Jewish History

[Sixties Fan]

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire erupted on March 25, 1911, on the eighth floor of a building in Greenwich Village, New York. The death toll of garment workers was 146—who were mostly Jewish and Italian immigrant women, aged 14 to 23. Stairwells and exits had been locked in a common practice to prevent break-ins and thefts, but it meant many couldn’t escape the fire, and jumped to their deaths. Subsequently, new safety standards were introduced for factory workers, and unions were formed to fight for improved working conditions. “Mameniu” (“Dear Mother”) is an elegy for the victims which begins: “Hearts torn by the horror, the Jewish nation wrings its hands, weeping.”

Treasure Trove: A weekly piece of our history from the collection of David Matlow—second year archive (2022-23)

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[Sixties Fan]

Alfred Dreyfus was a Jewish officer in the French army who in 1894 was wrongly convicted of spying for Germany. His conviction and later exoneration became known as the Dreyfus Affair, a miscarriage of justice rooted in antisemitism, which divided France. Imprisoned on Devil’s Island for five years, Dreyfus was convicted again in a second trial, and ultimately pardoned. He was exonerated in 1906 and reinstated in the French Army, in which he served through the First World War. The yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France is related to the Dreyfus Affair—as the bicycle race was founded in 1903 by the anti-Dreyfus sports paper, L’Auto. (To celebrate Family Day, here’s Dreyfus with his children, Pierre and Jeanne.)

Treasure Trove: A weekly piece of our history from the collection of David Matlow—second year archive (2022-23)

The latest items via @TheCJN on Instagram.

thecjn.ca

 

[Sixties Fan]

Academic anti-colonialism can distort Jewish history - JNS.org

A book on the Jews of Algeria ignores centuries of pre-colonial oppression.

www.jns.org

 

[alexa]

Academic anti-colonialism can distort Jewish history - JNS.org

A book on the Jews of Algeria ignores centuries of pre-colonial oppression.

www.jns.org

I am pretty sure the Jews of Algeria worked with the French against the people of Algeria. This would cause them not to be liked. They were fighting against each other. However France offered them citizenship. France indeed offered all of them citizenship. That is the Christians and Muslims as well. I think Algerians are the main source of Muslim and Jew refugees en mass in France. France seems to have issues between its Jewish and Muslim communities. Some people think this is the reason.

Your book may give reason for the Jews to hate everyone else and join the French and their must have been a reason. Impossible to know without reading it. Unfortunately what people remember is the Jews of Algeria fighting with the French against them.

 

[Sixties Fan]

I am pretty sure the Jews of Algeria worked with the French against the people of Algeria. This would cause them not to be liked. They were fighting against each other. However France offered them citizenship. France indeed offered all of them citizenship. That is the Christians and Muslims as well. I think Algerians are the main source of Muslim and Jew refugees en mass in France. France seems to have issues between its Jewish and Muslim communities. Some people think this is the reason.

Your book may give reason for the Jews to hate everyone else and join the French and their must have been a reason. Impossible to know without reading it. Unfortunately what people remember is the Jews of Algeria fighting with the French against them.

Alexa, a little bit of time that you could spend doing some research online would be helpful to discussing anything with you, instead of answering to your suppositions about why Jews are hated in any place they have lived.

 

[Sixties Fan]

I am pretty sure the Jews of Algeria worked with the French against the people of Algeria. This would cause them not to be liked. They were fighting against each other. However France offered them citizenship. France indeed offered all of them citizenship. That is the Christians and Muslims as well. I think Algerians are the main source of Muslim and Jew refugees en mass in France. France seems to have issues between its Jewish and Muslim communities. Some people think this is the reason.

Your book may give reason for the Jews to hate everyone else and join the French and their must have been a reason. Impossible to know without reading it. Unfortunately what people remember is the Jews of Algeria fighting with the French against them.

First of all, there is no Arabs of the Jewish Faith, when referring to Jews who lived in Arab conquered lands. Those are Jews from the Land of Israel descendants of the Hebrews/Israelites.

There are, of course, some Arabs who have converted to Judaism during those centuries, but they are very few. There are many Arabs, since the Mandate for Palestine, who have also converted to Judaism.

