Henry Abramson is a specialist in Jewish History and Thought, serving as a Dean of Touro University in Brooklyn, New York. A native of northern Ontario, Canada, he earned his PhD in History from the University of Toronto with a dissertation on the Jews of Ukraine, published by Harvard University in 1999. He has held post-doctoral fellowships and visiting professorships at Cornell, Harvard, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His research and teaching have been recognized with fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and he is the recipient of the Excellence in the Academy Award from the National Education Association. He is the author of several books and his online lectures have been viewed over 9 million times. His current project is a three-volume survey of Jewish history, forthcoming from Koren Publishers in Jerusalem.
Academic Experience: Overview
Touro University New York, NY/Miami, FL
Director of University Initiatives in the Office of the Executive Vice President, 2022-present
Dean, Machon L’Parnasa Institute for Professional Studies, 2018-present
Dean, Lander College of Arts and Sciences, New York, 2015-present
Dean of Academic Affairs and Student Services, Miami, FL, 2006-2015
Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL
University Library Scholar and Associate Professor, 2002-2006
Assistant Professor, 1996-2002
Oxford University Oxford, United Kingdom
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2003
Harvard University Cambridge, MA
Eugene and Daymel Shklar Fellow, 2002
Cornell University Ithaca, NY
Slovin/YIVO Visiting Assistant Professor, 1995-1996
Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel
Visiting Scholar, 1993-1994
University of Toronto Toronto, Canada
Ray D. Wolfe Fellow, 1992-1993
Other Relevant Experience
Orthodox Union New York, NY
Podcaster: Jewish History in Daf Yomi Podcast, 2019-2026 (projected completion)
Young Israel of Lawrence-Cedarhurst NY
Resident Scholar, 2020-
Education
University of Toronto Toronto, Canada
BA (Philosophy, 1989) MA (History, 1990) PhD (History, 1995)
Kiev State University Kiev, Ukraine
Diploma in Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies (1990)
Research
Books:
A Prayer for the Government: Jews and Ukrainians in Revolutionary Times, 1917-1920 (Harvard, 1999). Ukrainian translation: Молитва за владу Українці та євреї в революцїну добу (1917-1920) (Dukh i Litera, 2017).
The Kabbalah of Forgiveness: The Thirteen Levels of Mercy in Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s Palm Tree of Devorah (Torah Devorah) (2014). Spanish translation: Imitando a D-os: Análisis de los 13 niveles de compasión del Tomer Devora de Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (Perspectivas, 2018).
Maimonides on Teshuvah: A New Translation and Commentary (8th edition: 2020).
Torah from the Years of Wrath: The Historical Context of the Esh Kodesh, 1939-1943 (2017).
Reading the Talmud: Developing Independence in Gemara Learning (Feldheim, 2006, revised edition 2012).
The Sea of Talmud: A Brief and Personal Introduction (2nd edition, 2020).
The Art of Hatred: Images of Intolerance in Florida Culture (Florida International University, 2001). Catalog to accompany exhibit of same name.
Forthcoming:
The Jewish People: A History 3 Volumes (Koren, 2023-2025)
The Children of the Prophets: A New Commentary on Three Essays by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira (the Aish Kodesh), (2021).
Video Documentaries:
The Fatal Conflict: Judea and Rome, 2018, directed by Nik Wansbrough, produced by Veronica Fury, Wildbear Entertainment. Scholarly commentary.
One of the Last, 2007, directed and produced by Ed Kucerak, Kublacom Pictures, 50 min. Scholarly commentary.
The Lost Wooden Synagogues of Eastern Europe, 1999, directed by Carl Hersh, produced by Albert Barry and Florida Atlantic University Libraries, 50 min. Academic Advisor, scholarly commentary. Released in English, Hebrew and Yiddish versions.
Book Chapters:
“‘Living With the Times:’ History and Historicity in the Wartime Writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira,” Hasidism, Suffering, and Renewal: The Prewar and Holocaust Legacy of Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira, eds. Don Seeman, Daniel Reiser, and Ariel Even Mayse, forthcoming 2021.
“Two Jews, Three Opinions: Politics in the Shtetl at the Turn of the 20th Century,” The Shtetl: New Evaluations, Ed. Steven Katz, New York: New York University Press, 2007, 85-101.
“Deciphering the Ancestral Paradigm: A Hasidic Court in the Warsaw Ghetto,” Ghettos 1939-1945: New Research and Perspectives on Definition, Daily Life, and Survival, Ed. Paul A Shapiro, Washington DC: Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Museum, 2005, 129-146. Audio recording of formal presentation available at link above.
“A Double Occlusion: Sephardim and the Holocaust,” Sephardic and Mizrahi Jewry: From the Golden Age of Spain to Modern Times, ed. Zion Zohar, New York: New York University Press, 2005, 285-299.
“‘This is the Way it Was!’ Textual and Iconograpic Images of Jews in the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Press of Distrikt Galizien,” Why Didn’t the Press Shout? Journalism and the Holocaust, Ed. Robert Moses Shapiro, New York: Yeshiva University Press, 2003, 537-556.
“Metaphysical Nationality in the Warsaw Ghetto: Poles and Other Non-Jews in the Wartime Writings of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro,” Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath, Ed. Joshua Zimmerman, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003, 158-169.
“Foreword to the Turei Zahav of Rabbi David ben Shmuel HaLevi (Volodymyr 1586-L’viv 1667)” in Ukraine: Developing a Democratic Polity, Essays in Honour of Peter J. Potichnyj, ed. Stefania Szlek Miller, Edmonton: CIUS, 1996, 97-108. [Also published as journal article, listed below]
“Shouldering the Burdens of History: Aspects of the Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter since Independence,” Society in Transition: Social Change in Ukraine in Western Perspectives, ed. Wsevolod Isajiw, Toronto: Canadian Scholars Press, 2003, 203-212.
“The End of Intimate Insularity: New Narratives of Jewish History in the Post-Soviet Era,” Construction and Deconstruction of National Identities in Post-Soviet Eurasia, ed. Tadayuki Hayashi, Sapporo: Hokkaido University, 2003, 87-115.
Scholarly Articles:
“Circumcision: Visual Arts,” Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011)
“Ukraine,” The YIVO Encyclopedia of the Jews of Eastern Europe ed. Gershon David Hundert, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008, 2:1930-1937.
“Well – yes, a new Synthesis! A Response to Mr. Fisher,” Revolutionary Russia 16:2 (London, 2003), 94-100. Editor-solicited response to Lars Fisher’s review article, “The pogromshchina and the Directory: A new historiographical synthesis?” published in same issue.
