He was barely 4’9″ tall, he arrived in the United States when he was nearly 30 years old, so he spoke English with a heavy accent for the rest of his life. Nevertheless, the entire motion picture industry in Hollywood owes him its existence. His numerous inventions include the forerunner of foundation cream, false eyelashes, […]

The Miss America pageant was founded in 1921, initially as a bathing suit contest. Later on, it became a beauty, talent and poise pageant whose contestants sought to bring about world peace, which is how we know it today. The competing and winning criteria have, however, changed a bit every few years. No one remembers […]

Adolfo Kaminsky, probably the most famous Jewish forger in the world, died earlier this month. For nearly three decades, from 1940 to the end of the 1960’s, he was involved in every important underground movement or revolution across the globe. With the skill of a true artist, he falsified official documents of dozens of countries, […]

This week 75 years ago, on January 13, 1948, marks the anniversary of the murder of the renowned Soviet-Yiddish actor and director, Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels, who was also the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre – GOSET. He was also the undisputed leader of Soviet Jewry in those days. The decision to murder […]

Some names evoke such strong connotations that you can’t free yourself of them. One of those names is Delilah. Every time you hear Tom Jones’s immortal hit from 1968 about the treacherous woman who drove him crazy, which was written by Barry Mason and composed by Les Reed, you can envision the seductive and dangerous […]

Mirra (Maria) Sakhnovsky (Sakhnovskaya) was a fascinating, but controversial, figure, who was willing to go to great lengths to spread her ideology. Her short life was replete with secrets and mystery. Born in the Pale of Settlement, she fell in love with the communist revolution, had an impressive military career, and become the first woman […]

Towards the middle of the 1960’s, a new kibbutz was established at Tel Avdon in the Western Galilee. A lot of effort went into building it, but no trace remains – besides on the movie screen. The kibbutz was established so that Sophia Loren, who at the time was at the height of her beauty […]

In the first years following the October Revolution, the new Soviet State was suffering from a famine. The attempt to contain a ‘new economic policy’ was a big failure, and people living in cities and villages were forced to stand in line for hours to buy basic commodities such as bread, salt, matches and heating […]

“In our home, we didn’t talk about anything related to the Holocaust or the pogroms,” recounts Ilana Bar-Gil from Modi’in. “I was in shock when my mother began receiving reparations from Germany. And then, little by little, she started telling us what had happened. In 1945, my mother, Dina, was nine years old, the middle […]

Roseanne Barr has just turned 70. It’s an excellent opportunity to take a close look at the high-profile, complicated and volatile Judaism of one of the most influential, controversial and oftentimes successful women in the American television and entertainment industry. Despite the broad-based consensus regarding her importance in the world of American comedy, as well […]

During Sukkot, ushpizin – Aramaic for guests – are invited to the sukkah. According to the Jewish faith, the spirits of exalted ushpizin come to the sukkah on each day of the seven days of the holiday. One of them heads the ‘delegation’ and the others accompany him. The order of the ushpizin visits varies […]

From 1502 to 1504, the Inquisition in Cordoba conducted an investigation against Juan de Cordoba Membreque, a judge and one of the city’s elders. Those titles were of no use to him when forced to contest a serious allegation that reflected the spirit of the time. He was accused of observing the “fast of the […]

She had plenty of reasons not to go to Moscow. Israel was less than a month old, the War of Independence was raging, and she was in the middle of a fundraising campaign in the United States. She had left Kiev when it was still part of the Russian Empire. She was 8 years old […]

In the midst of the uproar surrounding the ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States that overturned a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion, many have tried to assess what actual impact the Court’s decision will have. The optimistic interpretation offered by abortion opponents is that the overturning of Roe v. Wade will […]

In 2014, I went to Bosnia to do a story on the rescue of the Sarajevo Haggadah, which is one of the oldest Jewish books in the world. It was rescued by Muslim curators in two different wars – in the Second World War and in the war in the Balkans. The story was told […]

When and why did the matzos that we’re all familiar with become square-shaped? Seemingly, it’s easier to package them that way and perhaps even break off a piece if needed. But since when have convenience and logic characterized kashrut – Jewish dietary laws – or traditions associated with Jewish food? Therefore, it’s hard to disagree […]

Rabbi Henry Sobel was a young rabbi in Sao Paulo, only 31 years old, when he was forced to make a decision that would define his life, and to a great degree would also impact the entire Brazilian nation. The year was 1975 and Sobel, the son of Jewish refugees who was born in Lisbon […]

Herbert Pike Pease had no idea what had hit him and where it came from. He was at the height of his political career, initially as Darlington’s Liberal Unionist Party representative in the House of Commons. In those days, at the beginning of the 20th century, the Parliament was an island of stability in the […]

He was sort of the Jewish version of Forrest Gump. He was considered one of the richest and most powerful people in the United States, a man shrouded with international mystery who overthrew governments, orchestrated coups and had government agreements amended to meet his business needs. The reason why you probably never heard his name […]

It is commonly believed that no organized Jewish fighting force was ever established after the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which broke out in the second century A.D., until the Jewish Legion was founded by Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor during World War I. An examination of the historic turnabout that occurred in the Jewish mindset – […]

In keeping with the proverb that great minds think alike, the inspiration for the name given to the popular two-piece bathing suit, the bikini, also came from the same source – the smallest particle of an element, the atom. As fate would have it, at the same time that a French automobile engineer named Louis […]

Every time you go to a polling place to cast your vote or every time you are given maternity leave paid for by the government; and every time you take a day off to do errands or receive income support during a pandemic – try and remember that those benefits should not be taken for […]

A few weeks ago I came across a BBC debate that had been held between the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, the late Jonathan Sacks zt”l, and the evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. It was a fascinating war of words between two intellectual powerhouses: one of the participants was the […]

“On December 27, 1955, a naval court martial in Israel sentenced the soldier Eliahu Itzkovitz to three months in prison after being tried for desertion.” That report was provided by the military correspondent for the daily newspaper Herut on May 21, 1959, after it was cleared for publication four years after the event. The brief […]

“What are the Jewish geniuses up to,” pondered the distinguished American philosopher, William James, as he witnessed throngs of Jewish immigrants crowding into the Lower East Side in Manhattan, New York in the late 19th century. James was a visionary. The interaction between tens of thousands of Jews from villages in the Pale of Settlement […]

A few months before his tragic death, the circus artist, Zishe Breitbart, put on a nighttime performance in the city of Lublin, Poland. That afternoon, while getting full on soup with kreplach (dumplings) and kishka (stuffed derma) at one of the local eateries, a large crowd of Jews started gathering outside the restaurant, eager to […]

The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, wrote that “Jews have six senses. Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing and…memory. While Gentiles experience and process the world through the traditional senses, and use memory only as a second-order means of interpreting events, for Jews memory is no less primary than the prick of a pin, or its silver […]

Rosh Hashanah is just around the corner and it’s time to send some virtual Shana Tova cards, the Jewish New Year greetings, to your loved ones, friends and family members, as it been done throughout history. We at ANU – Museum of the Jewish People have accumulated A dozen of historical greeting cards from different […]

The evening of January 23, 1963 marked the start of a public trial held by the Jewish Agency against the Algerian Jewish community. Over 100 men and women crowded into the auditorium of the Jerusalem Artists’ House, where the key charge leveled against Algerian Jewry was their alleged flawed Zionist sentiment. The person behind the […]

