Jewish History

[Sixties Fan]

National Library of Tunisia stands up to antisemitic bigots

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Why you never heard of the avant-garde Jewish artist Sarah Shor

Like many talented Jewish artists at the turn of the 20th century, Sarah Shor (1897-1981) is hardly known to the general public today. She belonged to the most avant-garde circles in her native Ukraine, and was well-respected by both Jewish and non-Jewish painters and graphic designers. She made...

forward.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Jewish and Greek Communities in Egypt offers a view of the breathtaking rise and fall of these minorities, which together constituted no more than one percent of Egypt’s population. During the first half of the twentieth century, Greeks and Jews played a crucial part in the cotton, sugar, railway, banking, retail, and many other enterprises. But with the 1950s promotion of nationalization and Egyptianization, they lost that position and departed Egypt en masse.

Greeks and Jews were the largest ethno-religious groups in modern Egypt, distinct from the Arabic-speaking Muslims and Copts. From the outset, there were significant differences between Greeks and Jews, which the first and second chapters of the book elaborate in detail. Greeks were cohesive in ethnic and linguistic terms, and rarely proficient in Arabic. Jews were an extremely heterogeneous group in terms of language, ethnicity, and nationality, encompassing autochthonous Arabic speaking Jews and Ottoman, Mediterranean, and Eastern European migrants. The Jewish business elite were francophone, with Arabic-speaking elements. Greek business strength developed around the nineteenth-century cotton boom, in which Greeks played a vital role in both the countryside and in Alexandria. The Jewish business elite emerged from urban trading and money changing. As the rich historiographical review here shows, Egypt’s Jews have received greater scholarly interest, and their study has been conducted in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As a result,
discussion of Jews in Egypt is considerably more charged than the discussion of the Greek minority.

Despite these differences, there were striking similarities in the rise of both groups to prominence in modern Egypt. While they differed in terms of business practices and influence, Greeks and Jews played a crucial role in investment and entrepreneurship. Their over-representation in modern Egyptian capitalism is well known and has been discussed by many scholars. Abdulhaq, however, goes beyond anecdotal references to elite families—such as the Salvagos and Qattawis—and through a painstaking survey of items from the
Egyptian Gazette held in the Egyptian National Archive, the book demonstrates the astonishing magnitude of Greek and Jewish involvement. Of the 759 joint-stock companies established in Egypt between 1885 and 1960, 35 percent had Jewish participants, and 23 percent had Greek participants. One typical explanation for this disproportionate role presented Greeks and Jews as foreign, or “quasi-Egyptian,”elements, who benefited from British colonialism and access to foreign capital. Robert Vitalis and Joel Beinin have already challenged this narrative of “foreign”versus “local” capitalists in Egypt.

Abdulhaq goes further by demonstrating that colonial privileges played a limited part in the success of these groups. As her empirical data convincingly shows, even in 1940s, after the dismantling of the Capitulations, Greeks and Jews continued to have leading positions in enterprise. Her explanation, which builds on Schumpeterian growth theory, attributes Greek and Jewish success to the strength of their networks and their role in innovation. Being part of diasporic networks extending across the Mediterranean and beyond gave Greeks and Jews a built-in advantage over other groups. Through networks of kinship and cultural affinities, they could establish trust more easily, gain access to new information, and reduce investment risks. This became especially crucial for innovative enterprises, where the risk was higher. Abdulhaq shows that in enterprises involving new technologies, products, and practices, Greeks and Jews had an even higher share of participation.


(full article online)

Xenophobia caused Jewish and Greek entrepreneurs to flee Egypt • Point of No Return

In his review of Najat Abdulhaq’s Jewish and Greek Communities in Egypt: Entrepreneurship and Business before Nasser (Tauris, 2016) SOAS lecturer Yair Wallach writes in the Journal of Levantine Studies (Summer 2018) that the book exposes the xenophobic discrimination to which both...

www.jewishrefugees.org.uk

 

[Sixties Fan]

Pierre van Paassen (1895-1968) was a Dutch immigrant to Canada who became a world-famous foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star from 1931 to 1936. Fluent in German, he reported on the Nazis and exposed the policies of Hitler’s fascist regime—which led to the Star becoming the first North American newspaper to be banned from Germany: Van Paassen was expelled after being imprisoned for several weeks. One of the most fervent non-Jewish Zionists of his time, he wrote books and articles that reflected his enthusiastic support of Zionism including The Forgotten Ally which was a sharp indictment of Britain’s anti-Zionist policy, published in 1943. Three years later the book was banned by the British in Mandatory Palestine.