“Nachrichten aus Lemberg: Lokale Elemente in der antisemitischen Ikonographie der NS-Propaganda in ukrainischer Sprache,” in Grenzenlose Vorurteile: Antisemitismus, Nationalismus und ethnische Konflikte in verschiedenen Kulturen, Series; Jahrbuch des Fritz Bauer Institut, Band 6, Eds. Irmtrud Wojak and Susanne Meinl, Frankfurt am Main: Fritz Bauer Institut, 2002, 249-267.
“Studying the Talmud: 400 Repetitions and the Divine Voice,” Thought and Action 27:1 (Spring 2001), 9-18. Winner of the Excellence in the Academy Award for 2001 in the category of The Art of Teaching, see Teaching Awards below.
“Just Different: The Last Jewish Family of Ansonville, Ontario,” Canadian Jewish Studies: Etudes Juives Canadiennes 9 (2001), 155-169.
“The Esh Kodesh of Rabbi Kalonimus Kalmish Shapiro: An Unique Treatise on Communal Trauma among Hasidim in the Holocaust,” Transcultural Psychiatry 37:3 (Montreal, 2000), 321-335.
“The Prince in Captivity: Reading Hasidic Discourses from the Warsaw Ghetto as Sources for Social and Intellectual History,” Journal of Genocide Research 1:2 (London, 1999), 213-225.
“Life Imitates Art Imitates Life: The Famine, the Holocaust, and Australia’s Darville/Demidenko Affair,”The Ukrainian Quarterly 50:4 (New York, 1997), 353-365.
“A Ready Hatred: Depictions of the Jewish Woman in Medieval Antisemitic Art and Caricature,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 62 (Jerusalem and New York, 1996) 1-18.
“Foreword to the Turei Zahav of Rabbi David ben Shmuel HaLevi (Volodymyr 1586 L’viv 1667),” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 21:1/2 (Toronto, 1996), 97-108. [Also published as book chapter, listed above]
“The Scattering of Amalek: A Model for Understanding the Ukrainian-Jewish Conflict,” East European Jewish Affairs 24:1 (London, 1994), 39-47.
“Collective Memory and Collective Identity: Jews and the Rusyns During the Holocaust,” Carpatho-Rusyn American 17:3 (New York, 1994).
“Electronic Mail for the Technologically Timid,” American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies Newsletter 33:2 (Stanford, 1993), 21.
“Jewish Representation in the Independent Ukrainian Governments of 1917-1920,” Slavic Review 50:3 (Stanford, 1991), 542-550.
“Metropolitan Sheptyts’kyi’s Hebrew Correspondence, 1903,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 15:1/2 (Cambridge, 1991), 172-176.
“Historiography on the Jews and the Ukrainian Revolution,” Journal of Ukrainian Studies 15:2 (Edmonton, 1990), 33-46.
Encyclopedia of Ukraine, 5 vols. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988-1993: “Nakhman of Bratslav,” 3:527; ”Schechtman, Joseph,” 4:551; ”Tcherikower, Elias,” 5:180; ”Yiddish,” 5:773774; ”Zionism,” 5:867868.
”The Jew in History,” Nishma 8 (New York, Toronto), August 1991.
Conference Papers: Invited
“A Thousand Years of Jewish Life in Ukraine,” Keynote Presentation, History, Classics, and Religion Graduate Students Association of the University of Alberta, March 2, 2023.
“Symon Petliura in Jewish History and Jewish Memory,” ПЕТЛЮРА І «ПЕТЛЮРІВЩИНА»:ДЕ(КОНСТРУКЦІЯ) ІМПЕРСЬКОГО МІФУ (Petliura and the Petliura Affair: De(constructing) an Imperial Myth), Kyiv, April 29, 2022.
“Ukrainians and Jews Since HURI,” Ukraine and the World, Harvard University, May 11, 2018.
“Should We Tear Down Statues of Khmel’nyts’kyi and Petliura?” The 100th Anniversary of the Ukrainian Revolution and the Proclamation of Ukraine’s Independence,” The Ukrainian Institute, New York, January 21, 2018.
Discussant, “The Jewish and Russian Question in Imperial and Civil War Ukraine,” Association for the Studies of Nationalities Conference, Columbia University, April 2013.
“Gam zeh ya’avor: Normalizing National Narratives between Ukrainians and Jews in the 21st Century,” Association for the Study of Nationalities Conference, Columbia University, April 2010.
“The Petliura Question,” Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter Initiative: Shared Historical Narratives, Ditchley Park, Oxford, UK, December 2009.
“Rabbis, Rebbes, and the Crisis of Jewish Narratives at the Turn of the 20th Century,” Touro College Graduate School of Jewish Studies/YIVO Institute of Jewish Research, New York City, March 2008.
“Khmel’nyts’kyi, Petliura, Bandera – Jewish Perceptions of Paradigmatic Ukrainian Leadership and National Liberation,” Facing Catastrophe: Jews and Non-Jews in the Ukraine During the Holocaust, Tkuma Institute, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, October 2003.
“The End of Intimate Insularity: New Narratives of Jewish History in the Post-Soviet Era,” conference on Construction and Deconstruction of National Identities in Post-Soviet Eurasia, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, July 2002.
“The Aftermath of the Holocaust in Ukraine,” conference on The Aftermath of the Shoah, Arizona State University, February 2002.
“Maase avos siman le-banim: Weekly bible readings as spiritual resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, November 2001.
“Ukrainians? In Anatevka? Shtetl Jews Discover the Ukrainians,” The Shtetl: New Evaluations of its History and Character,” Boston University, November 2001.
“A Derivative Hatred: Representations of Jewish Women in Modern Antisemitic Caricature,” Klutznick-Harris Symposium on Women and Judaism, Creighton University, October 2001.
“Four Hundred Repetitions and the Divine Voice: Talmudic Pedagogy and the University Setting,” National Education Association Annual Conference, San Diego, March 2001.
“Shouldering the Burdens of History: The Ukrainian-Jewish Encounter since Independence,” Problems of Development of Ukraine Since Independence: A View from Canada, University of Toronto, November 1999.
“Response” at “Ukrainians and Jews in Revolution and Civil War: A Critical Assessment of Henry Abramson’s A Prayer for the Government,” Papers presented by Professors Taras Hunczak (Rutgers), Eric Lohr (Harvard), Richard Pipes (Harvard), and Antony Polonsky (Brandeis) Center for European Studies, Harvard University, October 1999.
Scholarly and Popular Keynote Lectures: Invited (Selection)
“Separating the Flours: Learning Jewish History from Daf Yomi (All Daf),” Orthodox Union, Torah New York, September 22, 2019.