“One of the greatest disadvantages of the human soul, and at the same time one of its deepest subtleties, is its inability to be revealed unless through the body,” wrote the Argentinian author, Ernesto Sábato, in his celebrated novel, On Heroes and Tombs. Sábato, who lived and worked in South America in the second half […]

Sigmund Freud, the founding father of psychoanalysis, was first jolted by his Jewish origins when he was six years old. It was a Shabbat in the afternoon when his father, Jacob, went out for a walk on the streets of Vienna, wearing a new fur hat. A Christian boy suddenly approached him and yelled, “Jew, […]

Rabbi Chanoch Heinich HaCohen, once told a story about a fool who didn’t want to go to sleep because he was afraid to take his clothes for fear of not finding them the next morning. So, what did he do? He took a pencil and paper and wrote down where he had placed each and […]

The “Demon of the Archipelago” is how the historian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, described Naftaly Frenkel, the man who started out as a common prisoner in the gulag and became the big boss of the Soviet forced labor camps.  He also conceived the idea of the “nourishment scale” – the barbaric labor system that was in place in […]

On the fifth day of Iyar – 15 May 1948 – The State of Israel is established After two thousand years of exile, the Jewish people have an independent State 1949 Israel is one year old. The War of Independence ends. Approximately 6,000 men and women are killed in the war – almost 1% of […]

According to people who lived under the Nazi occupation of Paris, Béatrice de Camondo would often ride her well-groomed horse in the Bois de Boulogne park, accompanied by a German officer. One can only assume that while meandering among the chestnut and sycamore trees, Béatrice probably entertained the thought that a day would come when […]

While riding in a taxi for many long hours, en route from Russia to his city of birth, Benjamin Zar dropped the bombshell: “When we get to Mashhad,” he told Sarah, the woman he recently got engaged to, “my mother will give you a pendant that you have to wear. Otherwise, our lives will be […]

When the curation staff at ANU-The Museum of the Jewish People gave Shoshana Mandel, a textile conservator, the original robe and wig worn by Shloyme Mikhoels when he played the lead role in King Lear at the Moscow State Jewish Theater nearly 90 years ago – courtesy of the Israel Goor Theatre Archives and Museum […]

Ever since the old Beit Hatfutsot Museum was opened in 1978, the legendary spirits of its founders, Abba Kovner, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Dr. Meyer Weisgal and many others, have been hovering above its walls. All of them were men, may we be spared such a fate, all of them were of Ashkenazi origin, heaven forbid, […]

For over 50 years, a framed photograph decorated a wall in the Upper West Side apartment of Max Fuchs and his wife Naomi in New York. The photograph shows an American soldier draped in a tallit – prayer shawl – who is praying before a group of Allied Forces soldiers, standing in the middle of […]

Jewish women in Morocco uttered her name with awe and admiration, pilgrims visit her tombstone in Fez to these days, almost two centuries after her death, and hundreds of poems, lamentations, piyyutim, essays and books in numerous languages were written about her. But Sol Hachuel is still a mystery. Was Sol Hachuel – Solica – […]

The question of induction has kept scientists busy since the dawn of science. If you see a white swan, and then another white swan, does this mean all swans are white? How can one establish a scientific claim basing on even a large number of observations? What if the millionth observation will result in a […]

Though Gnosticism was introduced in the Mediterranean basin 2000 years ago, splitting the world into the kingdom of good and the kingdom of evil, one 20th century man, a one-time Jewish genius personified this dualism in the most extreme, almost incomprehensible manner. On the one hand, there was Dr. Fritz, laureate of the Nobel prize […]

Some stories are so remarkably fantastic, that all you wish is to find out whether they are real or fake. So when I interviewed Judit Polgár in a Café in Budapest a few years back, I had to ask her, was it true that she never attended school? Indeed, she confirmed that she, like her […]

It was a cold winter day in January 1880. Escorted, as always, by his dogs Bummer and Lazarus, Joshua Norton was having his daily walk in the streets of San Francisco, wearing his military suite decorated with medals, a large sword on his belt, and a peacock feathers hat on his head. Upon reaching the […]

Admired by Frank Sinatra, adored by Judy Garland, and defined by Bing Crosby as his spiritual father, we can safely state that much like Russian literature came to the world from the creases of Gogol’s “The Overcoat”, as Dostoevsky said, the American entertainment tradition came out of the mythological black suite of Al Jolson, who […]

After a choppy and bizarre season, as the whole sports was hit by the pandemic, then a well-organized bubble in Orlando, the NBA has reached its annual pinnacle. And at a time of year when players are usually preparing for the new season, the finals series has begun featuring the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami […]

On Yom Kippur Minha’s Haftarah, in the synagogue (this year also in yards and balconies all over) it is customary to read a short, somewhat odd story, only 48 verses long, of which the protagonist is one prophet called Jonah. In the beginning of Jonah’s story, he is ordered by God to speak to the […]

If there was a Jewish years hit parade, 1948 would have undoubtedly made it to the top. 2000 years of yearning and hopes, poems and prayers, persecutions, golden ages, then the horrifying epilogue of the holocaust have passed – then on one crucial moment on 5 Iyyar 1948, one short great man got on a […]

Jewish-Polish history definitely had its tragic moment – but over centuries of strange co-existence there were moments of optimism too. Included stories of the Jews who were “Rulers of Poland”. Prominent historian Konstanty Gebert explores a collection of historical facts and myths. Abraham Prochownik After the gory but just death of Prince Popiel (9th century […]

“Though Rembrandt was not Jewish, we must consider him as “a Jew of honor”, for his love and empathy towards the Jews”, the national poet Bialik wrote in 1932, in a preface he contributed to the Jewish painter Leonid Pasternak’s book on the art of Rembrandt. Bialik also noted that “this gifted genius has miraculously […]

Flames and confusion wrap America in the past three weeks. Flames – the result of a hideous murder followed by bloody riots in which hundreds of years of black discrimination, anger, and hate exploded like bursting steam; and confusion – didn’t a black man ended two terms as one of the most popular American presidents, […]

In the early 1990s, when commercial t.v. was first introduced in Israel, we finally learnt why we celebrate Shavuot. Cool creative copywriters brain stormed in their fancy agencies and fabricated for us the following story: 4,000 years ago, while crossing the Sinai desert on their way to the promised land, the Children of Israel suffered […]

Born in 1825, the German scholar Ferdinand Lassalle was a bright economist, advocate of the “Iron Law of Wages”, who was highly accomplished: one of the founders of the modern political party concept, of the leaders of the German labor movement, and founder of the SPD, the Social Democrat party in Germany. One unfortunate personal […]

The Jewish community of Egypt flourished from the mid-19th century through the 1950s. Egypt’s increasing integration into international trade, particularly after the opening of the Suez Canal, attracted Jews from other parts of the world who settled in Egypt, manly in Cairo and Alexandria, alongside members of the veteran local Jewish community. Their arrival in […]

Hereby is an alternative narrative of the biblical story of the Exodus, based on historical and archaeological findings, as well as Egyptian anti Jewish literature regarding the origin of the Jewish nation and the character of Moses. This alternative story relies on Prof. Israel Knohl’s fascinating book How the Bible Was Born. The first author […]

Not only in these trying times, but in the 16th century, the Italian region was the site of a “fatal virus.” Catholic scholars knew the invader well. They “studied” it for 1,500 years, and knew how to identify it from more than two meters away. They heard the primal story for generations – from father […]

