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The Gemara’s Bava Metzia Tractate features a well-known argument in the annals of ethics: Two people are walking in the desert. One holds a jar containing enough water for one of them. If they divide the water between them, both will die. If one of them drinks all the water, he will survive. Ben Peturah said: It is preferable that both of them drink and die, and let neither one of them see the death of the other. Rabbi Akiva argued that one’s life takes precedence over that of one’s fellow. A Communist in his soul, Ben Peturah preached equality until death.[…]

Pride Month, and its celebration of the many ways to love and be loved, is a result of years of activism and advocacy on the part of LGBTQ+ people and their allies, particularly starting in the 1960s. But before the dawn of the 20th century one German Jewish doctor and sexologist, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, became a pioneer for LGBTQ+ rights, paving the way for the world to recognize the existence and legal rights of individuals regardless of their sexual orientation. Hirschfeld was born in 1868 Kolberg (now Kolobrzeg) Poland and eventually moved to Germany in order to earn his doctoral[…]

Peugeot, Citroen, Ford, Honda, Ferrari, Bentley, Renault. Before these brands became megacorps employing hundreds of thousands, they were flesh-and-blood people. Armand, Andre, Henry, Soichiro, Enzo, Walter, and Louis – the visionary engineers, inventors, and industrialists who entered the Industrial Revolution’s pantheon – are etched in human memory as masters who changed our lives forever. And there’s one more. In fact, two. Mercedes Benz. And before they morphed into a car, they were Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler. For those who are wondering where the “Mercedes” came from: Daimler’s first client, a seasoned businessman named Emil Jellinek, made his purchase of[…]

“My girlfriend and I are Russian revolutionists and freethinkers, but our parents want us to have a religious wedding—what should we do?” “Should I marry a woman with a dimple in her chin, when everyone says that people with dimples in their chins will lose their first husband or wife?” “I was a prosperous businessman in Warsaw, but I have not managed to succeed in America; should I go back to Warsaw?” These are just some of the hundreds of questions printed by the Yiddish newspaper Forverts (פֿאָרווערטס‎) in its advice column, A Bintel Brief (אַ בינטל בריוו, A Bundle[…]

“Behind me stand hundreds of thousands of saints, a camp full of tortured victims staring silently at you and demanding justice. Not mercy – only justice. I stand before you here with them, with all my heart and soul.” If those lines sound familiar to you, you have a healthy grasp of history.  These words taken from the closing argument in Sholom Schwarzbard’s trial in 1927 are remarkably similar to Gideon Hausner’s opening speech in the Eichmann trial – a speech that rocked the nation and is eternally etched in Israel’s national awareness. Did Hausner’s preparation for the trial of[…]

Long before the Israeli Mossad became the best espionage organization in the world, Jewish spies in Israel stripped off and donned disguises, crossed enemy lines and brought back quality intelligence – intelligence that did not come under the heading of “the public’s right to know.” Among the most important, least well known and most forgotten of them was one whose life and activities nonetheless surpassed all imagination. The bohemian Jerusalem businessman, Israel’s leading insurance agent and a poet, was also among the leaders of one of Israel’s largest World-War-I era spy networks. Alter Levin was born in Minsk in 1883[…]