Scholars dismiss theory tracing Ashkenazi Jews to Turkey
Prominent scholars of Jewish demography dismissed the findings of a newly published genetic study suggesting that today’s Ashkenazi Jews originate from converts to Judaism in what today is Turkey
Wouk ‘non-autobiography’ a cap to accomplished career
For a writer known for pounding out words profusely from a typewriter, Herman Wouk is remarkably restrained in Sailor and Fiddler
Film to look at changing Kensington Market
Stuart Clarfield captures an iconic Toronto neighbourhood’s vibrant history in a documentary called ‘Kensington Market: The First 150 Years’
BACKSTORY: The Belleville Jew and Orangeman
George Benjamin: the only known Jew to become a grandmaster of the Orange Lodge, the Protestant organization highly critical of Roman Catholicism
Portraiture and Jewish history
A look at Richard Brilliant’s ‘Facing the New World: Jewish Portraits in Colonial and Federal America’
Historical novel ‘sort of’ set in Renaissance-era Europe
Reviewing the historical/fantasy novel set during the Renaissance-era
BACKSTORY: Dreyfus – From Devil’s Island to Auschwitz
Alfred Dreyfus: an innocent soldier caught in the greatest political convulsion since the French Revolution
Scheherazade’s antidote to depression
Scheherazade teaches us that stories and life run in a close parallel
BACKSTORY: Purim on the SS Negba
For the Holocaust survivors and North African Jews on the way to Israel aboard the ship Negbah in February 1951, the Purim celebration was significant
BACKSTORY: Glückel of Hameln
Just as we are today preoccupied with making a living, raising a family and ensuring our children succeed, so too was Glückel of Hameln, born in 1646 near Hamburg, Germany
