This is the story of a brother and sister, Russian immigrants, who arrived at Ellis Island almost 90 years ago, knowing no English. Decades later, I, the brother, was invited back to Ellis Island as a composer of an anthem celebrating the immigrant experience, while my sister excelled in English and became a famous novelist….
The kids can play, so long as it doesn't get in the way of studying or put them in with a bad crowd
He was a proud Russian, a renegade Orthodox Jew, an ardent advocate of Jewish autonomy, and the man who pioneered the field of Jewish historiography at the turn of the 20th century. Yet Simon Dubnow continues to inspire Jewish scholarship today, as evidenced by a day-long conference at the YIVO institute for Jewish Research on…
With the opening of San Francisco’s Jewish Community High School of the Bay’s (JCHS) new building on Ellis Street in 2002, the city’s organized Jewish community finally returned to the Fillmore. Only local Jewish history buffs appreciated the significance; the neighborhood in which the school is situated — now called The Western Addition — was…
I spent most of the day yesterday on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Not literally. I was reading Jane Ziegelman’s new book, 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement. I wanted to know what they ate in the days before Crisco, Cool Whip, corn…
Speak to any elderly Israeli, and one of the first things they will say regarding how the country has changed over the decades is that there has been an increase in crime. We used to leave our doors open, they are likely to say, before going on to discuss the numerous locks they have installed…
Ever since mankind discovered that the Earth is round, daring souls have attempted to get to the east by going west and vice versa. Columbus was one of them. When in 1492, he sailed the ocean blue, he was looking for a western route to India. There was a lively trade between Europe and India,…
In America, at the present time, a Jewish-black intermarriage is not uncommon. One of the oldest such marriages in recorded history was that of Moses to an Ethiopian woman named Zipporah. Moses’ sister Miriam and his brother Aaron were quite annoyed by the marriage and did not hesitate to express their disapproval. When a male…
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