Treasure Trove: A souvenir postcard from Theodor Herzl’s one visit to the Land of Israel in 1898
Theodor Herzl made only one visit to the Land of Israel, arriving in Jerusalem on Oct. 28, 1898. He traveled as the leader of a Zionist delegation to meet German Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was making his own religious and political pilgrimage, to advance his idea of the Jewish state. Herzl arrived by train from […]
Treasure Trove: David Matlow explains the significance of a rare 5-sided dreidel
The traditional dreidel is four-sided with each side having a Hebrew letter: nun, gimmel, hey and shin. These are the first letters of “nes gadol haya sham” meaning a “big miracle happened there”. In Israel, shin is replaced by the letter peh (for poh “here”) as the miracle of Hanukkah happened here, in the land […]
Treasure Trove: How some sheet music in the Theresienstadt Ghetto became a symbol of hope
In 1941, the Nazis established the Theresienstadt Ghetto outside Prague. By the war’s end, 33,000 people died there and another 88,000 stayed there for months or years before being deported to extermination camps. Despite the tremendous overcrowding and very difficult conditions, the prisoners in Theresienstadt maintained a rich cultural life with lectures and performances. The […]
Treasure Trove: David Matlow looks at history being written today and the call to release the hostages in Gaza
All of the items included in the Treasure Trove since its inception in February 2021 have been related to our past. Today’s treasure relates to the history that is being written today. We can’t do anything about the past except learn from it but we can do something about the historic times we are in now. We […]
Treasure Trove: David Matlow remembers a courageous Jewish educator from Berlin
Paula Furst (1894-1942) was a German educator who trained in the Montessori method and opened the first Montessori class in Berlin in 1926. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, Montessori education was banned as it was considered incompatible with Nazi ideology, in part because of its focus on the individualism of the child. Furst was […]
Treasure Trove: The kibbutz named in honour of one of Israel’s pioneers was on the frontlines of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack
Berle Katznelson (1887-1944) was one of the leaders of the Labor Zionist movement and was a founder of the Histadrut (the workers union), the Hamashbir consumer co-operative and the Clalit Health Services. He was also the founder and editor of the Davar newspaper. He advocated in non-religious labour circles for observance of Shabbat and Jewish […]
Treasure Trove: Remembering the sacrifices made by Canadian Jewish soldiers during the Second World War
Canadian Jews in World War II was published by the Canadian Jewish Congress in two parts in 1947 and 1948 to recognize the nearly 17,000 Jewish soldiers who fought in the war for Canada. The first volume tells the story of the 196 Jewish soldiers who received military decorations for their service. The second volume lists the […]
Treasure Trove: A look back of the Zionism that once flourished in Transylvania
At the end of the First World War, the region of Transylvania that was previously part of the Kingdom of Hungary was annexed to Romania. Transylvanian Jews, who primarily spoke Hungarian, felt no connection to their new country and turned to Zionism to replace their earlier Hungarian patriotism. Anti-Jewish protests in the 1920s, perpetrated primarily by […]
Treasure Trove recalls Moshe Dayan’s prophetic 1956 eulogy for a murdered kibbutznik
Moshe Dayan—whose signature eyepatch is depicted on this pin—was Israel’s Defence Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967 and Yom Kippur War in 1973. In 1956, while he was chief of staff, he gave the eulogy for Roi Rotberg, who lived on Kibbutz Nahal Oz near Gaza and was ambushed and killed while on security […]
Treasure Trove: David Matlow ventures through the ‘Gateway of Hope’
Petah Tikvah (“Gateway of Hope”) is a city east of Tel Aviv that was founded in 1878 by three religious families from Jerusalem. The name comes from the prophecy of Hosea (2:15): “And I will give her vineyards from thence, and the Valley of Achor for a door of hope.” It was the first modern agricultural […]
