She was “just a girl from Milwaukee” when he was already the famous “Ben-Gurion.” He was a few steps ahead of her throughout their public and political careers. Still, Golda Meir and David Ben-Gurion formed a delicate and meaningful friendship, which ended suddenly due to an ugly political scandal. After years of detachment, towards the end of his life, Ben-Gurion tried to reconcile with her. Did it work?
For thousands of years, leprosy was one of the world’s most feared diseases | Jerusalem’s “Hansen House” is known as the city’s legendary leper asylum, but a look back through time reveals a longstanding relationship between the city and the illness | On Jerusalem: city of holiness and leprosy
Helping merchants in the markets of Jerusalem, saving the Samaritans of Nablus, and corresponding with Jewish communities around the world – the archive of Rabbi Chaim Abraham Gagin tells the story of one of the 19th century’s most fascinating Jewish figures…
A signed copy of David Grossman’s book, “To the End of the Land”, reveals the link between the author’s pain over the death of his son and a tragic event that happened fifty years ago. This is the story of how Grossman made use of rare recordings from the Yom Kippur War in an attempt to ease the burden of a harsh reality
Among the thousands of documents, letters, rare books and manuscripts in the Yahuda collection at the National Library of Israel, there is a unique and unusual object: a precise three-dimensional model of the Tabernacle and its vessels down to the last detail of its golden rings and scarlet threads. What was the impetus behind Prof. Abraham Shalom Yahuda’s extraordinary model?
In 1954, Yehudit Galili arrived in Morocco as part of a Jewish Agency mission. She set up a kindergarten, an “Ulpan” for teaching Hebrew, and a network of contacts within Casablanca’s Jewish community. One day she discovered a group of strangers in the building that housed her kindergarten and was surprised to hear them speaking Hebrew. This is the true story of how a kindergarten teacher became a spy for the Jewish underground in Morocco.
Refugee boats, transit camps and immigrant neighborhoods – Artist David Friedmann arrived in Israel in 1949 from Czechoslovakia after surviving harrowing experiences during the Holocaust. In celebration of Israel’s 75th Birthday, his daughter Miriam, who was born in the Jewish state a year later, shares his stories and artworks documenting those early months in Israel
As Israel’s 75th Independence Day approaches, we take a look at the achievements and challenges of the young country, portrayed through a variety of moments: first steps on Israel’s soil; water pipes breaking through the heart of a desert; meetings between languages and cultures. Moments of joy and creation, difficulty and coping, but mostly seeing how so many individuals joined together to create something beautiful: Israel
Hannah Senesh did not believe she would meet her brother Giora before leaving on a mission from which she thought she might not return. When her brother arrived in Mandatory Palestine a few days before she was to depart for Egypt, Senesh gave him a letter. He could not have understood its full meaning at the time…
Zev Radovan has been taking photos since 1965, in Israel and around the world. He and his camera were given the kind of access that few people receive. As a result, Radovan was able to document some incredible locations and moments in history. His archive of photographs can now be found at the National Library of Israel…
