Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 40 of 40
Chloe Michele and Olivia Laine Garfinkel, daughters of Dr. Bobby and JoAnn Garfinkel of Longwood, Fla., will be called to the Torah as b'nai mitzvah at the Southern Wall in Israel on Dec. 29, 2013. Chloe and Olivia are in the seventh grade at Markham Middle School where they are members of the volleyball league, drama and tennis. Their hobbies and interests include skiing, biking and being with friends, and they are on the Winter Park Volleyball League. They are both on the A/B Honor Roll....
Germany’s largest synagogue, on Rykestrasse in Berlin, reopened in 2007 after a lavish restoration. The synagogue, with a 1,200-person capacity, has been described as one of the jewels of Germany’s Jewish community. And although this event happened six years ago, the interesting thing about it was that the gathering of rabbis bringing the Torah to the synagogue in a ceremony witnessed by political leaders and Holocaust survivors from around the world was led by former Temple Israel Rabbi Chaim Rozwaski. Restoration of the neo-classical bui...
Like all Jewish families, candle lighting and gift exchange was added to the evening routine for the eight nights of Chanukah. For the Colley, Keimach, Yoffee and Shapiro families the seventh night was set aside for the residents at Chambrel Island Lake. The children prepared a program of singing, story-telling, blessings over the Chanukiah and kibbitzing with dozens of elderly residents. The Jewish Pavilion thanks all its dedicated volunteers. Shown here are Ella and Ben Colley with their...
What next?... Somehow I get the feeling that the Holocaust started off this way... little by little... attacking Judaism and its rituals. The following is a report directly from the World Jewish Congress Digest: "Yet another circumcision challenge has arisen in Europe, a challenge being fought vigorously by the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and its European arm, the European Jewish Congress. This past summer the Council of Europe voted in favor of a resolution calling male circumcision a...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Jazz music drifts from speakers down to the cherry wood tables of the West Cafe in Brooklyn as the Israeli artist Nurit Bar-Shai prepares to show examples of her latest work. With deft, freckled hands, she opens a manila envelope and slides three petri dishes across the table. In the dishes are billions of Paenibaciullus vortex bacteria arranged in delicate whorls of blue. The series, which Bar-Shai calls "Objectivity [tentative]," displays "chemical tweets" of bacterial communica...
Ron Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), called upon Hillary Clinton to present the organization's second annual Theodor Herzl Award to Marion and Elie Wiesel last month at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Clinton recalled a lecture Wiesel gave at the White House on the eve of a new millennium. "He emphasized that indifference is more dangerous than anger and hatred," she said. "Elie's own story of survival has steeled the world's resolve that an atrocity like the Holocaust can...
The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society has been awarded a Florida Humanities Council Grant in support of a two-day commemoration marking the 50th anniversary of the largest mass arrest of rabbis in United States history. The arrests took place during protest demonstrations that ultimately led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The rabbis came to St. Augustine after receiving a request from Reverend Martin Luther King. Since 1971 the Florida Humanities Council has awarded more...
Now that the U.S. and other P5+1 powers made an interim nuclear deal with Iran without Israel's involvement, the Jewish state is free to act as it sees fit on the Iranian issue without consulting America, former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in an exclusive interview with JNS.org. The U.S. "has indicated that they are going to act independently of Israel as it relates to Iran," Huckabee said, calling that a "very foolish policy." "I think now [the...
(JTA)-On the last evening in November, at least 31 protesters were taken into custody and dozens treated for injuries following a violent confrontation with Ukrainian police in Kiev's Independence Square. But that wasn't enough to intimidate the crowds who have occupied the main square of the capital since Nov. 21. Thousands showed up the following morning, including a young woman carrying a 10-liter pot of fresh borscht to help the crowd through another cold day on the square. It was "like a...
It was a true miracle for a young couple from Dolev, whose one-year-old daughter was kidnapped by local Palestinians that had hijacked the family’s car on Tuesday afternoon, December 3. Driving home to Dolev, a community located in the southern Samarian hills north of Jerusalem, the Israeli mother had her daughter buckled in the back car seat, when a Palestinian vehicle that had been tailgating suddenly bumped into the rear end of her car. “I pulled over and got out to check what had happened. There were three Palestinians in the other veh...
Iran: No traces of ex-FBI agent Levinson (JTA)—There are no traces in Iran of Robert Levinson, the retired American-Jewish FBI agent who vanished in the country six years ago, according to Iran’s foreign minister. Javad Zarif made the assertion Sunday on the CBS news show “Face the Nation” two days after the Washington Post reported that Levinson had been working for the CIA in a rogue operation. The U.S. government has said publicly that Levinson, who left the FBI in 1998, was in Iran on business as a private citizen. Emails and other documen...
Renen Schorr explains how Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School saved Israel’s film industry and propelled it to international acclaim. On December 12, audiences across the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the passing of David Perlov, an Israeli filmmaker most of them haven’t even heard of. In 39 different countries at 50 arty venues, 5,000 people will watch a movie inspired by one of Perlov’s masterpieces and produced by graduates of and students at the Sam Spiegel Film & TV School in Jerusalem. This simultaneous screeni...
(JTA)—They can’t agree on the project’s goal. They can’t agree on who supports it. They can’t even agree on its name. But when it comes to the Israeli government’s plan to relocate 30,000 Negev Bedouin, representatives and allies of the Bedouin community agree with the right wing on one thing: the Prawer plan must be stopped. At a meeting this week, leaders of an alliance between Negev Bedouin and several left-wing groups adopted a proposal to join with “right-wing opponents” of a bill that would relocate tens of thousands of Bedouin from th...
NEW YORK (JTA)-For the first 3 1/2 weeks of the summer, one group of 5-year-olds at Ramah Day Camp in Nyack, N.Y., was "very quiet" as the children went about the typical camp activities, according to Amy Skopp Cooper, the camp's director. But in the fourth week, the talking started-in Israeli-accented Hebrew. By the end of the summer, evaluations revealed that most of the 20 children-all of whom had started out as Hebrew novices-"had gone up multiple levels" in their Hebrew proficiency, Cooper...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Before Sacha Litman shares his data analysis with his synagogue clients, he likes to have the board members and staff guess the contents. Which programs are most expensive and most popular? Who is more satisfied, senior citizens or nursery school parents? How many Hebrew school parents would recommend the congregation to a friend? Eighty percent of the time, Litman says, the assumptions of synagogue leaders are disproved by the data. “Synagogue board members often make decisions based on what they heard from a friend at kiddush o...
