יום שישי, י״ט חשוון תשפ״זFriday, October 30, 2026
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By the time the Dutch took control in 1630, they found many New Christians (Jews forced by the Portuguese to convert to Christianity) present, many of whom continued to practice Judaism in private.
In response to Rav Feinstein's call, thousands of Orthodox Jews...conducted a mass protest against Israel's handling of the "Who is a Jew?" issue.
Once Irmgard understood what had happened to the Jews of Kittsee, she made it her mission to perpetuate their memory and do everything she could to prevent history from repeating itself.
By Judy Waldman
Jews were in Texas as far back as the late 1500s, but there wasn’t an established Jewish settlement until 1820.
By publishing this siddur, the government wished to demonstrate its egalitarian values.
He always viewed his photographs and films more as documentation than art, and most cinema commentators agree, some cynically.
By Hannah Rubin
Jewish law treats human remains with considerable respect, in accordance with a view of the body as the erstwhile dwelling of the soul.
The offending text states that this edition of the Talmud was approved by the censors of Russia and Poland.
During his career, the great Houdini only failed to escape a pair of cuffs once – when he was presented with a rigged set stuffed with buckshot, rendering the locking mechanism inoperative, even with the key.
Rabbi Dickman had great hopes for his Kuzari Shlishi, believing it would help defeat the assimilation and apathy of Jews of his day.
The illustrations are described on the title page as being "in accordance with the instruction of the Talmud."
Some German interviewees were averse to being interviewed on camera, so Lanzmann employed subterfuge in filming some of his interviews, pretending to be pro-Nazi and using hidden equipment.
The court ultimately overturned the lower court's decision, and he was declared fit and released.
By Carol Elias
We met very special people as we navigated this quest for history.
By Yaffa Ganz
I hope and pray that a strong, united Right will emerge and things will move forward.
We don’t know what will happen in the year 2100, and it is impossible to predict the future. But of one thing you can be certain – that in the year 2100, Jewish women will be lighting Shabbos candles.
By Zev Golan
One Irgunist told me, “No matter what the subject, Segal always managed to bring it to the conclusion: ‘You have to fight for Eretz Yisrael.’”
By Judy Waldman
Rabbi Fromowitz founded Ahavas Torah Center in 2011 in a strip mall as part of the Las Vegas Kollel and assumed the role of the congregational rabbi.
By Anita Kolat
A military base is adjacent to Elon Moreh. Residents feel very safe and allow their very young, unaccompanied children to run freely.
R. Nosson would write down his tefillot while praying, and tradition has it that the stains that appear on his handwritten leaves are those of tears he shed while praying.
Many do not realize that the Chofetz Chaim's second rebbetzin, Rebbetzin Freida Kagan, died in the United States and is buried in Queens.
It occurred to me that the Israeli souvenir market needed to be thoroughly revamped, and that there’s room for more updated souvenirs besides archaic Judaica products...
By Baruch Lytle
“Our story cannot be told without also including the stories of the incredible rebirth of the Jewish people – and what is Boro Park, if not that?” said Shoshana Greenwald, director of collections at the museum.
Many of the Jewish prisoners, including most likely the author of our card, were members of the Underground who had been convicted for resisting Arab terrorism.
: Last installment discussed Moses Mendelssohn, questioning whether he was all that relevant to the modernization and secularization of a significant portion of European Jewry. While he was a noteworthy thinker and writer, it is likely that historians have bloated his influence. However, even if his ideology was not particularly impactful, his persona was. The […]
In FY 2019, JCF distributed 23 percent of assets, well above the industry average.
To prevent their books from being lost or stolen, owners would routinely write their name or an inscription in them.
In Rumkowski's infamous speech, "Give Me Your Children," he urged the Jews not to resist deporting 20,000 of their children to be exterminated.
The text of the prayer is riddled with grammatical irregularities and comprises odd mix of verses and pleas.
Administered property by doctors, marijuana could be a samah shel chaim [potion of life]. Freely used by people at large, it could well be a samah shel maves [potion of death].
By Deborah Katz
In the late 1930s, Bolivia’s president, German Busch, desperately sought ways to revitalize his country’s economy. Mauricio (Moritz) Hochschild – a Jewish business tycoon and a friend of the president – convinced Busch that Jewish refugees could be of help in this effort.
All the kosher food on the Titanic was prepared in a small and crowded kosher kitchen located near the third-class kitchen on the F Deck of the ship.
