Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 1742 - 1766 of 1920
(JNS.org) While an Obama administration spokesman said Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner (R-Ohio) breached "protocol" by inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress next month about the Iranian threat, Boehner said Congress "can make this decision on its own." White House spokesman Josh Earnest said regarding Boehner's invitation of Netanyahu, "The protocol would suggest that the leader of one country would contact the leader...
By Viva Sarah Press ISRAEL21c-It's all about pigtails and humble pie: Five NFL legends star in Israeli DIY website builder's $4.5 million commercial. Super Bowl XLIX is nearly here, and that means the year's most talked-about (and most expensive) commercials are getting ready to prove the worthiness of their exorbitant price tags. Wix.com, Israel's make-your-own-website sensation, has released quirky teasers for its $4.5 million 30-second TV spot set to air in the fourth quarter. Wix is the...
(JTA)-Amid persistent budget deficits, the Jewish community center building in the Detroit suburb of Oak Park may close this spring. The Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit announced Monday that a committee is going to recommend that the building shut down in light of annual losses of $1 million and a total deficit of $6 million. The structure, situated on 10 Mile Road, is one of Detroit JCC's two buildings. The other is in West Bloomfield, Mich., about 30 minutes away. After the JCC's...
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (JTA)-Jewish campus groups were ready for the painful national dialogue that took place in the wake of murky rape allegations at the University of Virginia. That's because organizations like Hillel and historically Jewish Greek houses such as Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zeta Beta Tau and Sigma Delta Tau had been having the conversations for months before the explosive Rolling Stone story made national headlines-first for the brutality of the alleged gang rape detailed in the magazine...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Alan Gross was imprisoned while trying to connect Cuba's isolated Jewish community to the wider world. The deal that got him released five years later may do just that and much more. Gross' flight home to suburban Washington, D.C., on Dec. 17 with his wife, Judy, was part of a historic deal that overturns more than five decades of U.S. policy isolating the Communist island nation helmed by the Castro brothers. "We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-I've been JTA's Washington bureau chief for 11 years, but this was the first time I scored a coveted invitation to the annual White House Chanukah party. A Washington tradition started by President George W. Bush, the party has actually expanded (to meet demand) to two: one in the afternoon and one in the evening. This year's mood was particularly festive, given that the parties were on Wednesday, the same day that Alan Gross was released from five years in a Cuban prison....
(JTA)-For many Cuban Jews-the majority of whom now live in the United States-it has been a bittersweet week. Like countless Jews around the world, they cheered the release of Alan Gross, the American Jewish telecommunications contractor who had been held in a Cuban prison for the last five years. But then there's the matter of reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Washington and Havana. For those old enough to remember the most brutal years of the Castro regime, the idea of rapprocheme...
NEW YORK (The Jewish Week via JTA)—Just three weeks after terrorists killed four worshippers in a Jerusalem synagogue, a man entered a Brooklyn shul and stabbed a 22-year-old Israeli student. New York police officers fatally shot the 49-year-old assailant, who reportedly shouted “Kill the Jews.” At a press conference Tuesday, New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said there is “no indication” the assailant, identified as Calvin Peters, was connected to a terrorist group. The Tuesday morning attack is being investigated as a hate cr...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—The stabbing of a rabbinical student at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in New York underscores three things that Jewish security officials have been urging in recent years: Be alert for copycats, cooperate with law enforcement and don’t stay away from shul. American Jewish community officials have been on the lookout for an attack on a synagogue ever since terrorists killed four worshippers and a policeman in Jerusalem last month, said Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Communities Network, which coordinates security for...
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Late Friday night, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the No Social Security for Nazis Act. The House of Representatives passed the same legislation earlier in the week. “It was a crime in and of itself that Nazis who had carried out heinous crimes against humanity should get benefits at all from the U.S. government,” said William Daroff, senior vice president for public policy and director of the Washington office of The Jewish Federations of North America, which led the advocacy efforts for the legislation. “We salute...
NEW YORK— The Foundation for Jewish Camp (FJC) has launched BunkConnectTM (BunkConnect.org), a new, national program that matches eligible families with high-quality nonprofit Jewish summer camps at a more affordable price. This philanthropic business venture has been developed in collaboration with forward-thinking business executives and leading philanthropists. “BunkConnect marries best practices from the business world, new technologies and learnings from the hospitality industry, and takes a fresh approach to addressing affordability in...
(JNS.org)-Jewish students at Wellesley College, a Boston-area school for women, fear that anti-Semitism is growing on campus following what they call the school administration's lax response to the anti-Israel activities of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) as well as its decision to fire the school's Hillel director and Jewish chaplain. "I firmly believe this college is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic," Jordan Hannink, a junior at Wellesley, told Haaretz. Several posters have been...
NEW YORK (JTA) – The Anti-Defamation League's new national director will be social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt-a special assistant to President Obama who earlier in his career co-founded the bottled water brand Ethos. Greenblatt, 43, will succeed Abraham Foxman, who announced in February that he would be stepping down effective July 2015. Foxman, 74, has been the ADL's national director since 1987. The news was first reported by JTA on Thursday and followed shortly afterward by a formal a...
