Jewish Treats

Opening England

Menashe ben Israel (Manoel Dias Soeiro, 1604 -1657), whose family fled Portugal after the Lisbon auto-de-fe of 1603, was raised in Amsterdam where he received a full Jewish education and…

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Jewish Treats

One for the Queen (Or Really Three)

During the 45 year reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), the Jewish people were still under a ban of settlement that had been in effect since their expulsion from England in 1290. In…

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Jewish Treats

Transporting the Children

Of all the rescue efforts that occurred during the Holocaust, perhaps the most well-known is the Kindertransport, the famous program that moved thousands of children out of Nazi…

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Jewish Treats

The First Jew in the Colonies

When does American Jewish history begin? Some would say that it begins in 1492, when Columbus set sail on his historic voyage accompanied by at least one known Jewish crew member (Luis de…

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Fast Days,Tisha b'Av Resource,Holidays,Tisha b’Av

Tisha b’Av

Tisha b’Av The saddest day in the Jewish calendar, believed to be a day which is destined for tragedy.  Guide…

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Fleeing in the New World

The history of the conversos, those Spanish and Portuguese Jews who hid their identities by publicly behaving as observant Catholics, is tragic not only for the horrible auto-de-fes (mass…

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Crazy for Coffee

It is a fact fit for any game of trivia that the first coffee house, known as The Angel, in England was opened in Oxford by a man known as Jacob the Jew around 1650. Coffee has its origin…

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The Jewish Legion

On August 23, 1917, the British government announced that they would create a military unit specifically for Jewish enlistees. The goal of the British government was to recruit the…

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Sir “The Jew”

The first Jew to be knighted by a monarch of England was not himself English. But, then again, neither was the king! In 1688, Willem the Third of the Dutch Republic conquered England in…

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Get Out!

The history of the Jews in Europe can almost be read as a timeline of expulsions. At one time or another, Jews have either been expelled from, or prohibited to settle in, almost every…

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