By Yaffa Ganz
We Jews have been coming to less-than-perfect tefillot for as long as synagogues have existed.
According to the headline, the funeral attracted 15,000 people, including hundreds of rabbanim and local government representatives.
By Deborah Katz
My father was an outstanding sportsman and in 1938 - after the Anschluss - a game of tennis saved his life.
Frankfurter was a lifelong committed Zionist, beginning with his association with Brandeis, who enlisted him into ZOA membership and a leadership position with the Parushim.
By Judy Waldman
The shul is not only open to every Jew; it is accessible to every Jew.
By Baruch Lytle
Some breakouts are smart, others are silly, but they all make for fun conversation and hopefully fond memories.
By Baruch Lytle
Thousands attended its religious services. Its members included Abraham Beame, New York’s first Jewish mayor, and the operatic tenor Richard Tucker served as the center's cantor for many years.
Many of the provisions in these constitutions attempted to curtail assimilation or deter members from moving toward Reform.
Rosenberg and his family escaped Germany on January 23, 1940, thanks to an affidavit provided to them by a complete stranger from Texas.
Emotions were high as the olim walked off the plane at 6 a.m. where they were met with rousing cheers, shofar blasts, and an exuberant crowd of 1,400.
Some academics suggest that Washington's letter, which virtually all agree presents his most prominent pronouncement on religious toleration, was actually drafted by Thomas Jefferson.
"Gruninger paid a high price for the choice he made. In the struggle between his sense of duty as a police officer, and dedication to the concepts of humanity, the latter triumphed," states Yad Vashem.
This is not history to be relegated to the past and forgotten.
Noah tried to found a Jewish state at Grand Island in the Niagara River, to be called Ararat.
In 1946, Lansky ordered his men to help bring Holocaust survivors to Eretz Yisrael and facilitate the establishment of the Jewish state.
If his writings did little to sway the masses, it was his life that acted as the heady perfume. His very existence presented an alternative – a highly seductive alternative – to the ghetto Jew.
By Hannah Rubin
Judaica was everywhere: crammed on glass shelves, teetering atop narrow display cases, peeking from behind cardboard boxes in the store’s sprawling interior.
The dispute evolved into a fierce fight between chassidim defending the Shapiros and mitnagdim defending the Romm printers.
As the first of its kind, it aims to provide content creators with innovative, professional tools for success in the world of digital content.
Hermann Karl Hesse (1877-1962), a Nobel Prize-winning German novelist and poet, is best known for his inspired explorations of self-understanding, spiritual realization, and psychology, particularly in Der Steppenwolf (1927), perhaps his best-known work. In Der Steppenwolf, he applied the tools of psychoanalysis and the conflict between the conscious and unconscious mind to analyze a middle-aged […]
By Baruch Lytle
Markus downplayed the seriousness of his actions, saying in a talkRADIO interview that people shouldn't watch his videos if they are offended.
Considering his goal, it is not surprising that alongside the Vilna Gaon and Shadal, we find references by the author to non-Rabbinic sources, such as Julius Fürst, Moses Mendelsson, and Naphtali Hirz Wessely.
After Rabbeinu sadly listened to them, he asked me for a piece of paper, and wrote a pleasantly-worded protest letter with candid reproach to Mr. Jabotinsky, and asked me to give it to him.
It is undisputed that, unlike Leeser, Wise was an academic and rabbinical fraud.
By Yaffa Ganz
After many long hours on the computer and countless cross-country phone calls and lots of siyatta d’Shmaya, year after year, at the last minute, we find somewhere to go.
This Jew owned several classic and obscure anti-Semitic works, including a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion...
Efforts quickly turned to providing humanitarian relief to quake victims in what is considered the first internationally-organized relief campaign.
By Judy Waldman
Young Israel Beth El is more than a beautiful synagogue with unique and unified davening, it is a congregation with a soul.
Asked if he ever thought of quitting, Rabbi Rosenshein said, “Never. You don’t live without it.”
By Deborah Katz
He also knew that many Jews faced a perilous future in mainland Europe and would benefit from moving to the safe shores of Ireland.
Among your members in the Knesset are people from whom nothing is withheld and who, in their empty speech, are capable of achieving the most difficult assignments.
By the time the Jewish Museum of the History of Polish Jews was opened across from the monument in 2013, the memorial had lost all its visual prominence and blended into the surrounding landscape.