Itamar Kremer  A mysterious disease erupted in the mid-14th century called the Black Death. The disease, caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria, began in Mongolia and spread quickly to China. It spread to Europe following a battle between the Mongolians and the Genovese army on the Crimean Peninsula. Dead bodies were catapulted toward Italy, in […]

“The Church’s Ministry Among Jewish People” was a missionary Anglican organization founded in 1809 in London in order to encourage Jews to convert to Christianity. This mission had emissaries in 52 states and operated as a smooth, perfectly organized, restless propaganda machine. Hundreds of devoted emissaries worked for the organization, about 50% of them converted […]

It almost seems unreal today, but it was a weekly ritual in Israel, from 1968 up until the mid-1990s, long before cables, Netflix or even just multichannel television. Each Friday afternoon, for almost three decades, everyone gathered around the tribal fire of the “Arab film”, an inclusive folk Israeli term referring to films that mostly […]

Last year, Claudia De Benedetti was launching her book in a ceremony held in Casale Monferrato in Piemonte district, Italy. Her book is a fascinating research on the history of her family, one of the renowned aristocratic families in Italy. While delivering her moving speech, she still did not imagine that the real thrill was […]

“David Falik has been killed by the bullet of Totu and so will die all the country’s enemies, by innumerable bullets which will be fired against the filthy beasts. Totu is a martyr and a hero. Gentlemen of the jury, he must be set free.” (From the closing argument of the leading attorney for the […]

Once upon a time there was a man – says the Talmud – whose wife died in labor. The man was so poor that he didn’t have the money to hire a wet nurse for the new baby. And then a miracle happened. According to the Talmud, the man grew breasts bursting with milk. Rabbi […]

December 10, 1966 – 53 years ago. The clock ticks past 16:00, as the crowd waits in Stockholm’s opulent concert hall for the Nobel Prize winners. The honored guests are waiting anxiously for four stars. Three will herald the end of Shabbat. The fourth is the shining star of Hebrew literature, Shai Agnon. Soon after […]

Winter 1759. Some 2000 Jews – men, women, and children – gathered in the central square in front of Lvov, Poland’s cathedral. All but the wailing infants were mum. The frigid bone-penetrating cold was beginning to claim victims. The occasional sound of a body hitting the ground was heard. Elisha Shor – of the famous […]

Historical research indicates that there were Jews in ancient Ethiopia, but their unknown origin and history has inspired many varying theories. The debate among researchers focuses mainly on the quality of the ethnic affiliation between those ancient Jews and the Jews who were first documented in the 9th-Century writings of Eldad HaDani and in Ethiopian […]

That Gaza is a hotbed of fundamentalist religion is nothing new. Throughout history, the city has attracted zealous believers, inflamed with high-voltage messianism and a burning passion to save humanity from its earthly suffering. From the time of Samson – who uprooted the gates of the Philistine city in a fit of sacred rage – […]

While Isaiah Berlin was on his deathbed, Oxford University dean Roy Jenkins asked if he wanted the traditional memorial service in London’s iconic Westminster Abbey afforded to the kingdom’s celebrated figures. Berlin barked, “Hell no. I’m gonna have it in the Hampstead Synagogue.” The British Isle’s best and brightest gathered in the Orthodox Hampstead Synagogue […]

During the second season of Israel’s “Master Chef,” contenders were asked to cook a meal for someone close to their heart. One of them, Emanuel Rosenzweig, dedicated his meal to his grandfather Franz Rosenzweig, the renowned philosopher whom he sadly never had the privilege to meet. The studio fell silent. The judges – whose menus […]

By: Itamar Kremer What would you say is the most Jewish food? Well, this is a tough one. For some, there is nothing on earth like grandma Genia’s Gefilte Fish, for others, it’s grandpa Ezra’s Kibbeh, yet others will swear by aunt Margalit’s Kubaneh, whereas if you ask Israeli young kids, they will probably rule […]

Itamar Kremer On February 11, 1954, IDF spokesman released a brief laconic message: “21 years old private Nathan Elbaz sacrificed his life in order to prevent a catastrophic loss of lives of his friends, while a grenade exploded. The deceased soldier has no address, and no relatives to announce his death to”. However, Nathan Elbaz […]

It happened in November 1919, almost one whole century ago. World War I was over, the Versailles treaty was signed in Europe, and the Russian civil war was raging, between the reds and the whites – supporters of the old Czarist regime. Jewish refugees from all across Europe, including those deported from Palestine by the […]

Growing up as a religious boy in Haifa during the 1990s, I used to argue with a secular boy my age, a sharp clever kid called Baruch, named so by his father, a Math Professor in the Technion, who was an enthusiastic fan of the greatest Jewish heretic ever – Baruch Spinoza. I can still […]

“Fart Proudly” (also titled “A Letter to a Royal Academy About Farting”, and in some cases “To the Royal Academy of Farting”) is an essay published in 1781 by Benjamin Franklin, who served as the American ambassador to France at the time, about the study of wind passing. Franklin published the essay as a response […]

Cliché has it that Election Day is a holiday for democracy. It’s the political moment in which citizens use their mandate to shape the economic, judicial, cultural, educational future and other aspects of the society in which they live to reflect their wishes. Israel’s 71 years of democracy are just a blink of the eye […]

Adi Akunis Club Med’s vacations have always appeared tailor-made for the global rich: Exotic locations in remote regions that offer an “all-inclusive holiday” in the original sense of that term. Food, recreation, sports, organized activities, rest, and good company. But long before this vacation concept was born, it was the idealistic brainchild of two Jews […]

The Alliance school network has been considered for years an educational empire. More than a million students have graduated from its hundreds of schools in dozens of countries around the world, since its founding in 1860. Much has been written about Alliance’s educational message. Its leaders’ proficiency in integrating the old and the new, tradition […]

The possibility of imitating winged creatures has always sparked the French imagination. The Montgolfier brothers were the first to fly a human-carrying hot air balloon, and Louis Blériot was the first inventor-adventurer to complete an international flight – from France to Britain in July 1909. Several months after Blériot crossed the La Manche (English) Channel, […]

In 1887, American-Jewish physicist Albert Abraham Michelson developed the interferometer, a remarkably precise system for measuring the speed of light rays. Two decades later, another Albert – Albert Einstein – used Michelson’s system to discover the theory of special relativity. It’s a fair bet that none of you have heard of Michelson. His portrait is unknown; his name has […]

These European Jewish boys fled the Nazis to America, leaving parents, siblings, friends and the beloved continent that stabbed them in the back behind. They did not imagine in their wildest dreams that they would return to the scene of the crime as soldiers in the Allied Forces’ special corps. No, this is not a […]

In 1926, Albert Einstein and his student Leo Szilard worked on the invention of a new refrigerator that did not rely on electricity or polluting gases. The new refrigerator did not catch on. But the sale of its patent to Swedish giant Electrolux earned Szilard the handsome sum that allowed him to devote his time […]

Like many Jews, Herschel Grynszpan and his uncle Abraham were glued to the radio on March 12, 1938 when Nazi militias marched into the streets of Vienna in what would come to be called the Anschluss, the Third Reich’s annexation of Austria. Herschel and his uncle listened with great trepidation to the Austrian chancellor’s obsequious […]

Bernard Baruch said that you don’t need to be a genius to succeed in investments. That you need only need to control the urges that make people make mistakes. You need impulse control, restraint, and a level head. It’s no wonder that the man who said that coined the term “the Cold War.” Bernard Baruch […]

