Memorial Day Museum
Washington, DC, is a city of museums. Beyond the vast assortment of divisions and galleries at the Smithsonian Institute and the many political memorials, there are also smaller museums…
Great Scots!
The story of the great masses of Eastern European Jews who arrived in New York and settled on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is now more than conventional history, but an ingrained…
Day of the Dove
In modern Western culture, the dove is commonly used to symbolize peace. The positive associations attached to the dove, however, are not new. This particular bird has been set apart from…
Stories for Little Jews
When the four children of Rabbi Baruch and Sadie Rose Weilerstein were little, they had no idea that their mother’s stories would change the face of Jewish children’s literature in…
Thank You Nurses
Today, May 12, is International Nurses Day, and so, today, Jewish Treats honors a woman who made a tremendous impact on the world of public health. Lillian D. Wald (1867 – 1940) was born…
The Intellectual Prototype
In the early and mid-twentieth century, there were what might be called stereotypical Jewish intellectuals – Jewish men and women who were dedicated socialists and whose fervor was often…
A Constitutional Congregation
What does the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania have to do with the oldest synagogue in that state? Congregation Mikveh Israel (Originally Kaal Kadosh Mickve Israel) was founded in the 1740s…
Yogurt by Greeks
Greek yogurt may be all the rage in food today, but did you know that it was the Greek-Jewish Carasso family who created Dannon yogurt? The descendant of a prominent Sephardic family,…
Rock of Ages
“Rock of Ages let our song / Praise thy saving power / Thou amidst the raging foes / Wast our sheltering tower....” This is the first verse of Maoz Tzur as translated, loosely…
Two Days of Festival
Leviticus 23:34-36: “On the fifteenth day of the seventh month is the Feast of Tabernacles ... On the first day shall be a holy convocation; you shall do no manner of creative…