Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 931 - 955 of 1886
(JNS)-A rabbi who survived World War II and the Holocaust and in January delivered the opening prayer in the U.S. House of Representatives died on Tuesday-14 days after his 91st birthday-after being hospitalized with COVID-19. Yeshiva World News first reported the death of Rabbi Avraham Hakohen "Romi" Cohn as a result of complications due to the coronavirus. Cohn was born in 1929 in Pressburg in what was then Czechoslovakia. In 1942, when the Nazis invaded, his parents managed to smuggle him ove...
(JNS)—Let’s talk business, shall we? Let’s talk about how businesses are operating in the age of corona. What is open: supermarkets, small grocers, hardware stores, office-supply stores, pet stores, pizza places, some restaurant takeout, gas stations, beer distributors. Beer distributors? My husband tells me that is an essential business; after all, it’s basically food and beverages. He’s not such a drinker, but recognizes that others are. Now, that distinction was not so apparent at first to the nice man named Izzy who runs the nearby la...
This story originally appeared on Alma. At Zoom University Hillel, there are no comfy places to study or free snacks. There's no director or rabbinic intern or student board. But there are memes, words of comfort and a sense of community as strong as any university's Hillel house. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced nearly every college to transition to online courses and, in most cases, move students out of their dorms and back to their homes. College students naturally have taken to Facebook...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Some 38,000 people work at Jewish community centers across North America, staffing preschools, camps, gyms, classes, activities for seniors and more. Because of the coronavirus crisis, a lot of them are going to lose their jobs. “The cuts are going to be painful and deep,” said Doron Krakow, CEO of the JCC Association of North America. “They are going to go into what I would call a hunker-down mode, which means that they’ll be subject to the kind of staff reductions that we are reading about affecting other industrie...
NEW YORK (JTA)-For the past three years, Esther Possick has avoided the hassle of hosting Passover at her Long Island home by traveling to kosher hotels in foreign locales. In 2017, she spent the holiday at a resort in Stresa, a resort town on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy not far from the Swiss border. The following year she tried out Rimini, a coastal city on the Adriatic. Last year she opted for a program in Spain. This year, she was planning to spend the holiday at a seafront hotel in...
(JTA)-Larry Rothwachs, a rabbi in Teaneck, New Jersey, walked into the meeting Wednesday night between local Jewish leaders and health officials with one set of ideas about how his community should respond to the coronavirus. He walked out later that evening certain of another one: that drastically curtailing Jewish traditions and rules is essential to stem the spread of the deadly disease. "I don't think everybody was on the same page coming in. I was not on the page I am at right now,"...
(JTA)-On a typical Friday, some 200 people show up for services at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, a Reform congregation in Seattle. But last week, there was no one in the pews as Rabbi Daniel Weiner welcomed Shabbat in the synagogue's smaller sanctuary. Instead, some 1,500 people watched Weiner lead the prayers on their computers. The synagogue hasn't been holding any services for 10 days due to the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed 21 lives in Washington State and thousands around the world. Tho...
Adam Hoffman isn’t your average American Jewish teen. The grandchild of Holocaust survivors on his mother’s side, he’s a sixth-generation Texan on his father’s side. An Orthodox native of Houston and graduate of Jewish day schools, Hoffman, 19, is now a freshman at Princeton University in New Jersey. What makes Hoffman really unusual, however, is his success bringing together Democrats and Republicans in this deeply polarized political era—despite, or perhaps because of, his public identification as a political conservative. (He’s president o...
NEW YORK (JTA)-The run-up to Passover is the busiest time of the year for Masbia, a nonprofit that operates three kosher soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens. The organization has to order all kosher-for-Passover food and scrub one of its locations' kitchens so it can prepare food without any trace of bread or other leavened products. Right before the holiday is also when most people show up to stock up on groceries-swelling from 2,000 families in a typical week to about 4,000. "Before...
(JNS) Democrats blocked a bill on Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives that would have prohibited U.S. support for the anti-Israel BDS movement. The Israel Anti-Boycott Act, introduced by Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), would have expanded the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to include prohibiting U.S. support for foreign boycotts of Israel from groups including the European Union and the U.N. Human Rights Council. Lawmakers defeated consideration of the bill by a tally of 219-194. “We cannot be quiet when it comes to combating a...
(JNS) WASHINGTON—The theme of this year’s AIPAC Policy Conference was billed as “Today. Tomorrow. Together,” the essence of which seemed to be lost in all the political noise associated with 2020 Democratic presidential candidates deciding on whether or not to show up at the annual event. The conference, however, has long been geared to deliberate concerns and boost relations between Diaspora Jewry and Israelis, and use the time to salve some of the more contentious issues associated with the two largest Jewish communities in the world....
Local resident Dr. David Diamond, his wife, Orly, and his children attended the 2020 AIPAC Policy Conference, held the first week in March. They all got "up close and personal" with several congressmen and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Diamond shared that his daughter Aviva was able to get some one-on-one time with Rep. Dan Webster (FL-11 District) to discuss security assistance to Israel. Other agenda items discussed at the conference included extension of the Iranian Arms Embargo...