Treasure Trove: A weekly piece of our history from the collection of David Matlow—second year archive (2022-23)

The latest items via @TheCJN on Instagram.

thecjn.ca

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Birth of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch (1860)
The fifth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Sholom DovBer Schneersohn (known by the acronym "Rashab"), was born on the 20th of Cheshvan of the year 5621 from creation (1860).

After the passing of his father, Rabbi Shmuel of Lubavitch, in 1882, Rabbi Sholom DovBer assumed the leadership of the movement. Over the next 38 years, he wrote and delivered some 2,000 maamarim (discourses of Chassidic teaching) including the famed hemshechim (serialized discourses) which contain his profound analytical treatment of Chabad Chassidism. In 1897, he established the Tomchei Temimim yeshivah in Lubavitch, the first institution of Jewish learning to integrate the "body" (Talmudic and legal studies) and "soul" (philosophic and mystical) of Torah into a cohesive, living whole; it was this unique form of education and Torah study that produced the "Temimim" -- the army of learned, inspired and devoted torchbearers who, in the decades to come, would literally give their lives to keep Judaism alive under Soviet rule.

In 1915 Rabbi Sholom DovBer was forced to flee Lubavitch from the advancing WWI front and settled in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia. In his final years, he began the heroic battle -- carried on under the leadership of his son and successor, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn -- against the new Communist regime's efforts to destroy the Jewish faith. Rabbi Sholom DovBer passed away in Rostov in 1920.

Links: Want it All; To Know G-d and On Ahavat Yisrael -- two maamarimby Rabbi Sholom DovBer.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Book ‘Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War,’ out November 15, shows how Jewish troops fought in an army that served pork, rested Sundays and was led by a general who didn’t want them​

(full article online)

Braving bigotry and enemy fire, Jews served the Union valiantly during the Civil War

Book 'Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War,' out November 15, shows how Jewish troops fought in an army that served pork, rested Sundays and was led by a general who didn't want them

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Sadly, even as many Jewish soldiers became American by serving in the Union army, the Civil War produced a range of pernicious ideas about Jews that have proven remarkably durable.​

(full article online)

The antisemitic history of the Union Army and the US civil war - opinion

Sadly, even as many Jewish soldiers became American by serving in the Union army, the Civil War produced a range of pernicious ideas about Jews that have proven remarkably durable.

www.jpost.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

From The Arab News in 2020:

In 2014, when the Magen Abraham Synagogue reopened in Beirut, Lebanese politicians from across the spectrum were present, bathed in the glare of TV cameras. They all reiterated their support for a community they said they cherished as much as the other 17 sects that make up the Lebanese government.

Former prime minister Fouad Siniora declared: “We respect Judaism. Our only problem is with Israel.”

Even Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah weighed in: “This is a religious place of worship and its restoration is welcome.”

Hussain Rahal, a spokesman for Hezbollah, likewise said: "We respect the Jewish religion just like we do Christianity. The Jews have always lived among us. We have an issue with Israel's occupation of land."

This is a standard lie we hear throughout the Arab world, and nowhere is it as obviously false as in Lebanon.

Because there are still a handful of Jews in Lebanon - modern day crypto-Jews, frightened to be revealed to their neighbors.

Monte Carlo Doualiya reports that there are only 27 Lebanese Jews left. They live in great fear and hide their true religious identity. In Tripoli in northern Lebanon, the remaining members of the Jewish community are not known to their neighbors and practice Judaism in complete secrecy.

The Magen Abraham synagogue is not used as a house of worship. The Jews are too frightened to go there publicly.

If the Lebanese have no problem with Jews, then why do the remaining Jews have to hide?

The Arab News article, which is pretty good, describes the fear in starker terms:

The story has it that a Jewish woman from Beirut who was keen to meet other Jews heard of a coreligionist living in the town of Zahle, 50km east of the capital. She went there and searched for her. It was difficult as the woman had changed her name, something many Jews have done for safety reasons. But when she finally found her, the Zahle woman met her with a glacial stare. She spoke one word: Leave. The woman was obviously scared of the attention her visitor might awaken.

Those who are still there preserve a total silence about their identity. They gather secretly in each other’s houses for their prayers.

The Arab News feature notes that Lebanese Jews who now live in New York are nostalgic for the good times in the past, but in Lebanon they were attacked every time something happened in Israel.

