The Importance of English Books
In honor of April 23rd, which the United Nations has declared English Language Day, Jewish Treats presents a history of the Jewish Publication Society (JPS), the oldest, not-for-profit,…
For Your Jewish Mother
If one were to believe the jokes, Jewish mothers enjoy nothing more than nagging their children to eat, encouraging grown children to get married and bragging about the children’s…
Berlin’s Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary
On May 11, 1820, a child was born in Prussia who would, as a grown man, almost single-handedly change the face of German Jewry. Rabbi Azriel Hildesheimer attended yeshiva in Hanover, and…
Balak 5781-2021
"Words of Eternal Truth from the Evil Prophet Bilaam” (updated and revised from Balak 5761-2001) by, Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald In this week’s parasha, parashat Balak, we encounter Balak,…
Virginia is for Lovers…of Israel
While cities like Charleston, Philadelphia and New York contained Jewish communities during the pre-revolutionary period, Virginia, the largest of the colonies, did not. Individual Jews…
People of the (Printed) Book
Johannes Gutenberg (1400-1468), credited as the developer of the printing press, published the Gutenberg Bible in 1445. The printing technology transformed the way people learned.…
Tithe Means Tenth
Ideally, people would have no qualms about supporting those in need. The Torah, however, recognized that charity is not necessarily a person’s first instinct and therefore specifies a…
Personal Responsibility
In the beginning, there was…taking responsibility for one’s own actions. This important lesson is found in the very first portion of the Torah not once, but twice. Adam and Eve were given…
The First Rabbi in America
The first ordained rabbi to serve in an American congregation was Rabbi Abraham Joseph Rice (originally Reiss, 1800-1862). After studying in Germany, in Wurzburg and then Fuerth, Rice was…
The Jews of Amsterdam
October 27, 1275 is noted as the first time the name “Amsterdam” was recorded as the name of a settlement in the Netherlands, near a dam on the Amstel River. That small fishing village…