Connecting the Words
In honor of “Dictionary Day,” Jewish Treats looks at a renowned Jewish dictionary that has served scholars and students since the turn of the 20th century. A Dictionary of Targumim,…
Uprising At Treblinka
The heinous plans of the Nazis seemed too horrible to be credible. Who could imagine “civilized” men conceiving of Operation Reinhard, a plan to oversee the building of Belzec, Sobibor…
The Sixth Rebbe
Today, the 10th of Shevat, is the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, who is also referred to as the Rayatz (an acronym of his name). Far…
Math and Science
Born in Bialystock on March 31, 1810, Hayyim Selig Slonimski completed writing his first textbook on mathematics when he was only 24 years old. Alas, finances were so tight that the young…
Yente the Yiddish Writer
Yiddish literature entered its modern era in the 1860s, when Jewish writers began using the Germanic Jewish language to compose stories and poems. Many of the early writers of this era…
Conquering the Desert
One of the great miracles of the State of Israel has been its ability to transform desert into blooming arable land. In 1867 Mark Twain described the land in one of his memoirs: “The…
Rabbi Joseph Ber Soleveitchik
Few personalities have done as much to define the Modern Orthodox Jewish community as Rabbi Joseph Ber Soleveitchik (1903-1993). Not only did “the Rav,” as he is referred to reverently by…
Konrad Zegota – Saving Lives
Have you heard of Konrad Zegota, responsible for saving thousands of Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Not a who?, but a what?, Konrad Zegota was the code name for The Council for Aid to…
The Netziv
At most yeshivot, the primary focus of study is on the Oral Law (as compiled in the Talmud and later legal compendiums), leaving the study of the written Tanach (the five books of…
Jiri Mordecai
In celebration of National Poetry Month: One could easily say that the life of Jiri Mordecai Langer (1894-1943) was lived between the two World Wars. Born in Prague to an…