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The comedy duo Dzigan and Schumacher was for three decades the most successful pair on the Jewish-Yiddish stage, more than any other comedian or ensemble. Their story is also the story of Jewish entertainment, and also the historical story of the Jewish people in the 20th century. Their repertoire included dozens of acts in Yiddish, and a few in Hebrew, that evoked cultural changes in the Jewish world in Europe and in the young State of Israel like no other duo had. After their split and Schumacher’s death, Dzigan went on performing on his own for 20 more years. Born in Lodz, Poland,[…]

By: Yair Achituv, Bar-Ilan University   The text of the Gutwirth-Zucker Haggadah, an 18th century manuscript written in Prague in 1707 and exhibited in Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, is accompanied by drawings. Drawings in illustrated Haggadot are usually related to Passover customs and Passover-related events, the Exodus. However, there are drawings in the Gutwirth-Zucker Haggadah whose connection to Passover is obscure. Three of these appear in sequence at the end of the Haggadah. One depicts the prophet Jonah thrown from the ship and vomited out from the mouth of the fish. The second shows four cows and a woman[…]

It is safe enough to state that humanity is progressing, even without delving into philosophers such as Hegel. True – slavery still exists, classes still count, women and minorities are still being discriminated – but not as much as they used to. In a long perspective, human history is indeed moving forward. On the other hand, we often see phenomena that undermine this assumption (perhaps hastily made). Philosopher and essayist Nassim Taleb calls them “Black Swans” – manifestations that do not settle with social norms and generate a dissonance in people’s minds. This kind of abnormality took place in 17th[…]

Who are we to blame for the common anti-Semitic stereotype about the Jews as contaminators of mankind? Can we blame it on the Jewish interpreter Luis de Torres, the man who brought the first cigarettes to Europe? We most certainly can not. For one thing, the hazards in smoking were not yet known in the 15th century, and also, the anti-Semitic image of the polluting Jew is a modern one, referring to epidemics. Still, in the history of smoking Luis de Torres played a significant role, getting Europe addicted to Tobacco. To balance things out, let us bear in mind[…]

Back in the 16th century, “explorer” and “traffic” certainly did not mean what they mean today. These two concepts actually used to mean physical motion through lands and seas. Those were the days of the flourishing seamanship industry, in which some of the sharpest minds of that period were involved. The leading “startup nation” of that industry was Portugal, from which the great explorers Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco da Gama came. Much like in our era, marine developments and renovations filled the brains of Jewish mathematicians, physicists and cartographers, such as Abraham Zacuto and Pedro Nunes, who developed navigation tools[…]

Praying at the graves of sages is an old Jewish custom, recorded in Talmudic and Midrashic literature. Various medieval Jewish scholars discussed this religious practice, whether they approved or rejected it. A significant change regarding the prostration on graves occurred some 500 years ago, and since then it became a popular custom practiced by the social elites. Jews started to visit graves of Tanaim, usually on Shabath eve. The renown Kabbalists of Safed, especially rabbi Moses Cordovero (Ramak) and rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz (author of the famous piyut LECHA DODI)  used to do it for mystical purposes.   Descendants of families[…]