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They were both unusual characters. He – head of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency, a bright young star in the Zionist movement during the 1930’s; she – a Third Reich celebrity and the renowned wife of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. Were they romantically involved? Can Joseph Goebbels be standing behind the most famous unsolved crime in the history of Zionism? Is he the answer to the most repeatedly asked question in Zionist mythology: who was responsible for the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff? Magda Goebbels and Haim Arlosoroff were almost the same age. She was born[…]

What makes a great speech? A great speech confronts two universal values with one another and forms an unsolvable conflict. Such was the steering speech by Elazar ben Yair, which led to mass suicide on the Masada. A great speech can be addressed in a seemingly insignificant occasion, and still enter indifferent hearts, like Elie Wiesel’s speech in the White House; in other cases a great speech is addressed in a crucial historical event, such as Gideon Hausner’s speech in the opening of the Eichmann Trial, which sent shivers down the spine of the entire nation. Finally, a great speech can[…]

A short while after losing her beloved mother in 1928, the Jewish-American singer Sophie Tucker recorded the song “A Yiddishe Momme” which made her famous. Every time she performed the song the used to tell the audience about her late mother, “a woman with a pure Jewish heart, with eyes reflecting endless devotion”. The song “A Yiddishe Momme” is the ultimate soundtrack of the Jewish soul, at least if your ancestors came from east of the Vistula river. It is like a sentimental time tunnel that throws us back to the lost paradise of the Jewish town; to days when[…]

Green Park hotel was standing upon four things: tradition, religion, family, and food – as declared in the opening scene of Marsha Lee’s award winning film about the most famous Jewish hotel in England. The story of Green Park reflects the story of the entire Jewry of England. First, mass immigration due to pogroms in Eastern Europe; then the formation of a flourishing united Jewish community; and finally – globalization, disintegration and deterioration. It all began with two families, the Richmans and the Marriotts. Like many other Jews from Eastern Europe, they fled from Russia and Poland in late 19th[…]

If Ruth was living among us today, how would we categorize her? An illegal immigrant? A refugee? An infiltrator? A work seeker? If Ruth was living among us today, she probably would not be considered “Jewish” enough to be converted by the chief rabbinate, nor “Israeli” enough to represent Israel in the Eurovision song contest. She would most probably be looked upon as “the other” – not the nice photogenic foreigner from tolerance campaigns, but the ultimate foreigner. She wasn’t born and raised here, and, even worse, she belonged to the people of Moab, a hostile nation, and according to[…]

On January 30, 1939 Adolf Hitler addressed a historical speech, in which he announced publicly for the first time his intention to exterminate the entire Jewish people. In his address he mentioned several times “the world Jewish capital” as the source of all humanity’s evil. Many researchers asserted that Hitler’s pathological hatred of the chosen people has derived from an imaginary paranoia from the allegedly economic magnitude of the Jews, who were in fact were a weak, scattered people without any political or sovereign rights. A thousand years before Hitler projected his mental disturbances upon the Jews, there was an[…]

The forced conversion and deportation of the Jews of Spain and Portugal at the end of the 15th century were a dramatic shock wave for the Jewish society people, as one of the main Jewish centers was wiped out almost overnight. Many Jews either escaped to other places or converted to Christianity and became new Christians. Some Jews chose to maintain their Jewish identity secretly – those were the “conversos”. All these events resulted in yet one more significant implication; that hard period also saw a messianic awakening and anticipation to the upcoming salvation. Those were the circumstances under which[…]

For most Jews, the Hasmoneans, and the revolts they led during the 2nd century BCE, are commemorated and celebrated until today, during the festival of Hanukkah. At the time when the revolts actually took place, however, there was one group of Jews who resented the Hasmoneans and was deeply disappointed by them. As a result, they chose to seclude themselves far away from the Jewish society – or any other society, for that matter. These were the Qumranites, or Essenes, who called themselves in scrolls discovered in caves 70 years ago in the ancient remains of Qumran. The discovery of[…]