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Conspiracy or Contagion?
Long before covid-19, the fledgling State of Israel battled deadly epidemics in its immigrant absorption camps. Yemenite infants were the hardest hit, and inadequate record-keeping meant that many fell through the cracks, giving rise to conspiracy theories involving kidnapping and secret adoptions. A new look at an old scandal // Yechiel Michael Barilan
Just His Cup of Tea
As tea became a Russian favorite, an enterprising young Jew jumped on the bandwagon and made a fortune on the beverage. Kalonymus Wulf Wissotzky’s global tea empire imploded after World War IIbut rebounded in Israel, whose agricultural colonies he’d helped found over half a century earlier // Leonid Liflyand
Echoes of Sorrow
Drums throbbed and lyres played as Mesopotamian priests sang lamentations to avert divine retribution. But the death and destruction described in these songs focused not on the past but on the future, echoing and assuaging the emotional turmoil of the gods // Uri Gabbay
Til Death Do Us Part
How better to ward off plague than by celebrating life with a wedding? And why shouldn’t the dead also attend? The Jewish intelligentsia railed against graveyard nuptials, but “black weddings” were once all the rage // Sara Barnea
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Tail of a Trail
Why was the Lovers of Zion colony of Ekron renamed for Betty Rothshchild, and how did it survive the Baron’s anger when its independent-minded farmers insisted on a sabbatical? // Tamar Hayardeni
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A Brief History of Plagues
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Voices of the Past
An Example to All
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Critics
The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Social Vision
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Portrait of a People
David Roberts