The Gemara’s Bava Metzia Tractate features a well-known argument in the annals of ethics: Two people are walking in the desert. One holds a jar containing enough water for one of them. If they divide the water between them, both will die. If one of them drinks all the water, he will survive. Ben Peturah […]

Pride Month, and its celebration of the many ways to love and be loved, is a result of years of activism and advocacy on the part of LGBTQ+ people and their allies, particularly starting in the 1960s. But before the dawn of the 20th century one German Jewish doctor and sexologist, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, became […]

Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, Honda, Ferrari, Bentley, Renault. Before these brands became megacorps employing hundreds of thousands, they were flesh-and-blood people. Armand, Andre, Henry, Soichiro, Enzo, Walter, and Louis – the visionary engineers, inventors, and industrialists who entered the Industrial Revolution’s pantheon – are etched in human memory as masters who changed our lives forever. And […]

“My girlfriend and I are Russian revolutionists and freethinkers, but our parents want us to have a religious wedding—what should we do?” “Should I marry a woman with a dimple in her chin, when everyone says that people with dimples in their chins will lose their first husband or wife?” “I was a prosperous businessman […]

“Behind me stand hundreds of thousands of saints, a camp full of tortured victims staring silently at you and demanding justice. Not mercy – only justice. I stand before you here with them, with all my heart and soul.” If those lines sound familiar to you, you have a healthy grasp of history.  These words […]

Long before the Israeli Mossad became the best espionage organization in the world, Jewish spies in Israel stripped off and donned disguises, crossed enemy lines and brought back quality intelligence – intelligence that did not come under the heading of “the public’s right to know.” Among the most important, least well known and most forgotten […]

“The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people,” declared Israel’s first prime Minister David Ben-Gurion on the stage at Beit Dizengoff, 71 years ago today. To avoid desecrating the imminent Shabbat, he scheduled the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel for Friday afternoon, several hours before the cancellation of […]

The year was 1923, and among the main attractions for European football fans were English football leagues’ summer tours of the Continent. The gaps between the nation that invented football and its Continental neighbors were vast. The latter had yet to take its first steps in the game. No other all-star league trumped England’s until […]

Much like other bygone vocations that did not survive the technological revolution, a photo studio is one of the institutions that have been vanishing from the public sphere. The dark room, film strips, the hard labor of photo development, the thrilling expectation to find out how the photos turned out – have been replaced by […]

Catherine the Great, the Tsarina of Russia, was known for her insatiable lust. Legend has it that in her twilight years she grew tired of her lovers and turned to four-legged animals to satisfy her sexual needs. Those legends also claim that she went to her maker in the midst of passionate relations with a […]

In Jungian terms, Israel’s sweeping victory in 1967 symbolized an archetypal revolution of the common Jew. The archetypal passive, docile, and persecuted Diaspora “galut Jew” – whom Bialik slammed in his poem “City of Slaughter” in 1903 – morphed into that of the brave, heroic, flawless “Jewish soldier” who destroyed his mortal enemy in six […]

Gefilte fish is probably Eastern-European Jewry’s most famous dish. Other well-known Jewish delicacies include borsht, bagels and shmalz. Today, however, not many are aware that the names of these familiar foods are also Jewish surnames, as are babke, kishke, tzimes and more. There are at least a hundred Israelis with the family name Herring, and […]

Estee Ackerman, a 17-year-old Jewish girl from New York, is one of the top table tennis players in the United States, and is setting her sites on competing in the 2020 Olympics. As a Jewish table tennis champion, Ackerman is actually following in a long tradition of Jewish success in the sport. When table tennis […]

In one of Louis C.K.’s classic stand-up routines, he rails at the people who complain throughout inflight service. “You’re fucking sitting in a chair in the sky,” he roars. “And you have the nerve to complain that the omelet has no mushrooms?” A recent ride with a particularly nervous cab driver reminded me of that […]

Shame. That word seems to best define what Orthodox Marxists felt after World War I. “How did the tweedy high-brow men who filled the salons of Berlin, Vienna, and London screw up our proletarian revolution?” they asked each other. Why was it a Russian nation comprised mainly of illiterate farmers that adopted the collectivist utopia […]

Israel is awash in a wave of nostalgia. Hipsters model 60s styles in Tel Aviv. Khaki pants star in Fashion Week. And retro raves attract hundreds of victims of the Static and Ben-El era, who gather to trade stories about the First Gulf War to the strains of Queen songs. Foreign media notes that nostalgia […]

We can venture a guess as to what Walther Rathenau had on his mind during the few moments he lived after extreme right-wing assassins riddled his upper body with bullets in his hometown of Berlin. Perhaps one of the early 20th century’s greatest statesmen thought: My lifelong conflict has finally been solved. I am finally […]

Itzig Stern did everything possible to hide his Jewishness. He took pains to lose his Yiddish accent, read only anti-Semitic papers, and underwent dozens of plastic surgeries to fix his beaked nose, doe-like eyes, meaty lips, and thick tongue. His efforts paid off when he married a German-Christian bride. But the charade was revealed when […]

Use of Hitler’s accursed name to slam one’s adversaries is not the invention of poets. At least in this sense, Yitzhak Laor is in “good company.” One of the first to drop the German despot’s name for the sake of debasement is none other than Israel’s first prime minister David Ben-Gurion. A diplomatic genius with […]

Hiroo Onoda was a high-rank intelligence officer in the Japanese army. Sent during World War II to the Lubang island in the Philippines, his orders were to do literally everything to prevent the enemy from invading the island. Should he failed, he’d better not return to Japan, they said. Hiroo Onoda had no intentions to defy […]

Many of us spend significant time on trains every day traveling to the office and back. Some devote their train time to working, others to putting out bureaucratic fires, and the rest leaf through the daily papers or take a brief nap. But how many people do you know who exploit their time on the […]

The guide to “how an entitled man should behave” recommends – particularly in the #MeToo Era – that he refrain from publicly remarking that Jane Doe’s legs rouse his libido. That is to say, he can do it, but he has to also be prepared to eulogize his career. In the past, men of status […]

A bizarre phenomenon took place in Europe during the months of Spring. People claimed during that time of year that a significant number of people had disappeared from the face of the earth. Rigorous investigations – based mainly on the work of advanced medieval Identification and Forensic Science divisions – determined that those missing persons […]

It was the same old story every weekend. On our way home from Shabbat dinner at my sister’s house in Haifa’s Ahuza neighborhood, my grandfather – may he rest in peace – would stop in a tiny alley to bow down at length to a street sign. This peculiar ritual took many seconds to complete, […]

January 30 marked Eight years since the passing of Chava Rosenfarb, one of the most significant, albeit underrated, Yiddish writers of the late 20th century. Rosenfarb was born in 1923 in Lodz, Poland. At that time, Lodz was about one-third Jewish, and the experience of growing up in a city with such a strong and […]

“Filth, lack of discipline! Let us glimpse the site where the tragedy took place…Shattered windows, broken doors, dismantled floors…working bathrooms in only one home…How much time does it take for a European to lose his semblance of culture in conditions like these? None. Can you preserve culture with draconian punishments like denying soup or benches? […]

He was paranoid, provocative, racist and chauvinist. But most people forgave him all of it, because he was a singular genius with an IQ over 200 and the memory of a Google server farm. Bobby Fischer, World Chess Champion from 1972-1975, harbored neuroses that spilled over into his personal and public lives. As a teen, […]