Alexa, I have my doubts that you have read the article you answered to. Here is a part of it. It would be nice if one would bother to learn the history of the country, or region, towards Jews after 1400 years of Islam :

Missing from the context of this discussion is any in-depth examination of how Jews were treated before the colonial era, when Muslim sharialaw was in place under Ottoman rule: The Jews were dhimmis, institutionally inferior to Muslims, with few legal rights.

Schreier acknowledges that Jews were not immune from humiliations, additional taxes and sumptuary laws during this period. If they enjoyed important posts, it was not as decision-makers. They could only execute orders. Jews could be assassinated by rivals and targeted by waves of mob violence.

However, Schrier claims, “a literal interpretation of dhimmi status should not stand in for social history,” which “suggests that Jews were relatively secure and an integral component of late Ottoman and early colonial Algerian society.” He points to the powerful Jewish mercantile elite, which traded in cereal, crops, wool and livestock—though he does not say that several of these successful merchants enjoyed the protection of foreign nationality. He also produces examples of semi-nomadic Jews “who were armed and dressed like Arabs,” particularly in southern Algeria.

Other scholars, often born in Arab countries, have argued that colonial emancipation was a liberation from dhimmi status. As far as most Jews were concerned, colonialism has much to recommend it. It gave Jews greater security, equality and legal rights for the first time in centuries. It introduced basic standards of health care and hygiene and put a stop to corporal punishment in schools. It gave Jews a Western education that permitted them to thrive in the modern world.

To downplay dhimmi status is to ignore the substantial corpus of testimony from European travelers describing the exactions and abuses suffered by Jews in the pre-colonial era. Schreier dismisses these reports as “exaggerated.” He holds that they should be treated with skepticism because they were written to serve a colonial agenda that promoted emancipation and assimilation to French values. Schreier’s suspicions extend to scholars like the late respected Algerian-born French professor Richard Ayoun, whose work Schreier calls “an example of scholarship echoing the colonial model of emancipation from an Oriental state of abasement.”

In fact, it was primarily to equip the Jewish communities of Muslim countries with the wherewithal to fight for their rights as emancipated citizens that a group of French Jews set up the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1860. This institution was not just a Jewish version of the French “civilizing mission.” It was a response to the very real abasement observed and chronicled in the pre-colonial era, ranging from blood libels and forced conversions to beatings and synagogue burnings. The book Exile in the Maghreb by David Littman and Paul Fenton provides ample evidence of this—not just from European, but also Jewish and Muslim sources.

Yet the Alliance’s efforts to combat Muslim anti-Semitism barely rate a mention in Arabs of the Jewish Faith, ostensibly because the first Alliance school in Algeria was only set up in the early 20th century.

All too often, modern scholars’ anti-colonialism blinds them to or causes them to minimize Arab and Muslim anti-Semitism. “Social history” should not be an excuse for wishful thinking.

Academic anti-colonialism can distort Jewish history - JNS.org

A book on the Jews of Algeria ignores centuries of pre-colonial oppression.

www.jns.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Published in the UK last year and in the US on October 25, “The Women of Rothschild: The Untold Story of the World’s Most Famous Dynasty,” sets the record straight by shining a light on the amazing lives of some of the most prominent and interesting mothers, daughters and wives in the Rothschild family’s British branch.

Livingstone introduces readers to Rothschild women who mixed with royalty, fought for Jewish emancipation, and were the brains behind their husbands’ political victories. Some were economic geniuses, talented athletes or great scientists. Others were among Zionism’s most fervent early supporters. One flew planes in World War II and drag-raced with jazz greats Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

(full article online)

No longer just pretty faces, Rothschild family women take center stage in new book

Captivating, meticulously researched historical work brings to light myriad ways banking dynasty's 'silent' mothers, daughters, and wives exerted key soft power for three centuries

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Maimonides Visits Jerusalem ((1165))
After leaving Morocco and before settling in Egypt, Maimonides visited Jerusalem and prayed at the site of the Holy Temple. Three days later, on 9 MarCheshvan, he visited Hebron and prayed at the Cave of Machpelah. Maimonides resolved to keep these two days—6 and 9 MarCheshvan—as a personal holiday (Charedim ch. 65 [5744 ed.).

