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Issue 70 | September 2024

Articles

Body & Soul – Ottoman Jewish Midwifery

Tali Buskila

Among Jews in the Ottoman Middle East, birth took place in the mother’s home, where close friends and family assisted in an evolving social and spiritual experience. This safe, female space was seminal in women’s lives Tali Buskila

Birth Rite – Birthing Amulets

Chen Avizohar-Hagay

Prior to effective medical techniques, amulets were a trusted method of protecting believers at their most vulnerable. To keep newborns and their motheres safe, Jews drew on prayers, incantations, and legends of creation as well as angels a

Breakthrough to the Negev – Jewish Settlement of the Negev

Dotan Goren

At the end of the 1930s, the land of Israel’s parched south was devoid of Jewish settlement. In the decade leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, however, the region suddenly boomed, benefitting from lavish national resourc

Births of a Nation – Jewish Birth Rate in Mandate Palestine

Lilach Rosenberg-Fridman

Thanks to its high birth rate, Israel is one of the West’s only growing societies. Under the British Mandate, however, the Zionist campaign for large Jewish families largely flopped. What factors outweighed the urgent demographic need for J

Columns

Quick Looks at Books

Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval Europe | One Day in October  Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Jews and the Wine Trade in Medieval EuropePrinciples and Pressures Haym Solov

Tale of a Trail | Beit Immanuel, Jaffa

Tamar HaYardeni

An American villa, a Russian baron with Swiss and Ethiopian wives, and a tropical garden with trees from all over the world. Beit Immanuel, in Jaffa’s German Colony, typifies the multiethnic land of Israel before World War I Tamar HaYardeni

From the Archives | Cradle to Grave

Yochai Ben-Ghedalia

When did countries begin maintaining birth and death registries, and how does the lack of earlier data limit genealogical research? Yochai Ben-Ghedalia Shortly after a child is born, usually even before he’s named, the hospital

Portrait of a People | Lions on Canvas

Naomi Samuel

Naomi Samuel Daniel in the Lions’ DenOil on canvas, 98 x 152 cmLondon, 1872National Museums, Liverpool