For most of history, Jews have lived outside of the Land of Israel, whether in prosperous places or in poor countries. One place has always had a pretty small Jewish population – the Land of Israel. In the 17th century, some 3,000 Jews were living in Jerusalem under the Ottoman rule. During that century, they […]

The match was about to start. In one corner of the ring, a skinny Jew with a goatee, round glasses on his nose, and a deep penetrating stare. In the other corner, an imposing looking man wearing a modern top hat and a thick beard from which only a pair of black piercing eyes could […]

Tartan, a checkered pattern that is formed when the same set of colored bands intersect horizontally and vertically, is one of the defining visual features of Scottish culture. Tartan is taken so seriously, in fact, that there is official legislation defining tartan and the process of registering it officially. Historically, tartan was associated with the […]

For those who celebrate, Christmas might conjure up images of sleigh bells, snow, and dancing sugar plum fairies. But for Jews, the holiday is just as likely to prompt mouthwatering visions of wontons, Kung Pao chicken, and other Chinese dishes. Jewish people eating Chinese food on Christmas is an image that has become so pervasive, […]

There is a Talmudic Agada about Moses, who traveled forward in time and landed in Rabbi Akiva’s Beth Midrash. He sat in the eighth row and listened to Rabbi Akiva splitting hairs over every verse – or as the story puts it: “(Rabbi Akiva) is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these […]

A quote that religious Jews in Israel enjoy hurling in heated arguments with secular Jews is that of the founder of the Hashomer Hatzair Movement and spiritual leader of the kibbutz movement, MK Yaakov Hazan: “We wanted to raise a generation of apikorsim [non-observant Jews], but instead raised a generation of amei haaretz  [unlearned Jews].” This […]

In celebration of our blockbuster exhibit, “Let There Be Laughter – Jewish Humor Around the World”, honoring the contributions of Jews to the world of comedy, we at the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot unveiled a list of the 15 greatest moments in the history of Jewish comedy. Headlining the list are […]

Assaf Gamzu The popular culture of 2018 owes so much to Stan Lee. Every couple of months a new comic movie is released by Marvel Cinematic Universe, that undisputedly has been ruling the world of cinema for a decade now. Most of the stars – Thor, The Hulk, The Black Panther, Spider-man and others – […]

Two contradictory ideologies dealing with distributive justice were dominant in modern history: the model of the Socialist State, that strive to expand government’s power and interference in the lives of citizens, and the opposite model of the Liberal State, that focused on individual rights and wished to limit governmental interference in private lives. In a […]

In the early 1930’s, an unknown young Jewish lyricist called Aharon Ze’ev published the poem “We are carrying torches” – Anu Nos’im Lapidim, which became popular overnight among Zionist sing along lovers. It was a one-liner essence of all Zionist core ideas: No miracle happened for us / No cruise of oil did we find […]

Though he wasn’t the first to publish a modern newspaper in Hebrew; though the paper wasn’t the largest, nor the most popular; though he sometimes copied from his adversaries; and though he didn’t stand out in his education among his colleagues – still, the paper “HaMelitz” and its publisher and editor, Aleksander Zederbaum (“The Cedar”) have […]

November 25, 1940, 9 am. The illegal immigration ship “Patria” is docking in Haifa port. Suddenly, a loud blast rips the side of the ship. Huge amounts of water flood the ship and within minutes the old ocean liner, carrying 2,000 passengers, starts to sink. Chaos and panic all around, old people slip and fall […]

Radical works of art may raise arguments and debates about whether they belong in the public arena and might even destroy the career of an appreciated author, who only wished to push some boundaries. That was the case of the Yiddish author Shalom Asch. Ash was born in 1880 in Kutno near Lodz, Poland, to […]

Every year, on the fourth Thursday of November, Americans celebrate the holiday of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a quintessentially American holiday, one that not only ushers in the winter holiday season, but also tells a story about the country’s founding and its values. Thanksgiving as a holiday whose purpose is to set aside a time for […]

You can tell a lot about religions by their archetypal protagonist. Generally speaking, Christianity is fond of pure, untarnished guys, those who turn their other cheek. The Muslims adore men who sacrifice their lives to reach paradise, whereas the Buddhists respect he who can live an entire life doing one thing – avoiding. Avoiding over […]

This week a hundred years back, the first World War ended, in which 18 million people died, out of which 8 million were civilians. Not only was is a devastating war on its own, it also left us with some of the horrible illnesses of the 20th century: Nazism, Fascism, Bolshevism, to name a few. […]

If we had to choose a date for “The Memorial Holocaust Denial Day”, it must be November 11. On this day in 2005 the historian David Irving, considered the greatest Holocaust deniers in the world, was arrested. This dubious title Irving owes to Deborah Lipstadt, a Jewish Professor from Emory University in Georgia. Lipstadt came from […]

When John Monash arrived in Cairo from Australia during World War I, he had no formal military training. But he did have an extensive education, and notable achievements as a civil engineer. The son of Jewish immigrants to Australia, Monash earned academic degrees in law, art, and engineering. He was a reservist officer in the […]

In 1979, when the film “The Life of Brian” by the Monty Python group was released, it immediately provoked fury and insult, as Jesus Christ, rather than a saint martyr born to a virgin, was presented as a foolish loser who found himself in ridiculous situations and somehow made the Jews believe he was the […]

From its founding, Pittsburgh was a city that was open to Jews, and a place where they could prosper. Jewish achievements are wound into the literal fabric of the city; Frankstown Road, which runs through the city, was named after David Franks, a veteran of the Revolutionary War and a prosperous merchant who sent so […]

Hear this out: Hitler wasn’t just a diabolic psychopath, but also a wretched plagiarizer of symbols and ideas. The yellow badge, for example, was borrowed from another Jew hater, who lived centuries before the Nazis came to power in Germany: Edward I King of England (1239-1309). Old Ed hated and loathed the Jews so much, […]

A ruthless steadfast warrior, as well as a merciful leader who liberated thousands of slaves – this was Dihya al Kahina, a Jewish Berber Northern African woman. The Jewish Khaleesi, if you will, but unfortunately, not nearly as famous as that the Game of Thrones fictional character. Dihya al Kahina lived in Northern Africa at the end of the […]

Christian Herrmann   For years, whenever I find the time, I travel through Eastern Europe, photographing the traces of Jewish life. An analogue camera for black and white films and a digital camera are always with me, and I often also travel with dear friends who share my passion. I am frequently asked why I […]

Try to picture this: Shabbat morning, a synagogue in Bnei Brak, and the late rabbi Elazar Shach delivers his sermon to his listeners, in sheer atmosphere of silence and holy awe. Then suddenly, a loud defying horn sound from a nearby sport car is heard just outside the synagogue. Now which scene is more likely […]

This coming Yom Kippur, just like every year, during the Musaf prayer, the famous piyyut “Unetanneh Tokef“ will be once again sung and touch all hearts in Ashkenazi synagogues and in part of the Sephardi and Yemenite ones as well. The piyyut opens with the words “Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, […]

More than half a century later, Sandy Koufax’s decision not to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series between his Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins, still reverberate loudly and clearly among American Jews. The greatest pitcher of his day, enjoying a five-year dominant span unparalleled in Baseball history, decided to respect Yom […]

He who has control over time, has control over agendas. Therefore, it is not surprising that the greatest revolutions in history always sought an opportunity to change or replace the calendar in use: the leaders of the French revolution replaced the Gregorian calendar with a new one, in which each month had three weeks, ten […]

