another four years of Trump is bad for the Jews,” Oct. 9 issue), Roz Fuchs expressed her concern with the president’s loss of trust from our allies and his alleged failure to condemn the Neo-Nazis. The facts are that Obama’s treaty purchased from Iran with a fly-by-night cash payment, gave the Ayatollah everything he wanted. I have found no evidence in Mr. Biden’s long history of government service to show his “distinguished record of standing with Israel,” except...
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...
(JNS) — The Etihad Airways flight carrying a ministerial delegation from the United Arab Emirates landed in Israel at noon on Tuesday, marking the first-ever official visit from the Gulf state, following the Sept. 15 signing of the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords at the White House. Welcoming the delegation on the tarmac of Ben-Gurion International Airport, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—accompanied by Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Finance Minister Israel Katz—spoke about the preparation of his speech. “My staff wrote me some li...
(JTA) - A social media storm has erupted after the announcement that Israeli actress Gal Gadot will portray the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra in a blockbuster film. Critics complained that Gadot is neither Egyptian nor Arab, while others are pointing out that Cleopatra wasn't Arab. Pakistani journalist Sameera Khan blasted the casting, which was reported Sunday, in a tweet that has stirred widespread discussion on the platform. "Which Hollywood dumbass thought it would be a good idea to cast an...
(JTA) - After Israeli actress Gal Gadot announced this weekend that she would play the legendary Egyptian queen in a blockbuster movie, it didn't take long for the calls of cultural appropriation to start on social media. One tweet in particular, which said Gadot is "stealing" the role from Arab actresses, started a robust debate. Some users pointed out that Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian - as a Ptolemaic ruler, she was descended from a Macedonian father, and historians don't know the ethnicity of...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two Orthodox umbrella groups and the Jewish Federations of North America joined a faith groups’ letter to congressional appropriators asking them to quadruple funds for security grants for vulnerable nonprofits, to $360 million. The letter, also signed by Christian, Sikh and Muslim groups, says the $90 million available has run out. “At a time of increasing extremism and antagonism towards different religious groups and religion in general, we believe significant increased funding for this important government program in fi...
(JTA) - In the late 1960s, when Neal Karlen was not even 10 years old, he would spend time at the home of his grandparents, one of the few Jewish families that remained on the north side of Minneapolis. Karlen would play basketball and ride bikes with a group of African-American kids who lived in the neighborhood. One of them, he later realized, was a young Prince Rogers Nelson. The two men would reconnect in the early 1980s, when Karlen was a magazine journalist and Prince one of the world's...
Who knew?... I surely didn't and I knew her! Actress GOLDIE HAWN was raised Jewish by a Jewish mom and non-Jewish dad. She's been on television lately as "Rowan and Martin's Laugh In" has returned to the small screen. She was then primarily a dancer and a comic. (I should have realized she was Jewish because she was sooooo cute!!) Speaking of cute ... Here is another cute Jewish girl, actually adorable in every way! Her name is LAUREN NICOLE YOUSHA. Aha! The Yousha name was a dead giveaway, righ...
(JTA) — A synagogue has opened for the first time in Obninsk, a city near Moscow that was built in 1945 to accommodate the staff of the world’s first nuclear power plant. Around 400 Jews, including some from Moscow seeking to move out of the city, make up the city’s Jewish population, according to the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia. The nuclear plant had many Jewish employees and some of their families stayed in the Obninsk area. Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar attended the opening of the synagogue on Thursday. “Or goal is not onl...
