Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice
Sorted by date Results 901 - 925 of 1886
(JTA)-Nearly all Reform Jewish summer camps, and at least one Conservative camp, will remain closed for the 2020 summer due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned. The landmark decision, made Thursday afternoon, will affect 15 Reform overnight camps across the country, which collectively served some 10,000 campers in 2019. The Reform movement, the largest in the United States, is the first to suspend its official summer camp network. It's the first time...
(JTA)-After Marilee Shapiro Asher was admitted to the hospital in mid-April sick with COVID-19, her daughter got a call from the doctor telling her she ought to get down there right away. Her mother likely had only 12 hours to live. "Well, he doesn't know my mother, does he?" Joan Shapiro said. What the doctor didn't know was that Asher, a 107-year-old working artist, had already survived one global pandemic. And she was about to survive another. In 1918, then about 6 years old, Asher contracted...
(JTA)—The nonprofit organization leading an emergency coalition to coordinate the Jewish response to the pandemic-induced financial crisis has itself slashed its staff. Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group of communal fundraising and programming organizations across the country, announced layoffs and executive salary cuts in a message to board members and federation executives Wednesday. “We need to redirect resources,” CEO Eric Fingerhut and chair Mark Wilf said in the message. “Accordingly, we have today implemented a plan...
(JTA)-Every summer, JCC Ranch Camp in Colorado gives hundreds of kids an outdoorsy Jewish experience. There's hiking, mountain biking, ropes courses and horseback riding, along with the traditional camp staples of team sports, arts and crafts, meals in a communal dining hall and hours of hanging out on acres upon acres of green space. Crucially, the kids enjoy independence from their parents-and the same for parents from their kids. Not this year. Like a growing group of Jewish camps across the...
(JTA)-Andrew Parver's phone hasn't stopped ringing since Sunday. That's when Parver, the director of operations at the Hebrew Free Burial Association in New York City, put out a call for donations of prayer shawls for traditional Jewish burials. Less than 48 hours later, he had collected 150 himself and pledges of hundreds more to come from as far away as South Florida and Pittsburgh. "My phone yesterday was nonstop-phone calls, emails, WhatsApps," Parver told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tu...
(JNS)—Amid an uproar from conservative members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations over the nomination of Dianne Lob from HIAS as its next chair, the Jewish umbrella organization announced that its current chair, Arthur Stark, will serve for another year, with Lob serving as chair-elect. In an email to members on Sunday, the Conference said that it has approved the creation a chair-elect position as a way to “forge greater unity in the Conference.” It said “we believe it is in the best interest of the forward...
(JTA)—With many of its normal activities interrupted because of the coronavirus pandemic, Hillel International, the umbrella organization for centers for Jewish student life on college campuses around the world, has laid off or furloughed 30 positions at its Washington, D.C., headquarters—over 20 percent of its workforce. The cuts were made last week, according to an email announcement sent Friday to Hillel staffers across the country. There are approximately 1,000 employees at Hillels around the world, most of which operate as independent org...
By Shira Hanau (JTA)—The images were striking, the mayor had strong words and the backlash was swift. On Tuesday night, hundreds of Orthodox Jews gathered for a rabbi’s funeral in Brooklyn, showing apparent disregard of public social distancing guidelines. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a tweet in which he addressed “the Jewish community,” saying “the time for warnings has passed” and announcing that the police would be arresting or issuing summonses to those who gather in large groups. Jewish leaders and others said the mayor used...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—Former Vice President Joe Biden marked the one-year anniversary of the deadly shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, with a proposal to add protections for Jews and other targets of hate attacks. “These are acts of terrorism, plain and simple,” Biden said Monday in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “They are bound together by the common thread of perpetrators using fear and violence to undermine individuals’ ability to freely exercise their faith.” Biden’s three-point plan would increase the $90 million t...
WASHINGTON (JTA)-Monday was supposed to have been a good news day for Joe Biden: The venerable New York congresswoman Nita Lowey convened hundreds of women on a phone call to launch a new group, Jewish Women for Joe. The timing, though, was not auspicious. The same day, Business Insider published the first on-the-record corroboration of a sexual assault claim leveled in March by Tara Reade, an aide to Biden in 1992-93. That landed like a bombshell for the feminists and others who hope to oust...
(JNS)—In a first-of-its-kind partnership, Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organization, and BBYO, the Jewish teen movement, are connecting graduating high school seniors with current college students for virtual campus visits and question-and-answer sessions so prospective and accepted students can get to know the campus communities they are considering joining. Many of these campus visits are also open to parents and high school juniors who are exploring college options. “In this time of uncertainty and fear, one of the most im...
By Philissa Cramer (JTA)—New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio drew fierce criticism late Tuesday after he singled out “the Jewish community” in a trio of tweets announcing that he had instructed his police department to fine or even arrest social distancing violators. De Blasio was responding to a funeral that had drawn hundreds of Orthodox Jews to the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to mourn a rabbi who died of the coronavirus. Pictures of the funeral procession, first shared by Reuven Blau, a reporter for The CITY, showed streets dense...
