Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
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(JTA) - Two bombs rocked bus stops at crowded entrances to Jerusalem early Wednesday morning, killing a teenager and sending about 20 people to the hospital, some in serious condition. The fatality was a 16-year-old yeshiva student named Aryeh Shtsupak from Har Nof, a largely Orthodox neighborhood in Jerusalem. He may have held Canadian and American citizenship, according to local media reports. The attacks represented the first time in years that terrorists used bombs in a deadly assault...
LAS VEGAS (JTA) - For Republican Jews looking for an alternative to Donald Trump in 2024's presidential race, Ted Cruz presented a tantalizing choice on Saturday - at least for a few minutes. "When I arrived in the Senate 10 years ago, I set a goal to be the leading defender of Israel in the United States," the Texas senator said during his chance to address the Republican Jewish Coalition conference last weekend. The crowd packed into a ballroom deep in the gold lame reaches of the Venetian...
Keith Dvorchik sent via email a statement from Shalom Orlando on the recent Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in which five people were murdered and 25 wounded. The statement went out to all members of the Federation, but it needs to be shared on as many venues as possible. Here is the statement: Sunday morning the Jewish Community Relations Council, a committee of Shalom Orlando, published an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel about the rise of anti-Semitism and the threat to the Jewish community. That same morning, many of us woke up to the...
(JTA) – Birthright Israel is drastically cutting back on the number of free trips it plans to offer to Jewish young adults, scaling back its operations by up to a third, the organization announced Monday. The cuts come amid what the organization said is a mix of financial pressures: inflation, heightened travel expenses in a post-COVID world and dwindling fundraising support. It plans to make added appeals to its top donors but still expects to heavily reduce its Israel trips in 2023 to as few as 23,500 participants, down from 35,000 this y...
The following article was submitted to and was published in the Orlando Sentinel on behalf of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Orlando. The JCRC, a standing committee of Shalom Orlando, is the leading advocate for the Greater Orlando Jewish community, engaging in important public policy discussions and ensuring that our voices are amplified. The term “antisemitism” was first used in print in Germany in 1879 as a scientific-sounding term for Jew-hatred, and this has since then been its use. Despite being only 1.8 percent of the...
According to the American Geriatrics Society, more than 80 percent of older adults are living with multiple health conditions. With each new health problem, things may become exponentially more complicated! A senior may see multiple doctors. There are many appointments to coordinate, and a confusing array of recommendations to follow. Medication management is quite a challenge. Many seniors take 10 or more medications. This is super complicated, because a drug prescribed for one health problem could worsen another. Friends and loved ones are...
The Rosen JCC Saturday Night Out can help relieve the stress. Members and nonmembers of the Rosen JCC can sign up for Saturday Night Out on Dec. 10 from 6 p.m.-11 p.m. Adults can drop their kids for a night of games, arts and crafts, reading and playground time. There will be pizza and a movie along with the night’s theme which is “Cookie Night.” While the kids are having fun, parents can take a night for themselves. Relax with a night out on the town, visiting with friends or do some holiday shopping. You can register at www.r...
(JNS) — U.S. Jews who participated in Birthright trips to Israel are more highly identified and engaged in communal life than their peers who did not, according to an analysis of the Pew Research Center’s 2020 survey of American Jews conducted by researchers at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University. The profound disparity in attitudes and behavior also held true when the analysts took into account differences in the respondents’ backgrounds. Among the adults surveyed by Pew, nearly 45 percent had been eligible to pa...
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said he would remove Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota Democrat, from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in part because of her criticism of Israel. He also hinted that her personal criticism of him last year was a factor. McCarthy, a California Republican whose party just won a narrow majority in the House, was speaking Saturday to the annual Republican Jewish Coalition conference in Las Vegas. “I remember what she said about me,” he said. “I remembe...
(JNS) — Bipartisan members of the Senate’s Black-Jewish Caucus on Thursday introduced a historic resolution recognizing the contributions of the Israeli-American community in the U.S. The measure, which was introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), is the first resolution focused on Israeli-Americans. It stated that the values of the more than 800,000-strong Israeli-American community contribute significantly “to the welfare and diversity of the United States” and help strengthen the bonds between the U.S. and Israel....
(JNS) — A curious thing occurred at the end of 2020. A program that had been promoted by the organized American-Jewish community was proven to be a tremendous success. But not everyone was happy about it. So, the news that this program is now having budget problems will probably prompt mixed responses from a community that is clearly ambivalent about measures undertaken to ensure that it both survives and thrives. The program in question is Taglit-Birthright Israel. Founded in 1999, it was created to ensure that every young Jew who wanted to g...
(JNS) — “Democracy is at stake” was a major theme voiced by President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party throughout the recent U.S. midterm elections. For instance, during a Nov. 2 speech entitled “On Standing Up for Democracy,” in which Biden accused “MAGA Republicans” of voter intimidation, the president asserted: “Democracy is fundamental. … Democracy is on the ballot for all of us. … Autocracy is the opposite of democracy. It means the rule of one: one person, one interest, one ideology, one party. … Democracy is under attack because … [of...
(JNS) — Since there is no chance of implementing the two-state solution, why support it? It has some advantages, but it is also dangerous. The idea of a two-state solution was created by Israeli politicians Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin as part of the Oslo Accords, which recognized the PLO as the “sole representative of the Palestinian people,” giving it the exclusive right to determine what would happen as a result of negotiations. The Oslo Accords, however, do not refer to a two-state solution. The idea was part of secret agreements made...