(JNS)-The Boston-based Jewish Federation, Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP), recently honored a local activist with ties to the anti-Israel group IfNotNow. Nadav David is listed as one of CJP's 2020 "Chai in the Hub" honorees, which the organization describes as "young adults are doing amazing things personally and professionally to better Greater Boston's Jewish community." In his CJP profile, David works as a financial coach with Compass Working Capital and as a community organizer. Among...
(JNS) WASHINGTON-Making the case for U.S. President Donald Trump's re-election, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence warned on Monday that if elected, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would be the complete opposite of Trump as it pertains to the U.S.-Israel relationship. "We must ensure that the most pro-Israel president in history must not be replaced by one who would be the most anti-Israel president in the history of this nation," said Pence at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference, where he slammed...
(JNS) WASHINGTON-Former New York City Mayor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg laid out his case to the pro-Israel community on Monday at the annual AIPAC Policy Conference, even calling out one of his rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), by name for skipping the largest gathering of pro-Israel activists. "Bipartisan support for Israel has been a defining feature of American politics since 1948-and this organization has played a crucial role in fostering it," said...
(Jewish Journal via JNS)-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke to attendees of the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in a video address on Sunday, stating that he will always support Israel, but that he also believes in a two-state solution for the Palestinians. Biden said that while he couldn't make the conference because of the ongoing Democratic presidential primary, he had decided to send a video message because AIPAC's "voice matters to me." He also pledged to combat...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Joe Biden made an appearance via video and Mike Bloomberg turned up in person. So did Mike Pence. Even the coronavirus got a shoutout. Despite threats of a boycott by Democrats and anxieties about communicable diseases, this year’s annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee was a busy, bustling and bipartisan affair. Still, the names that loomed largest were the ones that did not make an appearance: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Sanders, the Vermont senator who is currently the front-runner for...
(JNS) DALLAS-Seventeen-year-old Swedish climate-change activist Greta Thunberg was not at BBYO's International Convention here last week, but when her name was mentioned, throngs of teenagers applauded and screamed as if she was. That's because climate-change activism was as much of a theme of the four-day conference as the official one "Tomorrow Happens Here." Avi Garbow, environmental advocate for the sportswear line Patagonia who received the annual STAND UP Award on behalf of the company,...
(JTA)—After weeks of skirting questions about whether he would attend the annual conference held by AIPAC, Bernie Sanders has declared his intentions: No, he won’t go, and not because his schedule won’t allow it. In a two-tweet statement, Sanders said he would skip the conference—a traditional can’t-miss for presidential candidates—because he is “concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights.” “As president, I will support the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and do every...
(JNS)—Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the frontrunner in the Democratic presidential primary, skipped the annual AIPAC Policy Conference. “The Israeli people have the right to live in peace and security,” said Sanders. “So do the Palestinian people. I remain concerned about the platform AIPAC provides for leaders who express bigotry and oppose basic Palestinian rights. For that reason I will not attend their conference,” he tweeted. “As president, I will support the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians and do everything possible to bring pe...
JERSEY CITY, N.J. (JTA)-Two months after his wife was murdered in the attack on this city's only kosher grocery store, owner Moshe Ferencz was back behind the counter this week. The store, which has partially reopened in a new location, still doesn't have regular hours. But the reopening signals an important moment for Jersey City's small but growing community of Orthodox Jews. "Everyone was shocked beyond belief," said Chesky Deutsch, a member of the local Hasidic community who acts as an...
MIAMI BEACH (JTA)-Palm trees line the entrance to the Cuban Hebrew Congregation, where on a recent Saturday morning, about a dozen elderly people gathered for services. Congregants greeted each other in Spanish inside the building, whose Western facade features an impressive Gaudi-esque wall with irregularly shaped stained glass windows. At the front of the sanctuary, the flag of Cuba hung from a pole beside those of Israel and the United States. Cuban Jews founded this congregation in 1961 as i...
This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA)—More than 50 Jewish community centers in 23 states have received emailed bomb threats since Saturday. None of the threats have been found to be credible, though local law enforcement agencies have been notified. Officials do not know who sent the threats. They targeted Jewish community centers in New York, New Jersey, California, Texas and elsewhere throughout the country. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned from officials familiar with the threats that most of the JCCs affected received identica...
NEW YORK (JTA)-New York City is hoping that a new ad campaign will make Jewish New Yorkers feel comfortable despite a recent spate of anti-Semitic attacks. The campaign, launched Wednesday by the city's Commission on Human Rights, consists of four ads each featuring a photograph of a different Jewish New Yorker and a bold proclamation: "Jewish New Yorkers belong here. Anti-Semitism does not." Ads using text only will appear in three Orthodox publications-Hamodia, Jewish Press and Mishpacha Magaz...
(JNS)-Two U.S. Republican House members visited historic and strategic sites in Judea and Samaria days after the creation of a special "deal of the century" committee to begin mapping out Israeli application of sovereignty in the disputed region. Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), formerly head of the House Freedom Caucus, was joined by Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and head of the Republican Study Committee, and their wives toured Israel this week on a trip organized...
