Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 91
(JTA) – Days after a synagogue in St. Petersburg, Florida, was forced to evacuate services following a bomb threat, the local city council met to discuss a resolution about antisemitism. The resolution was about whether to endorse a definition of antisemitism that its authors and local advocates both say can be a useful first step in fighting hatred of Jews. Notably refusing to cast a vote: A controversial council member and member of the Nation of Islam who voiced multiple objections to the definition, questioned Jewish community leaders a...
(JNS) - This High Holiday season, Jewish singles will seek soulmates in Miami Beach, Fla., in between shofar blasts and dipping apples in honey. Sam Intrator, a Modern Orthodox rabbi, is planning the latest iteration of his annual High Holiday events, which his organization KavanahLife Singles has hosted in Miami Beach since 2017. Singles will gather for Rosh Hashanah from Sept. 15-17 at the Holiday Inn Miami Beach-Oceanfront. The organization has also hosted singles events in Phoenix and...
Friends of the Main Library St. Augustine and the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society have formed a partnership to celebrate the Jews who landed on Florida’s Coast with Pedro Menendez de Aviles on Sept. 8, 1565. Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, founder and chairman of the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, will speak about the Jewish presence in St. Augustine at the time of the city’s founding and in the years that followed. The one-hour celebration will take place at the Main Library, 1960 North Ponce De Leon Boulevard in St. Augustine on Sep...
Following the historic JCC Maccabi Games in Israel, the world's largest Jewish youth sports event continued with JCC Association of North America's 41st JCC Maccabi Games® and Access events in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, August 7-11, hosted by the David Posnack JCC. The opening ceremony was held at the FLA Live Arena, with more than three dozen state, county, and local officials as well as prominent Jewish leaders attending. The Games are a dynamic experience of Olympic-style sports and volunt...
(JNS) - The JCC Association of North America's 41st JCC Maccabi Games and Access events, which took place Aug. 6 through Aug. 11, opened at a ceremony on Monday at the FLA Live Arena in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. It was hosted by the David Posnack JCC. Nearly 2,000 Jewish teens comprising 64 delegations from the United States, Canada and six other nations around the world have gathered for the week-long events. For the first time, delegations from Argentina, South Africa and Ukraine are...
Friends of the Main Library St. Augustine and the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society have formed a partnership to celebrate the Jews who landed on Florida’s Coast with Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Rabbi Merrill Shapiro, founder and chairman of the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, will speak about the Jewish presence in St. Augustine at the time of the city’s founding and in the years that followed. The one-hour celebration will take place at the Main Library, 1960 North Ponce De Leon Boulevard in St. Augustine on Friday, Sept. 8 at...
MARGATE, Fla. — EL AL Israel Airlines, which recently relocated its regional headquarters for North America to Margate, Florida, is proud to announce that it is continuing to expand its activity in South Florida. Effective on Sept. 13, 2023, EL AL will begin seasonal service from Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport to Tel Aviv. The new non-stop flights will operate on selected days of the week to accommodate the Jewish High Holidays through October. In addition to this year’s seasonal service, year-round Tel Aviv service to and fro...
(FORT LAUDERDALE) — A recently appointed member of the District Advisory Council for the Broward County Florida School Board, Laurie Cardoza Moore, a nationally recognized pro-Israel advocate, was among the first to commend the Fort Lauderdale based Board for their removal of local educator Naima Khan-Ghany from her recently re-appointed positions on both the county’s School Board Diversity Committee and the Human Relations Committees. Earlier this month, Cardoza Moore was in urgent communication with the office of Dr. Jeff Holness of the Bro...
On June 18, 1964, 16 rabbis and a Reform Jewish administrator, in St. Augustine at the request of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were arrested and held in the St. Johns County Jail. Overnight, they wrote a letter titled “Why We Went to St. Augustine” that will be read by Mayor Nancy Sikes-Kline as part of the commemoration. Sikes-Kline has been a steadfast supporter of the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society for many years. She is a native Floridian and has lived in St. Augustine sin...
(JTA) — The city of Miami Beach has agreed to pay $1.3 million to a small Orthodox synagogue that accused it of discrimination by sending inspectors more than once a week on average for two years At the same time, Congregation Bais Yeshaya D’Kerestir agreed to make changes to its parking and noise practices. The agreement brings to a close an extended dispute over whether the congregation, which meets in a single-family home owned by its rabbi, Arie Wohl, was a religious institution or a private gathering. The congregation argued that because i...
The Tenth Annual Commemoration of the largest mass arrest of rabbis in U.S. history will take place outdoors at the Hilton St. Augustine Historic Bayfront, 32 Avenida Menendez, St. Augustine, at noon, Sunday, June 18. This 30-minute event sponsored by the St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society, is free and all are welcome. On June 18, 1964, 16 rabbis and a Reform Jewish administrator, in St. Augustine at the request of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were arrested and held in the St. Johns County Jail. Overnight, they wrote a letter...
(JTA) — Florida’s state education department rejected two new Holocaust-focused textbooks for classroom use, while forcing at least one other textbook to alter a passage about the Hebrew Bible in order to meet state approval. The books were rejected as part of a broader review of new K-12 social studies material. According to documents provided by the state, the education department did not approve any new texts on the Holocaust this year. Reached by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a spokesperson at the department’s press office was unabl...