“Murder in the Printshop? The Bizarre Story Behind the Canonization of the Vilna Shas,” OU All Daf Shabbaton, Teaneck NJ (Rinat Yisrael and Bnai Yeshurun), October 25-26, 2019.
“Stories You Never Learned in Yeshiva: Three Surprising Lectures in Talmudic History,” Aish Thornhill Community Shul, November 22-23, 2019.
“Torah from the Years of Wrath: The Life and Work of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira (the “Aish Kodesh”),” David Shentow Annual Memorial Holocaust Lecture, Toronto, November 23, 2019.
“Truth Will Spring from the Earth: Gutenberg, the Internet, and the New Uncertainty Principle,” XIII International Conference on Torah and Science: Sustainability, Resilience and the Torah, Miami, December 15, 2019.
“Finding Velcro on the Moon: How YouTube will Revolutionize Your Teaching Forever,” Touro College Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, April 30, 2020.
“Lighting the Lantern,” American Ideas Workshop, Tikvah Foundation, Glen Cove, NY, May 2015.
“The Talmud, the Internet, and the New Jewish Curriculum: Implications of the Information Age for the People of the Book,” JESNA Board Meeting Keynote Address, Boca Raton, February 2008.
“Singer in the Shtetl, the Shtetl in Singer,” University of Central Florida, October 2004.
“The Wartime Writings of the Piaseczno Rebbe,” St Edmund College, Oxford University, July 2003.
“An Intimate Insularity: The Triangular Framework of Ukrainian-Jewish History,” Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, July 2002.
“The ‘Ukrainian Famine’ vs. the ‘Jewish Holocaust:’ Reflections on Historical Reality and Ethnic Politics in Helen Darville/Demidenko’s The Hand that Signed the Paper,” Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, December 1996.
“Antisemitism as Cognitive Dissonance: Jews and Ukrainians in the Modern Period,” Program of Jewish Studies, Cornell University, January 1995.
“The Social and Economic Foundations of Modern Ukrainian Antisemitism,” Center for European Studies, Harvard University, October 1995.
“Understanding 1919: New Perspectives on Jews and the Ukrainian Revolution,” Harvard Seminar in Ukrainian Studies, Harvard University, March 1995.
“The Question of Antisemitism in Ukraine,” Roundtable with Professors Orest Subtelny and Andrew Wilson, Columbia University, New York, November 1994.
״,חיים בלעו: אוקראינים ויהודים במלחמת האזרחית ברוסיה 1917-1920” Merkaz Zalman Shazar Israel Historical Society, Jerusalem, January 1994.
Conference Papers: General
“Sowing Flax and Trapping Deers: Narratives of Literary Origin in the Babylonian Talmud,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Washington DC (December 2008).
“Intersections of Technology and Tradition in Talmudic Study: Modalities of Religious Learning in Historical Perspective,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Toronto (December 2007).
“Entering the Mind of the Rebbe: New Research based on Manuscript Emendations in the Warsaw Ghetto Writings of the Piaseczno Rebbe,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, San Diego (December 2006)
“The Imperative of Prophecy: The Twentieth-Century Hasidic Thought of the Piaseczno Rebbe, 1889-1943,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Boston 1998.
“Revisiting a Forbidden History: Recent Historiography of the Jews in PostSoviet Ukraine,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Boston, December 1996.
“Antisemitism and Misogyny in Medieval Art and Caricature,” “Women’s Voices,” Florida Atlantic University, November 1996.
“Ukrainians, Jews, and the Problem of Antisemitism,” “Remaking National Identities: First Annual Convention of the Association for the Study of Nationalities,” Columbia University, April 1996.
“‘A Clean Cause Demands Clean Hands:’ Symon Petliura and the Pogroms of 1919,” Association for Jewish Studies Conference, Boston, December 1995.
“‘This is the Way it Was!’ Textual and Iconographic Images of Jews in the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Press of Distrikt Galizien,” Conference on Journalism and the Holocaust, 19331945, Yeshiva University, New York City, October 1995.
“Notes on the Non-Existence of Ukrainian Jewry,” Conference on “Peoples, Nations, Identities: the RussianUkrainian Encounter,” Columbia University, New York, November 1994.
“Tefilin and the Two-Headed Boy: The SocialistZionist Conflict in Ukraine, 19171919,” 63rd Annual Conference, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York City, November 1992.
Articles in Popular Publications:
Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
“What is a ‘moser’? The ugly, complicated history of Judaism’s most dangerous accusation,” October 14, 2020.
“Jewish history shows the consequences of tolerating police brutality,” June 3, 2020.
“Technology makes Jewish education more accessible. We must ensure the tradeoff isn’t our values.” May 11, 2020.
“History shows that epidemics can carry dangerous side effects for Jews: deadly anti-Semitism,” March 6, 2020.
“Nissim Black’s ‘Mothaland Bounce’ is the most authentically Jewish song you’ll hear this year.” February 24, 2020.
“He posed as a righteous Jewish convert for 19 years. Then he wrote a 2,000-page anti-Semitic screed.” August 6, 2019.
“Did this ancient Jewish scholar introduce the world to pizza?” May 10, 2019.
“How an Italian earthquake in 1570 created the first Modern Orthodox Jew,” March 29, 2019.
“The Romans tried to ban wild Purim parties in 408 CE — for a very good reason.” March 12, 2019.
“What a Bergen-Belsen prenup teaches us about Jewish resilience,” February 27, 2019.
Other:
“Meet the Non-Jew Who Made Daf Yomi Possible,” Orthodox Union Torah Blog, July 17, 2019.
“A Rosh Yeshiva Wrote a Novel Under a Pseudonym. It’s Pretty Good.” Orthodox Union Blog, September 24, 2019.
“This is Not the Biggest Plague in Jewish History But it May Be the Most Consequential,” OU Torah Blog, May 5, 2020.
“Completing the Talmud in a Displaced Persons Camp, 1945,” Orthodox Union Blog, August 19, 2019.
“Want to Lose Weight? Start Daf Yomi Now.” Orthodox Union Blog, June 11, 2019.
“How did the Murdered Warsaw Ghetto Rabbi Build a Huge Modern Following?” The Jewish Forward, October 15, 2018.
“When Jews Were ‘Illegals,’ They Took Away Our Children,” The Jewish Forward, July 19, 2018.
“To The Antisemitic Vandal who Defaced my Car: Thank You,” Five Towns Jewish Times, July 3, 2018 (updated version available here).
