The Matzah Queen
Regina Horowitz Margareten The Horowitz Margareten Company, known by its familiar blue and yellow boxes of Matzos has been a household name in Jewish homes around the world for more […]
Twenty-Eighth Volume of Encyclopedia Talmudit
The twenty-eighth volume of the Hebrew Encyclopedia Talmudit came off the press in Jerusalem a short time ago. It includes entries beginning with the letter Khaf, from Kezayit Bikhdei Akhilat […]
Sefer Yizrach Ohr on Birkat HaHamah
Rabbi Pinhas Zelig HaKohen Schwartz’ Sefer Yizrah Ohr Next month, on Erev Pessah, Jews all over the world will recite the Birkat HaHamah, the Solar Blessing, which is said once […]
Rabbi Avraham Ravitz Z”L
Rabbi Avraham Ravitz passed away early Monday, January 26 in Jerusalem’s Hadassah-Ein Kerem University Hospital at the age of seventy five. A fine rabbinic scholar, brilliant orator and long-time Torah […]
Queen Helene of Adiabene
Louis Felicien de Saulcy was searching for ancient coins. It was 1863 and the prominent French numismatist was excavating an area in Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, not far from where […]
The Custom of Hanging an Effigy of Haman
Since the times of the Gemara there has been a custom to not only hang Haman in effigy, but to burn the figure as well. Today, though, you’d be hard […]
Purim of Cairo
For more than four centuries, up until the the years between the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956, when a mass […]
The Role of the Esrog in Childbirth
Rectifying the Sin of the Tree of Knowledge. Back in the 18th century, a fascinating story circulated among Jews that the Queen of Prussia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wife of King […]
The Schvartze Chasuneh – The Wedding in a Cemetery
Ten years ago a delightful, illustrated children’s book entitled “The Wedding that Saved a Town,” focused on an obscure Jewish custom in Eastern Europe , known as a “Shvartze Chasuneh” […]
Partaking of Twelve Challos and other Shabbos Customs
Many summers ago, when I was single and studying in Paris at the Sorbonne, I decided to spend Shabbos Mevarchim in Strasbourg in the south of France. I stayed at […]