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Conspiracy or Contagion?

Long before covid-19, the fledgling State of Israel battled deadly epidemics in its immigrant absorption camps. Yemenite infants were the hardest hit, and inadequate record-keeping meant that many fell through the cracks, giving rise to conspiracy theories involving kidnapping and secret adoptions. A new look at an old scandal // Yechiel Michael Barilan

 

Just His Cup of Tea

As tea became a Russian favorite, an enterprising young Jew jumped on the bandwagon and made a fortune on the beverage. Kalonymus Wulf Wissotzky’s global tea empire imploded after World War IIbut rebounded in Israel, whose agricultural colonies he’d helped found over half a century earlier // Leonid Liflyand

 

Echoes of Sorrow

Drums throbbed and lyres played as Mesopotamian priests sang lamentations to avert divine retribution. But the death and destruction described in these songs focused not on the past but on the future, echoing and assuaging the emotional turmoil of the gods // Uri Gabbay

 

Til Death Do Us Part

How better to ward off plague than by celebrating life with a wedding? And why shouldn’t the dead also attend? The Jewish intelligentsia railed against graveyard nuptials, but “black weddings” were once all the rage // Sara Barnea

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Tail of a Trail

Why was the Lovers of Zion colony of Ekron renamed for Betty Rothshchild, and how did it survive the Baron’s anger when its independent-minded farmers insisted on a sabbatical? // Tamar Hayardeni

 A Brief History of Plagues

Voices of the Past

An Example to All

Critics

The Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Social Vision

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Portrait of a People

David Roberts

 

 

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