Yuval Baruch and Gideon Avni  The ancient city of Jerusalem, which is located within the area of the walled Old City of today, was revealed to the archeological research mainly because of the large-scale excavations carried out in the southern and south-western areas of the Old City: at the Kotel, in the Jewish Quarter and […]

When a glass breaks in the Caribbean island of Curacao, both Jewish and non-Jewish islanders shout the Papiamentu word beshimanto. It comes from the Hebrew word b’siman tov (“with good tidings”), which is said after the bridegroom breaks the glass. Now the word has been integrated into Curacaoan culture. Curacao’s Jewish community, which established itself […]

In 1642, when the 600 Jews of Recife (Pemambuco), Brazil, felt secure enough to establish a synagogue and worship openly, they summoned Rabbi Isaac Abcab de Fonseca of Amsterdam, Holland, to serve as their first hocham (spiritual leader). Aboab de Fonseca became, thereby, the first congregational rabbi in the New World. When the Portuguese explorer […]

Part I E. Initial Restoration Attempts – 1931 Following the riots and deportations, the reinnants of the Jewish community strove unceasingly to restore Jews to the city of their forefathers. One leading figure in these efforts, despite his own horrendous personal tragedy, was the aged Rabbi Yaakov Yosef Slonim, Chief Rabbi of Hebron, whose family […]

A. The Jewish People’s Deepest Roots Jewish history begins in Hebron. The Patriarch Abraham, the first Hebrew, chose Hebron as the first place of settlement in the Land of Israel. It was here that he purchased the first legacy, the Cave of Machpelah, where the Patriarehs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca […]

The Israeli national anhem, Hatikvah, has been attributed to Naftali Herz Imber, but the Hatikvah that is sung today has little resemblance to the original poem written in 1878 and published in 1886. The poem was first published under the title of Tikvatenu (Our Hope) in Imber’s Barkai. The inspiration of the poem is said […]

Continued from Part I… Shlomo Ben-Ami was Israel’s top negotiator during the July 2000 Camp David summit. There has been much speculation and analysis about the reasons for the summit’s failure. However, first-hand accounts of what went on behind closed doors have been limited. Ben-Ami, who is a history professor and whose performance at Camp […]

Warsaw Ghetto: a name, a phrase, familiar to most people today only as a matter of history. Important history, yes, but dry and impersonal just the same. Because even the most vivid of photographs and the most descriptive of texts, whether found on the pages of books or the walls of museams, cannot begin to […]

Shlomo Ben-Ami was Israel’s top negotiator during the July 2000 Camp David summit. There has been much speculation and analysis about the reasons for the summit’s failure. However, first-hand accounts of what went on behind closed doors have been limited. Ben-Ami, who is a history professor and whose performance at Camp David advanced him to […]

Survivor, 85, makes translation his mission Mark Swiatlo, 85, of Boca Raton, curator of Florida Atlantic University’s Judaica Collection is a storyteller. He has about 7,300 stories that he is determined to tell. “These testimonies are given by survivors of the Holocaust as early as 1944,” said Swiatlo, who is also a survivor. “They are […]