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Spanish Golden Age1 Adar Ibn Ezra: While England was working to isolate and diminish the Jewish Community (see last week’s Blast from the Past), around the same time the Jews of Spain were living in a Golden Age. Rav Avraham (ben Meir) Ibn Ezra was born in Tudela in 1089. It was so good for the Jews,…
8 Adar So besides being my son, Zusha’s, birthday this Shabbat, what else has happened on this day in Jewish history? Can you believe that the Soviets tried to set up a Jewish Utopia in eastern Asia? It’s hard to believe, since we know the Soviets worked so hard to wipe out the Jewish people, infamously…
14 Adar Most of you heard about Purim in the days of Esther and Mordechai, which was about 2,376 years ago in Persia. A most fascinating thing happened about 2,308 years later… It came to pass in the days of Joseph Stalin, the evil one who ruled from East Berlin to the “Jewish Utopia” of Birobidzhan over…
21 Adar So earlier this year I get a chance to write about Rebbe Reb Zusha and now I get to write about his brother Rebbe Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717-1786) whose yahrzeit is today. Interestingly in a Jewish leap year, the yahrzeit happens twice! The two brothers are famous for their adventures together, but why are they both…
7 Nissan This is not the story of the wine. Though this is from whom that delicious wine gets its name! On this Shabbat in 1488, Rabbeinu Ovadiah Bartenura arrived in Eretz Yisrael after a three-year journey! Can you imagine traveling from Italy to Israel for three years? He was only in his thirties and…
Often we think of Poland as a place of pain for the Jewish people. That might be true, but there are also a lot of positive things that happened in Poland for our people. An especially exciting story is the legendary story of the Jewish King of Poland! Here is one variation: “Upon the death…
“We have been waiting for 2,000 years. Is that hurrying?” Golda Mabovitch’s birthday is this Shabbat. You probably think of her as Golda Meir, but she was born to Blume and Moshe Mabovitch in Kyiv back in 1898. In her memoirs she shares that one of her earliest memories was her father, Moshe, boarding up…
The Connection between Lag b’Omer and the end of the Nazis Y”S “Better for that man to make himself fall into a fiery furnace than to embarrass his neighbor publicly” Rashbi (Sotah 10B) As the Romans controlled the holy land a couple thousand years ago, many Jews suffered under their tyranny. There were three serious…
17 Tevet Dubno Maggid: Today is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Jacob ben Wolf Kranz (1741-1804). He was known as the storyteller from Dubno a.k.a. “The Dubno Maggid.” This teacher is most famous for using stories to share very complex ideas in a simple way. He was a true scholar with a deep knowledge of the…
“There is love like fire, and there is love like water.”— The Baal haTanya 24 Tevet: Yehrzeit of the Baal haTanya: Today is the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shneur Zalman (ben Baruch) of Liadi (1745-1812). He displayed extraordinary talent while still a child, but his most lasting accomplishments can be learned out from the many names he is…