MetaFilter posts tagged with jewish and history

The Mazel of the Irish

ChuraChura — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 13:03:11 -0800

"[The Loyal Yiddish Sons of Erin]'s biggest event was the annual Erev St. Patrick's Day Banquet. It was a formal gala at the Americana Hotel, complete with a big band, kosher corned beef and green bagels." American-Irish-Jews still celebrate St. Patrick's Day: “It’s an American-Irish holiday, surely not Jewish. It has nothing to do with Jewish people. But I’m Irish, and I have a feeling for it.” Today, Ireland's Jewish community is working to preserve and explore its history and future in Ireland. Although there is a long Jewish history in Ireland, much of the Irish-Jewish diaspora can be traced back to a small population of Lithuanian Jews fleeing forced conscription in the Tzar's army in 1884. By 1904 there were at least 3,000 Jews in Ireland. Throughout March and April, 1904, an anti-semitic priest incited boycotts and targeted violence against Limerick's 170 Jews in what became known as the Limerick Pogrom.

The Shuls with Sandy Floors

zarq — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 10:48:04 -0800

There are only five functioning Jewish synagogues with sand floors in the world, and four of them are in the Caribbean. How has the tradition been maintained for hundreds of years? The Five Shaare Shalom Synagogue (Kingston, Jamaica) - Wikipedia. - Article: Becoming Jewish in Jamaica. "The first ordained rabbi in 40 years to serve the Shaare Shalom Synagogue of Kingston, Jamaica, has attracted to his conversion classes candidates who include descendants of its once much larger and thriving population." - Article: Jamaica's New Tourism Spiel: Beaches and Reggae and Jews Beracha Veshalom Vegmiluth Hasidim Synagogue (St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) - Panoramic Photos. - Photo of the sand floor Mikve Israel-Emanuel Synagogue (Curacao, Netherlands Antilles) - Photos. (Also known as the Snoa, it is the oldest synagogue in continuous use in the Western Hemisphere, founded in 1651.) Neve Shalom (Paramaribo, Republic of Suriname) - Photos. - Wikipedia. Portuguese Synagogue Also known as the Esnoga. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) - Wikipedia. - Panoramic Photos. - Video embedded here. Why Sand? A synagogue drawn in the sand: The custom may have originated in Amsterdam, where sand was used to dry mud on people's shoes. The Esnoga synagogue was near the edge of town, where most of the streets were unpaved and, thanks to the weather, often muddy. It was, therefore, practical to line the floor in the synagogue with sand to keep it tidy. There are a number of churches and taverns in the Netherlands dating to the 17th century that likewise have sand floors.
Synagogues in the Sand: There are two theories about the origins of the synagogue’s sand floor. One is that it symbolizes the desert through which Moses and the children of Israel wandered for 40 years. The other theory, considered by experts the more likely explanation, is that the floor harkens back to when Spanish Jews had to practice their religion in secret, meeting in cellars to pray.
More: A Journey to Jewish Curaçao. And a pdf article from Frommer's: Sanctuaries in the Sand

X-Mensch

Artw — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:38:11 -0800

Magneto the Jew

Beate Sirota Gordon, 1923-2012; "The Only Woman In The Room"

flex — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:45:45 -0800

Beate Sirota Gordon, Long-Unsung Heroine of Japanese Women’s Rights, Dies at 89: a NYT obituary relates the fascinating story of a young woman who was just the right person in just the right place at just the right time and managed to strike a blow for gender equality.

A civilian attached to Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s army of occupation after World War II, Ms. Gordon was the last living member of the American team that wrote Japan’s postwar Constitution. Her work — drafting language that gave women a set of legal rights pertaining to marriage, divorce, property and inheritance that they had long been without in Japan’s feudal society — had an effect on their status that endures to this day. “It set a basis for a better, a more equal society,” Carol Gluck, a professor of Japanese history at Columbia University, said Monday... “By just writing those things into the Constitution — our Constitution doesn’t have any of those things — Beate Gordon intervened at a critical moment. And what kind of 22-year-old gets to write a constitution?” If Ms. Gordon, neither lawyer nor constitutional scholar, was indeed an unlikely candidate for the task, then it is vital to understand the singular confluence of forces that brought her to it: Had her father not been a concert pianist of considerable renown; had she not been so skilled at foreign languages; and had she not been desperate to find her parents, from whom she was separated during the war and whose fate she did not know for years, she never would have been thrust into her quiet, improbable role in world history.

