A Diplomat to Romania

In July 1944, it was announced that a new Liberty ship under construction was to be named for Benjamin Franklin Peixotto (November 1834-September 1890). The descendant of a distinguished…

Read More

A History of the Jews of Morocco

Jews have lived in Morocco for thousands of years. Jewish nomadic tribes integrated into all aspects of Moroccan life even before the Mohammedan conquest of Morocco, which occurred in the…

Read More

The Thanksgiving Synagogue Service

While Thanksgiving is most certainly an American festival of gratitude, its founders prominently articulated its religious underpinnings, which ultimately find their source in Judaism.…

Read More

Martin Buber

I and Thou (Ich und Du), the best-known philosophical work of Martin Buber (February 8, 1878–June 13, 1965), was published in 1923. I and Thou presents Buber’s philosophy of dialogue, the…

Read More

Thank You, Mom

Mother’s Day is a day set aside to show the moms in our lives how much we appreciate them. It’s a sweet and wonderful idea…but according to the Torah, every day is Mother’s Day! The very…

Read More

First on the Court

Born in 1856, in Louisville, Kentucky, Louis Dembitz Brandeis was the child of European immigrants who maintained a minimal Jewish identity. However, his maternal uncle, Lewis Dembitz,…

Read More

The Jews’ Hospital of New York

Healthcare is a topic that is frequently in the news these days and is a major part of the current public discourse. Before it became standard practice for governments to fund public…

Read More

The Great Sea Monster

In honor of World Ocean Day, we present a Treat about the Great Sea Monster. For most of history, sea monsters were considered among the greatest perils of sea travel. Most probably, the…

Read More

Ice Cream Soda Day

With the summer solstice arriving tomorrow, let us contemplate one of summertime’s favorite heat-quenching beverages. June 20th is Ice Cream Soda Day. The ice cream soda, sometimes called…

Read More

Making it Transfusable

In 1901, Karl Landsteiner (June 14, 1868–June 26, 1943) discovered that people have different types of blood, and by 1909 he was able to begin labelling the different blood types. Born in…

Read More