Menachem Mendel

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Archive for Jewish History

New info on the Rashba

R. Shelomo b. Adret (the “Rashba,” 1235-1310) has long been recognized as one of the authoritative halakhists and commentators of the medieval period, if not, all of Jewish history. The thousands of his responsa which are extant have long been a source for the history of halakhah and the history of Jews in Spain [...]

The Bagel

Recently, a book was written by Maria Balinska with the title, The Bagel: A Cultural History. There is a review of it by Joan Nathan at Slate. (hat tip) She writes,
Polish-born and half-Jewish, Balinska, who works at the BBC in London, tells us that the boiled and baked bagel as we know it [...]

Insiders vs. Outsiders

Malcolm Gladwell has another one of his eye opening articles at the New Yorker. He writes about insides vs. outsiders, focusing on the figure of Sidney Weinberg, a former head of Goldman Sachs. While reading his article, I kind of thought about the Jewish people as the perpetual outsiders. I am sure [...]

Rashi and Barak Obama

A few months ago, I heard an interview on the radio with Douglas A. Blackmon, the author of Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. In this book, Blackmon describes what was essentially the reenslavement of blacks after the Civil War in many areas [...]

More on Ephraim E. Urbach as a Military Chaplain

I decided to read some more of Urbach’s diary (see here), and here are some thoughts. One thing that jumps out at you from almost every page is to read Urbach’s descriptions of him filling traditional rabbinical roles: leading prayer services, reading Torah, giving divrei Torah, visiting the sick, counseling soldiers, etc. It [...]

Ephraim E. Urbach as a Military Chaplain

I just happened to stumble upon a recently published book, רשימות בימי מלחמה, which the diary that E.E. Urbach kept when he was a military chaplain in the British Army during the years 1942-1944. It looks like a very interesting book, and here are a few things which I saw after a quick look [...]

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, JTS and Different Translations

Dr. Meir Hildesheimer has written about R. Samson Raphael Hirsch at Seforim. An ironic bibliographical note, which I always found interesting, is that the translator into English of Hirsch’s The Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel: Being a Spiritual Presentation of the Principles of Judaism, was none other than R. Dr. Bernard Drachman, a [...]

Doctored Photographs

Scientific American has an article describing how photographs are doctored, something that is much easier today with digital photography. Here are some of the most famous ones throughout history. (hat tip) I don’t think that there is a Jewish figure whose pictures have been doctored as much as those of the late Rebbe [...]

New Blog from Israel and Storytelling

There is a new blog from Israel, South Jerusalem, which describes itself as “A Progressive, Skeptical Blog on Israel, Judaism, Culture, Politics, and Literature.” Among the interesting posts that have so far appeared, I want to specifically mention two. One is on Jacob Katz, and the other on Judaism, storytelling and history. Here [...]

Genetics and the Jewish Identity

There’s an interesting article in the Jerusalem Post on “Genetics and the Jewish Identity.” The conclusion is very important.
What genetic data cannot tell us is who is a Jew. The answers to that question are, variously, halachic, political and cultural. On a purely technical level, there is no genetic screen that can sort Jews [...]