By Robin Jaconbson. One of America’s most sacred spaces sits on a Virginia hilltop, roughly 125 miles from Bethesda. Millions have visited Monticello, beloved home of President Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. Visitors wander through the rooms Jefferson designed, marvel at his ingenious inventions, and view the quarters where slaves lived and …
By Robin Jacobson. One hundred years ago, on a summer’s day in Sarajevo, a Serb nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, during a ceremonial motorcade parade. The assassination was the spark that ignited the First World War. Within six weeks, for reasons that scholars continue to probe and debate, …
By Saul Golubcow. I was a very young child when I fell in love with Israel. Like the lover in Song of Songs, I thought it as “all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.” Now, in reading Yossi Klein Halevi’s book, I have fallen in love with Israel all over again …
By Robin Jacobson. On a cold January morning in Paris in 1895, thousands turned out to watch the public humiliation and military “degradation” of a Jewish officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Wrongly convicted of treason, Dreyfus was dramatically stripped of the epaulettes, gold braid, and red stripes on his uniform, and his sword was broken. The …
By Robin Jacobson. For decades, one of the rituals of American Jewish parenting has been introducing the kids to Fiddler on the Roof, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. I remember the magical experience of sitting in a dark theater with my parents, grandmother, and great-aunt, all mesmerized by the shtetl world unfolding …
By Robin Jacobson. By the time you read this, “The Monuments Men,” with its all-star cast (George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Bill Murray, and Hugh Bonneville) will have opened in local theaters. If the film does justice to the brave band of scholar-soldiers who rescued Europe’s artistic and architectural masterpieces during World …
By Robin Jacobson. On our first day in Israel seven years ago, my family spent an all-too-brief hour in Zikhron Ya’akov, a picturesque hilltop village near Haifa. So jet-lagged were we that we only remember dimly stopping before the famous Aaronsohn house, the hub of a Jewish spy ring during World War I. This year …
By Robin Jacobson. When you linger over a cup of aromatic, freshly brewed coffee on a wintry day, you may think you are simply savoring a favorite beverage. In truth, as you sip that familiar, bittersweet concoction, you are tapping in to a rich vein of Jewish culture. For centuries, coffee has infused Jewish economic, …
Wander any beach this summer and you will notice two types of readers. Some ambitious souls appear to have saved their densest, heaviest, most significant reading for the lazy, languid days of summer. In the opposite camp are the weary folk who rest their brains in light, frothy fare sure to be long forgotten by …
By Robin Jacobson. As I write this, bloody street battles rage in the ancient city of Aleppo, as Syrian government and insurgent forces fight for dominance. Hard as it is to imagine, Aleppo was for centuries the peaceful dwelling place of a vibrant Jewish community and home to one of Judaism’s greatest treasures, the oldest …
By Robin Jacobson. In January 1997, Madeleine Korbel Albright made history by becoming the first female Secretary of State. Almost immediately, a startling Washington Post story shattered Secretary Albright’s lifelong belief in her Catholic Czechoslovak heritage. The Post reported that Albright’s parents were Jewish and that three of her grandparents, as well as many other relatives, perished …
Seventy years ago this July, a young Jewish girl and her family went into hiding. Fleeing the Nazis, they took refuge in a secret Amsterdam attic where the girl would pen an immortal diary. Today, Anne Frank is revered as a tragic heroine by millions, many of them young people born long after World War …
By Robin Jacobson. In March 1933, the position of the U.S. Ambassador to Germany fell vacant, and no one, it seemed, wanted the job. Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany for just five weeks, but Berlin already had lost its allure as a plum diplomatic post. President Roosevelt offered the position to at least four …
By Robin Jacobson. No one really knows what the Dutch Protestant artist Rembrandt von Rijn (1606-1669) thought about the Jews. A provocative exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is rekindling interest in the topic, which has tantalized scholars for generations. Rembrandt and the Face of Jesus reunites seven small paintings of Jesus and proposes …
By Robin Jacobson. While traveling in the Middle East in 1896, two wealthy, erudite Scottish sisters bought some antique manuscripts. Little did they imagine that this souvenir purchase would lead to astounding discoveries in an ancient synagogue attic—known as the Cairo Genizah— that would illuminate 1000 years of Jewish history. This tale of adventure and …
By Robin Jacobson. Soon the Torah cycle will come around again to Leviticus (Vayikra). After the dramatic stories of Genesis and Exodus, the litany of rules in Leviticus can seem numbingly dull. Hard as it may be to imagine, however, Leviticus was once the hottest topic in European politics. King Henry VIII of England, who …
At Purim, we celebrate the heroism of the young Queen Esther who saved the Jewish people of Persia. Less famous than Queen Esther, but equally brave and clever, Dona Gracia Nasi was a Jewish heroine of the 16th century who also saved her people. A shrewd businesswoman and adroit negotiator, Dona Gracia rescued thousands of …
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