*on Wikipedia *The Story of Beate Sirota, a transcript of a 1999 Nightline interview *About Beate Sirota Gordon at the site for the film The Gift From Beate (Japan, 2004) *The Japan Times - Film depicts Japan's gender equality strife: Written by American woman, Article 24 now seen under LDP threat (link via Shakesville) *The Jewish Daily Forward - Beate Sirota Gordon Dies at 89: Asia Arts Expert Pushed for Japanese Women's Rights *Asia Society - Remembering 'Iconic' Beate Sirota Gordon, 1923-2012; includes two YouTube videos of Gordon speaking in 2007 and 2011 *Shinya Watanabe - Beate Sirota Gordon; includes photos (link via Hoyden about Town)

"...now I am the Jew here, I am the boss."

timshel — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 06:40:28 -0800

Afghan Jewry may date back 2700 years. Today, there is but one: Zablon Simintov. Zablon, of Turkmen-Afghan descent, is a carpet trader and the caretaker of the only synagogue in Kabul. Zablon had a feud with Ishaq Levin, the second-to-last Jew of Afghanistan. The two, together (but in separate rooms), lived in the ruins of the last remaining synagogue in Kabul starting in or around 1998, but quickly had a falling out: Simintov suggested that Levin, then in his late 70s, move to Israel, to escape the bitter cold weather in Kabul. Levin took it as an affront, the two quarreled, and each reported the other to the Taliban for various alleged wrongdoings. Each ended up imprisoned by the Taliban. Ishaq died in 2005. "I was glad when he died. I didn't speak to him for years. He tried to get me killed." Last year, Zeblon transformed the ground floor of his synagogue in to a commercial space. Zeblon lives upstairs, in a small pink room. He slaughters his own chickens and sheep in keeping with kosher dietary laws. Normally, only a specially designated person can do this, but Simantov said he got permission to do so from a rabbi in Uzbekistan because he's going it alone. The majority of Jews of Afghan descent, including Zeblon's wife and children, now live in Israel, with the second largest population based in Queens. – In other Afghan Jewry news: A trove of medieval scrolls, smuggled out of Afghanistan into the hands of London art dealers, could shed new light on a once-vibrant Jewish heritage. Former synagogues in Western Afghanistan, until recently disused, are being converted into schools. A recent essay: The story of the Afghan Jews is one of remarkable tolerance.

Gray zone, schmay zone

timshel — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 08:50:44 -0800

Almost immediately upon my arrival in my first teaching job, I became the go-to guy for the Holocaust. Of course, this was partly due to my dissertation, but in larger part, I suspect, because of my Jewishness. This was fine with me for a number of reasons. First, as a junior faculty member, this identification, though merely professional, could only help in my quest for tenure. An expert on the Holocaust carried infinitely greater weight, I thought, than an expert on ministerial instability during the French Third Republic.

Dissolution: My life as an accidental Holocaust expert—and why I decided to quit

Google Exodus

nickyskye — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:01:22 -0800

What the Exodus from Egypt would have looked like if Moses had a laptop, Google Maps and Facebook. Produced by aish.com, which has some likable pages: Crash Course on Passover | about Passover | Ask The Rabbi | Martha Stewart's Matzah Factory Tour Created by ShootEast: some of their films

Tenement Goose Farms

caddis — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 14:14:37 -0800

A story of moose snouts, tenement animal husbandry and Crisco - the Lower East Side.
RAZ: Now, you describe the markets in this part of the Lower East Side, around the Bowery that Mr. Glockner's wife would often go to to find fresh produce, I was amazed to read about what you could get in New York City in the 1860s. I mean, there were a lot of choices.
Ms. ZIEGELMAN: You could buy bear. You could buy moose. And not only moose, you could buy moose snout. This was considered a particular delicacy.
RAZ: By whom?
Ms. ZIEGELMAN: That I don't know. Click on the plus sign to open the transcript. For more on 97 Orchard and the Lower East Side tenements visit the Tenement Museum.

