The man who wrote the first ever Hebrew novel, Avraham Mapu, had never even been to the Land of Israel. Despite this, almost all of his works extol the Holy Land with awe and reverence, except for a single cryptic children’s story. So, what exactly is this puzzling kid’s story really trying to tell us?
Would you break all the traditions of your society, turn against the will of your family, and shatter all the boundaries that you have known to be true in order to follow your destiny? Chana Rochel Verbermacher did just that – breaking out of all the known gender stereotypes to make her own way in a world dominated by men, Chana decided to become the first, and only, Hasidic female Rebbe.
Lev Levanda spent decades advocating for Jewish assimilation into Russian culture. It all changed after pogroms shook the empire…
Hostage-taking and forced migration were just two methods used by Russian forces in Ukraine and Poland a century ago
Long before the State of Israel, the two men worked together at a Jewish bank and Jewish self-defense organization in Brest-Litovsk
How Jewish was the international tongue that never quite made it…?
Rebecca Affachiner trailblazed across multiple continents, and she did it all as a single, religious Jewish woman…
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
Join us for a Hanukkah video journey across cultures and time, featuring treasures from the National Library of Israel!
“Mr. Shushani” reportedly knew the entire Hebrew Bible, Talmud and countless other texts by heart. His Nobel-laureate student never knew his real name.
