As Yom Kippur draws to a close, a nostalgic tune is sung in Ashkenazi synagogues around the world. While many Jews recognize this tune, most do not know that it was actually composed for Napoleon Bonaparte himself. So how did a Napoleonic marching tune make its way into our neilah prayer service?
What Made This Top Russian Jewish Author Descend into Madness?
Lev Levanda spent decades advocating for Jewish assimilation into Russian culture. It all changed after pogroms shook the empire…
“Your rabbi was taken as a hostage”: Accounts of Russian Tactics in WWI
Hostage-taking and forced migration were just two methods used by Russian forces in Ukraine and Poland a century ago
Photographed Together: Begin’s Father and Sharon’s Grandfather
Long before the State of Israel, the two men worked together at a Jewish bank and Jewish self-defense organization in Brest-Litovsk
From Russian Villagers to Galilean Farmers: The Story of the Dubrovins
Yoav Dubrovin, a farmer from Russia, immigrated to Ottoman Palestine with his family in the early 20th century | The Dubrovins were among a group of Russian converts to Judaism who settled in the Land of Israel, in hopes of leading a Jewish life | Eighty years later, the family farm is now a museum and visitor’s center commemorating the lives of the area’s early pioneers
The Ad Campaign That Told the Other Story of Soviet Jewry in 1999
In the late 1990s, advertising executive Gary Wexler visited Jewish communities in the former Soviet Union that had suddenly rediscovered their own religious and national identity in the wake of the collapse of communism. These ads captured some of the powerful moments and images of that period in Jewish history…
“It Could Never Happen Here”: Before the Bolsheviks Came
Most in Nikolaevsk-on-Amur had felt safe in one of Russia’s most isolated corners
A ‘High Holiday Prayer’ to the Czar
After he freed the serfs, Alexander II was virtually deified by one leading Jewish newspaper
The Jewish Heroes and Heroines of Victory Day
These Jewish soldiers took part in the liberation of Europe from the clutches of Nazi Germany