“People of the Book: Classic Works of the Jewish Tradition,” Weekly column in Five Towns Jewish Times, 2015-2016.
“Cairo Geniza’s Remarkable Story of Wuhshah the Broker,” aish.com, April 22, 2018.
“Babatha & the Role of Women in the 2nd Century,” aish.com, February 17, 2018.
“The First Pillar of Jewish Law: The Rif,” aish.com, May 14, 2016.
“The Mysterious, Miraculous Sarajevo Haggadah,” aish.com, April 18, 2016.
“The Soviet Campaign to Eliminate Passover,” aish.com, April 11, 2016.
“Standing Up for Ukrainian Jews,” The Globe and Mail, (Toronto) May 4, 1990, A7. Also reprinted in Novyi shlakh, (Toronto), June 9, 1990, 4.
Editorial Service:
Manuscript evaluator:
Acta Slavica Iaponica, Addison-Weseley Publishers, Harvard Ukrainian Studies. Houghton-Mifflin Publishers, Longman Publishers, McGraw-Hill Publishers, Palgrave Publishers, Pittsburgh University Press, Quest: Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, Slavic Review, Syracuse University Press, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, West/Wadsworth Publishers.
Editorial Board Service:
Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Holodomor Studies, Tkuma, Thought and Action: The NEA Journal in Higher Education, H-Judaic, Jewish Scholarship in Eastern Europe.
Awards
Research Grants and Awards
National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, “Becoming an American Writer: The Life and Work of Isaac Bashevis Singer,” October 2004. Grant for curating FAU contributions to a collaborative traveling exhibit with the Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities at the University of Texas.
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Fellowship, Oxford University, Summer 2003. Theme: “Representation of the ‘Other:’ Jews in Medieval Christendom.”
Eugene and Daymel Shklar Fellow in Ukrainian Studies, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, Summer 2002.
Scholar/Humanist Fellowship, Florida Humanities Council, 2002.
Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, November 2001.
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Stipend, 2000.
Researcher of the Year Award, Florida Atlantic University, 2000.
Fellow, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 2000.
Third Place for Creative Excellence, US International Film and Video Festival, 2000.
Videographer Award of Distinction for Religious Documentary, Videographer’s Society, 2000.
Louis Wolfsohn II Historical Media Center Award, 2000.
Slovin/YIVO Fellowship, Cornell University, 1995-1996.
Doctoral Fellowship, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC), Ottawa, 1990-1994.
Morris M. Pulver Fellowship, Jerusalem, 1993-1994.
Ray D. Wolfe Fellowship for Advanced Research in Jewish Studies, Jewish Studies Programme, University of Toronto, 1992-1993.
Neporany Exchange Fellowship for Research in Ukraine, Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies, 1992.
Max Weinreich Fellowship for Advanced Jewish Research, Max Weinreich Centre for Advanced Jewish Research, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York, 1992.
Research grant, Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, 1992.
Research grants, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, University of Toronto, 1991, 1992.
Research grants, Department of History, University of Toronto, 1991, 1992.
Research grant, Petro Jacyk Educational Foundation, Toronto, 1992.
Research Grant, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1991.
Fellowship, Soviet Academy of Sciences/International Association of Ukrainianists, Kiev, 1990.
Stephen Cooper Award for Jewish Leadership, Beth Tzedec Congregation, Toronto, 1990.
Reuben Leonard Wells Scholarship for Academic Excellence, University of Toronto, 1989.
Herschel William Gryfe Scholarship for Jewish History, University of Toronto, 1989.
Rabbi Isserman Prize for Studies in International and Interracial Relations, University of Toronto, 1988.
Norma Epstein Award for Creative Writing, University College, 1986.
Emil L. Fackenheim Scholarship for Jewish Thought, Hillel Foundation, Toronto, 1984.
Teaching Awards
Distinguished Honors Professor of the Year, University Scholars Program, Florida Atlantic University, 2002.
Kathleen Raymond Award for Excellence in Teaching, IMPAC Award (Individuals Making Personal and Academic Contributions), Florida Atlantic University, 2001.
Distinguished Professor of the Year, Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society, Xi Omega Chapter, Florida Atlantic University, 2001.
Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, Florida Atlantic University, 2000.
Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers listing, 2000.
Award for Outstanding Teaching, Life Long Learning Society, Florida Atlantic University, 1999.
Interviews (selected):
Barbara Bensoussan, “The Rest is History: Dr. Henry Abramson believes in putting the past back into the hands of the people most connected to it,” Mishpacha, December 14, 2021.
הרב יעקב הכהן ווינגארטן, ״אין פוסטריט פון היסטאריע: ברייטער, ארומנעמיגער, אינטערוויו מיט דר. הלל (הענרי) אבראמסאן,״ דער וועקער 19, תשרי-חשון תשפ׳׳ב.
Sholom Licht, “Up Close with Dr. Henry Abramson,” Jewish Action, Winter 2019.
The Local Maximum Podcast, “Learning Should be Free! Henry Abramson on Teaching Jewish History to the Global Classroom” September 2, 2019.
National Geographic, “Digging up Disaster,” Overheard at National Geographic Blog October 16 2019
Sandy Eller, “Better Together: Learning with the Swazi Prince,” Mishpacha, December 25, 2019.
Rabbi Avi Heller, interview on OU Daily Dvar, “Av HaRachamim, the Crusades, and the Creation of Ashkenazic Identity,” May 5, 2020.
“200 Years of Chinuch and the Lessons to Learn,” Interview with Rabbi Aaron Parnes, Chinuch 2.0 podcast, June 9, 2020.
Contact Dr. Abramson here.
Hello Mr Abramson, My name is Andrew – I am looking for a picture of Rabbi Akiva, I’m hoping you may be able to point me in the right direction? I’m not able to find anything of quality, i need something relatively high resolution, maybe a good picture of a painting or a scan from somewhere – would you have any idea where i can find something? any help would be greatly appreciated, my email address is andrew@gelmedia.net
kind regards,
Andrew
Hello Andrew–
Not too sure where you could find that–the ancient and most. Of the medieval Jewish traditions generally frowned on representations of people, and I’m not aware of any modern artists working on that topic. Maybe try the Jewish Museum in New York City?
HMA
Hrllo Dr Abramson i have resently started watching your history lectures on YouTube. They are amazing. I am a jew from central asia. Do you have any lectures on jews from that area
Dear Henry , I am part of the Jews of San nicandro – Just watch your article , my mother and all her bothers which still alive in Israel in the city of ashkelon – I am the grand son of Conjetta and Antonio Bonfito which from the begining were part of Donato Mancuio group . we have photos and diary to show and to share more info about this amaze story .
