By Anav Silverman Nearly 100 years ago, French aviator Jules Vedrines landed his Bleriot monoplane in the pre-State Land of Israel, near the beach in Tel Aviv in 1913. The first airplane to land in Eretz Israel, it was flown ten years after the Wright brothers flew the world’s first airplane in the United States […]
Israel stamp commemorates 100 years of aviation Read More »
Jewish History
By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — The title of the lecture, ‘An Ode to Salonika: the Ladino Verses of Boueno Sarfatty,’ was not particularly enticing, but I decided to go along anyway. In the event, I was taken by surprise and completely captivated by the erudition, mental agility and linguistic ability of the speaker,
In remembrance of a heroine of Salonika Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History
Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields by Wendy Lower, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, NY’ ISBN 978-0-547-86338-2©2012, $26, p. 270, including index By Fred Reiss, Ed.D. WINCHESTER, California — That Hitler and the Nazi Party succeeded in killing more than twelve million “undesirables,” including six million Jews, hinges as much on the technology available
Book studies women murderers in the Holocaust Read More »
Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish HistoryNEW YORK (Press Release) — Bonhams will offer two extraordinarily rare 1790 newspaper clippings in the inaugural Judaica sale on December 10, documenting President George Washington’s visit to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, RI, the oldest surviving Jewish Synagogue building in North America (est. $80,000-100,000). The experience would inspire Washington’s famous quote, “To bigotry no
George Washington’s Touro press clippings up for auction Read More »
Jewish HistoryLA JOLLA, California– Susan Magee, author of Into the Light, a pictorial biography of artist Kalman Aron, speaks at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair today (Tuesday, Nov. 5). Here is a video about the artist whose work has been greatly influenced by surviving the Holocaust.
Kalman Aron: Survivor and artist subject of Book Fair talk Read More »
Jewish HistoryThe Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery by Captain Witold Pilecki, Translated from the original 1945 report by Jarek Garliński, Aquila Polonica (U.S.) Ltd., Los Angeles; ISBN 978-1-60772-009-6 ©2012, $34.95, p. 401, including pictures, maps, appendices, index, and discussion questions By Fred Reiss WINCHESTER, California — On September 10, 1940, the German battleship Bismarck fired six shells
The Pole who volunteered to be imprisoned at Auschwitz Read More »
Fred Reiss, EdD, Jewish HistoryThe Jews and Germans of Hamburg; The Destruction of a Civilization, 1790-194 by J.A.S. Grenville; Routledge, London and New York, 2012, 330 pp. By Dorothea Shefer Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — This thorough study of the history of the city-state of Hamburg, a thriving Hanseatic port in north Germany, describes in almost unbearable detail the
Hamburg’s Jewish history told Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish HistoryBy Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, ISRAEL –Just as Americans remember where they were when Jack Kennedy was assassinated, Israelis remember where they were when the sirens went at 2 p.m. on Saturday, 6th October, 1973. Anyone who is now under forty or had not yet immigrated to Israel and wasn’t there at that crucial time
In the maternity ward at the onset of the Yom Kippur War Read More »
Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Jewish History
By Anav Silverman A series of photos documenting the observance of Sukkot in Ghetto Lodz in 1941 were recently revealed by the Shem Olam Institute, also known as the Faith and the Holocaust Institute for Education Documentation and Research in Kfar Haroeh. The photos show the ghetto’s Jewish occupants praying with the four species; the
Sukkot in the Lodz ghetto 1941 Read More »
Jewish HistoryBy Alex Traiman/JNS.org Twenty years after the signing of the fateful Oslo Accords between Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, Knesset Members are heavily debating the merits of the peace process and the two-state solution paradigm. Parliamentarians from both Israel’s left and the right agree that the process has
Oslo Accords debated, rather than celebrated, on 20th anniversary Read More »
Jewish HistoryState Department acquiesces to ‘blame Israel’ ploy PARIS (Press Release) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a meeting in Paris on Sunday with a Ministerial Delegation assigned by the Arab League’s Peace Initiative Committee. The delegation included Ministers of Foreign Affairs and permanent representatives of Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi
Jewish Citizen: Kerry on Palestinians, AJC on Syria Read More »
Jewish HistoryNational News House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) announced their backing for President’s Obama to use military force against Syria in retaliation for using chemical weapons. Cantor said the U.S. should take the action to prevent further use of weapons of mass destruction such as sarin gas. The Senate Foreign
Jewish Citizen: GOP, Jewish organizations line up on Syria Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History
National News THE HOUSE DEBATE OVER SYRIA — U.S. Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich., favors an American strike against Syria in retaliation against its use of chemical weapons on its own citizenry. “I’m a yes,” he was quoted as saying by NBC. Many other Jewish House members were more nuanced. U.S. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) pronounced
The Jewish Citizen: The pending debate on Syria Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History
SAN DIEGO – Here is a look at the activities of our fellow Jews who are holding public office or shaping public policy: National News WEDDING — It would be quite an occasion to have a Supreme Court Justice officiate at any wedding, but what made Ruth Bader Ginsburg‘s conducting the ceremony on Saturday, August
The Jewish Citizen: Justice Ginsburg performs a wedding Read More »
Donald H. Harrison, Jewish History