True, Lebanese Jews were not rounded up and thrown out like their Egyptian, Iraqi and Syrian counterparts, yet “whenever something happened in Palestine, people would take revenge on the Jews,” said (author of a book on the Jews of Lebanon) Zeidan.

“They would throw a bomb at a synagogue or kidnap a Jewish man. Protests would erupt, inciting violence against the Jews.”

It seems almost unbelievable that there are crypto-Jews today, hiding their Jewish identity the way that their ancestors did in Spain and Portugal out of fear for their lives. But they still exist, and they are living proof that "anti-Zionism" always was, and always will be, antisemitism.

There are crypto-Jews, today - in Lebanon

Blogging about Israel and the Arab world since, oh, forever.

elderofziyon.blogspot.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Lisbon Earthquake (1755)
A great earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal, destroying much of the city including the courthouse of the Inquisition.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Hasmonean Holiday (137 BCE)
In Talmudic times, Cheshvan 23 was commemorated as the day on which the stones of the altar which were defiled by the Greeks were removed from the Holy Temple.

 

[TheParser]

I have been impressed by the many medical breakthroughs discovered by Jewish researchers throughout the centuries.

Their findings have done so much to alleviate human suffering. I am very grateful to them.

Perhaps someone can post a list of some of these medical achievements.

Thank you.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Jewish Inventors and Their Inventions | IMAGE Magazine

imageusa.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Accomplishments & Awards

Read about different research achiements by and institutional awards to National Jewish Health from US News & World Report, 5280, Castle Connolly and others

www.nationaljewish.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

The Jewish contribution to medicine. Part II. The 19th and 20th centuries - PubMed

Despite the opening of German universities to Jews in the 1860s, they were restricted to fields not attractive to their gentile colleagues, e.g. the basic sciences, dermatology, psychiatry, neurology, paediatrics and venereology. They pioneered these specialties when the latter were still in...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• Passing of R. Avraham Azulai (1643)
R. Avraham was a famous kabbalist who resided in Hebron, Jerusalem, and Gaza. He authored Chesed L’Avraham, and was the great-grandfather of R. Chaim Yosef David Azulai (the Chida).

R. Avraham’s signature had the appearance of a ship, to commemorate the time when the ship he was traveling on capsized along with all his possessions, and he was miraculously saved (Shem Hagedolim).

Link: Me’arat Hamachpelah Facts

 

[Sixties Fan]

La Revue Blanche

Tablet’s French literary ancestor was founded by three Warsaw-born brothers who were high school friends and classmates of Marcel Proust, and who published everyone from André Gide to Paul Claudel. Then came the Dreyfus affair.

www.tabletmag.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Ulysses Shmulysses

James Joyce was the first to understand that Jews make the perfect protagonists

www.tabletmag.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

As news of increased pogroms committed against Jews in Europe reached British Mandate Palestine in 1939, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Jewish community and later Israel’s first prime minister, called on Jewish youth to “assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper [British Mandate policy limiting Jewish immigration] and… resist the White Paper as if there were no war. ”

His call was widely heeded: To do their part in fighting the Axis powers and save European Jewry from the Nazis, 40,000 young Jews from pre-state Israel served in the British Army. This was almost 10% of the Yishuv’spopulation at the time.

The National Library of Israel recently acquired at auction a collection of 40 Hebrew-language journals, newspapers, and booklets produced by units of Palestinian Jews in the British Army during World War II.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that an entire generation left the country to serve. It was a huge phenomenon. It was also the first time that women could participate in the fighting effort,” said Dr. Hezi Amiur, curator of the Israel collection at the National Library.

Young people enlisted with the British Army — save for those who chose to join the Palmach, the Yishuv’s underground army fighting the British and Arabs in Palestine.


(full article online)

Trove of publications by WWII Jewish soldiers from Palestine gets new home at NLI

Newspapers, journals, and other periodicals produced by Jewish units from Palestine in British Army reveal rich intellectual and emotional lives of soldiers fighting in Europe

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Dave Chappelle isn’t the first to suggest that Jews run Hollywood. Here are the origins of the trope. - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

The film industry was largely founded by Jews who wanted nothing to do with their Jewishness.

www.jta.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

With a jam-packed schedule at 70, comedian Mark Schiff asks ‘Why Not?’ in new book

The longtime opening act for Jerry Seinfeld looks back on 50 years in the business, as well as his connection to his Jewish faith

www.timesofisrael.com