The Lost City of The Khazars

Yakuman — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:07:36 -0800

The Khazars were semi-nomadic Turkic people, of which many apparently converted to Judaism. Some believe they are the ancestors of many East European Jews. The Khazars were the subject of Arthur Koestler's controversial 1972 book, The Thirteenth Tribe, as well as anti-Semitic lore. Now a Russian archaeologist says he found a gold-mine of evidence about this once-great nation. No Jewish artifacts yet, however.

“Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution” -- an online exhibit

matteo — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 11:51:10 -0800

“Jewish Women and the Feminist Revolution” -- an online exhibit

From the Diary of Adam Czerniakow on the Eve of the Deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto, 1942

matteo — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:22:29 -0800

"They are demanding that I kill the children of my people with my own hands"
On October 4, 1939, a few days after Warsaw's surrender to the Nazis, Adam Czerniaków was made head of the 24 member Judenrat, the Jewish Council (write "Czerniakow" in the linked page's search box) responsible for implementing German orders in the Jewish community (interactive map of the Warsaw ghetto). On July 22, 1942 -- Tisha B'Av, the "saddest day in Jewish history" -- the Judenrat received instructions that all Warsaw Jews were to be deported to the East (exceptions were to be made for Jews working in German factories, Jewish hospital staff, members of the Judenrat and their families, and members of the Jewish police force and their families. Czerniaków tried to convince the Germans at least not to deport the Jewish orphans). Czerniaków kept a diary from September 6, 1939, until the day of his death. It was published in 1979 in the English language as the "The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniaków: Prelude to Doom", edited by one of the most prominent Holocaust scholars, Raul Hilberg. More inside.

The Return of Jerry Moses and the Jewish Migration to Shanghai

matteo — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:59:35 -0800

"Ala ZongGoNin! Ala YouTaNin!". Jerry Moses last walked on Gaoyang Road in 1947. It was called Chaoufoong Road then, and it was home to many of the 18,000 European Jewish refugees who had sought refuge from Nazi Germany in Shanghai's Hongkew District (today known as Hongkou) during the run-up to World War II. He casts his gaze at the lane, his brow loosens and he begins to nod. "This is it, this is it," he says softly. "I know this is it." One week into his first visit to Shanghai in almost 60 years, Moses has found his third home in an exile that lasted from 1941 to 1947. He strides into the space, his manner now much closer to that of the 12-year-old boy who had left than the 70-year-old man who has returned. More inside.

National Center for Jewish Film

matteo — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 15:56:00 -0800

"One could go on, and one will -- praising (...) the National Center for Jewish Film for releasing all four of Edgar Ulmer's Yiddish films in restored editions. But the DVD player is beckoning, and I think it is time for me to get back to the couch".
The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) is a unique nonprofit motion picture archive, distributor and resource center housing the largest, most comprehensive collection of Jewish-theme film and video in the world. In their archives you can discover the works of Leo Fuchs, the "Yiddish Fred Astaire", restored gems (scroll down) like "Motl the Operator" and re-releases like "The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg". (More on Greenberg, the Jewish kid who challenged Babe Ruth’s homerun record here, more on the NCJF inside).

Holy snails!

blahblahblah — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 22:26:42 -0800

A rabbi, some snails, the color purple, and a 1,500 year old mystery. By puzzling through various sources, a group of researchers and religious scholars think they have found in the mollusk Murex trunculus the source of a purplish dye that was used in ancient Jewish ceremonies over a millennia and a half ago. Murex has been used for the last 3,600 years to make Imperial or Tyrian Purple, a key color in the ancient world. There are many other pigments with their own interesting stories as well.

Andrzej Munk: Wry Smiles, Suspicious Glances

matteo — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 11:00:57 -0800

Eroica. Film director Andrzej Munk’s tragic death at age thirty-nine might have formed the plot for one of his own darkly sardonic works: a Polish Jew and an active resistance worker during the war, he was returning home from shooting his film Passenger at the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1961 when an oncoming truck struck his car. He left behind only four feature films, but his influence was prodigious. As one of the key figures of the postwar “Polish School” of filmmaking, along with Wajda and Kawalerowicz, he helped to shape a vision that broke with the official social realist optimism of Eastern-bloc dogma and cast a skeptical eye on official notions of heroism, nationalism, and life in the Stalinist-occupied state. Mentor to Roman Polanski and Jerzy Skolimowski, his influence can be felt even in the films of a later generation of Polish filmmakers — directors like Zanussi and Kieslowski. More inside.