By Eve Glover
With this invention, writer’s cramp and constant worry about smudged ink and illegible penmanship began to wane. Yiddish typewriters ushered in a new and much easier way of life.
The Apollo 11 astronauts were flying into uncharted territory. All precautions were taken, but the slightest mishap could have taken their lives.
The Jewish community of Merzig was old but small.
The Second Maccabiah (Jewish Olympic) Games, which were held in Tel Aviv in April 1935, included flying competitions, and a group of Jewish fliers arrived from Germany with two German-built gliders.
By dvora
Rabbi Porush, with tears streaming down his face and onto Rabin’s jacket, cried out, “Yitzchak, Yitzchak! Do you want to abandon Mama Rachel?!”
Amidst this most dramatic period of our 2,000 year exile, this medieval Ashkenazic Jew has somehow retained his sense of purpose, his own internal value, and his unbreakable bond.
By Deborah Katz
In October 1941, the Nazis halted all immigration from Europe. The last refugee boat arrived in Sosua (which by now had 500 immigrants) on December 8, 1941 – a day after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
After the Talmud was burned, all remaining Hebrew books had to be submitted to the Catholic Inquisition for censorship.
Walt never met with Hitler, but it is beyond dispute that the Fuhrer adored Disney’s work.
All through Shabbos I saw men and women engaged in animated conversations, and a number of young men and women approached the shadchanim for help, which was forthcoming.
By Yaffa Ganz
Nothing can compete with that which we love, which is our own. Think of children. There is no doubt in my mind that my grandchildren are the most beautiful, intelligent, delightful grandchildren around.
By Deborah Katz
In April 1942, three Jewish women of Polish and Austrian background living on Guernsey were handed over to the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz where they were killed.
Each product was marked "J. & D. Miller, N.Y., Guaranteed," and the brothers were well known for repairing or sharpening their products as needed, even years after their purchase.
In the wake of its election loss, the Black Panther movement essentially ended. It had failed to radicalize most Mizrachim. Nonetheless, the issues and needs of Mizrachim subsequently took a front and center position in Israeli politics.
By Judy Waldman
Kesser Israel is the stronghold for Torah Judaism, for Yiddishkeit, in the Pacific Northwest, and for Oregon in particular. Located in the progressive city of Portland, it is a laidback congregation that is attracting new young families and individuals. It’s origins date back to the California Gold Rush, which, from 1848-1856, brought approximately 300,000 people […]
During the month of June in New York, two Judaica auctions were held; each offered ceremonial objects, paintings, and printed material that were of significant interest to collectors, dealers, and museums worldwide. Beginning with Sotheby's: An exceedingly rare pair of silver Torah rimonim (finials that adorn the tops of a sefer Torah) from Hamburg, Germany […]
The Hebrew text has vowels below it, similar to the way Hebrew is vowelized today.
Out of 13 candidates, mostly from Germany, Rav Adler made the “final four” list for chief rabbi along with Rabbis Samson Raphael Hirsch, Benjamin Hirsch Auerbach, and Hirsch Hirschfeld.
Given that only 80 copies of it survived, it is possibly the rarest of all early volumes covering the proceedings of Congress.
By Baruch Lytle
Mr. Dershowitz is a man who helps a lot of Yidden. In my case [as well]. And for that we’re thankful.
By Deborah Katz
While studying the chair one day, Syl thought: Why not place a basket on the seat and wheels on the legs?
By Tzvi Fishman
Back when I was a child, if a lizard ran across the road in the heat of the day, that was the biggest news story of the day.
The exhibit covers three floors. The first floor depicts pre-war Poland and Germany, the second floor covers the “camps," and the third floor highlights the individuals who populated Auschwitz.
Thanks to the member from Washington, whose name I desire to know, and to you and your associates, Maryland has wiped from her escutcheon the stain of intolerance.
Mussolini had a brother, Arnaldo (1885-1931), who was one of the most important developers of fascist ideology.
He also longed for the children he had left behind in Poland and therefore returned to Poland, albeit with a love for Eretz Yisrael that he carried with him until his death.
Leeser's work, therefore, no doubt helped combat the influence of missionaries and Christian Bibles.
Many of our greatest artists have produced striking graphic works on these subjects, and I present here a selection of original artwork from my Shavuot collection.
October 30, 2026 