Nonpartisan watchdog nonprofit StopAntisemitism has teamed up with the Christian advocacy organization Philos Project to fight rampant Jew-hatred with a billboard campaign across Florida. Troubled by the amount of antisemitism coming from white supremacist groups based in Florida, the Philos Project wants to ensure Jewish Floridians know that groups such as the Goyim Defense League and NatSoc do not represent Christian values. For support, Philos turned to StopAntisemitism, which has been at the forefront of condemning these hate groups....
While Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in Israel, he signed a bill to strengthen Florida's ability to combat antisemitism. The bill HB 269, titled "Public Nuisances," was co-sponsored by Republican Representatives Mike Caruso and Randy Fine and makes it a felony to harass people for their religion or ethnicity. It also penalizes leaving flyers with hateful images, messages or any other 'credible threat" on a person's private property. "We are doing what we can do in Florida to enhance the ability...
(JNS) — In a reflection of growing ties, Florida will soon be the only U.S. state where El Al will service two major cities, Gov Ron DeSantis said Thursday. Israel’s national carrier, which recently relocated its U.S. headquarters from New York to Margate, Florida, will offer direct service to Tel Aviv from both Miami and Fort Lauderdale starting this fall. The two Florida airports are about 30 miles apart. The move comes after American Airlines ended its nonstop service from Miami to Tel Aviv in March after nearly two years. The governor attri...
(JNS) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis emphasized that there has never been a Palestinian state in the Land of Israel or elsewhere. The Republican politician was in Israel, where he keynoted the Celebrate the Faces of Israel event, a project of the Jerusalem Post and the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. “When your focus is only on one Jewish state, and you hold it up to a different standard than any other country in the world, that is antisemitism,” said DeSantis. “We are doing what we can do in Florida to enhance the ability to hold people account...
(JTA) — Nikki Fried, who chairs Florida’s Democratic Party, was arrested at a protest for abortion rights in the state capital, along with 10 other demonstrators. The protest on April 3, which took place outside Tallahassee City Hall, was in opposition to a proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida that the state senate passed Monday evening. The bill must pass the state House of Representatives before heading to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. Fried, who is Jewish, previously served as Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, a rare De...
(JNS) - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Monday to establish a statewide voucher program in which every child will be eligible to receive nearly $8,000 toward schooling, tutoring or other educational-related expenses. "The State of Florida is No. 1 when it comes to education freedom and education choice, and today's signing cements us into that No. 1 position," said DeSantis. He called the new law "the largest expansion of education choice not only in the history of this state but in...
(JTA) — The University of Florida has more Jewish students than any other public college in the United States — and last week, one of them reached out to a professor, fearing that it would no longer be possible to study Jewish topics there. Citing a graphic that had been making the rounds on social media, the student asked if it was true that a new bill working its way through the state legislature would remove all “Jewish Studies courses, majors and minors” in the state. The graphic was shared by several people with large online followi...
(JTA) – Responding to a recent rise in neo-Nazi activity in his state, a Jewish lawmaker in Florida is trying to outlaw displays of “religious or ethnic animus” on private property in his state. H.B. 269 takes aim at a variety of activities that neo-Nazi groups in the state have undertaken, from distributing flyers with hate speech to broadcasting intimidating messages in public places. Those groups’ activities have been rising in Florida for several years, according to a 2022 report by the Anti-Defamation League titled “Hate in the Sunshine St...
(JTA) – A Holocaust-themed novel by bestselling author Jodi Picoult was among dozens of books removed from a South Florida school district library’s circulation last month, in the latest example of books with Jewish themes getting swept up amid a larger conservative-led effort to police potentially inappropriate material in classrooms. “The Storyteller” was removed from the library last month at a high school in Martin County, a southeast Florida district, owing to a parental complaint. According to a list of removed books published by local me...
(JNS) — As Southeast Florida’s Jewish population continues to grow, El Al Airlines announced that it will increase flights to and from the region, including new operations at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in Broward County, the state’s second-largest county after Miami-Dade. The move comes less than a year after the Israeli company relocated its headquarters from New York to the Sunshine State. More than 100,000 people flew El Al’s Miami to Tel Aviv route in 2022, which highlighted a need for more flights in Florida, stated...
(JTA) — In 1923 in New York, a Yiddish play that featured the first lesbian scene on a Broadway stage was censored for being indecent. In 2023 in Florida, a play about the first play has been canceled for the same reason. For many involved in the new play, including its Pulitzer Prize-winning Jewish playwright and the Florida high schooler cast in a lead role, the déjà vu is alarming. “The 100-year anniversary of Sholem Asch’s ‘God of Vengeance’ being shut down on Broadway is the same week that our production of ‘Indecent’ would have open...
The St. Augustine Jewish Historical Society will mark its tenth anniversary with a luncheon, at noon, Jan. 30, at Taco Libre#3, 2600 North Ponce de Leon Boulevard/Route U.S. 1, St. Augustine 32084. The program will include a brief review of the highlights of the t 10-year history of SAJHS. All are welcome to attend this event. Please RSVP on the Society’s website at www.sajhs.com or by email to sajhs1565@gmail.com. Call 904-679-4230 for best directions. For further information see www.sajhs.com or email at sajhs1565@gmail.com or call 8...
The Holocaust Center now and forever condemns all forms of antisemitism. We will continue to speak out against hate speech — such as this past weekend’s public display of antisemitic hate in Jacksonville — because it has no place in Florida or anywhere. During such times, we must stand united against hatred and call upon organizations, elected and community leaders, and community members to speak out against these damaging acts. Over the past week, Jacksonville became an epicenter of hate, first with signs surfacing on an I-10 overpass in we...