This week marks the 103rd anniversary of the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish industrialist who was falsely accused of a terrible crime and whose violent murder shook American Jews’ sense of security in their new home. Frank was born in Paris, Texas but his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up. […]

Surely, some concepts delivered by Judaism hit Jews back like a boomerang: God; the atom bomb; summer vacation, to name just a few, and also, the sociological concept of the excommunication. Such sanctions weren’t invented by the BDS movement, who simply adopted an old Jewish concept and used it against the Jews. The origin of the […]

“Crazy Ex Girlfriend” is a series created by Rachel Bloom, a Jewish-American comedian and producer, famous for her clips on feminine sexuality, Judaism, women geeks, among other topics. The song Chanukah Honey is a nice example to start with. Bloom uses a Christmas carol and converts it hilariously (warning: the clip contains sexual references as well […]

Throughout most of Jewish history, Jewish scholars and authors contributed in all genres but one: they wrote Halacha and Agadah, poetry, lamentations, songs of joy, holidays poems, ethics, Kabbala and “Sod” (mystery) literature – you can find Jewish authors everywhere in written culture. But there was one field which they have been avoiding until the […]

The kind of bribe a leader receives or offers can reveal a lot on his set of values. Think, for example, about the elephant granted by Sultan Harun Al Rashid to Charles the Great, or the shoes that “Norman” the hustler bought for Prime Minister Micha Eshel in Yossef Cedar’s film, or the cash packed envelopes […]

A well-known Jewish folk story, recounted whenever there is a need to emphasize what a lover of Jews Napoleon Bonaparte was, takes place during the failed campaign to the Land of Israel. It is told that Napoleon landed with his troops on Tisha B’Av. Upon hearing the Jews lamenting, he asked why, and when they […]

Anti-Semites, the people who brought us The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the belief that any evil is caused by Jewish fortune, would probably rejoice at knowing that while the English branch of the Rothschild family funded the English wars against Napoleon in early 19th century, two wealthy Jewish families from Algeria supported Napoleon […]

How Jews imported football into Austria – that is some strange tale. It happened after the Austrian branch of the Rothschilds hired a group of English gardeners to maintain the lawns at their mansion. The workers brought along both a football and a strong passion for the unfamiliar game. The first football match in Austria […]

“If journalism aims to serve the public, it must strive for as large circulation as possible. And the reason is simple – larger circulation means more publicity, which means more money, which means optimal journalistic freedom” – said Joseph Pulitzer, the Jewish journalism magnate who immigrated to America in the 19th century and was one […]

With the opening of Beit Hatfutsot’s new exhibition, “Let There Be Laughter – Jewish Humor Around the World,” the Museum has welcomed Tefillin Barbie into its collection of objects that inspire, amuse, provoke, and enrich the story of the Jewish people. This year, Tefillin Barbie is celebrating her bat mitzvah: 12 years of bringing joy, […]

Everybody who lived in at least part of the 20th century can easily recognize the cultural icon of the roaring lion before every movie by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, known worldwide as MGM. Today the company functions mainly as an archive owned by Sony, but at its peak in the 1930’s and 1940’s it was not only […]

Miki and Sally Schneider’s only son was born in Long Island in 1925. He was circumcised when he was 8 days old, and named Leonard Alfred, or “Lenny”. Little did his parents know then, that this baby was about to smash the idols of his time and announce a new religion: counter-culture. “Lenny Bruce was […]

They were both unusual characters. He – head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, a bright young star in the Zionist movement during the 1930’s; she – a Third Reich celebrity and the renowned wife of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. Were they romantically involved? Can Joseph Goebbels be standing behind […]

What makes a great speech? A great speech confronts two universal values with one another and forms an unsolvable conflict. Such was the steering speech by Elazar ben Yair, which led to mass suicide on the Masada. A great speech can be addressed in a seemingly insignificant occasion, and still enter indifferent hearts, like Elie […]

A short while after losing her beloved mother in 1928, the Jewish-American singer Sophie Tucker recorded the song “A Yiddishe Momme” which made her famous. Every time she performed the song the used to tell the audience about her late mother, “a woman with a pure Jewish heart, with eyes reflecting endless devotion”. The song […]

Green Park hotel was standing upon four things: tradition, religion, family, and food – as declared in the opening scene of Marsha Lee’s award winning film about the most famous Jewish hotel in England. The story of Green Park reflects the story of the entire Jewry of England. First, mass immigration due to pogroms in […]

If Ruth was living among us today, how would we categorize her? An illegal immigrant? A refugee? An infiltrator? A work seeker? If Ruth was living among us today, she probably would not be considered “Jewish” enough to be converted by the chief rabbinate, nor “Israeli” enough to represent Israel in the Eurovision song contest. […]

On January 30, 1939 Adolf Hitler addressed a historical speech, in which he announced publicly for the first time his intention to exterminate the entire Jewish people. In his address he mentioned several times “the world Jewish capital” as the source of all humanity’s evil. Many researchers asserted that Hitler’s pathological hatred of the chosen […]

The forced conversion and deportation of the Jews of Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century were a dramatic shock wave for the Jewish society people, as one of the main Jewish centers was wiped out almost overnight. Many Jews either escaped to other places or converted to Christianity and became new […]

For most Jews, the Hasmoneans, and the revolts they led during the 2nd century BCE, are commemorated and celebrated until today, during the festival of Hanukkah. At the time when the revolts actually took place, however, there was one group of Jews who resented the Hasmoneans and was deeply disappointed by them. As a result, […]

Every Israeli child knows these lines by heart: “He (Bar Kokhba) was a hero, he struggled for freedom, the whole nation loved him. Hero!”. Written by Levin Kipnis in 1930, this children song depicts Bar Kokhba as a Jewish version of Che Guevara – tall, handsome, riding a roaring lion, wasting Romans in one hand, […]

After the Nazis came to power in Germany 1933, some half a million German Jews were gradually leaving Germany. The vast majority of those descendants of Ashkenazi communities, who lived along the Rhine since the ninth century fled to America and Great Britain, while a small 10% chose to immigrate eastwards to the Land of […]

In 1903 the young poet Chaim Nachman Bialik was sent to Kishinev, Russia, to cover the pogroms there. He faced horrible sights: 49 brutalized dead bodies, 92 severely wounded, dozens of Jewish shops ruined and looted. But what upset him even more were the humiliation, the helplessness, the shredded self-respect of the Jews – these […]

There are so many Jewish jokes and tales out there, with hardly anything to do with real events or people. Take for example the case of the wise men of Chelm: though Chelm is an actual city, it had a perfectly normal population of both wise and stupid. No one really knows why Chelm entered […]

It was a cold night in January of 1943. Two friends were walking in the fifth avenue in New York. Children were making snow men on the sidewalks and the showcases still had remains of bright neon lights decoration from New Year’s Eve celebrations. Then the two men sat on a bench under a street […]

In 1963 the Israeli foreign ministry invited Johannes Bogaard, a Dutch farmer, to Israel on an official visit. He was awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations” title by Yad Vashem, the National Holocaust Memorial Authority, for saving some 300 Jewish children from certain death during the Holocaust, between 1941 and 1945. The ceremony included planting […]

During the Holocaust a number of incredibly brave individuals risked their lives to save those of their friends, neighbors, or even the lives of strangers. One of the most remarkable stories of courage and creative thinking in the face of danger is that of Dr. Eugene Lazowski, who managed to create an entire typhus “epidemic” […]

