We rightly blame the Holocaust on the Germans — but also, in part, on other Europeans who either turned a blind eye or actually helped the Nazis carry out the “Final Solution.” Ken Burns the renowned, multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker, has directed — along with Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein — a new, three-part documentary series…
Pope Pius XII was head of the Catholic Church from March 2, 1939 to Oct. 9, 1958, which means he was pontiff throughout the Second World War and the Holocaust. For decades, his actions to save the Jews — or lack thereof — have been the source of a much-researched and much-debated controversy. Now a…
Shtetls, small towns primarily populated by Ashkenazi Jews, were an important feature of Eastern European Jewish life before World War II. They were mainly found in the areas that constituted the 19th-century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, as well as in Congress Poland, Austrian Galicia, the Kingdom of Romania, and the Kingdom of…
Note: We’re rerunning our previous posting about the Dreyfus Affair. To learn why, be sure to read the COMMENTARY below. In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus — a 35-year-old French artillery officer — was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. Dreyfus, who eventually…
Although nothing can compare to the horror of thousands of lynchings of African Americans in the United States, members of other ethnic groups — including Jewish Americans — were also lynched. Perhaps the most infamous Jewish case was the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915. Frank, a 30-year-old factory superintendent in Atlanta was convicted —…
On April 6-8, 1903 — continuing on April 19-21 and later in October 1905 — vicious anti-Jewish attacks, which became known as the Kishinev Pogrom, took place in the Bessarabia Governorate in the Russian Empire. (The location is now Chișinău, the capital of Moldova.) At the time, the antisemitic murders, rapes, and destruction of property…
Pope Pius XII (March 2, 1876 – Oct. 9, 1958) was head of the Roman Catholic Church from 1939 to 1958 – which means he was pontiff throughout the Second World War and the Nazi Holocaust. For decades, historians have debated whether Pope Pius and the Church could have done more to help the Jews…
You may have heard about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, at the hands of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Unfortunately, that traumatic event in Jewish history barely scratches the surface of the expulsions experienced by the Jews. The first link below will take you to a list of more than 50…
Many people aren’t aware that the term “ghetto” stems from the practice by Christians of locking up Jews in restricted neighborhoods -– surrounded by walls -– in numerous European cities. Jewish ghettos, which first appeared in the 16th century, existed for hundreds of years; the practice only ended with the advent of the Jewish Emancipation…
Bodhan Khmelnytsky (1595-1657) was a Cossack leader who carried out an uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (now Ukraine). During the fighting, Khmelnytsky and his followers committed a horrific mass murder of Jews. Due to lack of records, estimates of the number of Jewish victims range from tens of thousands on the low end, to as…
WOW! FACTS
Inventor of the mobile phone, “Father of the Internet,” inventor of the video game cosole, inventor fo the laser, inventor of the gramophone, creator of the Barbie Doll, creator of the cruise ship, “Father of Immunology,” inventor fo the modern condom (!), a prime minister of the U.K., a three-time prime minister of France, a president of Switzerland and the primary financier of the American Revolution?
We knew you could guess… all of them are (or were) Jews!
To learn about these and many more AmazingJews, watch a compilation put together by JewOfTheWeek.net in 2015 and posted on YouTube. >>
Nobel Prizes
Although Jews are less than two-tenths of one percent of the world’s population, more than 20% of Nobel Prize winners have been Jewish. Source: Google
Polio Vaccine
Millions and millions of people worldwide have been spared the ravages of poliomyelitis — including paralysis and even death — thanks to research conducted by Jewish scientist Dr. Jonas Salk and his team. The Salk vaccine entered widespread use in the U.S. in 1955. Source: Wikipedia
Miss Liberty
The words “…give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” on the Statue of Liberty were written by Emma Lazarus, a Jew. Source: BuzzFeed
Blue Jeans
Levi Strauss, an immigrant from Germany, invented his blue jeans in 1873. Source: BuzzFeed
Start-Up Nation
Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world. It has the highest rate of entrepreneurship among women and people over 55 in the world. Source: BuzzFeed