Jewish History

[Sixties Fan]

Even if you’ve never been there, you might have an opinion about Newark, New Jersey. For some, it is the quintessence of urban decay. For others, it is a vibrant community of creativity and entrepreneurship. For Philip Roth, arguably the greatest Jewish-American author to dip his quill in ink, it was home.

Since most of his work was in some way autobiographical, not much in his vast oeuvre doesn’t touch upon Newark in some way. So for three days in mid-March, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC), located in the heart of downtown Newark, will celebrate the hometown chronicler with “Philip Roth Unbound: Illuminating a Literary History.”

The weekend festival will feature readings of his work by celebrities (Matthew Broderick, Peter Riegert, Morgan Spector), two looks at theatrical presentations of his work (“Sabbath’s Theater” with John Turturro, “The Plot Against America” with Sam Waterston, S. Epatha Merkerson, Tony Shalhoub, Eric Bogosian and others), plus a slew of writers and intellectuals getting into the nitty gritty of Roth’s books, analyzing them in ways that would cause Alexander Portnoy to complain.

The panels will be audio recorded and will, pending permission, be made available in some kind of podcast form.

The weekend will expand out of NJPAC’s fancy digs (at the intersection of the very-Newark Sarah Vaughan Way and Wayne Shorter Way) for an audio-guided tour of the Newark Public Library, an evening of comedy at a Jewish delicatessen, and even a bus tour visiting locations from Roth’s life and his fiction. (As if we can tell the difference at this point!)

(full article online)

Even Portnoy wouldn’t complain about Newark gala for provocative author Philip Roth

Actors John Turturro, Matthew Broderick and Tony Shalhoub, plus a slew of appropriately edgy writers, will head up a 3-day literary festival for the hometown hero March 17-19

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Today in Jewish History​

• First Property Purchase in the US by Jewish Congregation (1677)

In 1658, fifteen Jewish families emigrated from South America to (what was to become) the United States. These families were of Sephardic lineage and settled together in Newport, Rhode Island, where they established a Jewish congregation. For many years they held weekly prayer services in private homes.

When the need arose for a Jewish cemetery, the community purchased a piece of land on Wednesday, February 28, 1677.

This was the very first piece of land in the colonies which was owned by a Jewish congregation. In this cemetery are buried many of the early members of this congregation, and it is still maintained by the Jewish community.

For more about the Newport Jewish community, see entry for the 8th of Elul.

 

[Sixties Fan]

In 'Parade,' a tragedy of antisemitism is timely as ever — and it wants you to notice

A revival of the musical 'Parade' looks at the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was lynched after being convicted of murder.

forward.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Crimean Jews’ Medieval Cemetery » Mosaic

The stone of Tmutarakan.

mosaicmagazine.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

From at least the 10th century CE until the 15th, the Rhineland city of Mainz was one of the major Jewish centers of northern Europe. Much earlier—in the 1st century BCE—three Roman soldiers from modern-day Syria or the Golan Heights were buried there, and their gravestones remain. Henry Abramson explains why scholars have concluded that these soldiers were Jews, and how they got there. (Video, 20 minutes.)

The Three Jewish Soldiers Serving the Roman Empire in Ancient Gaul » Mosaic

What their gravestones tell us.

mosaicmagazine.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Civil War Passover Seder memorialized in West Virginia

'What a scene ensued in our little congregation, it is impossible for my pen to describe,' wrote one of the soldiers.

forward.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The seven-letter 10th-century BCE inscription in Ancient South Arabian script on a pithos from the Ophel. (photo: Daniel Vainstub; all rights reserved © Dr. Eilat Mazar; after Mazar 2015)

After stumping epigraphers for over a decade, a mysterious First Temple-era inscription uncovered at the Ophel, a stone’s throw from Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, may finally have been deciphered.

According to a new study by Dr. Daniel Vainstub, the seven-letter inscription etched on a large clay jar records one of the ingredients found in the incense mixture used in the Temple — perfumed gum resin or labdanum.

According to readings of Exodus 30:34, aromatic labdanum (Cistus ladaniferus) is likely the second component of the Temple worship’s incense.


(full article online )

Newly deciphered inscription gives clue to biblical Queen of Sheba’s Jerusalem visit

Discovered at the Ophel adjacent to the Temple Mount, seven letters on clay jar sherd are written in dialect and script stemming from the Arabian Peninsula, epigrapher suggests

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Matzah factory survives a Russian strike as Ukraine Jews prepare Passover under fire

Dnipro bakery shaken by drone attack as it prepares tons of matzah for Seder; rabbis see rise in interest from unaffiliated Jews

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

All the Jewish MLB players to watch in 2023

The new Major League Baseball season has the potential to be a historic one for Jews playing America's favorite pastime

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Seymour Stein, Jewish record mogul who signed Madonna, Talking Heads, dies at 80

Music executive co-founded Sire Records, also inked deals with The Ramones and The Pretenders, said he felt pressured to stay in closet due to Judaism