Link: Rambam (Maimonides)

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Last Jew comes home (2nd Temple Era)
During the Second Temple Era (circa 230 BCE), Cheshvan 7 was the date on which the Jew most distant from the Holy Temple -- who resided on the banks of the Euphrates River, a 15-day journey's distance from Jerusalem -- arrived at his homestead upon returning from the Sukkot pilgrimage. All Jews would wait for this before beginning to pray for rain. Cheshvan 7 thus marked the return to everyday activities following the spirituality of the festival-rich month of Tishrei.

Link: The Last Jew

• Passing of R. Meir Shapiro (1933)
Passing of Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin, founder of the daily "page a day" regimen of Talmudic study known as Daf Yomi.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Passing of R. Jonah of Gerona (1263)
R. Jonah was a thirteenth-century scholar who lived in Spain. Although originally opposed to Maimonides’ philosophical works (most notably, his Guide for the Perplexed), he later changed his views, and even vowed to travel to Maimonides’ gravesite to posthumously beg for forgiveness. (He indeed began the long journey, but passed away before completing it.)

R. Jonah authored Shaarei Teshuvah (an ethical work on repentance), a commentary on R. Isaac Al-Fasi’s halachic compendium, and a commentary on Ethics of the Fathers, among other works.

Others date his passing as 1 or 28 MarCheshvan.

Link: Rabbeinu Jonah Gerondi

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Passing of Rosh (1327)
The life and influence of Rabbi Asher ben Yechiel, known by the acronym "Rosh", straddled the two great spheres of the Jewish diaspora of his time, the Ashkenazic (Franco-German) and the Sephardic (Spanish-Mediterranean) communities. Born approximately 1250 in Western Germany, Rabbi Asher studied under the famed Tosaphist Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg, fathered eight sons, and authored one of the earliest codifications of Jewish law. In mid-life he fled the persecutions of medieval Christian Europe, settling in Spain where Jews prospered materially and Jewish learning flourished in the Spanish Golden Age.

Though a penniless exile and newcomer, Rabbi Asher's genius and erudition quickly earned him a position of prestige and influence. In 1304 he was invited to to serve as the spiritual leader of the Jews of Toledo, where he established a Talmudic academy and transplanted the Ashkenazic Tosaphists' system of Talmudic interpretation and analysis. He also introduced the traditionalism and piety of the early Ashkenazic "Chassidim" (reversing the secularist trends in certain segments of Sephardic Jewry).

Rabbi Asher passed away in Toledo on Cheshvan 9 of the year 5088 from creation (1327 of the Common Era).

 

[Sixties Fan]

Amid criticism, London theater group drops planned Nazi-Jewish ‘Romeo and Juliet’

Icarus Theatre Collective stresses it did not intend to depict Nazis and Jews on an equal footing; Jewish founder also apologizes for casting call that didn't specify Jewish actors

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

An elderly couple waited patiently on a steel bench for a food parcel. A teenage boy negotiated furiously with a gruff flat-capped caretaker about how much support his family needed. A little girl timidly held her mother’s hand as she waited in line for a week’s worth of supplies.

Such was the scene on a recent morning outside the main synagogue in Lviv, the western Ukraine city that has become a hub for refugees from across the war-torn country. By the time the families received relief parcels being distributed there, a dozen more had passed through the metal gates leading to the synagogue courtyard.

“We have people from all over,” said Sara Bald, the rebbetzin of the synagogue known as the Beis Aharon V’Yisrael. She has been overseeing the broad effort to meet mostly Jewish refugees’ needs, which includes distributing food and other goods and finding new arrivals apartments and hotels to stay in, and said the number of Jews the synagogue was helping had grown from 600 before the war to about 2,000 today.