Hello Dr. Abramson,
I’m so glad I found you. The Florida Grand Opera will have ‘Salome’ in the 2017-2018 season.
Looking for her Jewish background I found your lecture about her and I wanted to thank you .
I enjoyed it so much, and I will return to your site to learn more.
You are a total pleasure!
Ilana
I saw Salome when I was 14, at a local Opera House. Al Pacino played King Herod, and Marisa Tome played Salome. We also read the play in school. I am so grateful for that experience.
hello I’m not sure how to ask Professor Henry a question.
I love your work I absolutely love it I’ve spent many months binge watching. Before the pandemic my understanding was you were lecturing in Midwood or Borough Park Brooklyn (I forget which) on a Tuesday evening
have you resumed those lectures? I would love to see you live, to honor your work, and maybe bring some friends.
Hello Mr Abramson–
I am interested in whether you have any information about how the differing pronunciation of Hebrew & Yiddish developed between the Lithuanian Jews of the northern part of Eastern Europe and the Jews, particularly Hasidic Jews, of central & southern? Is it simply a north/south divide that has nothing to do with Misnagdim vs. Hasidim (since Hasidic groups from northern areas still seem to use the Lithuanian pronunciation)? In short, I am curious about the development of these two differing pronunciation forms? For example, Rabbeinu vs Rabbaini; Omeyn vs Umayn. Maybe you have indeed held a lecture that covered this topic? Thank you very much.
Best,
Jonah
I ENJOYED YOUR LECTURE ON HILLEL HAZAKEN-I AM A TEACHER IN A YESHIVAH IN BROOKLYN AND I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE YOUR POWERPOINT PRESENTATION WITH MY 9 TH GRADE STUDENTS.WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SHARE IT WITH ME?
Thank you so much for putting your lectures on here. I found them when I was looking for videos to watch as review for my Judaism final. Very well done; I enjoyed them very much.
Thanks for the compliment! Glad you’re enjoying the lectures.
Hi Rabbi
We watch many of your lectures and they are informative and enjoyable.
In your lecture on the ARI (at minute 37 in the video) you mentioned a book which sounded like “chukliah Yisroel” which broke the week into 7 days with selections of Tenach, Talmud, Midrash, and Kabbalah etc.for each day. Can you please let me know what the exact title is, since I would very much like to purchase it and learn from it.
Thank you so much.
Dr. Richard Simmons
Hi, I came across your classes on Tomer Devorah on Youtube. I only saw the first 2 middahs. I didn’t see any other remaining lectures. I found them very helpful and would love to be able to see all of them. Are they on Youtube and I’m just missing it? Thanks
I have enjoyed several of your lectures on YouTube. I have a question regarding a comment you made about Josephus. You implied that Josephus may have fabricated the story about how he predicted that Vespasian would become emperor, copying the story of Yochanan Ben Zakai. Correct me if I am wrong, but the story about yochanan Ben Zakai and Vespasian was first written down in the talmud when it was redacted in about 500 CE, while the Josephus version is much older, written by Josephus himself. Is it not possible that the rabbis copied the Josephus story and attributed it to Yochanan Ben Zakai?
Hello Mr Abramson,
I was wondering if your lectures are available in MP3 format available for download. I would very much like to listen to them during my daily commute.
Thank you,
Shalom V’Bracha
Gavriel Sani MY EMAIL ADDRESS IS: SANI613@GMAIL.COM
Hi Dr. Abramson
I went to Mexico and I didn’t have the chance to thank you for your lectures. As you must feel from all of us you are an outstanding lecturer, teacher, etc.
Please let me know when you will start a new series
I have a new mail
dewaisser123@gmail.com
Thank you again
Eva Zack de Waisser
Dear Henry,
I’m enjoying your lectures on Jewish history and have now completed lecture 1.10. The series now jumps to lecture 16. What’s happened to lectures 1.11 to 1.15? I don’t want to miss anything!
Greetings from Edinburgh, Scotland.
Simpson Coupar.
Hello Dr. Abramson.
I enjoy your lectures and articles immensely. They were extremely helpful in my essay on the 1917-1921 Russian Ukrainian pogroms. I was looking for your one lecture on the arenda system, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. Do you happen to know what the title of the lecture was. I believed you gave it in Miami.
I know its a lot to ask, but if you have any information that would be very helpful.
Hello Mr. Harter–
Thanks very much for your kind words. I discuss the arenda in a lecture on Nathan of Hanover (http://jewishhistorylectures.org/2013/02/19/nathan-of-hanover-and-the-ukrainian-revolution-of-1648-1649/) and to some degree in a lecture on the kehilla system (http://jewishhistorylectures.org/2013/11/14/his-155-1-6-jewish-communal-structure-the-kehillah/). You might want to consult Isaac Levitats’ excellent study on the Jewish community in the Russian Empire. HMA
Hola! I’ve been following your site for a while now and finally got the courage to go
ahead and give you a shout out from Humble Texas!
Just wanted to say keep up the excellent work!
Shalom Dr. Abramson! I have a good joke for one of your lectures! Maybe you don’t know this one. I love ALL of them & have watched many of them. Keep up the good work!
[joke edited out by Dr. Abramson so he can save it for a lecture]
-Yitzakh “Moshae Beats” Heschler
Hello and thanks for the kind words, Mr. Heschler! I hope you don’t mind that I edited out your joke–I think I might personalize it a bit and then use it in a lecture.
Glad you’re enjoying the lectures!
HMA
No i don’t mind you editing it out. May it’s not appropriate for your lectures now that I think about it. May funny in certain circles but not publicly. Keep up the good work and I can’t wait for more new lectures.
Rabbi Abramson:
I’m halfway through your fascinating lecture on YouTube on Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson.
You talk about his great success in introducing Judaism to people who wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to it, as well as pulling lukewarm adherents back to the fold.
You’re doing a fine job of outreach yourself, Sir! Your lectures are a delight.
Thank you so much
Paul R
Boston, MA
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you are enjoying the lectures.
I am a big fan and a a you tube junkee. Have you considered doing a bio on Baron Hirsch? My grandfather and other family members are buried in the Baron Hirsch cemetery in Staten Island. There is a famous orthodox synagogue in Memphis called the Baron Hirsch Synagogue. I grew up on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of New York. There were quite a few jewish farmers in the Catskill region that were supposedly subsidized by Baron Hirsch. i would be interested in your bio of Baron Hirsch if you should decide to do one.
