Solomon Bush and the Revolutionary War
What was the highest rank obtained by a Jewish soldier during the Revolutionary War? The answer is Lieutenant-Colonel, by order of the Executive Council of Pennsylvania, to Solomon Bush.…
Ginger Ail?
Happy “Love Your Red Hair Day”! Those endowed with ginger-ness (In Israel, a redheaded person is called a “gingy”), 1% of the world’s population and 2% of that of the United States, are…
In Arkansas
Jewish life in Arkansas began in 1825 with the arrival of Abraham Block to the town of Washington in Hempstead County. For Block and his family, however, it was a very lonely Jewish…
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…
Irish in Fairbanks
In 1910, while visiting her family in her native town of Dublin, Jessie Spiro was introduced to her second cousin, Robert Bloom. He was eight years her senior and had spent the last…
Hail to the Chief
“A blessing for the czar? Of course. May God bless and keep the czar... far away from us.” So jokes the rabbi of Anatevka during the opening number of Fiddler on the Roof. This was a real…
Revolutionary Doctors
At the time of the American Revolution, approximately 2,000 Jews resided in the colonies. A fair number of these Jews served in the Continental Army, and many others showed their…
Rabin
Yesterday was the 23rd anniversary of the death of Yitzchak Rabin, who was assassinated on November 4, 1995. Born in Jerusalem on March 1, 1922, Rabin grew up in Tel Aviv. He entered…
Ray Frank – An American Preacher
Ray (Rachel) Frank did not set out to be titled “Jewess in the Pulpit” or “Latter Day Deborah.” Frank’s famous career as a Jewish female preacher began in 1890, when, on a trip to write…
Rabbi Dr. Joachim Prinz
Can you name the speaker who preceded Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington? It was Rabbi (Dr.) Joachim Prinz,…