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Charity is only one part of maasim tovim, but it is a very important part. The most popular word for it in the shtetl is tsdokeh. This is one of the Hebrew words which have been incorporated into the…
Certainly, the collective will of diaspora Jews is assured neither of success nor of perennial life. It is situated in history, subject to the erosion and constraints of history, equally conditioned…
[ . . . ] Modern Jewish humor grows from the tension of having to reconcile a belief as absolute as Elijah’s with an experience of failure as absolute as that of the priests of Baal…
“If the majority of Jews in Berber territory speak Arabic as their native language and use Spanish when doing business, their main concern is that Hebrew be the…
The era of Western history that began with the French Revolution ended in Auschwitz. The emancipation of the Jews was reversed in the most horrendous way. For a short while after 1945 the reigning…
In our first series of discussions, we explored the struggle between the government and the Jews, which was initiated by the former and ended with its triumph over the latter; in the second…
The fundamental issue surrounding the use of archaeological material to illuminate the Bible duplicates the classic Torah u-Madda question: How ought we to make use of wisdom or learning that can…
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, women did not participate in the free professions regularly because at that time institutes of higher education had not yet opened their doors to them. The…
Perhaps the most difficult question we have been asked in the course of compiling this catalog has been, “What exactly is it?” Having realized quite early that there are no preexisting…
In every caste system the lower caste occupies a marginal position vis-à-vis the upper caste. The Jews were a marginal element to the Polish nobility. The margin was not isolated, for the Jews could…