Dr. Abramson, Your lectures are so informative and the jokes are also terrific. I really get alot out of listening to you. Keep up the great work. Yasherkoch! Nurit Jerusalem, Israel
Dr. Abramson, My name is Ken Smith and I’m not much of a Facebook or Twitter person. I’m a little old school this way. However, that being said, I would love to talk to you on the phone. I’ve started to watch some of you videos on Facebook and being a person trained in sociology and religion, I would like to discuss some “hard” questions if you don’t mind, and the Internet is really not conducive or practical for a two way conversation. My number is 732-598-1486
Try me at the office: (305) 535-1066. No promises with the hard questions!
Greetings & Shalom our esteemed Dr. Abramson! Your lectures from FL are undescribably pleasant, informative, & spiced with safely funny JOKES (they indeed ease pain of bad news in our media, THANKS)!
I am a 7th day Sabbath-keeping Christian of C.C.O.G. Continuing Church Of God, we keep original Holy Days & follow clean meats/fish diet from Torah.
I watch your wonderful traditional Jewish lectures via Chromecast HDMI key/Youtubes right onto our bigscreen TV, I love the way you teach topics like Betty Friedan, Rabbi Schneerson, the horrible Shoah/Holocaust, great heroes like Golda Meir & Menachem Begin, etc., purely wonderful lessons. Your teaching style makes learning fun & cements the info into memory. I wish primetime TV would present you instead of clutzy Hollywood mental quicksand.
I spent many Sabbaths @ B’nai Maccabim UCMJ Synagogue Lake Bluff IL, we dearly miss our departed Rabbi Betzalel Budoff. He showed me & my wife & her daughter Goldy what the Torah scrolls are & we always love it.
My friends in C.C.O.G. regularly pray for Israel & all people. You supply mountains of fun & serious wisdom Dr. Abramson. I’m glad your daughter asks astute, learned questions in your audience, your face lights up with love when you answer her questions & from others too.
Please continue to feature your clean jokes! When your bio said you & your wife Ulana were ski instructors, I tried to invent a joke about a guy named Solomon learning to ski “slalom”, & munching too long on M&M chocolate- to the point where his buddy at the top of ski hill impatiently says, “swallow ’em, & slalom, Solomon!” (sorry dry humor tongue-twister).
May you & Ulana & family & Touro College be blessed by HaShem, shalom Fred Woods with love.
Dear Mr Woods–
Thank you for your especially kind words. I read them aloud to my family! I am very glad you enjoy the lectures; may you and your loved ones continue to do so in good health and abundant blessings.
HMA
Yes Sir, for sure! Now I feel like we are brothers or cousins (well, everyone are cousins, i.e. Adam, Eve, etc.). You & my brother Scott & my wife are all only 1 year younger than me, & I am glad someone our age, (you), can amass so much wisdom from your youth in Ontario, study in England, impressive.
How much does it co$t to sponsor a lecture? I am only a school bus driver, but sometimes I have decent wage on long field trips to Skokie IL, & Chicago, & Milwaukee. (I once lived 7 years in Milwaukee, & to me it felt like Golda Meir’s “town” since she grew up there.)
Would you ever do a lecture on Moshe Dayan? To me, he is as heroic as Gen. Eisenhower, Gen. Patton, A. Lincoln, G. Washington, & maybe King David too, I love how Gen. Dayan enjoyed eating with the Arab fellas sometimes, & of his kibbutz life.
There, that’s it for now, sorry I write long like Iyov (Job) sometimes, I have begged God to protect kids like JonBenet Ramsey, Phoebe Jonchuck, Anne Frank, etc., it hurts but you help a lot. Thanks again to our God, for His bringing you to us! Shalom.
Your enjoyment of the lectures is sufficient sponsorship, Mr. Woods. I encourage viewers to devote their energies to sharing these history resources and expanding their activity in their own communities (see here for more ideas: http://jewishhistorylectures.org/manifesto/), although to answer your question, sponsorships are $200. Best to you and your family, HMA
…sorry, typo of UMJC Synagogue. But not as I wrote, UCMJ, clutzy me, that seems to be anagram of Armed Forces Law code, wheww, very sorry.
Dear Professor, your lectures on youtube (JHL) are really kvell, emes, no shvitz! So I believe you were asking for some suggestions for further lectures, here’s some ideas that might be interesting: Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk, Aryeh Kaplan, Karl Marx, Abraham Abulafia, Satmar hasidim: Moshe Teitelbaum, LL Zamenhof & Esperanto, Rabbi Nehunya ben HaKanah, Moses de León, and a lot more, alright, schoyn genug! Mazel tov, yasher koach! 🙂
Shoilem aleichem Professor Abramson, zeyer fayne lektsherim shelachim! 🙂 May I add two more requests for further lectures: could please speak something about who are them Noachides, and maybe something about Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquières, called RABaD III? A zeyer sheynem dank for all your arbeit with this project! Dovid Sanders
Shalom Professor, could you please do lectures on Jean-Marie Lustiger, cardinal of Paris, Paul Erdos, mathematician and the great hasidic Rebbe Yitzchak Isaac Taub (1744-1828) of Nagykálló? Thanks a lot for all your work. Really appreciate it. Mazel tov! 🙂
b”h: here’s some further suggestions for future lectures, please:
Abraham_Abulafia
Aryeh_Kaplan
Arthur_Koestler, from the Thirteenth Tribe
Paul_Erdős, the wandering mathematician
Carl_Sagan, cosmologist
Richard_Feynman, physicist
Karl_Marx
Noahidism
Solomon_Luria or the Maharshal
Nehunya_ben_HaKanah
Dov_Ber_of_Mezeritch
Moses_de_León
Meir_Shapiro and the Daf Yomi
Elimelech_of_Lizhensk
Yehudah_Aryeh_Leib_Alter or the Sfas Emes & the town of
Góra_Kalwaria also known as Nowa Jerozolima (“New Jerusalem”)
Wolf_Messing
Kaliv_(Hasidic_dynasty) & Yitzchak Isaac Taub (1744-1828) of Nagykálló
Moshe_Teitelbaum_(Ujhel)
Satmar_(Hasidic_dynasty)
Abraham_ben_David or RABaD III
Jean-Marie_Lustiger, the Jewish cardinal of Paris
L._L._Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto
Keep up the good work.
Thank you.
Really amazing classes there with a good sense of humour, Dr. Abrahamson! If your time allows, please would you be willing to do a class on ANNA FRANK as well? Dank u well! Have a nice day! 🙂 When’s the next season by the way? Yours sincerely, Joseph Singel, Amsterdam NL
Hello Mr. Singel! Nice to hear from you all the way in Amsterdam. I hope to put out a few more videos in the Essential Lectures series over the summer, maybe record a class I’m giving via videoconference in England, and start up the Biography as History series in September. Anna Frank would be an excellent subject, thank you for the suggestion! HMA
Hi Dr. Abramson
I was in Mexico City ,as always I comment to my family how much I learn and enjoy your lectures. I would like to know if there is tomorrow a lecture.
