MADRID, March 26 (JTA) — It was truly a historic find. About 15 years ago, archivists examining several yellowed volumes of notarial records in the city of Girona in northeastern Spain began suspecting that the covers were lined with precious historical documents. They carefully picked apart the volumes and found a multitude of Hebrew manuscripts […]

Although the number of Jews who live in Ireland has been growing smaller and smaller, Jews have lived in Ireland for centuries. The Jewish population peaked at approximately 5,500 in the late 1940’s. The numbers have dwindled to approximately 1,700 today. Those who remain celebrate their heritage and holidays, all the time wondering how their […]

AMSTERDAM – On February 10, the unveiling was held of the new plaque on the old building that stands a few hundred meters away from the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam. “Megadlei yetomot ma’asim tovim – Raising Orphans Good Deeds.” Elma Verheij, a non-Jewish journalist from Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands, a weekly established by members of […]

DIDN’T ISRAEL DRIVE OUT 600,000 PALESTINIANS AT GUNPOINT IN 1948 AND TAKE THEIR LAND? Most Arabs who left Israel did so under the orders of the Arab leader, the Grand Mufti, to withdraw and let the Arab armies “drive the Jews into the sea,” which they attempted in 1948. However Israel won that war. Not […]

The Old Shtetl: Krynica There are many stories about the shtetlach in Poland, mostly concerning everyday life and the struggle to survive. But life was not always a struggle, not always filled with a fear of the Gentiles or where the next meal would come from. There was also time for vacation and trips to […]

For six decades, historians have debated the Allied reaction to Adolf Hitler’s “final solution.” Amid the complexities of war and the fog of battle, could Washington and London have done more to save Europe’s Jews? Why not try to save Jewish lives by bombing the death camps and rail lines to Auschwitz. REVERED IN MEMORY […]

“Demolishing the homes of Arab civilians…” “Shooting handcuffed prisoners…” “Forcing local Arabs to test areas where mines may have been planted…” These sound like the sort of accusations made by British and other European officials concerning Israel’s recent actions in Jenin. In fact, they are descriptions from official British documents concerning the methods used by […]

National Public Radio’s look back to the beginnings of the Arab-Israeli conflict moved in its third installment to the 1948 period, centering on Israel’s War of Independence, and like the first two segments, this one was marred by grave errors and omissions. For example, in discussing British restrictions on Jewish immigration, NPR mentions only the […]

Twenty-four years after the publication of his book `Dado,’ Hanoch Bartov is back with an expanded edition in his campaign to clear the name of David Elazar, the chief of staff in the Yom Kippur War. A few hours before the Passover seder in 1976, David (“Dado”) Elazar called the novelist Hanoch Bartov and told […]

One of the most powerful and widespread arguments against Zionism and the State of Israel has been the claim that Jewish settlement in Palestine led directly to the displacement and exploitation of the land`s long-established Arab population. In 1939, on the eve of the Holocaust and at the height of British attempts to divide the […]