Home > Issues > Issue 63 | December 2022

    Issue 63 | December 2022

    Issue 63 | December 2022

    Forget doctors and lawyers. The most Jewish business of all – at least in 18th- and 19th-century Ukraine – was bartending. A Business Secret, Isidor Kaufmann, oil on canvas, 1917

    Articles

  • Instant fame. This photo of Shalom Schwarzbard was donated – together with papers pertaining to his trial – to what became the National Library of Israel. In 1930, Schwarzbard had autographed the photo and inscribed it, “In everlasting remembrance, for the people and land of Israel”

    The Avenger – Shalom Schwarzbard

    Moriya Ta’asan Mikhaeli

    Five gunshots fired on a busy Paris street in broad daylight set the scene for a controversial murder trial. A Jewish watchmaker confessed to the crime, but the resulting proceedings tried the victim rather than his killer, giving the casua

  • In Good Spirits –  Jews and Alcohol

    Shalom Boguslavsky

    It’s no coincidence that a “l’chaim” is a key feature of every eastern European Jewish tale. Why were Jews the region’s primary manufacturers, traders, and even servers of alcohol – and how did it shape their lives?// Shalom Boguslavsky Sha

  • Illustration: Michel Kichka

    Forever Young – Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav

    Roni Barlev

    The Bratslav Hasidic tradition reflects a religious devotion at once wholehearted and playful. From Rebbe Nahman’s childhood escapades to his fables and his dancing followers, it’s all about constantly delighting in life anew  Roni Barlev

  • Prelude to Babi Yar – Pogroms in Ukraine

    Jeffrey Veidlinger

    Following World War I, numerous armies tore Ukraine apart. All agreed on only one thing: the region’s greatest scourge was the Jews, who were humiliated, robbed, raped, and murdered – by their neighbors as much as by invading troops Jeffrey

  • The irony lurking just beneath the surface gives his every sentence double meaning. Agnon in his library | Photo: David Rubinger, Corbis via Getty Images

    A World in Words – S.Y Agnon

    Michal Shir-el

    Nobel Prize–winning author Shmuel Yosef Agnon recreated a lost world in his prose. In Hebrew echoing the majesty of the prophets and the clarity of the Mishna, he peeled away nostalgia for the distant shtetl. Yet the pity and longing with w

    • Columns

  • Voices of the Past | Shmuel Yosef Agnon

    Shmuel Yosef Agnon

    Upon learning that every last Jew there had been murdered by the Nazis, Agnon set about recreating Buczacz in all its vibrancy, from its heyday as a seat of Jewish learning until the day its last Jew fell dead upon the hill   27 Is it possi

  • Quick Looks at Books

    Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

    Categorically Jewish, Distinctly Polish | An Unchosen People | Jews and Their Roman Rivals | The 36 Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Categorically Jewish, Distinctly PolishPoli

  • Tale of a Trail | Herodium National Park

    Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

    Why did Herod bury his architectural masterpiece and final resting place, and who discovered it? Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Where To? Herodium National Park   Herzl has Herzliya, Montefiore has the

  • Portrait of a People | Shadowlight

    Naomi Samuel

    Naomi Samuel Bezalel SchoolA fusion of Oriental artand Meir Gur Arieh (Gorodetsky)1891-1951 HoraPaper

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