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Issues 1-50

Articles

Mystery of The Disappearing Port – Caesarea Maritima

Jacob Sharvit

Of all King Herod’s grandiose projects, the port of Caesarea was the most ambitious, especially from an engineering point of view. Why did Herod build it where there was no natural bay, and how did the port disappear in just one generation?

The Battle on the Hill – San Simon

Yeshurun Fisher

Bitter and bloody, the battle for Jerusalem’s San Simon Monastery in 1948 was etched deeply into the memories of all who fought there. Their bravery and self-sacrifice forged the founding ethos of the Israel Defense Forces Yeshurun Fisher

Napoleon’s Jewish Court

Moti Benmelech

Aside from transforming Europe militarily and politically, Napoleon redefined the Jews’ place in his secular empire. To that end, he even revived the Sanhedrin Moti Benmelech Jews have been fascinated by Napoleon Bonaparte ever

Fastest Jew in the West – Wild West Synagogues

Louis Davidson

Among the many immigrants to the U.S. who went west to seek their fortunes, most Jews struck gold selling dry goods rather than prospecting. Once settled, these pioneers built towns, communities – and a surprising variety of synagogues Loui

From Port To Port – Thessaloniki

Atar Peleg

Nothing fazed the potential immigrants from the bustling port of Thessaloniki (Salonica) – neither the draconian union contract they had to sign nor the possibility of working on the Sabbath, which they’d never done back home. Was their abs

Columns

From the Archives | The Ultimate Schism

Adrienn Sepa

Hungarian Jew or Jewish Hungarian? When electing a Jewish congress in the mid-1800s, Hungary’s Jews couldn’t decide Adrienn Sepa Though Jews campaigned long and hard for equality in their many countries of dispersion, the privil

Post-script | Luboml City Post

Itamar Atzmon

The first place ever to issue stamps showing a synagogue and marked with Hebrew lettering was, surprisingly enough, the Polish town of Luboml. The stamps were strange for other reasons too Itamar Atzmon Though few have heard of

From the Archives | The Wedding That Wasn’t

Yochai Ben-Ghedalia

Certification that a husband and wife are both in fact single? This was a peculiarly Orthodox method of fighting British restrictions on immigration to Palestine Yochai Ben-Ghedalia One might suppose that a local rabbinate’s arc

From the Archives | The Angry Convert

Hadassah Assouline

A letter sent by Lenin’s great-grandfather to the czar was intended to make as much trouble as possible for the Jews of Russia Hadassah Assouline The letter below, sent to Czar Nicholas I of Russia in January 1845 by one Moses s

Portrait of a People | Domestic Idyll

Naomi Samuel

Naomi Samuel Anselm and Charlotte von RothschildSelf-portrait with her husband, two of their children,

Portrait of a People | Sabbath Peace

Naomi Samuel

Naomi Samuel Friday EveningOil on canvas73 x 91 cmVienna, 1920 Jewish Museum, New York(Gift of Mr. &amp