Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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JERUSALEM-The changing nature of the American Jewish community has been a much-debated topic ever since the release of the recent Pew Research Center survey, whose findings revealed rising assimilation and intermarriage rates. The Jewish Federations of North America's (JFNA) annual General Assembly, which took place in Jerusalem this year, provided a chance to place that debate within the context of Israel-Diaspora relations. "We are now undergoing a real historical change," Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for...
JERUSALEM-The changing nature of the American Jewish community has been a much-debated topic ever since the release of the recent Pew Research Center survey, whose findings revealed rising assimilation and intermarriage rates. The Jewish Federations of North America's (JFNA) annual General Assembly, which took place in Jerusalem this year, provided a chance to place that debate within the context of Israel-Diaspora relations. "We are now undergoing a real historical change," Natan Sharansky, Chairman of the Executive of the Jewish Agency for...
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently urged South African Jews to immigrate to Israel, following incendiary comments by that country’s international relations minister. Writing on his Facebook page, Lieberman said the South African government is creating an anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic atmosphere, which means that a pogrom against the country’s Jews is now all-but inevitable. “I call on all the Jews still living there to immigrate to Israel without delay, before it’s too late,” he stated emphatically. Last Friday, South Af...
Beginning in January, children between the ages of 18-36 months with speech and language challenges will benefit from a traditional, yet enhanced, preschool experience at the Roth Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando's award-winning Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center in the heart of Maitland. Open to all faiths, the Roth JCC seeks to target communication-focused goals at a crucial stage in children's speech and language development. In addition to traditional preschool...
BALTIMORE (JTA)-Almost from the moment they met him, several officials and players with Israel's national baseball team said they saw manager Brad Ausmus headed for the major leagues. They cited his communication skills, command of the game and preparation-not to mention his 18-year playing career as a catcher that included winning three Gold Gloves and reaching the 2005 World Series with the Houston Astros. "We knew that even though he'd never had any managerial experience, he'd go and be a...
When recent rabbinical school graduate Rabbi Benjamin Frankel began a part-time clerical position in 1923 working with students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), little could he have imagined that within less than a century, the small Jewish student program would balloon into a national and international organization with a presence at 550 colleges and universities. Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life is celebrating its 90th anniversary in November, the organiza...
One in four Jews is a carrier of one or more of the 19 known preventable Jewish genetic diseases, according to the Center for Jewish Genetics. Although Sephardic Jews and non-Jews can carry these diseases, they appear twice as often for Ashkenazi Jews as they do for the rest of the population. When both spouses are carriers for a particular genetic disease, the couple has a 25 percent chance of passing the disease on to their children. Launched in September through the Emory University School...
JERUSALEM (JTA)—It looks like a futuristic salon hair dryer. Connected to a computer by a bright orange strip, the half-cube with rounded corners sits comfortably atop the head, a coil of wires resting on the skull. As a doctor stands at the computer, the patient gets comfortable. A few seconds later, a brief electromagnetic pulse hits the head. Do this every weekday for six weeks, doctors tell Alzheimer’s patients, and you’ll feel your brain come back to life. The technique, known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, uses elect...
Three years ago my 15-year-old daughter, Jennifer (Jenny), was granted a wish by New Hope for Kids Wishes for Kids Program in Maitland. Jenny chose to visit a medical center in the Los Angeles area. Although she had grown hospital weary following a protracted illness, which included travel to Johns Hopkins, The Mayo Clinic and Northwestern University Hospital, there was one premier medical center that was still on Jenny's wish list. She wished to visit Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital (formerly...
While Jews across the globe celebrate Chanukah for eight nights, the part-time program directors at the Jewish Pavilion celebrate for more than a month. Visit the Pavilion's new website www.jewishpavilion.org and click on the calendar to see 50 Chanukah celebrations all over town. Everyone in the community is welcome to participate in any of the parties. Unlike Jewish communities that have a Home for the Jewish Aged, every facility the Jewish Pavilion staff and volunteers visit has a different...
Jewish National Fund (JNF)’s Women for Israel (WFI) will host “A Night at the Museum” at Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College, located at 1000 Holt Avenue, 2765 in Winter Park, on Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. Ena Heller, director of the gallery, will be the docent for the evening as WFI supporters are invited to view exhibit Auktion 392: Reclaiming the Galerie Stern, Düsseldorf. Max Stern’s Düsseldorf gallery exhibition addresses the issues of Nazi looted art and the on-going restitution efforts by the courts in America and Europe for works for...
One of the most irritating aspects of the international efforts to deal with Iran’s nuclear program lies in the unrealistic expectations that negotiations create, even among those—like the American Jewish advocacy groups who met with the White House Oct. 29 to discuss the nuclear issue—who have every reason to be cynical. From Nov. 7-8, members of the so-called P5+1, which comprises the five members of the U.N. Security Council along with Germany, will meet with representatives of the Iranian regime in Geneva. These talks follow from preliminar...
America’s loss of dominance was inevitable. Its standing from the late ‘40s through the ‘50s could not last. The power derived from being the sole country on its feet after the most destructive war in history. The American economy thrived as a result of pent-up purchasing power from wartime full employment, the genius of sending demobilized troops to college, the skills they acquired, the economic boom associated with the babies they made, and the additional genius of foreign aid in the context of the Cold War that made the U.S. No. 1 in a wes...