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

​

What It Is These metal cans are witnesses to the mechanical printing processes once housed in the basement of our historic East Broadway building, which we relied on for decades to produce a broadsheet newspaper. They contained oil to keep the gears moving, and kerosene and other solvents to clean metal plates and blocks of type. Why I Love It When I see these cans, I think of our 30th anniversary issue in 1927, in which our predecessors boasted about how machine-driven printing had transformed the crafting of our Yiddish newspaper. It took 11,000 pounds of ink and 441,000 pounds of paper to publish that 80-page special edition, the editors noted on its front page, along with the work of 80 writers who produced 430 columns. The NYC edition weighed in at close to 2 ⅓ pounds. Where They Came From In 2010, as the Forward was moving to its current office in Manhattan’s Financial District, Louis Katz, our last Yiddish typesetter, asked me to come see him. Arriving upstairs at the row of desktop computers in what had once been the composing room, I watched Mr. Katz, a short, voluble titan we gingerly called “Ketsele,” reach up to the top shelf of the typesetters’ closet to pull out these two cans. He’d held onto them long after the Forward made the switch from linotype press to digital typesetting — a moment of revolution in his fakh, or trade. They’re a memory of the labor required to share our forebears’ words of wisdom with the public.

 

[Ria_Longhorn]

From at least the 10th century CE until the 15th, the Rhineland city of Mainz was one of the major Jewish centers of northern Europe. Much earlier—in the 1st century BCE—three Roman soldiers from modern-day Syria or the Golan Heights were buried there, and their gravestones remain. Henry Abramson explains why scholars have concluded that these soldiers were Jews, and how they got there. (Video, 20 minutes.)

The Three Jewish Soldiers Serving the Roman Empire in Ancient Gaul » Mosaic

What their gravestones tell us.

mosaicmagazine.com

Dr Abramson, one of my favorite historians.

 

[Sixties Fan]

What Ben Platt learned reading Leo Frank's letters

For Ben Platt, playing the role of Leo Frank, a lynching victim in 1915 Georgia, is a responsibility and a privilege.

forward.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

How Orient Express’s Baron Maurice de Hirsch changed the track of Jewish migration

In bio 'The Baron,' Prof. Matthias B. Lehmann takes a new approach to history-telling by following the man who helped resettle Jews in locales ranging from Istanbul to Argentina

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Meir Shalev, beloved writer of fiction and complicated Israeli lives, dies at 74

The renowned author of fiction, non-fiction and children's books, whose works melded Biblical narratives with modern Israeli life, succumbs to cancer

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

An Italian historian seeking to debunk rumors of a “foreign” background has instead discovered documentation indicating that famed artist Leonardo da Vinci was actually a Jew.

According to an article reprinted on the Aish.com website from Tablet Magazine, da Vinci’s mother – Caterina – was a Circassian Jew born somewhere in the Caucasus

Caterina was apparently “abducted as a teenager and sold as a sex slave several times in Russia, Constantinople, and Venice before finally being freed in Florence at age 15,” according to the report, which quotes the book written by historian Carlo Vecce, “Il sorriso di Caterina, la madre di Leonardo.”

The historian, one of the top specialists on da Vinci, told Aish journalist Marc Weitzmann that he “simply found it impossible to believe that the mother of the greatest Italian genius would be a non-Italian slave.”

However, he added, “Now, not only do I believe it, but the most probable hypothesis, given what I found, is that Caterina was Jewish.”

What he found while doing research for his book was a document that turned up during the reconstruction of da Vinci’s library that made the artist’s Jewish roots clear.

The document, dated November 2, 1452 – seven months after the artist was born – was an emancipation act signed by Leonardo’s father, Piero da Vinci, in his professional capacity regarding “the daughter of a certain Jacob, originating from the Caucasian mountains.”

Piero da Vinci was the business attorney for the rich merchant’s wife who owned Catarina as a slave, and who lived in Florence.

Da Vinci senior was “no stranger to the Jews … His main customers were among the Jewish community of Florence,” Vecce said.

The professor added that he believes Caterina bequeathed some of her “wild Circassian spirit” to her son, whose ability to think freely and creatively as an engineer as well as an artist resulted in his eventual centuries-long worldwide fame.

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/jewish-news/iconic-renaissance-artist-leonardo-da-vinci-was-a-jew/2023/04/16/

 

[Sixties Fan]

The real Jewish history behind Netflix’s ‘Transatlantic’ and the WWII rescue mission that inspired it - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

The story of Varian Fry, who helped lead an operation that saved thousands of Jewish artists and other refugees, gets the Netflix treatment.

www.jta.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Musical and literary icon Yehonatan Geffen dies at 76

The writer, nephew of Moshe Dayan and father to singer Aviv Gefen as well as artists Shira and Natasha, battled inner demons to express himself

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

10 - OJA50

Established in 1897 in Toronto, this volunteer-run organization has enabled women to impact and strengthen their communities, promote women’s rights and further human welfare through service, education, and social action.

oja50.org

 

[Sixties Fan]

Unbelievable Lyrics in Bob Dylan's Zionist Anthem

I was never familiar with this song, but I was told to listen to it and follow the lyrics closely. I was stunned! What a song of truth about the Jewish state of Israel and the Jewish people. Wow!

www.israelunwired.com