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Once upon a time there was a man – says the Talmud – whose wife died in labor. The man was so poor that he didn’t have the money to hire a wet nurse for the new baby. And then a miracle happened. According to the Talmud, the man grew breasts bursting with milk. Rabbi Yosef said: How great is the man for whom this miracle was performed. Rabbi Abaye replied: Moreover, how terrible is the man for whom the natural order of Genesis was transformed. The story in Talmud Shabbat 53b presents two approaches in Jewish thought to the[…]

December 10, 1966 – 53 years ago. The clock ticks past 16:00, as the crowd waits in Stockholm’s opulent concert hall for the Nobel Prize winners. The honored guests are waiting anxiously for four stars. Three will herald the end of Shabbat. The fourth is the shining star of Hebrew literature, Shai Agnon. Soon after Shabbat ends, a posh car pulls up to the Grand Hotel. An elderly couple sits in the back seat in their finest clothes. Agnon, wearing a large black kipah, pulls out an electric shaver to quickly remove a day’s worth of stubble. The woman, Esther[…]

Winter 1759. Some 2000 Jews – men, women, and children – gathered in the central square in front of Lvov, Poland’s cathedral. All but the wailing infants were mum. The frigid bone-penetrating cold was beginning to claim victims. The occasional sound of a body hitting the ground was heard. Elisha Shor – of the famous Rohatyn Shors – was among the Jews in the square. He begged the cathedral’s leaders to give at least the elderly and the babies food and shelter. He told them that the Council of Four Lands, the central Rabbinic authority of Polish Jewry, had issued[…]

Historical research indicates that there were Jews in ancient Ethiopia, but their unknown origin and history has inspired many varying theories. The debate among researchers focuses mainly on the quality of the ethnic affiliation between those ancient Jews and the Jews who were first documented in the 9th-Century writings of Eldad HaDani and in Ethiopian sources in the 14th-Century. The Jewish community in Ethiopia, Beta Israel, cites various traditions as to their origins. One tradition maintains that Jews arrived in Ethiopia in waves, mainly via the Nile and its tributaries. Other traditions associate the Jews’ arrival in Ethiopia with the[…]

That Gaza is a hotbed of fundamentalist religion is nothing new. Throughout history, the city has attracted zealous believers, inflamed with high-voltage messianism and a burning passion to save humanity from its earthly suffering. From the time of Samson – who uprooted the gates of the Philistine city in a fit of sacred rage – to Yahya Sinwar and Muhammad Deif, who strive in the name of jihad to turn the whole world into Dar al-Harb. Messianism and zealotry are certainly not foreign to any religion, and Judaism also had its share of would-be messiahs, false prophets and eccentrics who[…]

While Isaiah Berlin was on his deathbed, Oxford University dean Roy Jenkins asked if he wanted the traditional memorial service in London’s iconic Westminster Abbey afforded to the kingdom’s celebrated figures. Berlin barked, “Hell no. I’m gonna have it in the Hampstead Synagogue.” The British Isle’s best and brightest gathered in the Orthodox Hampstead Synagogue a few days later to escort Berlin to his final reward. A colorful mosaic of Jews and non-Jews, women and men, aristocrats and public figures attended the service. Honored Lords wore kippot, and Ladies vied for space in the women’s galley. The ancient words of[…]

During the second season of Israel’s “Master Chef,” contenders were asked to cook a meal for someone close to their heart. One of them, Emanuel Rosenzweig, dedicated his meal to his grandfather Franz Rosenzweig, the renowned philosopher whom he sadly never had the privilege to meet. The studio fell silent. The judges – whose menus rarely feature spiritual sustenance – exchanged awkward glances. “Who is Franz Rosenzweig?” they wondered.  The other competitors looked at Emanuel with inquiring eyes. Chances are the viewers at home also lacked a clue as to who he was. It is truly hard to imagine anything[…]