Today is the 94th birthday of Anne Frank, as well as the anniversary of the first post in her diary in which she famously wrote, “I hope I will be able to confide everything to you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will...
From “Poker Face” to “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning,” Peacock TV has been bringing us a lot of excellent TV, and in 2024, it is taking on a newly popular TV trend: the limited Holocaust series.
Next year, along with Sky TV, Peacock...
CENTER FOR ISRAEL EDUCATION
• Published May 31, 2023
June 1, 1941 — Farhud Pogrom Strikes Iraq’s Jews
Two days of anti-Jewish riots break out in Baghdad, Iraq, during the holiday of Shavuot. The violence kills 180 Jews, wounds more than 240 others, destroys 100 Jewish houses and damages more than 500...
Laura Yares, Michigan State University
• Published May 22, 2023
For most American Jews today, Shavuot is not exactly a big-ticket holiday. Observance lags behind springtime Passover, and it pales in comparison to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the fall “high holidays.”
But 150 years ago, Shavuot was the one day...
Peter Dreier, Jewish Women’s Archive
• Published May 18, 2023
With baseball season well underway, now's a good time to consider the role of women, including Jewish women, in baseball. At both the professional and college levels, a growing number of women are now part of the sport—as players, coaches, sportswriters,...
Jackie Hajdenberg, Asaf Shalev, JTA
• Published May 17, 2023
(JTA) — A 1,100-year-old Hebrew Bible became the most expensive book ever sold Wednesday when it drew a price of $38.1 million at auction at Sotheby’s in New York City.
The buyer of the item, known as the Codex Sassoon, was revealed to be the American...
(JTA) — Decades before Sandy Koufax sat out the first game of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur, and 18 years before Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record in the late 1930s, a college athlete made some overlooked...
Maxwell Greenberg, Ph.D., will be the guest scholar at Shir Hadash Reconstructionist Community’s next Shabbat morning learning program at 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, in the Arts & Education Building on the JCC Staenberg Family Complex, 2 Millstone...
By Arno Rosenfeld, The Forward
• Published May 15, 2023
A New York City auction house plans to sell a number of Holocaust-related items Saturday. A can of Zyklon B, the poison gas used to kills Jews and other concentration camp inmates, is among the items listed for sale. The lot also includes a patch...
(JTA) — A high-profile movie project depicting Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War could star “Jane the Virgin” actress Yael Grobglas.
Oded Raz — known for directing the Israeli box office hit “Maktub,” which now streams on Netflix...
By Frederic J. Frommer, The Forward
• Published May 11, 2023
Defying the advice of his own State Department, President Harry Truman recognized the new state of Israel 75 years ago this Sunday, becoming the first world leader to do so just 11 minutes after the nation’s creation.
Truman’s decision was...
A recent New York Times feature about a troubled World War II veteran has inadvertently shed fresh light on the Roosevelt administration’s refusal to bomb the railways leading to Auschwitz. The story also implicitly undermines one of the major themes...