(JNS) — Can Israel break its dependency on the United States? The question has always been widely dismissed as unthinkable. But recent events are prompting it to be raised with increasing urgency. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has been far from friendly towards Israel. Despite continuing to fund its defense needs and support it against the relentless malice of the U.N., the Bidenites’ reckless appeasement of the Iranian regime has increased the Islamic republic’s capacity to attack Israel. At the same time, the U.S. has repea...
(JTA) — A few days after the comedian Dave Chappelle appeared to justify the never-ending appeal of Jewish conspiracy theories, this sentence appeared in the New York Times: “Bankman-Fried is already drawing comparisons to Bernie Madoff.” I’ll explain: Sam Bankman-Fried is the 30-year-old founder of FTX, the crypto-currency exchange that vaporized overnight, leaving more than 1 million creditors on the hook. Bernie Madoff, is, of course, Bernie Madoff, the financier who defrauded thousands of investors through a multibillion-dollar Ponzi s...
(JTA) — I don’t find Dave Chapelle’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue funny, unlike my classmates who draw inspiration from him. About a year ago, in my eighth-grade English class, I was listening to my classmates talk about Holocaust denial. Some of them were joking, sure, but that didn’t make it any better. We’d been reading “Maus,” Art Speigelman’s autobiographical graphic novel about the Holocaust, whose characters are depicted as mice. Because of this, people began saying how it was fictitious. And then, it devolved into how the Holoca...
MORNING MINYANS 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. Congregation Ohev Shalom — Sunday, 9 a.m., 407-298-4650. GOBOR Community Minyan at Jewish Academy...
(JTA) — Elon Musk bantered with Kanye West and trolled the Anti-Defamation League this weekend, in the latest of mounting signs that he is choosing to let the platform become a free for all after acquiring it last month. West, the rapper and designer who also goes by Ye, had been banned from Twitter last month for threatening Jews; he returned to the platform Nov. 4 and was swiftly banned again after he launched a new round of anti-Jewish invective. “Testing Testing Seeing if my Twitter is unblocked,” West tweeted midday Sunday. Several hours...
When NBA players union president CJ McCollum criticized Kyrie Irving for linking to an antisemitic movie on Twitter last month, he seemed to confirm what many had already guessed. "I don't think he understood the magnitude of the movie," McCollum said, "because he didn't watch it." Irving, who hasn't played since he was suspended Nov. 4, may not have watched the three-and-a-half-hour "Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," but I did, both to see for myself what was in it and to see if it we...
One of the ongoing events at Oakmonte Village, hosted by the Jewish Pavilion, is a Lunch and Learn presentation. There have been a wide variety of topics covered in the past which have included history, holidays, current events and the arts. The sessions are led by Susan Bernstein, Jewish Pavilion senior program rirector. This month, Talli Dippold, CEO of the Orlando Holocaust Museum, was invited to present a talk about her road that led to her present position and a most interesting story...
Stephen Silver and Sandy Grant of Winter Park, Fla., are pleased to announde the engagement of their son, Derek Grant Silver, to Violeta Palombo Levy, daughter of Isaac and Silvia Palombo of Mexico City, Mexico. The bride-elect grew up in the Syrian Jewish community in Mexico City. She studied communication at the Universidad Iberoamericana and graduated with a B.S. in visual journalism from Brooks Institute in California and a master's degree in strategic design from Universidad...
(New York Jewish Week) — A tip from a Jewish security organization helped lead to the arrest of two suspects Saturday in connection with online threats to attack a New York City synagogue. The Community Security Initiative, a group created by UJA-Federation of New York and its affiliated Jewish Community Relations Council, discovered threatening tweets on Friday morning and brought the information to law enforcement, according to a UJA spokesperson. In a news conference at City Hall on Monday, UJA CEO Eric Goldstein said that after they shared...
Share your gratitude with others. We often assume people already know we're grateful, but are you sure? Sometimes it might be helpful for them to hear you say it out loud. Using words that express how thankful you are can make a bigger impact than you think. You could also show your gratitude in a more tangible manner by writing a note or text, or even a simple smile or hug. Research has found that expressing gratitude can strengthen relationships. So the next time someone does something you...
Elliott Jordan Layish, Hebrew name Chaim Moishe Dov Ben Daniel Tzvi, age 22, died in Lake Mary, Fla., on Nov. 26, 2022 - 10 years to the day of his bar mitzvah, according to the Hebrew calendar. Born in Orlando on Nov. 29, 1999, Elliott's mother is Nancy Boime Layish and his father and step-mother are Dr. Daniel and Staci Layish. Elliott graduated Cum Laude from Center Academy in May 2018 and was a member of Jewish Boy Scout Troop 641. He attended Valencia College and was employed in the food... Full story
(JTA) - Qatar may have caused an uproar by banning alcohol at the World Cup soccer tournament in Doha this month, but for religious Jewish fans, some kosher offerings will be available, thanks to two rabbis. Rabbi Marc Schneier, from New York, and Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch movement's emissary to Istanbul, worked with Qatari officials to create a kosher catering program to provide for observant Jews who may attend the games. And despite a report that has echoed around the...
