Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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This dreidel is part of the Chanukah decorations on display in the front yard of Rabbi Arnold and Mary Siegel's home. Heritage wrote about this wonderful display in 2019. The message is perfect for any year....
As Chanukah is a season of miracles for Jews all around the world, the Yiddishkayt Initiative (YILoveJewish.org), is presenting a virtual Chanukah Mini Fest from Nov. 28- Dec. 5 with a lineup of entertainment and educational programming that is nothing short of miraculous. "Chanukah is a time of miracles," said Avi Hoffman, YI Founder and CEO. "What we are doing is bringing together leading Jewish and Yiddish cultural figures from all over the world for our virtual YI Love ChanukahFest '21...
A Town Square is defined as an open public space found in the heart of a traditional town, used for community gatherings. In its new direction, the Rosen JCC is adopting a form of the town square concept. In many of the recent articles about upcoming events, The Rosen JCC has referred to itself as "Your Town Square." Is this a new marketing tool? Not really, but it is a different way of envisioning the traditional Jewish Community Center. The Southwest Orlando JCC originated back in 1994 as a sa...
The next event for the Jewish Chamber of Commerce is a breakfast at Toojays on Thursday, Dec. 16, at 8 a.m. Participants will order off the menu. An RSVP is not necessary. The Jewish Chamber of Commerce is open to everyone in the community. It offers a great place to network for business and make new friends. Networking is what the Jewish Chamber of Commerce is all about. On Nov. 16, a large crowd convened at Firebird for drink and hors d'oeurves. The Jewish Chamber of Commerce of Greater...
Join the COS Men's Club online Bridge group, which meets every Tuesday at 7 p.m. All are welcome - no age limit, no experience needed and no other forms of discrimination, only a desire to have a fun time learning and playing Bridge. All that is required is Internet access and a laptop/computer to access the game, which is played while on a Zoom call, so participants can kibbitz (explain, question or teach) while playing. The Zoom can be on a cell phone or just leave the zoom app open in...
On Sunday, Nov. 28, Celebration Jewish Congregation will welcome the beginning of Chanukah with the lighting of the community menorah located in Market Street Park near the fountain. For those new to Celebration, it’s at the intersection of Celebration Avenue and Market Street, directly across from Celebration’s original Town Hall and the Post Office. The service will start promptly at 5:15 p.m. Traditional Chanukah prayers will be chanted and lots of great Chanukah songs will be sung to remind us of the miracle of the Chanukah season. All tho...
Two seemingly parallel and completely unrelated things happened this week with an astonishing response. Running a nonprofit, the end of the year is an opportunity to tie up loose ends and be sure that in the last weeks of the year, the level of financial support is at least maintained. While planning some traditional year-end appeals on behalf of the Genesis 123 Foundation, I realized that Israel was in a bit of a crisis, with my organization and many others facing a financial deficit. In...
(JNS) — The United States voted last week to abstain on a resolution concerning the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the U.N.’s agency that handles Palestinian refugees — part of several resolutions put forth in the U.N. General Assembly concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that largely targeted Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. The text, called “Assistance to Palestinian Refugees,” demands “compensation” for descendants of Palestinian refugees who lost property when they fled their homes, as wel...
(JNS) — U.S. President Joe Biden held an outdoor ceremony at the White House on Monday to sign the hard-won Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, otherwise known as the infrastructure bill, joined by legislators and politicians from all over the United States who helped craft and promote the legislation. Nathan Diament, executive director of Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, was there celebrating the inclusion of another part of the bill — a $50-million pilot program for nonprofit organizations to apply for a grant to reduce energy con...
(JNS) — Ever since President Thomas Jefferson first coined the phrase in 1802, Americans have debated exactly how high the “wall of separation” should be between religion and state. The debate continues to this day. These discussions reflect a basic truth about the central role that faith has always played in the public square of the republic since it first came into existence. But if there is any point about the intersection between religion and state that is settled and not open to disputation, it is the one about whether the United State...
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof …” It is not just by chance that these profound words were chosen to be the very first words of the 1st Amendment to the Bill of Rights. The first colonists to escape to the New World were motivated by a desire to escape the rigid and mandated religious practices and domination of the Church of England. The Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century replaced rigid Catholic Church domination of the political and religious life in Europe in areas wher...
Up until about six months ago “CRT” was an abstract for me. I had been hearing about “CRT” for more than a year. I did not know what the letters “CRT” stood for. Now I know. They stand for “Critical Race Theory.” It professes to teach the role of race in our lives since the Civil War to high school students. I really finally found out this fall, during the run for governor of Virginia what effect CRT is having politically. It CANNOT have an effect on education because it is NOT being taught in ANY school district in the U.S. politically? In...
