Purim of the past: Historic celebrations in Israel and the Diaspora
Even before the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel in 1948, Jewish residents there spent weeks preparing for the holiday. Elaborate costumes, decorative floats and impressive gateways were created in anticipation of the...
Mah Jongg and the Jews
Mah Jongg began as a Chinese game but the version millions of Americans recognize today was decisively shaped by Jewish women in the United States.
A fast-paced tile game played by four people, Mah Jongg...
Nazi letters reveal paper restorers’ role in compiling Holocaust ‘hitlist’
Large numbers of paper restorers and bookbinders were recruited by the Nazis and “contributed directly to genocide” during the second world war, according to research.
A British historian has uncovered a Europe-wide programme in the...
Sephardic and Muslim students find common ground in culture
Joseph Pool, a senior at Rollins College in Florida, grew up hearing his Moroccan-born grandparents describe Mimouna, a traditional Moroccan Jewish celebration marking the return to eating chametz after Passover. Because Jewish families had...
A Brief History of Yiddish Dictionaries: Ilan Stavans in Conversation with Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath
INTRODUCTION
In the constellation of Jewish languages (from Judeo-Spanish, aka Ladino, and Judeo-Portuguese to Hybriya, aka Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian, and not counting biblical and Modern Hebrew), Yiddish, or Judeo-German, is unquestionably the most popular. Its...
Yiddish theater is revived in Tbilisi, Georgia after 100 years
When Lasha Shakulashvili was a grad student at Tbilisi State University in 2019, he stumbled onto something unbelievable. In the National Archives of Georgia, he found Yiddish posters from 1910 announcing theater performances put...
Bulgarian Jews seek to revitalize community life while preserving history
"We want to stay in Bulgaria, stay in Europe and continue to exist,” says Maxim Delchev, executive director of the umbrella organization of Bulgarian Jewry.
What was once a community of just five families seeking...
Smashed by ISIS, a 2,700-year-old carving may have been the earliest-known depiction of Jerusalem
For millennia, hundreds of vivid bas-reliefs adorned the walls of the Nineveh palace of the legendary eighth-century BCE Assyrian king Sennacherib, depicting daring conquests richly described in Assyrian sources and the Hebrew Bible.
In 2016,...
Mexican Congress remembers the Holocaust
English Version — Official International Statement
Honorable Senators,
Distinguished guests,
Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Representatives of the Jewish Community,
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I thank the Senate of the Republic for the invitation to join you in this meaningful act...
‘Faust’ author Goethe’s fascination with Yiddish
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is usually remembered as a towering figure of European culture: poet, playwright, scientist, and all-around genius of the Enlightenment.
His drama Faust opens with a scene that echoes the Book of Job,...