Conscripted for Life?
On August 26, 1827, Czar Nicholas I set into motion the terrible ordeal of the cantonists. Cantonist schools, which had originally served as pre-military boarding schools for military…
Changing Ukraine
Kiev, Odessa, Zhitomyr, Uman...the cities of Ukraine are places marked in Jewish history for both horror and hope. Jews have lived in Ukraine for well-over a thousand years, and there is…
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…
“He Was the Best Man We Had”
(Quote by David Ben Gurion) In early 1948, knowing that the untrained and disorganized Jewish fighting forces could not withstand a true battle for the Promised Land, David Ben…
D-Day and The Dunera Boys
Seventy years ago today (June 6, 1944), the Allied armies began the largest seaborne invasion in history. D-Day, as it is now called, began the Invasion of Normandy. Among the thousands…
The Crémieux Decree
On October 24, 1870, The French government issued a decree to recognize the Jews of Algeria as French citizens. The law had been written and passed after much campaigning by powerful…
The Exodus of the Syrian Jews
In 1948, Jews around the world celebrated the creation of the newly established State of Israel. After millennia of exile and centuries of struggle, the Promised Land would once again be…
Chief Rabbi of Egypt
On 13 MarCheshvan, 1960, Rabbi Haim Nahum Effendi passed away in Cairo, and thousands of people - Jews, Muslims and Christians - attended his funeral.
The Soviet Yeshiva
If one were to create a list of the great European learning centers, Moscow would probably not be on it. After the establishment of the Soviet Communist regime, Jewish life was…
W Tea
Although many Jews were active in the leadership of the Russian Revolution, and the government of the Czar was less than friendly to the general Jewish population, there were many…