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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 U.N. General Assembly Hall in Flushing Meadow, New York. The period that preceded this happy occasion was a low point in the Jewish Yishuv. At that moment no Jewish leader dared hope for the declaration of an independent Jewish state. After World War II, Britain’s Labour[�]

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 Jewish world. Iquitos, Northern Peru The city of Iquitos, in northern Peru, is tucked deep in the rain forest. It is the largest city in the world inaccessible by road; people and supplies arrive by air or by boats on treacherous Amazon. The first Jew[�]

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 Isaac Bashevis Singer, Meir Shaykevich and Alexander Harkavy kept writing those dime novels. They did not have much choice, either. In those days an author who wished to make a living from writing had to dive into the popular genres or he’d starve. Meet the Yiddish ancestor of[�]

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 hands – gentle and slim, the very same hands that 75 five years ago signed the most infamous document in human history – the man was Adolf Eichmann. This week 27 years ago, Gideon Hausner, the main prosecutor in Eichmann’s trial, who delivered one of[�]

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 a time of Persecution of Jews in the hands of Christian emperors and attempts to convert them. This leads many scholars to believe it is related to these events – especially as the holiday celebrated the strengthening the Jewish bond. Sigd is celebrated 50 days[�]

“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. This week, on the first anniversary of his death, a new display opened in the Museum of the Jewish People in Beit Hatfutsot, presenting this chilling song, Leonard Cohen’s last farewell prayer. “Hineni” appears over 250 times in the bible. Almost every biblical character utters[�]

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 is slightly different. Unlike some other brave diplomats, he was not the representative of a neutral country or a nation opposing Hitler, but the representative for one of Hitler’s chief allies. Risking his life, future and social standing he would save 6000 Lithuanian Jews. More than any[�]