(JNS)—Seven Jewish foundations joined together to launch the Jewish Community Response and Impact Fund, which will provide more than $80 million in interest-free loans and grants as thousands of Jewish nonprofit organizations are experiencing unprecedented needs due to the coronavirus pandemic. The challenges have affected every sector of Jewish communal life, including organizational closures, staff layoffs, canceled programs, a pivot to online education, an anticipated increase in financial-aid needs, a decrease in fundraising and and o...
(JNS)—The American Jewish lobby group J Street last week endorsed former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden for president—the first time in its history in which the organization has formally endorsed a candidate for the White House. “At a time when the threats to our core values both at home and abroad have never been more serious, all of us in the pro-Israel, pro-peace community know that the path to a better future begins with defeating Donald Trump at the polls,” said J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami in a statement on Friday. “To help achieve t...
(JTA)—The nominating committee of US Jewry’s foreign policy umbrella has tapped as its next chair the immediate past chairwoman of the lead Jewish immigration advocacy group—one that has clashed repeatedly with the Trump administration. Dianne Lob of HIAS is the pick of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the umbrella group announced Friday. The chair is the lay leader of the Presidents Conference. HIAS and the Trump administration have clashed repeatedly over the administration’s restrictive immigra...
(JNS)—Jewish nonprofits have received at least $264 million in loans under the $2.1 trillion coronavirus relief package passed by Congress and enacted into law last month, according to the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA). According to a JFNA survey, 579 got loans approved from the Small Business Administration. The average loan was between $5,000 and $4.9 million. The median loan was $256,000. There were 1,331 responses to the JFNA survey. The results come as the U.S. Senate passed another funding bill on Tuesday afternoon t...
(JNS)—Nearly two-thirds of American Jews believe that they are less safe today than a decade ago, according to a new survey by the Anti-Defamation League on Jewish encounters with anti-Semitism in the United States. The survey found that 54 percent of American Jews have either experienced or witnessed an incident they deem was motivated by anti-Semitism, while 63 percent of Jews say their communities are “less safe” than they were a decade ago. “Our tracking has shown that lethal and nonlethal anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise in rece...
(JTA)-Sometime in March, the Chesed Shel Emes Jewish burial society in Brooklyn added a new responsibility to the sacred tasks its 700 volunteers had committed to uphold: paperwork. Bodies were piling up because of the coronavirus pandemic, and helping funeral homes with their clerical work had grown just as essential to ensuring respectful Jewish funeral rites as washing and guarding bodies before they were buried. Between Purim on March 10 and Passover, which ended last week, the burial...
By Ben Sales NEW YORK (JTA)—In the weeks after it became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would spark a lasting economic crisis, the Jewish world’s leading funder group put together a memo with some back-of-the-envelope projections for how much Jewish nonprofits stood to lose. The tally: at least $650 million, according to the internal document from the Jewish Federations of North America, which was based on estimates from several American Jewish umbrella organizations, such as the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the JCC Association of North...
SHARON, Mass. (JTA)-When Neil Morris heard the news that his hometown schools were closing for at least two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, his first thought was about the kids who would lose access to their free or reduced lunches. Morris, the owner of A Perfect Taste, a kosher catering company, called his friend and fellow Sharon resident Avi Shemtov, a chef and owner of Simcha, a restaurant here where both grew up. Both are passionate about reducing food waste and curbing food...
(JTA)—On a typical day, the art center at Kohelet Yeshiva High School in suburban Philadelphia is filled with students working on a range of projects—from making ceramic bowls on the pottery wheels to creating wooden sculptures. They use the 3-D printer and laser cutter to build parts for the robotics team. But since the school went virtual more than two weeks ago, the 1,300-square-foot center has been used to make an entirely different project: face shields for medical professionals treating coronavirus patients. Since starting production las...
(JTA)—Forget about “The Chanukah Song.” Actor Adam Sandler’s latest earworm is a tribute to doctors and nurses and an exhortation for people to stay home to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Sandler debuted “Quarantine Song” from his home during a guest appearance Thursday on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.” Fallon was broadcasting from his home as well. Sandler pulled a hoodie over his baseball cap and put on sunglasses (so viewers would not see him reading the lyrics, he said) before he began strumming on his guitar. “Doctors and nurse...
(JNS)-The worldwide pandemic COVID-19 is wreaking havoc in its relentless sweep across the planet, not only in terms of health needs and care, but in economic terms as well. It has quashed the booming stock market and decimated unemployment lows, with such turmoil expected to continue for the next few weeks and maybe months. While the long-term impact of the coronavirus is yet to come, Jewish communal organizations are already hearing from small business, individuals and groups that have...
(JNS)-It wasn't so long ago when life was so over-the-top busy that you longed for some quiet unstructured time with your children. The coronavirus pandemic has granted that wish. And then some. With no end in sight of QT (Quality Time), many schools have come to a parent's rescue with online classes through a range of technologies many of us had never heard of two weeks ago. Ironically, those screens that were once the bane of a parent's existence-the computers, lap tops, cell phones and...
WASHINGTON (JTA)—It’s the ninth question on the census, and for many Jewish respondents, it’s a surprising—and sometimes unwelcome—invitation to consider who exactly they are. For the first time, the U.S. Census question on race is asking white and African-American respondents to dig deeper and fill in more detailed origins. “Mark one or more boxes AND print origins,” the printed form says. For white, it adds, “Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.” The request for “origins” has existed for decades f...