Eva Zack de Waisser
Welcome back! No lecture tonight–we’re planning a final lecture in Miami and will announce date and time soon.
Dear Dr Abramson
i loved your lecture on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai which i listenend to yesterday. Learnt many new things, though i thought i knew everything on the subject. Also many things put in a new perspective. and best- i was really inspired by the beautiful, well crafted lecture. thank you.
However, i could not believe that you claimed in your lecture on jewish humor that there is no humour in the Talmud!!! there is plenty humor in tanach too, but the Talmud has more humour than any other source i know. And you yourself made that so clear in your lecure about Rashbi! you mean when G-d says to Rabbi Shimon “have you come to destroy the world i have created?” that is not funny? when Rabbi Akiva says “if you are looking for a tree to hang yourself on, go fnd a higher one” that’s not humor? come on! midrash is just the most humorous thing- a lot more subtle than groucho marx (like when the rabbis say “what is tov?- gan eden, what is tov me’od?- gehinom etc…” . so lechaim. may the zechus of Rabbi shimon protect us. good luck on your new position and i hope to be hearing more of your fantastic lectures.. give us something on the rothchilds and their relationship to judaism perhaps.
Hello Professor, I have just read in one of the previous threads you mentioned that you would be coming to England for a video conference, when is that going to happen and where exactly, if I may? Also if possible would you be willing to do a class on the life of Geza Vermes and the Nag Hamadi Library / the Dead Sea Scrolls? Also something about Shlomo Ganzfried? Thank you for all your inspiring classes & lectures!
Daniel Solomons, London, UK
Shalom.
I found your youtube channel via TorahCafe and since then, have enjoyed listening to many of your talks. Your talks on Jewish women are my favourite. First I wanted to ask if there is anyway I can make a contribution? Second, do you still give new talks? If so, I have a couple of ideas: biography on Sir John Monash and the history of Jews who lived in Arab countries (I think you can do a mini series on that).
Cheers.
Thanks for the kind words! I’m glad you find the lectures useful. I hope to continue giving public lectures after my move to New York, location TBA, probably starting up after the High Holidays (say October). I’m glad you appreciated the lectures on women in particular, since I’ve tried to bring their historical voices to the fore whenever possible. One goal for next year is to expand discussion of non-European Jewries, particularly in the Middle East, North Africa, and more exotic locations. As far as contributions, your viewing of the lectures is more than enough, but if you want to do more, check out this page: http://jewishhistorylectures.org/manifesto/. Thank you!
Dear Dr. Abramson, we look forward to your planned new lectures this fall, we hope the NY hall decor will be as beautiful as the FL Bal Harbor room where the Flag of Israel stood, shalom our friend Hillel!
…oops, Harbo(u)r not Harbor sorry FL.
Dear Dr. Abramson we like very much your lectures. We want to use your lectures in digital exhibition. Especially we are interested in this lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hchB7YmhIRI. Please, let me know about copyright and charges related with it. We will be sa glad if you will agree and want cooperate with us. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you in advance for your answer.
If you have any question please, contact me – e-mail: karolina.lugowy@vp.pl
Dear Prof. Abramson, I do appreciate your lectures generally speaking and, above all, I followed very interested that one concerning Khazaria and the end of Khazars. In the past I was very surprised when I knew about an old Jewish Princedom in Medieval France ( this was pretty much the title of the “only” book on the subject written by Prof. Evergates) because it sounded quite “weird” to my non professional ear (I’m a doctor working in E.R.). For what I can understand they blossomed pretty much in the same time. From what I remember the “NASI” ( =Jewish prince) in Septimania was very well connected with Baghdad in the 7th or 8th century. I’d like your comment on these facts and more specifically about the circumstances of the end of the Jewish Princedom in Southern France. Thank you so much. Best regards, Antonio Sollazzo
Dear Dr. Abramson, first of I’d like to thank you for your lectures, they’ve inspired me a great deal to learn and find out more about Hasidic history. I was wondering if you can recommend some books about the origins of Hasidic Judaism, as wel as history over the centuries. I can’t seem to find any that are written from a historical/anthropological perspective.
Kind regards,
Joost van de Wouw
Tilburg, The Netherlands
Hello Mr. van de Wouw! Thanks for your kind words. I suggest look at the Essential Papers on Hasidism by NYU press.
glam rock
I “chanced” upon your history videos one day while googling something, and I now watch your history lectures regularly.
I love them, and thank you for them!
Dear Dr Abramson
This is Chriistopher from London, England. I have subscribed and your email address was given, but I can’t seem to find it! Could you remind me of that please?
Anyway, this is what I wanted to say. Thank you for the videos. I fnd them enjoyable and informative, (please continue with the jokes.) I have two questions and would appreciate your advice please.
1 Would you agree that the essence of religion is a belief in a life subsequent to that which is currently living, whether a subesequent life may be again on planet earth or elsewhere?
2 What do Jews believe regarding being subsequent to their current life? Is there a concept of heaven and hell? I heard that Jews consider their soul to be “on loan” and goes to another place on the death of that person.
Thank you.
Chris
Hello Chris, sorry for the delayed response. Really busy at the beginning of the academic year. My email is hmabramson@gmail.com. Answers to your questions: 1) no. 2) in order: i. too hard a question to answer in email, ii. yes, sort of , and iii. news to me.
Lechvod Reb Henry, Shlita,
Your lectures are amazing, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu should bless you with many years and strength to continue being marbitz torah “ad me’ah v’esrim”.
As we await your lecture on The Great Ramchal, one aspect of this giant I hope you will explain… What was the Ramchal’s ACTUAL influences from Sabbateans and Sabbatean thought, if any. Additionally, please address Ramchal’s own letters describing Sabbateans and what he wrote be learned from them.
We are looking forward, as always,
Shloime Pollak
Congratulations and many thanks, Dean Abramson, for your excellent series of Jewish biographies on YouTube. You’re right: it’s an excellent way to frame Jewish history, especially for this goyem biographile. Perfect indeed! May I add my special appreciation for your engaging and friendly teaching style, which translates well through electronic media. Best wishes to you, your family, and your Touro team in all your endeavors.
