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“The bank was located on El-Batrak Street (present day David Street) in the Old City, near the vegetable stalls and the grocery stores, which also sold fish. The bank itself was situated between two vegetable stalls, whose crates took up a large part of the street. You would enter via a narrow passageway, at the end which there were two spacious rooms, where Aharon Valero ran his banking business.” That’s how Gad Frumkin described Jacob Valero & Company, the first private bank in pre-State Israel, in his book Derech Shofet B’Yerushalayim – The Path of a Judge. The bank’s founder,[…]

The Forgotten Singer: The Exiled Sister of I.J. and Isaac Bashevis Singer, written by Maurice Carr, was recently published by White Goat Press, the imprint of the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. Carr has already been dead for 20 years, but only now has this biography come out, in which the author seeks historical justice for his mother, Esther Kreitman. The forgotten author, who only in recent years has begun to receive recognition as one of the first Jewish feminist writers, was overshadowed by her famous brothers. They did not support her literary career and gave her no financial[…]

The inscription on Dr. Bat Sheva Yonis-Gutman’s headstone at Trumpeldor Cemetery in downtown Tel Aviv does not cite her date of birth, but only the date of her emigration to Israel. That was common practice among members of the Second Aliyah, who wanted to leave behind every trace of their lives in the Diaspora and be reborn in the Land of Israel. Just so you know, one of the first female physicians in Israel’s pre-State community was born on January 1, 1880 in Tarutyne, a village in the southwest region of the former Russian Empire. Her father, Shlomo, was a[…]

“Tell them in these words: I am a Jew and I refuse.” That is what Captain Leo Skurnik said when he learned that the Germans had recommended that he receive an Iron Cross medal for his heroism on the battlefield. Skurnik, a medical officer in the Finnish army, organized the evacuation of a field hospital under heavy Russian shelling, saving the lives of around 600 Wehrmacht soldiers. When the Germans wanted to punish him for his rebuff, Skurnik’s commander, General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, told them: “You don’t really expect that I’ll hand over my best doctor?” Skurnik was not the only[…]

Nearly 100 years ago, nearly 500,000 Jews who lived in poverty in the Lower East Side of Manhattan and worked in the garment industry in deplorable conditions, decided that they had had enough. Those Jews had emigrated to America to flee from antisemitism in Europe, and now they were forced to flee again. This time they fled from the neglect and filth of the Lower East Side, but their destination was not very far away. They moved uptown to the northeastern part of New York City, to the Bronx, where they sought to establish a neighborhood of inhabitable houses and[…]

In 1967, the award-winning photographer, Paul Schutzer, posthumously received the Citation for Excellence: Robert Capa Gold Medal, awarded by the Overseas Press Club of America. Schutzer won quite a few prizes and citations during his short career. He received the aforementioned citation for his photo coverage of the Six Day War for LIFE magazine, which turned out to be his last assignment. The Jewish-American photographer was killed on June 5, 1967, the first day of the Six Day War, on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip. He died in his prime, at the young age of 36, when he was[…]

There are plenty of Passover Haggadot to choose from. Every Jewish home in Israel has different and unusual Haggadot: fancy Haggadot, inexpensive Haggadot purchased at the last minute at a ‘dollar’ store, Haggadot for children, personally designed Haggadot, and Haggadot published by the kibbutz movement. But there are few Haggadot which are as beautiful as the Szyk Haggadah. That splendid Haggadah was created by the Polish-Jewish artist, Arthur Szyk, in the 1930’s. Arthur Szyk, who was a renowned illustrator, painter and caricaturist, was one of the greatest Jewish artists in his generation. Apart from being born a Jew, he was[…]

On the spring morning of March 12, 1911, 13-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky left his house to go to school, just like he did every morning. But when he didn’t come home that afternoon, it turned out that he hadn’t made it school either. On March 16, his mother and stepfather contacted the editors of the local newspaper and asked them to publish a notice about a missing child. Four days later, Andrei’s body was found in one of the caves located in the outskirts of the city of Kiev. His hands were tied and he had stab wounds all over his[…]

In any other context, if a Jew were nicknamed ‘big nose’ it would be considered a racial slur. But Luo Shengte (Chinese for big nose) was the nickname given to Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld, a Jewish Austrian physician who volunteered for the People’s Liberation Army in China in the 1940’s. In no way was it intended to be derogatory – on the contrary. The Chinese Communists loved Rosenfeld like a brother and continue to venerate him and treasure his memory. To this very day, the late Jewish doctor is a symbol of the friendship between China and Israel, as well as[…]