(JTA)—Reinventing. Rethinking. Rebranding. Innovating. They’re all buzzwords we hear today whether talking about education, health care, product marketing or Jewish communal work. We’re living in a time in which endless access to information and 24-hour communication is challenging us to question just about everything. As a result, we have seen new models of business, philanthropy and outreach in every corner of the globe. Airbnb, Zipcar and Kickstarter are examples of businesses that have successfully harnessed the tools of this new era to fi...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Results late Tuesday showed Republicans winning control of the United States Senate as well as wins for fresh faces with close Jewish and pro-Israel ties. In Long Island, Lee Zeldin, a state senator, was set to become the sole Jewish Republican in Congress, ending a short drought that commenced with the defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor in the Republican primary in June. As of 11:45 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, Republicans were projected to pick up seven Senate seats, one more than the...
NEW YORK (JTA)—Jewish day school enrollment in the United States is up 12 percent from five years ago, primarily due to growth in haredi Orthodox schools. Nearly 255,000 students are enrolled in 861 Jewish day schools from the pre-K level through 12th grade, according to a new census of the schools conducted by the Avi Chai Foundation. The day school survey, which has been conducted every five years since 1998-99, found 59 more schools and 26,437 more students since the last study, in 2008-09. Previous surveys found enrollment growth rates o...
NEW YORK (JTA)-Jerry Silverman recently started his second five-year term as the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America-the first time that any chief of the federation umbrella organization has been signed to a second term. With the federations' annual General Assembly nearing-it's slated for Nov. 9-11 in National Harbor, Md., just outside of Washington-JTA thought it would be a good time to check in and see how the priority areas that Silverman identified last year have fared. He...
About a year after the American Studies Association’s (ASA) widely condemned vote to endorse a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, the organization’s policy on Israel is receiving renewed scrutiny over a practical application of that vote. The ASA’s 2014 annual meeting, to be held Nov. 6-9 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, has garnered criticism for a stated policy of excluding Israeli academics. In December 2013, a resolution passed in a vote among the 5,000-member ASA, the oldest and largest association devoted to the i...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (JTA)-Harvard senior Rachel Sandalow-Ash scanned the exuberant crowd that packed a campus auditorium on Saturday night. "Wow," she said, speaking to an audience of some 350 composed primarily of American college students. "This is amazing. This is really cool." Sandalow-Ash, 21, went on to discuss the importance of nurturing a pluralistic and intellectually diverse Jewish community. "We believe that no one should be excluded because of their views on Israel-Palestine, or really...
What would you do if you found out that you had only three more months to live? Gordon Zacks was a successful businessman, a leader of Jewish life, and a confidante and adviser to President George H.W. Bush. He knew that he had prostate cancer, but doctors advised him that it was very slow-growing and nothing to worry about. Then came the day when the doctors told him his cancer had metastasized to his liver and that he had only three months to live. Zacks—who would die in February 2014—decided to make his bedroom a school in which he and tho...
NEW YORK (JTA) - As with many exclusive events, the Metropolitan Opera House's Opening Night Gala on Monday had a few uninvited guests. But these weren't your typical party crashers. Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside the Met chanting "Shame on the Met!" and "Say no to the show!" in protest of the Metropolitan Opera Company's decision to produce the controversial opera "The Death of Klinghoffer." The John Adams opera, which debuted in 1991 and is set to premiere at the Met on Oct. 20,...
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has launched its new college Campus Fellows program that will help to better promote Israel at a time of growing anti-Semitism and resentment towards Israel witnessed world-wide during the recent war in Gaza. The 20 JNF Campus Fellows are students at America’s best universities and from a wide geographical area. Some are alumni of JNF programs at Alexander Muss High School in Israel, the Taglit-Birthright Israel: Shorashim-JNF Israel Adventure, and Alternative Spring Break (ASB). To qualify for the fellowship e...
LOS ANGELES (JTA)—Comedian Sarah Silverman broke out a Jewish joke as she took home a trophy at the 2014 Emmy Awards. Silverman won for Best Writing for a Variety Show for her HBO comedy special “Sarah Silverman: We are Miracles.” Upon being announced as the winner, she dashed onto the stage barefoot and thanked her agents, saying, “Thank you to my Jews at CAA.” Prior to Monday night’s ceremony, Silverman set the Internet abuzz when she announced in an interview on the red carpet that she had brought with her a vaporizer with liquid pot....
BALTIMORE (JTA) – Blocking brothers, a college star seeking success in the pros, a fullback who hasn't had a carry in four seasons and a couple of ace special teamers are among the Jewish players on NFL rosters as the league kicks off this week. A punter may join the group after sitting out the preseason because of a personal issue. Also, Marc Trestman is back for his second season as coach of the Chicago Bears after moving to the NFL following a stellar career on the sidelines in the C...
(JTA)-The streets of North Miami Beach look different since the murder of Rabbi Joseph Raksin. At Northeast 175th Street and 8th Court, in the heavily Orthodox neighborhood where he was killed, a memorial of candles is arranged in a Star of David that the community keeps lit. Police officers have stepped up their patrols, filling the streets at all hours. Raksin, a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic sect who was in town from Brooklyn, N.Y., to visit his grandchildren, was shot on the...