Should you be fearful of someone who demands you convert to his religion or he will kill you? What if there were 100s of such fanatics demanding you convert or they will kill you? What if you learned that they have killed thousands who refused to convert? There were thousands of people who took the fanatics’ demand too lightly. Below, are a handful of typical scary statements made by Islamic leaders. Read their words. Their words are similar to those spoken by many around the world. Then consider the possibility that they mean and intend to d...
It’s common these days to micromanage what information we receive. Many of us have a list of favorite Web sites and blogs we regularly go to, as well as Facebook pages and mobile apps that reflect our individual tastes and ideologies. It’s a way of maintaining some level of control amid the chaos of the Internet. There’s an opportunity cost, however, to micromanaging this flow of information: We rarely experience the joy of what I call “bumping into knowledge.” That’s why I want to tell you about my all-time favorite Web site, Arts & Letters D...
A new book published in the United States this week reveals that President Obama considers the prime minister of Israel to be a pain in the tuchus. For those Yiddishly challenged this translates as a pain in the posterior. No doubt the diplomatic fraternity will be frantically trying to play this latest revelation down and bury it under the proverbial carpet but for us mere mortals it is plainly obvious that despite spin doctors’ activities to the contrary, Israel’s reluctance to acquiesce to its own demise, does cause painful symptoms in the...
The subject of incitement as an impediment to the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may finally be getting the attention it deserves. But even now, discussion of the issue glosses over a deeper problem. Israel has been complaining for years about Palestinian Authority incitement against Israel and against Jews, arguing that it merely inflames old anger, stirs up violence and terror, and foments new hatred in each new generation. Most depressingly, it prevents the population from coming to terms with the idea of peacefully...
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, 7:30 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 Israel—Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-647-3055. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15 Lig...
The weekend of Oct. 24-27 I was granted a wonderful opportunity to attend the Chabad on Campus Shabbaton in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I haven't had an experience like this since I was a part of B'nai B'rith Youth Organization (BBYO) in Nashville, Tenn. I lived in Nashville for six years but prior to that I was in Orlando. I attended preschool at the JCC and Hebrew school at Congregation Ohev Shalom. Since high school I haven't felt that strong connection to Judaism while in college. Luckily,...
Shirley A. Wolfe of Orlando, passed away on Friday, Nov. 1, 2013, at Florida Hospital – Altamonte. She was 81 years old. A native of Essex, England, she was born on March 23, 1932, to the late Michael and Rachel Godfrey Myer. Mrs. Wolfe studied in England, graduating from secretarial school. On Nov.30, 1954, in Burlington, Vt., she married Thomas Wolfe, her husband of nearly 59 years who survives her. While Tom was serving in the U.S .Air Force, the family lived in various locales. They ultimately relocated to the Orlando area from Okinawa in 1...
As part of Central Florida's Commemoration of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Orlando's Adventist University of Health Sciences' presented its University Colloquium series with an inspiring and educational program about two different but related aspects of the Holocaust. The theme was "Moral Courage." The two speakers were Eva Fogelman, PhD, a licensed psychologist and author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book "Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust," who spoke...
A night filled with laughter will be the Roth Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando's goal on Saturday, Dec. 7. That night, the Roth JCC will be hosting its a Comedy Club Night. The event will showcase the talents of five comedians: Carmen Vallone, Preacher Lawson, Alicia Reese, Mark Viola, and Myke Herlihy. The comedians have an impressive combined resume, having appeared on HuffPost Live, NBC's Last Comic Standing and CBS's Comedy Night School, shared the stage with likes of Dustin...
Out with a bang... What is happening? I'm beginning to wonder if those mental cases who desire suicide, choose grand-standing shoot-outs in very public places like movie theaters, navy bases, malls, airports, etc., are trying for their 15 minutes in the spotlight before police cause their "suicides" for them. Take others along? Who cares? The perpetrator will be dead too! Well, sometimes it backfires, as in the case of the alleged LAX Shooter. Clinging to life, he may spend the rest of it as a v...
He suffered from nightmares and had U.S.ed alcohol to blot out depression. After leaving Iraq as a wounded soldier in 2004, Harrison Manyoma of Humble, Texas, remained haunted by his experiences, which had culminated in a roadside car bomb explosion. And then, last year, through another veterans’ program, he learned of Heroes to Heroes. The Ft. Lee, N.J.-based organization takes groups of wounded U.S. war veterans, especially those diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, on a trip to Israel. For Manyoma, that journey proved t...
Bringing the joys of Chanukah to local seniors is what the Jewish Pavilion is planning for the coming weeks and months. Atria Senior Living and the Jewish Pavilion are planning a community-wide Chanukah celebration to take place Nov. 22, at 5 p.m. Atria Senior Living printed the invitations while Jewish Pavilion volunteers stuffed and addressed envelopes making for a perfect partnership. Atria is inviting the entire community to enjoy a complimentary Chanukah dinner with festive entertainment by...
