In its bat mitzvah year, Sefaria executive reflects on the online Jewish library’s ubiquity
It started as an online digital copy of the Hebrew Bible. Today, Sefaria has thousands of biblical and rabbinic texts, which 700,000 people access monthly, according to Sara Wolkenfeld, the nonprofit’s chief learning officer.
Sefaria...
Israel to turn biblical Sebastia into archaeological park
The Israeli Cabinet approved a nearly $9 million budget on Sunday for the restoration and development of Sebastia, a major archaeological site that served as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel nearly three...
Long-Overdue Recognition for British-Jewish War Hero Jack Nissenthall
The BBC called Jack Nissenthall “The VC (Victoria Cross) Hero Who Never Was.”
Eighty years on from the 1942 British raid on Nazi coastal facilities and radar installations in Dieppe, Nissenthall’s extraordinary, courageous actions remain hidden by...
Minneapolis art exhibit depicting Chanukah heroine Judith centers on ‘ghastly’ Caravaggio decapitation
There is no way around the goriness of Caravaggio’s “Judith and Holofernes,” which the Italian artist painted around 1599. The Chanukah heroine (almost a dead ringer for Scarlett Johansson) is midway through chopping the Assyrian general’s...
Oporto’s Jews dedicate cemetery five centuries after last one destroyed
The Jewish Community of Oporto, Portugal, inaugurated its new cemetery on April 25. The ceremony took place on Israel’s Memorial Day and included a tribute to the Jewish state’s fallen soldiers.
The event was presided...
Brown University project is digitizing 10,000 ancient Israel inscriptions
A 1,500 to 2,100-year-old Hebrew text from Jerusalem refers to “Shalom, mother of the synagogue.” And two burial niche inscriptions from Beit She’arim in the Galilee, both dated 250 to 350 C.E., refer in Greek to “Sara daughter...
Congressional bills aim to give highest honor to ‘Righteous Gentile’ Roddie Edmonds
Both houses of Congress reintroduced legislation this week to honor the late Roddie Edmonds, who put his life in danger to save Jews during World War II and the Holocaust, and is one of...
‘I can spit on the canal,’ radioed first tank to reach the Suez in...
David Caspi still remembers the signal phrase 56 years later: “red blanket.” At the time, he could not have known that when he led his tank unit—Division 200—towards the Suez Canal, the conflict would...
Rare manuscripts handwritten by Maimonides on display at Yeshiva University Museum
Artifacts with a personal connection to this great Jewish luminary include a Mishneh Torah (code of law that revolutionized the study and practice of Judaism) signed and personally approved by Maimonides; a fragment from...
80 years ago, a Warsaw Ghetto Uprising play aimed to save European Jews
Eighty years ago, Jews imprisoned in the sealed, overcrowded Warsaw Ghetto rebelled against their Nazi persecutors. Stubbornly clinging to a desire to die with honor, a small group of starving men and women, armed...