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The Morgenstern Bookstore On The Lower East Side And Its Famous Visitors
While demographic shifts and the rise of the internet has eradicated any Jewish book-row, this visitor log allowed me to recreate in my mind the world that was, and perhaps one day will be again.
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Jacob Rivera, Aaron Lopez, And Isaac Hart: Three Leading Jewish Merchants In...
Although most of the prominent Jews in colonial America were strong supporters of the colonialists and their struggle for independence, Hart was a conspicuous exception.
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Rav Baruch Ber Leibowitz
In 1939, escaping the Nazi invasion of Poland, Rav Baruch Ber, already in ill health, led the Yeshiva to the safe haven at the time of Vilna. Shortly after his arrival, he passed away, and tens of...
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Albert Sabin: Eminent Virologist And Passionate Zionist
Sabin’s interest in Eretz Yisrael began when he first traveled to the Middle East in 1943... The visit triggered his memories of his grandfather’s Torah stories about ancient Egypt and the Exodus and...
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Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Grodzinsky
Omaha's relative isolation as a Jewish community allowed Rav Grodzinsky to focus more of his time on his writings, and in the ensuing decades, he wrote and published an impressive array of halakhic works.
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LBJ: An Unheralded Holocaust Hero
LBJ was an important initiator in providing American aid to Israel. As early as 1951, with Israel in desperate need of money and material to settle the massive influx of Jewish immigrants, he...
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The Rebbe Rayatz’s Role During The Holocaust
His few months in Riga, from Dec 1939 to early 1940 when this letter was sent, found the Rebbe in the midst of a huge displacement of Jews and every attempt was made to ensure the escape of every...
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Purim Miscellany With Intriguing Backstories
Beautiful flowers will grow in the garden, they are the Children of Israel. From the heat of the sun they will swim, from heaven’s dew they will bloom again!
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How Jews In Palestine Helped Their Brethren During The Holocaust
The Jewish Agency has accepted upon itself the responsibility for the children of the diaspora, to bring them to Eretz Yisrael and settle them in Eretz Yisrael.
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A Real Travesty: Forged Hebrew Engraving
They were made in huge numbers – many tens of thousands – and as such, are easily found in the marketplace. Whether Russian or Latvian in origin, the value is the same: $150-$200 per cup.
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The Dreyfus Affair: A Tale Of Two Graphologists
Carvalho’s broad public fame was not based entirely upon his critical role in the Dreyfus case, which was but one of the many famous cases in which he served as a graphology expert.
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Antisemitism Throughout The Ages
The Jews of Ponovezh were from the first to suffer. In the spring of 1915, the Germans had approached the Baltic coast, Zeimelis and Bauska. Nikolai Nikolaevich, the Tsar’s uncle, had to explain the...
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Two Great Jewish Animation Luminaries: Friz Freling And Mel Blanc
Freleng, who was self-taught and had no formal training in animation, began his incredible career at United Film Advancement Services at age 17, where he met a fellow animator who later introduced him...
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Rabbi Tuvia Yehuda Ben Alexander Tzvi Guttentag, Av Bet Din Of Sochocin
At end of his writings in this volume, R. Guttentag writes in Hebrew "These comments were written in the city of Kolshek, in 1903, in my stay there for a few days while in hiding from the ambushing...
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Passover Greetings Between Israeli Political Leaders And Leading Rabbanim
R. Auerbach’s recognition of the State of Israel was so profound that he ascribed to it the term “The Kingdom of Israel,” a term which he applied broadly to a broad range of halachic issues, such as...
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Documenting Life In A Chumash
At the end of Vayikra, several blank leaves were bound, containing eight handwritten pages, with a detailed report of the extreme weather conditions during the autumn and winter of the following years:...
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Emperor Franz Joseph And The Jews . . . And The Shadal
The Shadal’s beliefs, teaching, and writings were characterized by the strictest fidelity to halacha, and he was perhaps the fiercest critic of Jewish Science and higher Torah criticism.
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Pesach Art – And A Voice From The Past
For this column, I thought I would share some interesting items relating to Pesach that have appeared at auction, are in a museum, or are from my personal collection.
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The Antisemitism Of Roald Dahl
In Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the enigmatic factory, which operates behind mammoth locked iron gates – and from where no one ever comes out – continuously belches pillars of smoke out into the...
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A Eulogizer Of Rav Chaim Volozhin And Supporter Of Maskilim
R. Tzvi Hirsch Katzenelebogen was born in to a wealthy family in Vilna, though a rabbi and associated with many of the greatest Orthodox rabbis of the day, he was also from the first to embrace...
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