Jewish History

Lleida, a Catalonia-based town, has started marking the rocky unforgiving routes taken by the Jews to flee Nazi Europe to neutral Spain. According to Spanish daily Europa Press, Jewish European citizens migrated from France to Spain through the Pyrenees. The fifth route was recently commemorated after four other routes had been discovered and celebrated by Lleida council president Joan Reñé and the Israeli ambassador Alon Bar back in 2014. The routes measure around 151.6 kilometers and are spread over the Spanish provinces of Vall d’Arán, Pallars Sobirà, Alt Urgell, la Cerdanya and l’Alta Ribagorça.

"Always remember you are the son of two proud nations," Elan's parents tell him when he turns 13. After celebrating his Bar Mitzvah in San Francisco, Elan, with his Jewish father and Native American mother, travels to New Mexico, where he takes part in a Pueblo manhood ceremony. Based on a true story.

In the context of Crypto-Jewish individuals and communities, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies of the New World, as well as in India, the knowledge of and distinction between halakhah and minhag persisted. But as contact with established Jewish communities (in particular, in Spain before the expulsion), with rabbis, and with Jewish texts lessened, the overall knowledge of Jewish practice and beliefs diminished. This short work explores the practices and beliefs that characterized the dual identity of crypto-Jews.

A boy finds his great grandfather's accordion in the attic and with it the sweet history of klezmer music and the role the old accordion played in Jewish life through the years.

A diferencia de muchos otros pueblos antiguos, la cultura y las creencias de los israelitas existen en la sociedad moderna. Se las arreglaron para sobrevivir a través de guerras, persecuciones, numerosas revisiones y adaptaciones provocadas por nuevos invasores o rebeliones internas. Por su trascendencia en la sociedad contemporánea, es importante saber más sobre los hijos de Israel con el fin de entender completamente cómo se desarrollan y hacen para que su contribución a la cultura actual del mundo occidental sea tan trascendente.

Unlike many other ancient peoples, the culture and beliefs of the Israelites exist in modern society. They managed to survive through wars, persecution, and numerous revisions and adaptations caused by new invaders or internal rebellions. Because of their significance in contemporary society, it’s important to learn more about the Israelites in order to fully understand how they developed and managed to contribute so heavily to the current culture of the Western world.

In 1942, in Kaunas, Lithuania, the occupying German forces decreed that any pregnant Jewish woman would be summarily executed. On August 26, 1942, a Jewish woman realized she was pregnant and approached her rabbi, Ephraim Oshry, seeking advice. He determined that an abortion was necessary to save her life. The situation was something no woman or rabbi should have to face. But the scenario was real, and Rabbi Ephraim Oshry ruled based on Jewish law.

The destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE, and the Babylonian exile that followed, could have spelled the end of Israelite identity. But the return of exiles, first under Zerubbabel, and again under Ezra and Nehemiah a generation later, resurrected Isra-elite identity and opened a new chapter in the history of Israel.