As Prof. Israel Yuval was standing with his three daughters at the bottom of the deep cistern under the famous basilica in the German town of Trier, he felt it was a life changing moment for him. 900 years beforehand, at that very spot, Jewish parents were willing to throw their children into the pit […]

The comedy duo Dzigan and Schumacher was for three decades the most successful pair on the Jewish-Yiddish stage, more than any other comedian or ensemble. Their story is also the story of Jewish entertainment, and also the historical story of the Jewish people in the 20th century. Their repertoire included dozens of acts in Yiddish, and a […]

By: Yair Achituv, Bar-Ilan University   The text of the Gutwirth-Zucker Haggadah, an 18th century manuscript written in Prague in 1707 and exhibited in Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, is accompanied by drawings. Drawings in illustrated Haggadot are usually related to Passover customs and Passover-related events, the Exodus. However, there are drawings in the Gutwirth-Zucker […]

It is safe enough to state that humanity is progressing, even without delving into philosophers such as Hegel. True – slavery still exists, classes still count, women and minorities are still being discriminated – but not as much as they used to. In a long perspective, human history is indeed moving forward. On the other […]

Who are we to blame for the common anti-Semitic stereotype about the Jews as contaminators of mankind? Can we blame it on the Jewish interpreter Luis de Torres, the man who brought the first cigarettes to Europe? We most certainly can not. For one thing, the hazards in smoking were not yet known in the […]

Back in the 16th century, “explorer” and “traffic” certainly did not mean what they mean today. These two concepts actually used to mean physical motion through lands and seas. Those were the days of the flourishing seamanship industry, in which some of the sharpest minds of that period were involved. The leading “startup nation” of […]

Praying at the graves of sages is an old Jewish custom, recorded in Talmudic and Midrashic literature. Various medieval Jewish scholars discussed this religious practice, whether they approved or rejected it. A significant change regarding the prostration on graves occurred some 500 years ago, and since then it became a popular custom practiced by the […]

By: Assaf Gamzou Science fiction fans and cinema lovers across the world were all holding their breath in anticipation in 2017 at the release of Blade Runner 2049. In this sequence of Ridley Scott’s master piece, we are introduced to K, a replicant who hunts down other replicants and kills them. In the near future, […]

What triggered the butterfly effect 50 years before Habiba Msika became the most famous Jewish Tunisian woman in the world, was in fact not a butterfly, but bacteria – the tuberculosis that entered the body of a poor little baby named Edgardo Mortara, born in 1851 to a Jewish family in Bologna, Italy. His Christian […]

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months” (Oscar Wilde) In this postmodern era of ours, when the concept of “truth” is undermined every single minute and dissected into numberless narratives, the building of Beit Hatfutsot is here, maliciously annoying all relativists. For five decades it […]

With the Winter Olympic Games commencing in South Korea it’s noteworthy to mention that one of the most successful Olympic sports for Jewish athletes has actually been the marquee event of the games – figure skating. In fact, at least 16 Jewish skaters throughout the generations have won Olympic medals – with the trend becoming ever […]

In 1993 General Colin Powell visited the State of Israel. Upon meeting then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir, he is said to have greeted the surprised Shamir with “mir kenen redn Yiddish!” (“We can speak Yiddish!”) Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants who was born in Harlem and raised in the South Bronx of New York City, […]

He wore many hats: an American Sheriff and patriot; an ambassador who released hostages in Tunis; an Ashkenazi who declared himself a Portuguese; a proud Jew, and most important – the man who wished to establish a Jewish state in the U.S.A. – way before others came with the idea of a Jewish state. Who […]

In April 1959, the chamber of the Arab League Boycott of Israel submitted a demand that the Swiss watch company Ardath remove the Star of David from their logo, as it was an ancient Jewish emblem. A short while after, the Maariv newspaper delegate,  Yosef  “Tommy” Lapid  Z”L, published an item about the British tea […]

“When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose”. Two millions Dollars was the sum an anonymous businessman gladly paid  for the four pages original manuscript of the song “Like a Rolling Stone”. Indeed irony is one way to describe Bob Dylan’s career, the poet who wrote this complex beautiful poem when he was […]

Oscar Schindler used his enamelware factory as a cover in order to save Jews; Jan and Antonina Żabiński used the zoo they were running for this very same purpose; and Jaap Penraat from Holland used to smuggle Jews dressed as construction workers. All of them justly received the Righteous Among the Nations honorific from the state […]

The Jewish population of Europe has declined from about 10-million at the eve of World War II to about Two million today. The primary reason being the Holocaust, but immigration and assimilation in the years following the War reduced the Jewish population even further. One sign of this phenomena present itself in many former synagogues […]

Take some kids with the worst learning problems you can imagine, and try to tell them about the Dreyfus affair: they are most likely to take some interest in the story of the French Jewish officer who in 1895 was convicted treason, exiled to the Devil’s Island, then thanks to a passionate campaign by supporters […]

The middle of the 12th century was quite a dramatic era for the Jews of Yemen. The Fatimid Caliphate who ruled over Yemen for long time were losing territories to a religious charismatic preacher called Ali Ibn Mahdi, whose name means in Islam the Messiah, redeemer, savior. Indeed Ali referred to himself as the savior […]

26,000 Jews were living in Algeria in 1830, when France invaded Algeria and made it a French colony for 130 years. The Jews of Algeria enjoyed freedom and equality thanks to Adolphe Crémieux, who was minister of justice in the second French republic and gave the Jews full equal rights in 1870. The Crémieux decree […]

The most traumatic event in the collective memory of Iraqi Jews — the Farhud — took place during Shavuot 1941. During these violent riots in Baghdad thousands were raped and/or wounded, Jewish shops and synagogues were plundered and destroyed, and a staggering 180 people were brutally murdered. This unprecedented attack on the theretofore flourishing, peaceful […]

Towards the end of the 19th century, the very sound of the name America had a magical effect on the millions of Jews in Eastern Europe, and they could not care less whether it was northern or southern America. For them, “America” was not a spot on the map, but a dream, a desirable destination, […]

It is well known that Sigmund Freud was Jewish, as were many of his successors. But the first psychoanalysis patient ever was also Jewish – she was a Viennese young woman called Bertha Pappenheim, referred to as Anna O in the book about her case. Who was Anna/Bertha, and what was so special about her life […]

One interesting phenomena of Jewish life in the modern Arab world was the stardom achieved by many Jewish female singers. There was reason for this: with Muslim society constraints on issues of modesty – often forbidden to appear in front of men – it was easier for Jewish women to make significant breakthroughs in local […]

In a new Israeli Reality Show “Married at First Sight”, couples meet for the first time at their wedding. 250 years ago, this format was an acceptable practice, having quite the same motives – mostly financial ones. Our tragic hero had such an experience. Salomon Ben Yehoshua was born in 1753 in the town of […]

Christmas is, ostensibly, one of the least Jewish days in the calendar. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a less Jewish day than one that celebrates the birth of a religious figure who was firmly and decisively rejected by Jews, and is traditionally celebrated with a special church mass and/or a Christmas ham. Historically, Christmas […]

Hanukah eve, 25 Kislev 5623 – 1862. A heavy snow blister was raging outside, while the town’s Jews gathered in their homes, around the Hanukia. Scents of fried latkes filled the warm living rooms, dreidels were spinning, blessings were sung. Suddenly, strong bangs on the door and loud calls were yelled: “Jews Out!”. Copies of […]

