יום חמישי, י״ז תמוז תשפ״וThursday, July 2, 2026
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Judy Tydor Baumel-Schwartz is director of the Schulmann School of Basic Jewish Studies and professor of Jewish History at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. She is the author of, among several others, “The ‘Bergson Boys’ and the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy” (Syracuse University Press); “The Jewish Refugee Children in Great Britain, 1938-1945” (Purdue University Press); and “Perfect Heroes: The World War II Parachutists and the Making of Israeli Collective Memory” (University of Wisconsin Press).
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By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
We would start our morning roll call in Hannah Szenes Hall, hold afternoon activities in Haviva Reik House, and finish off the day with an evening campfire outside Enzo Sereni Cabin.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Finding ourselves with a large merged family as a result of our marriage, we had little chance to contemplate a honeymoon of any kind.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Just as had happened when I was working on my grandmother’s book, here, too, previously unknown family members and those with whom my mother-in-law had lost touch suddenly emerged.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Unlike other retirees of their generation, they never considered Florida a possible venue – despite the Northeast’s cold winters.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
It was a war that would change the country's destiny. It would also change the destiny of Joshua Schwartz of Teaneck, New Jersey.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Living more than two miles from the only Orthodox shul in Teaneck, the family joined the Conservative Teaneck Jewish Center a few blocks away.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
For Jews in the United States, the 1950s were years of opportunity and challenge.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Despite owning some of the important businesses in town, the Jews of Nyack continued to remain a small minority, and in each high school graduating class there was only a handful of Jewish students.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
At age 26 and having completed her graduate studies, Bernice returned to the Bronx Y, this time in a paid professional capacity.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Today’s young travelers rarely meet Israeli statesmen and functionaries. This, though, was the first group of its kind and, as such, of great interest to both American and Israeli officials.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Only after seeing a picture of the stately building online did I fully understand her emphatic reply.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
It wasn’t every day that a young woman from a traditional Jewish family volunteered for farm labor, but for Bernice, the decision was an easy one.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
It didn't bother me having new classmates every year. I loved school, was curious, and enjoyed learning everything I could.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Now in her mid-90s, Bernice’s recollections of that time give us a glimpse into a world somewhat familiar to our readers from the Freida Sima series, but told here from the perspective of the immigrant generation's American-born children.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
The desire to keep my grandmother's memory and voice alive inspired me to write an article about her for The Jewish Press.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Like numerous women of her generation, she was able to whip up a three-course meal out of nothing and make a one-week Depression paycheck last for six months.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
After Max's death, Shirley and Chaskel had bought an apartment in Israel for the future. Suddenly the future was now.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Watching the puppy's wobbling walk, she named him Umbriago, similar to the word "drunk" in Italian and Spanish (embriagado).
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Taking her daughter's hand, Freida Sima once again rued her husband Mordche's communist polemics and political pessimism that Shirley had grown up with.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
“We took nothing, as we thought we would come home in a few days, but we never came home,” Sheindl recalled. She never saw Shaja again.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Her heart went out to her mother, who had so wanted to stay in America, and who had cried her heart out to her eldest daughter the night before she returned to Mihowa.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Editor’s Note: This is the seventh of a multi-part series on the life and times of a young woman who came to America on her own in the early 1900s and made her way in a new country. The sixth part (“The Motherhood of Freida Sima”) appeared as the front-page essay in the Feb. 12 […]
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
“When one door closes another one opens,” she answered, her mind already a whirlwind of plans that would change their lives for the next two decades.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Insisting on a traditional Jewish home, Freida Sima reached a compromise with her communist husband: he would not interfere in household matters of religion while she would turn a blind eye to whatever he would do outside the home.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
Freida Sima pulled her hand back in shock. “Married?” she shouted. “This is how you are asking me to marry you?”
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
After several dates, when she sensed the “chicken killer” was about to propose, my grandmother beat a hasty retreat, remarking to her aunts that one day longer with him and she would have become a vegetarian.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
“Remember, you are sixteen!” she said, reminding her of the cutoff for unaccompanied passengers wishing to work in America.
By Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz
“Not only will I have to stop studying when I get married, I'll die a slow death if I end up like that,” she told Marium. “Better Tateh should just kill me and be done with it.”
June 26, 2026 