(full article online)

Refugees grow some Ukrainian cities’ dwindling Jewish communities, possibly for good

As Russia's bombardment of the south and east shows no signs of relenting, western border towns are being revived by an influx of newcomers, some of whom are putting down roots

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Burning of the Talmud in Venice (1553)
By order of the Pope, the Talmud was burned in Venice on the 13th and 14th of MarCheshvan, 1553 (Minchah Belulah, Deuteronomy 33:2). The reason given was that the Talmud contained statements heretical to the Christian faith. Venice boasted many famous Hebrew printing houses, including that of Daniel Bomberg, an Italian gentile who published the Talmud there during the years 1519–1523.

Link: What Is the Talmud?

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today is Sunday, Kislev 3, 5783 · November 7, 2022​ Today in Jewish History​ • Kamenitz-Podolsk Talmuds Saved (5518/1757) As a result of the libelous slander of the Frankists (followers of Sabbatai Zevi, the archbishop of Kamenitz decreed that all Hebrew books of the communities in his jurisdiction should be burned. On this day, he suffered a miraculous downfall and the decree was annulled. (Imrei Pinchas, 2003 ed., vol. 1, pp. 496–498) • Pnei Yehoshua Saved (5463/1702) The explosion of some barrels of gunpowder that had been caught on fire resulted in the collapse of a number of nearby buildings, placing Rabbi Yaakov Yehoshua Falk in mortal danger. In distress, he pledged that if he would survive, he would commit himself to studying the Talmud and its commentaries. He was miraculously saved, and went on to author his classic Talmudic commentary, Pnei Yehoshua. (Introduction of the author to the above work) • Temple Cleared in Chanukah Miracle (3622/-139) After overcoming the Greek forces, the Hasmoneans cleared the Temple from the idolatrous images that had been erected there. (Megilat Taanit ch. 9)​

 

[Sixties Fan]

The History of Mah Jongg Snacks | The Nosher

“Four Bam, One Crack, Six Dot.” Generations of Mah Jongg players and their children and grandchildren recognize the names of ...

www.myjewishlearning.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Jews of Prague Saved (1620)

In May 1618, the Bohemian Revolt broke out in Prague, triggering the Thirty Years’ War. In November 1620, King Ferdinand II suppressed the rebels in Prague in the Battle of White Mountain. Notwithstanding the widespread looting, the king gave orders that no Jew be harmed. To commemorate the miraculous turn of events, R. Yomtov Lipman Heller, rabbi of Prague, instituted penitential prayers to be said every year on the 14th of MarCheshvan, which he published in Prague later that year. (The above account was recorded by R. Yomtov in his introduction to the publication.)

 

[Sixties Fan]

Stepping inside Romania’s Fabric Synagogue in real life would be a dangerous proposition: Closed since 1986, the ornate 1899 structure in the heart of the city of Timisoara is crumbling inside.

Online is a different story. There, visitors to the Fabric Synagogue can look up at the domed cupola, its stained glass still intact even as holes dot the ceiling, and approach the ark, its closed doors leaving the illusion that a Torah might be contained inside. They can climb to the balcony and look out over the Hebrew letters still affixed to walls, then turn their gaze to the massive graffiti tag that occupies one whole wall of the second floor. They can even check out the synagogue’s dust-laden organ before walking into the Timisoara sunshine and strolling to the municipal parks along the Bega River just a block away.

The virtual tour is one of eight launched recently to give Jews — and non-Jews — the chance to immerse themselves in a world that is no more: that of the non-Orthodox Jewish communities that developed under the Habsburg Empire in the western part of today’s Romania.


(full article online)

Romania’s ornate and sometimes crumbling synagogues get new access via virtual tours

Through the Stories of the Synagogues website, visitors can view the beautiful houses of worship that stand where few, if any, of their previous congregants remain

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• R. Sholom Dovber of Lubavitch Leaves the Town of Lubavitch (1915)
With the approach of the German army during World War I, R. Sholom DovBer and his family left Lubavitch, located in modern-day Russia near the border of Belarus, for the city of Rostov. Lubavitch was the seat of the Chabad movement for 102 years, starting when R. DovBer, second Chabad Rebbe, settled there in 1813.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Three Centuries Ago, Jewish Gravestones Were Used to Repair a Historic Landmark. In the 1960s, They Were Desecrated a Second Time » Mosaic

The columns of Ferrara.

mosaicmagazine.com