Greek songs and stories, a book from Morocco, and one ruby-eyed snake ring…
The Tulsa Race Massacre and Oklahoma’s Jews
How local Jews – some with fresh memories of European pogroms – did their small part to help victims of one of the worst acts of racial violence in US history
Israel’s Astounding (and Imprecise) World Record
The unbelievable story of how 1,088 (or was it 1,122?) people flew aboard a single airplane as part of 1991’s Operation Solomon
These Rediscovered Melodies Survived the Holocaust. Now They’re Online
Tunes from his childhood accompanied Yitzchak Freilich through the camps and on to his new life in America. Recorded by his son, they are now online as part of the National Library of Israel collection
A Brief Blinken Family History: From Pereiaslav to DC and Back
US secretary of state’s immigrant ancestor was a trailblazing Yiddishist, as well as a carpenter and masseuse
Crotchety Old Academic Reflects on the Great Russian ‘Wave’
As a young grad student 30 years ago, Prof. Brian Horowitz was an active witness to history
Five-Hundred Years in the Life of the Amon Family
From the surrender of Spain to the court of Suleiman the Magnificent and beyond, they were there
Two-Gun Cohen: Artful Dodger Turned Chinese Legend and Hero of Israel
“He was like a character out of a book. He was like something somebody wrote.”
Four Fateful Weeks in the Life of Sigmund Becker
From medical school to the battlefield, he wound up in Siberia and China before America
Dodging the Draft in the Old Country
Besides poverty and pogroms, forced conscription weighed heavily on European Jews