Before There Were Potatoes There Was … Cheese!  Potatoes only reached Europe in the 16th century – following the “discovery” of the Americas. Hey, so what about Latkes? Before there were potato Latkes the tradition was to eat cheese pancake – commemorating brave Judith who fed the Greek general before she decapitated him in his […]

The history of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and the strive of African-Americans for equality, is illuminated with many Jewish names. Rabbi Abraham Heschel  marched with Martin Luther King. Lawyers such as Joel Spingarn and Samuel Leibowitz fought groundbreaking legal cases. Artists, like Bob Dylan, helped mobilize the masses to protests. Most […]

“It is good to die for our country” is undoubtedly one of the most famous quotes in Israeli collective ethos, referred to Joseph Trumpeldor before dying from his wounds in the battle of Tel Hai in 1920. At that point Trumpeldor was already a famous hero, mainly for his glorious actions in the Jewish Legion […]

The Jewish People are characterized by dualities: exile and redemption; slavery and liberty; Holocaust and revival; calamity and heroism; restraint and uprising; Memorial Day and Independence Day. This duality was, in fact, the historical backdrop behind the United Nations’ final vote in favor of the Partition Plan for Palestine on November 29, 1947 in the […]

Different estimates show the number of Jews living in the world between 14.4 and 17.5 million – about half in Israel and more than half of the rest in the United States. But the bond to Judaism is not about strength in numbers.Here are five small and distant Jewish communities in the far corners of the […]

The renowned author Shalom Aleichem thought Schund was trash literature and called for casting it entirely out; the critic Simeon Dubnow claimed that Schund characters are all flat and cheesy; and I.L. Peretz, the founding father of Yiddish literature loathed it altogether. But the more the refined intellectuals scorned upon Schund, the more young authors such as […]

It was a cloudy morning on April 11th 1961, when a gaunt, thin haired man in a suit and dark glasses entered the shielded glass booth at “Beit HaAm” auditorium in Jerusalem. The audience was rustling. The man sat down with a slight twitch in the corner of his lips. Television cameras focused on his […]

The origins of Sigd, the unique holiday of the Beta Israel community, are vague. One version dates back to the 6th century and the ending of the Jewish-Christian war during the reign of Gebre Mesqel, King of Eritrea and Northern Ethiopia. But the earliest mention of Sigd in writing is from the 15th century at […]

“You want it darker” was Leonard Cohen’s last album, released shortly before the great musician’s death. The album’s theme song is “Hineni” in which Cohen added extracts from the Kaddish prayer. In the dramatic peak he cries: “I’m ready my lord. Hineni! Hineni!” He passed away 17 days later, on November 7, 2016, at 82. […]

In the years since World War II several diplomats have been honored as Righteous of the World for their effort to rescue Jews from their inevitable death and the hand of the Nazis. Visas and travel documents were the most obvious survival methods for many Jews. But the story of Japanese vice consul to Lithuania Chiune Sugihara […]

While most of us remember the 1995 murder of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Jewish history’s earlier political assassinations may be less familiar. A politically-motivated murder in the biblical era and two during the British mandate still have consequences that are felt to this day. Gedaliah ben Ahikam Filled with massacres, rape and bloodlust, the Bible […]

There is an open debate regarding Salvador Dali’s attitude towards Jews. Due to his initial sympathy to Hitler and his decision to live in Franco’s Spain. But in 1968, Dalí published a 25 print edition, in 250 copies, paid by the Shorewood Publishing and Israel Bonds to celebrate Israel’s 20th anniversary. Works that eventually extended […]

“Fifty-four years ago to the day, a young Jewish boy from a small town in the Carpathian Mountains woke up, not far from Goethe’s beloved Weimar, in a place of eternal infamy called Buchenwald.” These were the opening words of “The Perils of Indifference” by Elie Wiesel – a holocaust survivor, author, philosopher and intellectual. […]

Jewish success in the fashion industry is well documented – from generations of textile traders to modern day fashion icons like Donna Karran, Ralph Lauren and Isaac Mizrahi. But the story of Gabrielle Hanoka is somewhat different. The Parisian fashion legend out of Jewish Egypt. She was born in Alexandria and commerce was never foreign […]

By Rachel Druck Simchat Torah is a holiday that celebrates the Torah and the Jewish people’s continuous connection to it. In honor of the holiday, below is the story of over 1,000 Torah scrolls that were saved from destruction. Walking through the new Synagogue Hall at Beit Hatfutsot, it is clear that while Jews throughout the world may […]

From the Thanksgiving connection, through your psychological analysis, recycling and how all of this has to do with Iraq – Here are Five less-known facts about the third Holiday of the Jewish calendar. The Iraqi-American connection In pre-independence North American colonies Jews would follow an old Iraqi custom of preparing fashioned birds out of hollow […]

Jewish involvement in politics is well documented – and Jews have risen to the Prime-Ministerial rank in several prominent nations with significant communities.These include France, Italy, Russia, Ukraine (currently) and Hungary. But here are somewhat more surprising cases: Jews who became leaders of small nations. Some of which are very small communities.   Zigfrīds Anna Meierovics […]

The Trial of the Talmud On June 12th, 1242, dozens of wagons led by horses came across a main square in Paris, each loaded with thousands of volumes of the Babylonian Talmud. Crowds of people who already heard the rumors were filling the squares and streets, headed by an apostate Jew called Nicholas Donin, who […]

“For hours the black-haired Jew boy, diabolic joy in his face, waits in ambush for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood and thus robs her from her people … The end is not only the end of the freedom of the peoples oppressed by the Jew, but also the end of this parasite […]

“For hours the black-haired Jew boy, diabolic joy on his face, waits in ambush for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood , thus robs her from her people … The end is not only the end of the freedom of the peoples oppressed by the Jew, but also the end of this […]

Jews have contributed to humanity in many noble ways – from science to art and culture. But with Yom Kippur upon us, and the spirit of remorse, we should also mention those who made less admirable contributions – some of the biggest Jewish criminals of all time. Arnold “The Brain” Rothstein    Arnold Rothstein, nicknamed “the […]

There are not many uplifting moments in Jewish life more than the first day of school. From the Yeshiva to the Kibbutz, from the Americas to North Africa. Eastern Europe or Middle Asia, In Israel or the United States to ghettos and communities living under oppression – the child’s education is an encompassing experience of […]

In 2013 world-renowned rock star and BDS enthusiast Roger Waters managed to upset the Anti-Defamation League after a performance in which he featured Stars of David alongside dollar signs. The ADL claimed that Waters employed an ancient despicable anti-Semitic stereotype. Indeed, the display was hateful, but how ancient was its message, really? Like many anti-Semitic […]

Much has been written about Jewish history of Hollywood. But this is a bit more surprising. Jews played a major role in the early days of the equally vibrant Indian cinematic industry – Bollywood. Particularly prominent was a group of Jewish actresses who captured the imagination of Indian audiences with their charm and beauty. One […]

Concerning both Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, at the center of major historical developments, the Jewish history of France is as diverse as the French nation. It spans from the enlightened to the cruel, from the progressive to the tragic. Here are some defining moments in French-Jewish history. Happy Bastille Day to all! 1. ‎1040-1105 – […]

Jewish mothers may want their offsprings to be lawyers or doctors – but here are some Jews that scaled the highest pinnacles in sports. Don’t Forget to follow the Maccabiah in July 2017. Wimbledon Tennis Title Born In Bayonne, New Jersey, Dick Savitt taught himself Tennis and never took a lesson in his life. He […]