Tag: History
The “true” story of the August 12, 1952 massacre in Russia
דער 12טער אויגוסט איז באמת א טרויער טאג אין דער יידישער געשיכטע, אבער ניט מחמת די סיבות, וואס די יעווסעקן און זייערע פארטיידיקער באטאנען. דער 12טער אויגוסט איז א שאנד-טאג אין דער געשיכטע פון...
Rhetoric could be called the House of Logic, but Ye have made it a...
The very first line of Aristotle’s Rhetoric runs thus: “ἡ ῥητορική ἐστιν ἀντίστροφος τῇ διαλεκτικῇ” (1). The quite wise ancient Greeks weened that every law-abiding democratic free citizen should be a dialectician and grasp...
‘Soundtrack of our lives,’ KKL-JNF releases photos of poet Hayim Nahman Bialik
The Hebrew poet Hayim Nahman Bialik died on July 4, 1934—158 years after the adoption of the American Declaration of Independence. As the anniversary of his death approaches on this year’s U.S. Independence Day,...
Attempts by ancient rabbis to curb Greek theater a comedy of errors, per new...
All the rabbinic world was not a stage, and all the halachic scholars were merely players in it telling obedient Jews to avoid the theater at all costs.
In the sixth-century Midrashic text, Ruth Rabah, Naomi tells her...
‘Hard-pressed’ to imagine world without ‘Shulchan Aruch’ 450 years after Joseph Caro’s death, experts...
Marianna Stell was reshelving a book at the Library of Congress in 2017 when a “beautiful, even manuscript hand” on the shelf caught the reference librarian’s attention. After consulting with colleagues in the Hebraic...
An eye for an eye?
I once heard a story about two Jews back in Russia who got into a terrible argument. Their blood pressure was rising fast. One fellow got so incensed that he shouted, “I am so...
Investigative reporting ‘almost impossible’ in modern work culture, journalist Edward Jay Epstein says
Investigative journalist Edward Jay Epstein has spent time over the decades with spies, international criminals, globe-trotting billionaires and world leaders, including former President Richard Nixon and U.S. statesman Henry Kissinger. He has penned more...
‘Oppenheimer’ and the lesson of brainy Jews
Finally, a movie about two Jews facing off in a war of ambitions, petty rivalries and contrasting moral absolutes—with actual wars in the background! (“Schindler’s List,” after all, is a film about two Nazis.)
Christopher...
In Arabic video, AJC explains Jewish connection to Israel
Knowledge and compassion are “critical tools to break the cycle of perpetual conflict and mutual demonization,” Benjamin Rogers, director of Middle East and North Africa initiatives at the American Jewish Committee, told JNS.
That’s why...
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...