History Archives

20 Mar

Book Review // The Golden Age Shtetl: A New History of Jewish Life in East Europe

Posted by

Jonathan Brent

May 30, 2017

1

The history of the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia has a singular place in the Jewish imagination today. To some, it is a dead subject, poisoned by the Holocaust and the lethal anti-Semitism of the 19th and 20th centuries: Either we know everything we need to know about it or there is nothing worth knowing. To others, it is shrouded in the nostalgia-laden distance of the Old Country...

10 Mar

2014 March/April, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Jewish World, Visual Moment

Visual Moment // Persian Jewish Art

Posted by

Diane M. Bolz

March 12, 2022

0

Illuminating the History of Iranian Jews By Diane M. Bolz Jews have lived in Persia, now Iran, for nearly three millennia. The first Jewish community dates back...

04 Mar

2014 March/April, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Jewish World

The Secret History of X & O

Posted by

Nadine Epstein

September 17, 2019

2

An investigation into the religious roots of the symbols for hugs & kisses.

06 Feb

2014 January-February, Jewish Word, Jewish World

Jewish Word // Philistine

Posted by

Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil

July 25, 2019

4

How Philistine Became a Dirty Word by Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil It’s a story nearly everyone knows: The young shepherd boy uses nothing but his wits and a slingshot...

28 Jan

2014 January-February, Jewish World

The Holocaust Through the Eyes of Women

Posted by

Eileen Lavine

May 30, 2017

1

For the first four decades after the Holocaust, most memoirs and historical studies viewed life in the camps through male eyes. But since the early...

27 Jan

2014 January-February, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Jewish World

Book Review // Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising

Posted by

Konstanty Gebert

May 30, 2017

4

By Konstanty Gebert. Over the past few years, a series of books has brought to the attention of English-speaking readers the morally challenging, historically important and often overlooked or forgotten story of the Polish contribution to the Allied war effort in World War II, and of the terrible fate of the Poles under German rule.

08 Jan

2014 January-February, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Visual Moment

Visual Moment // Medieval Cairo

Posted by

Diane M. Bolz

July 25, 2019

1

By Diane M. Bolz // Today, fewer than 50 Jews remain in Egypt, but for thousands of years the country was home to a series of important Jewish communities.

31 Dec

2014 January-February, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Jewish Music, Jewish World

Moment in Music // Michael Bloomfield

Posted by

Josh Tapper

May 28, 2025

0

By Josh Tapper On February 15, 1981, Michael Bloomfield’s body was discovered in a parked car on a San Francisco side street. The 37-year-old Jewish blues guitar...

06 Dec

2013 November-December

Moment Magazine 2013 Guide to France

Posted by

Nadine Epstein

May 16, 2023

5

Narbonne: A Lost Medieval Jewish Kingdom by Nadine Epstein Jewish kings reigned from the 8th to 14th century in southern France. People are surprised when I mention that Narbonne,...

01 Nov

2013 November-December, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Visual Moment

A Visual Moment / A Medieval Manuscript

Posted by

Diane M. Bolz

July 25, 2019

0

By Diane M. Bolz Maimonides Illuminated One of the finest and most elaborate illuminated Hebrew manuscripts in existence is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of...

03 Sep

2013 September-October, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Talk of the Table

Study all Night: The Story of Jews and Coffee

Posted by

Eileen Lavine

May 11, 2021

22

Jews and coffee share an invigorating history.

2011 July-August, Jewish Art, Culture and Music - Moment Magazine, Talk of the Table

Culinary Lessons from a Libyan Prison

Posted by

Daniella Cheslow

July 25, 2019

0

A year after he was arrested in Libya on charges of espionage and incarcerated for five months, Rafael Rafram Chaddad savors his freedom by sautéing...