(JNS) — Many critics of Israel have joined Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in denouncing Israel because courts have determined that a group of Palestinian families are illegally living in homes owned by Jews in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem. Rather than accept a compromise offered by the Supreme Court that would have allowed them to stay in their homes, the families turned it down and now face eviction (As of Wednesday, one of the families that did not appeal the eviction order reached a deal with the property owners that w...
(JTA) — I live in one of the most concentrated Jewish communities in the United States, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and I no longer have a daily morning minyan to attend in person. It seems that in my neighborhood, as well as many others, COVID-19 snuffed out the live morning minyan — the daily prayer service that needs a quorum of 10 Jews — in non-Orthodox settings. Pre-pandemic I had a choice of multiple minyans I could attend in a variety of egalitarian Jewish settings — synagogues and schools — but none of them is operating in-person...
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) — Danny Fenster, a Jewish American journalist who has been imprisoned in Myanmar since May and was sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday, has been released just days later, according to reports. Former New Mexico governor and former diplomat Bill Richardson, who was in the country on a humanitarian visit, told reporters Monday that Fenster would travel back to the United States “through Qatar, over the next day and a half,” CNN reported. Fenster’s brother Bryan celebrated the news in a tweet Monday morning. “We are overjoyed that Danny h...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - "Welcome back to live theater!" Yoni Vendriger says, standing before the audience before the show begins. It is, I realize, the first time I've seen a play in a theater since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. Except the theater, in this case, is an apartment in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and the "stage" is, for most of the show, the living room couch. About 15 of us make up the audience, most of them friends of the apartment's r...
It started with a question for Jonathan Gold. Chanukah 2011 was nearing, and a friend sent a query to Ask Mr. Gold, the advice column of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic renowned for putting Los Angeles on the map as a destination for culinary diversity. She told Gold that she wanted to participate in the Chanukah tradition of eating foods fried in oil, but didn't want to smell up her apartment frying latkes Instead, she sought the city's best churros. A tradition was born. One night...
(The Nosher via JTA) — Everyone loves potato latkes, but no one likes the mess of frying them or the guilt associated with eating them. These latkes are baked in the oven and easily won over my kids. You do need to watch them so they don’t burn; they were done at different times in different ovens. And my pickled applesauce is basically a tangy-spicy applesauce, which we also eat like eating with schnitzel. Note: Latkes may be made 2 days in advance and reheated in the oven or frozen; app...
This is a fun and colorful Chanukah cookie activity with beautiful results. Main ingredients 1/4 teaspoon Haddar Baking Powder 1/2 cup softened butter 1/2 cup crushed hard candy 1 large egg 1 and 1/2 cups Mishpacha All Purpose Flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 teaspoon Gefen Vanilla Extract Prepare the cookies Using a mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add dry...
As if you didn't already know ... How about that Jacob Rodney Cohen (with a name like Cohen) was Jewish. Of course you did, even though he is known globally as comedian Rodney Dangerfield! Such a funny man will never be forgotten. I even end this column with some of his brilliant one liners ... don't remember him? "I don't get no respect!" (One of his comical lines). Now you probably do! Speaking of memories ... Recently on television, they played a documentary on the life of British...
(JTA) — Kanye West’s trips to Israel clearly left a mark on the rap superstar. In a wide ranging podcast interview released Friday, West — who recently changed his legal name to Ye — said he thinks Christians should form kibbutz communities, modeled off the Jewish versions, to help foster a sense of togetherness. “We need Christian kibbutz[im], we can have communities,” West said on the “Drink Champs” hip-hop podcast. He had to clarify the term to co-hosts N.O.R.E., a rapper, and DJ EFN, a record executive. “Jewish people have this type of circ...
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) - If you watched television in the 1970s and early 1980s, chances are you can sing a few bars of "Look for the Union Label," a jingle sung on commercials for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. The infectious song was meant to prop up what was then the sagging American-made clothing industry, and the ads featured actual union members singing the praises of union-made garments. The song was more memorable than effective: Labor unions never recovered...
Over seven years ago, Martin Scorsese unveiled his series “Masterpieces of Polish Cinema” at the Lincoln Center, highlighting works mostly made between the 1950s and the 1970s. During this time, Poland produced such masterpieces as Andrzej Wajda’s “Ashes and Diamonds,” Wojciech Has’ “The Hourglass Sanatorium” (previously covered in this series), Janusz Morgenstern’s “To Kill this Love,” among so many others. Many of these films reflected on life in post-World War II as well as the struggle to cope with the horrors that took place. Director...
Jewish cooking in my family has always been an act of revival and reconnection. My family, though very dedicated to Judaism, has very few Jewish recipes that have been preserved throughout the generations. Growing up, I felt disconnected from Jewish culture. I hadn’t heard of many Jewish dishes, and I certainly didn’t know how to make them. I knew that about a quarter of my Jewish roots were Sephardic and the rest Ashkenazi — and that’s about all I knew. I didn’t know how to celebrate the festive Jewish holidays and, ultimately, I just didn...
