Corfu Ethrogim
For several centuries Corfu was one of the chief suppliers of Ethrogim to Jews all over the world. The use of Corfu Ethrogim by Jews is already mentioned by Giovanni […]
The Judith-“Milchig” Chanukah Connection
The Judith-“Milchig” Chanukah Connection by. Pearl Herzog When Chanukah arrives, many Jewish tables will tastily testify to the custom of eating dairy products over the course of those special eight […]
The Haggadah in the Garage — The Aron Wolf Herlingen Haggadah
HAGGADAH IN THE GARAGE IN MANCHESTER, AN HISTORIC PIECE OF JUDAICA TURNS UP IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE A rare illuminated Haggadah believed to have been commissioned to commemorate the birth […]
Lag Baomer Pilgrimage to the grave of Harav Ephraim Encaoua
For several centuries after the passing of the tzaddik Harav Ephraim Encaoua (Elnkaoua, or Elnekave), thousands of Jews from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and France gathered every Lag BaOmer at his […]
Purim of the Curtains
Nine years after the death of the Maharal, and a year after the last volume of Rabbi Heller’s Tosfos Yom Tov commentary on the Mishna was initially published in Prague, […]
Iggeres Alkabetz, the First Historically Recorded Tikkun Leil Shavuos
Years before composing the popular Friday night piyut, Lechah Dodi, the Kabbalist, Rabbi Shlomo HaLevi Alkabetz, (1505-1584) wrote a letter entitled Iggeres Alkabetz, about a wonderful Shavuos night he experienced […]
The Nadvorner Rebbe Keeps His Sukkah
The first day of Sukkos is the Yahrzeit of the Nadvorna Rebbe, Rabbi Mordechai Leifer ZT”L who passed away in 1894 (5655). Thousands of Jews from Galicia, Hungary, Poland and […]
The Sukkos Festival Celebration That Sparked a Jewish Civil War
More than two thousand years ago, our ancestors celebrated a Sukkos in Jerusalem in a most heartbreaking and painful manner. The four species which they were supposed to hold together […]
The Haggadah in Marathi Translation
The Pesach Haggadah has been translated into more than twenty languages, but one of the most unusual is the one translated into Marathi, the native language of the Jews of […]
Purim of Basra (Iraq) The Massacre of 1776
The Givat Shaul neighborhood in Yerushalayim is named after Rabbi Yaakov Shaul Elyashar (1817-1906) who in 1893 became the Sephardic Chief Rabbi (Rishon Lezion) of Eretz Yisroel as well as […]