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This coming Yom Kippur, just like every year, during the Musaf prayer, the famous piyyut “Unetanneh Tokef“ will be once again sung and touch all hearts in Ashkenazi synagogues and in part of the Sephardi and Yemenite ones as well. The piyyut opens with the words “Let us now relate the power of this day’s holiness, for it is awesome and frightening. On it Your Kingship will be exalted; Your throne will be firmed with kindness and You will sit upon it in truth”. It has been one of the most renowned texts in Jewish liturgy for centuries, which received the[…]

More than half a century later, Sandy Koufax’s decision not to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series between his Los Angeles Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins, still reverberate loudly and clearly among American Jews. The greatest pitcher of his day, enjoying a five-year dominant span unparalleled in Baseball history, decided to respect Yom Kippur rather than play in the number one showpiece of American sports. What amplified Koufax’s decision was that it was coupled by sporting greatness. He would in fact start Game 2 and lose, but then pitched a four-hit complete game shutout victory in Game 5,[…]

He who has control over time, has control over agendas. Therefore, it is not surprising that the greatest revolutions in history always sought an opportunity to change or replace the calendar in use: the leaders of the French revolution replaced the Gregorian calendar with a new one, in which each month had three weeks, ten days each. The Bolsheviks in the Russian revolutions made a similar attempt and formed a special calendar for workers, which had five days, each called after a color: yellow, pink, red, purple and green. Well, that didn’t help them much. In 1806 Napoleon canceled the[…]

This week marks the 103rd anniversary of the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish industrialist who was falsely accused of a terrible crime and whose violent murder shook American Jews’ sense of security in their new home. Frank was born in Paris, Texas but his family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where he grew up. He eventually joined the family business working for the National Pencil Company. In 1907 Frank moved from New York to Georgia after he was promoted to co-owner and superintendent of the company’s factory in Atlanta. At the turn of the 20th century Atlanta was home[…]

Surely, some concepts delivered by Judaism hit Jews back like a boomerang: God; the atom bomb; summer vacation, to name just a few, and also, the sociological concept of the excommunication. Such sanctions weren’t invented by the BDS movement, who simply adopted an old Jewish concept and used it against the Jews. The origin of the excommunication practice dates back to the middle ages, even to biblical times. It was mostly in use during the bitter war between the Hasidim and its opposers since the 18th century until the 19th century. That period saw a cruel conflict that’s been splitting the Jewish society[…]

“Crazy Ex Girlfriend” is a series created by Rachel Bloom, a Jewish-American comedian and producer, famous for her clips on feminine sexuality, Judaism, women geeks, among other topics. The song Chanukah Honey is a nice example to start with. Bloom uses a Christmas carol and converts it hilariously (warning: the clip contains sexual references as well as comparison between ritual articles and some private organs, so if that offends you, skip it): The t.v. show first aired three years ago, and last week it was announced that shootings of the fourth and last season begun, and it’s going on air in[…]

Throughout most of Jewish history, Jewish scholars and authors contributed in all genres but one: they wrote Halacha and Agadah, poetry, lamentations, songs of joy, holidays poems, ethics, Kabbala and “Sod” (mystery) literature – you can find Jewish authors everywhere in written culture. But there was one field which they have been avoiding until the 19th century – historiography. Unlike their neighbors, whether Muslim or Christian – Jews avoided writing chronicles of their history, and used to describe important events within other written genres. This tendency did have, however, one interesting exception – no, we are not going to tell[…]

The kind of bribe a leader receives or offers can reveal a lot on his set of values. Think, for example, about the elephant granted by Sultan Harun Al Rashid to Charles the Great, or the shoes that “Norman” the hustler bought for Prime Minister Micha Eshel in Yossef Cedar’s film, or the cash packed envelopes that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received as bribe. Our story begins in the summer of 1901. Theodor Herzl had a brilliant idea: to give the Turkish Sultan a present, not just any present, but the cutting edge of technology back then: a typing machine with[…]

A well-known Jewish folk story, recounted whenever there is a need to emphasize what a lover of Jews Napoleon Bonaparte was, takes place during the failed campaign to the Land of Israel. It is told that Napoleon landed with his troops on Tisha B’Av. Upon hearing the Jews lamenting, he asked why, and when they explained to him that they were mourning for the destruction of their temple in 70ac, he said that if this people is mourning their temple after 1700 years, such a people so attached to their history, will indeed be restored to their land and have[…]