Home > Issues > Issue 78 | September 2026

    Issue 78 | September 2026

    Issue 78 | September 2026

    Jewish resistance during the 1881 pogroms | Illustration: Ovadia Benishu

    Articles

  • Prussian Jewish soldiers pray on Yom Kippur during the Siege of Metz in the Franco Prussian War, 1870 | Center for Jewish History

    Onward, Jewish Soldiers? – Jewish Conscription in Europe

    Uri Safrai

    In light of Israeli ultra-Orthodoxy’s outspoken opposition to the draft, the rabbinic response to conscription in 19th- century Russia and Hungary provides a welcome contrast    Uri Safrai In the Middle Ages, wars were considere

  • | Illustration: Ovadia Benishu

    Fighting Back – Pogroms of 1881

    Netta Ehrlich

    Not all Jewish communities attacked in the Russian pogroms of 1881 conformed to the stereotype of easy prey. Pockets of resistance spawned self-defense organizations to contend with the ongoing threat Netta Ehrlich The Russian p

  • Harry Truman holding the Torah scroll given him by Chaim Weizmann on the latter’s first visit to the White House as president of the State of Israel, late spring 1948 | Photo: Bettmann/Getty Images

    The Flying Torah – Harry Truman’s Torah

    Joel Peerless

    A Torah scroll sounds like a superlative gift for the first world statesman to recognize the State of Israel. But what exactly made the Torah scroll presented by Chaim Weizmann to Harry S. Truman so special? Joel Peerless On May

  • Press reports on the anticipated absorption of Vizhnitz yeshiva students into the IDF

    Service with a Shtreimel – Vizhnitz Village

    Levi Cooper

    Despite their leaders’ current vitriol against army service, Vizhnitz Hasidim once provided living proof that today’s efforts to engage the Haredi community with national priorities are by no means unprecedented. As early as 1959, Vizhnitz

    • Columns

  • card from the land of Israel, showing a young farmer, a tractor, and a verse from Psalms: “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.” | Courtesy of the Yosef and Margit Hoffman Postcard Collection, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

    From the Archives | Hoping for the Best

    Nili Leshem

    Jews have traditionally sent New Year cards even when times were hard. The messages show that even the direst circumstances offered hope Nili Leshem In 1946, Lehi commander Yehoshua Cohen wrote to his parents from the British pr

  • Portrait of a People | Souls Before Stones

    Naomi Samuel

    Naomi Samuel At the Entrance of the Wailing Wall in JerusalemOil on canvas293 x 205 cm1904Hungarian Nat

  • On the ridge, not in the valley. Façade of Emek Refaim Synagogue, a.k.a. Kehillat Yael | All photos: Tamar Hayardeni

    Tale of a Trail | Emek Refaim Synagogue

    Tamar HaYardeni

    Which Jerusalem synagogue is located in the “Valley of Giants,” what’s beneath the synagogue’s glass floor, and why is a drawer built into the ark? Tamar HaYardeni Where To? Emek Refaim Synagogue4 Yael Street, Baka

  • Book Review | Miracle

    Sara Jo Ben-Zvi

    Sara Jo Ben-Zvi Miracle: The Boys Who Escaped the Gas Chamber in Auschwitz Michael Calvin with Naftali Schiff2026, 233 pages   Undeniable: The Untold Story of the Boys Who Escaped Gas Chamber 5 Jonathan KalmusJRoots Films, 20

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