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Israeli Settlements: Questions and Answers
Israeli settlements are Jewish communities established after 1967 in territories captured by Israel during the Six Day War, a war in which the Jewish state’s survival was threatened by Egyptian,...
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Anti-Semitism 101
Anti-Semitism is the term used to refer to prejudice or discrimination directed against Jews. The term was coined in the 19th century and the phenomenon itself reached its apex in the Nazi era, when...
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A Timeline of the Holocaust
MAY 7, 1919: Treaty of Versailles German delegates in Versailles (German Federal Archives/Wikimedia Commons) The Treaty of Versailles ending World War I is presented to Germany. Among its provisions,...
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Modern Israeli History: A Timeline
1882-1903: First Aliyah The First Aliyah brings an estimated 25,000-35,000 immigrants to Palestine, the majority of them fleeing anti-Jewish pogroms in Eastern Europe. 1894: Dreyfus Affair French...
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What Were Pogroms?
The word pogrom comes from a Russian word meaning “to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently.” The term was first used to refer to outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence by non-Jewish street mobs in...
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Jews and the African Slave Trade
The role some Jews played in the Atlantic slave trade, both as traders and as slave owners, has long been acknowledged by historians. But allegations in recent decades that Jews played a...
View ArticleWhat Is the Temple Mount?
The Temple Mount refers to the elevated plaza above the Western Wall in Jerusalem that was the site of both of Judaism’s ancient temples. The site is also the third holiest in Islam (after Mecca and...
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Terrorism in Israel: Questions and Answers
Terrorism has been a feature of life in Israel since even before the country’s establishment in 1948. According to data maintained by the Israeli government, as of 2017 approximately 3,100 people have...
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9 Things to Know About Ladino
I grew up in a proudly Sephardic house in which my grandfather would tell stories of the “Spanish” he spoke upon his arrival to the United States in the early 1900s. This was no ordinary Spanish. Born...
View Article10 Holocaust Books You Should Read
With regards to Holocaust literature, the canon has been pretty well established. Seminal texts like Elie Wiesel’s Night, Anne Frank’s diary, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for...
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The Sephardic Experience During the Holocaust
The Nazi Holocaust that devastated European Jewry and virtually destroyed its centuries-old culture also wiped out the great European population centers of Sephardic (or Judeo-Spanish) Jewry and led to...
View Article7 Holocaust Films You Should See
The inherent drama of the Holocaust lends itself, too easily, to bad filmmaking. The less-talented filmmaker relies on tropes so well-worn that what might be a compelling and complex narrative comes...
View ArticleThe 11 Best Ladino Expressions and Phrases To Know
While often called Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews who settled in the lands of the Ottoman Empire after their expulsion from Spain in 1492 is also known as Judeo-Spanish. But neither term...
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Israel’s War of Independence
The history of the 1948-9 Arab-Israeli war is deeply controversial. Israelis and their supporters have traditionally referred to the conflict as the War of Independence, seeing it as a defensive war to...
View ArticleBlack Wedding: Marrying the Spanish Flu Away
On October 20, 1918, Harry Rosenberg and Fanny Jacobs stood together in a cemetery near Cobb’s Creek. They didn’t know each other, and the main qualities they had in common were a lack of wealth and a...
View ArticleFalse Messiahs in Judaism
Jews have long believed in the eventual coming of a Messiah — someone who will bring about a new period of true redemption for the Jewish people — and many in the possibility of predicting when he will...
View ArticleThe Three Weeks
The three-week period in summer that begins with the fast of the 17th of Tammuz and climaxes with Tisha B’Av is known simply as “The Three Weeks.” It is a time of grieving for the destruction of both...
View ArticleBlack-Jewish Relations in America
The earliest Jews in the North American colonies related to Africans and their American-born offspring in the same ways most other white European colonists did. These Jews, largely immigrants from...
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The Jews of Kaifeng: China’s Only Native Jewish Community
Jews have lived in Kaifeng, a city in central China’s Henan province, for over 1,000 years. This makes the Kaifeng Jews the oldest Jewish community in China.The exact time Jews arrived in Kaifeng is...
View Article8 Hanukkah Traditions From Around the World
Many of the most well-known Hanukkah traditions are universal. Whether you’re in Argentina or Zimbabwe, Jews will mark the eight-day festival by lighting a menorah, eating fried foods and recounting...
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