Damned If You Do
Weary and Drained Germany’s surrender to the Allied forces in May 1945 marked the official end of World War II. Soldiers returned home, and Europe set about rebuilding itself. Germany was divided into zones controlled...
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Eilat’s Treasures
We Prefer it Open Traversing the rickety road from the Israeli port of Eilat to its Egyptian equivalent in Taba, past thousands of imported cars lined up in spectacular order, glinting in Eilat’s glaring sun,...
Egypt’s Jewish Molière
The Great 19th Century Egyptian history has certainly had its glory, but it seems almost ironic that Egyptians should term the period from the late 18th century until World War I “The Great 19th Century.”...
Did Jew Know?
1. Rank and File Roughly 1.35 million Jews fought in World War I, in the following armies: 500,000 – Russian 320,000 – Austro-Hungarian 250,000 – American 100,000 – German 55,000 – French 35,000 – British,2. Jew against...
The Gateway
Defending the Canal Volatile to its very core at the outbreak of World War I, the Middle East was divided between the superpowers of western Europe and the “sick man” to the east, the Ottoman...
The Viscount of Megiddo
Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby was born in England in 1861. As a young man, Allenby dreamed of joining the British Civil Service in India, but after twice failing the entry exams, he pursued a military...
Dying in Vain
Dying in Vain Born in 1893, Wilfred Owen volunteered for the British army in 1915 and was sent to Europe after completing officers’ training. His service on the Western Front was traumatic – he was...
The Pilgrims’ Progress
First Century Pilgrimage It is difficult for us to imagine how the Biblical command of Aliya LeRegel, or pilgrimage, impacted on the lives of Jews some two thousand years ago. When we picture Pesach, we...
Faith Under Fire
Three Soldiers The first was in the armored corps. His tank took a direct hit, and he alone survived, burnt from head to toe. In the long months he lay in a hospital bed, he...
When Shakespeare Spoke Yiddish
In Yiddish, the Good Die Young In one of the opening scenes of Jewish American playwright Tony Kushner’s celebrated work Angels in America, which debuted in the U.S. in the early 1990s, a young Jew...
The Night of the Murdered Poets
On August 12, 1952, thirteen Soviet Jews convicted of espionage and treason were executed in Moscow’s Lubianika Prison. Their confessions had been extracted by torture. This group, known as “the Martyrs of the Soviet Union,”...