Happy Purim Rabbi Abramson,
I love listening to your lectures especially on the gedolim. My favorite
“Who was the Ramchal” . This Tzadik’s life is very inspiring. The fact that he wrote so many books, and in the face of much resistance from his community’s religious leaders is also an awesome accomplishment.
I’m not sure if I heard you mention that you are in the middle of a book on this Tzadik. Is it true? When will it be released ?
I also was hoping you can do a lecture on the Maharal of Prague.
Many thanks ,
Eliyahu
Dr Abramson: Wishing you and yours a very happy and joyous Pesach. Lucille Dan
Dr. Abramson,
I enjoy watching your lectures on YouTube. Thank you so much for posting them. You are an excellent teacher. I wish when I was attending college I could have sat under your tutelage. Please continue to post your lectures. Thanks again.
Hi Dr. Abramson,
I am working on a report about the medical writing’s of Maimonides and came across your videos. I enjoyed watching your video very much and hope to listen to more of them. I see you have books written about the Rambam, but don’t see anything particularly about his medical teachings. Do you have any recommendations of where I can learn more? I’ve heard there is a serious of books called Maimonides Medical Writings- do you know of any library that I can get access to these books?
Thanks,
Mimi BIrnbaum
Hello Dr.Abramson.
From the time that I …”Bumped”…into one of your lectures on You tube, I can’t stop listening to your wonderful elaboration and enlightenment of so many aspects of Jewish history. And I enjoy it tremendously.
However. On some of your lectures. Like the one on Rabbi A.Y. Kook or the segment on the life of Emma Jacobs and a few others, the audio is defective. No matter how high I turn up the volume the recording is completely inaudible.
I wonder if there is a way to fix that problem. Because I am very anxious to listen and absorb those important segments of Jewish history….
M. Klein Brooklyn, NY
Something’s been driving me nuts lately, something you mentioned in one of your YouTube lectures I didn’t write down, about a martyred messiah claimant who had an invisibility cloak which could also be laid on water to allow him to walk on it. Please, please, help me with this mental sliver; who was he and which lecture did you mention him in and where can more information about him be found?
Dear honorable Rabbi Abramson,
I recently came across some of your lectures on YouTube and thoroughly enjoyed them. I have always been fascinated by the Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire.
Your knowledge is only surpassed by your excellent oratory skills and clever personality. I’ve only seen two so far. One on Flavius Josephus and Paul. I can’t wait to get home and watch more.
Best regards,
Since I am a “Jewish History Buff”, I greatly appreciate these history lessons. However, since I now came across your lesson on Reb Yakov Emden, I would like to point out, that a Sefer just came out with the name “Megilas Plaster”, therby trying to prove that the “Megilas Sefer” which is supposedly attributed to Reb Yakov Emden, is really a forgery, and is rather the work of one of the Maskilim who wanted to portray Reb Yakov Emden in a very negative light. Something to look into…
My name is Rabbi Maldonado it will be a pleasure to meet with you if that’s possible please let me know how could I get in touch with you either by phone or in person.
My phone #(845)263’9859
Hello Rabbi—
You may contact my assistant, Ms. Jamie Venezia, at (718) 535-9333. Especially now, at the end of the semester, I have many responsibilities to my undergraduate students and may not be able to schedule a meeting. It’s much better if you simply write me via email at Henry.abramson@touro.edu.
HMA
Dear Professor Abramson,
this is Francesco Leoni from Bologna. I wish you have enough time to do what you like more to do, and I guess that answering to email like this is an annoying task. Therefore will be specially grateful for your answer. I went on your interesting prezi about Uriel Da Costa. I wonder here can I find more information about “the Buraq phenomenon” (I cannot grasp the connection) and about the “kidnapped child” phenomenon? Thank you very much for giving me something to go deeper especially on the second subject. Here in Bologna we got the Mortara case and in Italy the Judah Leon Abravanel case.
Thank you very much. FL
Dear Dr. Abramson,
I enjoyed your lecture about Christopher Columbus possibly being Jewish.
I would direct your attention to Cecil Roth’s book that you quoted from. I read his book in the 1960’s. I recalled him saying that Columbus wrote that he was watching his brethren leaving Spain. I also remember Roth stating that
S S S A was a cryptic way to write Sanctos, Sanctos Sanctos Adonoi : the Hebrew being Kadosh Kadosh Kadosh
Adonoi.
I thought that you might be interested.
Dr. Manny Litwak
hello rabbi abrabson
i am a massive fan of your classes but being that i have limited time to watch i like listening to them i only saw one website which has audio classes torahanytime.com however they have very few of your history classes i was wondering if there is any way to get an audio of the rest of your classes…
thank you so much!
Hi I was just reading about a Jewish Rabbi pirate named samuel pallache, I was hoping you made a lecture about him or if not, I would really appreciate if you do! I can’t find much info on him, thanks!
As a resident of Aventura, I regret that I could not attend your wonderful discussion in Surfside on Jewish identity and Philo of Alexandria. Perhaps you can help me work through an interrogatively-expressed idea that I’ve been circulating in my scholarly circles. Might Philo of Alexandria’s “De Confusione Linguarum” suggest that Genesis 11:1–9 foreshadows Parmenidean/Eleatic thought insofar as the κέλευθος of DK-28B2 is the שפה אחת of Genesis 11:1, the ἀταρπός of DK-28B2 (i.e. the κέλευθος of DK-28B6) is the מגדל of Genesis 11:4–5, and the ἀμηχανία of DK-28B6 is the בבל à la בלל of Genesis 11:7–9? It would be to our mutual benefit (as well as to the benefit of those with whom we might love to discuss this [after developing a better understanding of the matter]) that we, either in person or over the phone, discuss this so as to hopefully develop a better understanding of the matter.
Regards,
Aaron Rubin (of Aventura, FL)
Dear Professor Abramson, Your lectures are wonderful. I suggest you do a biography of Rabbi Meir Kahana as part of your biography segement. All the best! Natan Shahar, Elon Moreh, Israel
Good Dr.,
Wondering why you would do a talk on Saul/Paul w/o studying the New Testament.
There is a lot of depth and a lot more clarity to be had behind several of your points.
Respectfully,
Curt Erlandson
Here is a bit of trivia that you can mention in a lecture about Maimonides. Cordoba prides itself on three things. It is the birthplace of both Maimonides and Averroes and the burial place of Manolete.
Maimondes and Averroes were two of the greatest scholars of the 12th century – one Jewish and one Muslim. Manolete was one of Spain’s greatest bullfighters.
Hello! I have some questions on a lecture you had. Do you have an email I could contact? Thank you!
Hello Dr. Abramson.
I really enjoy your lectures, especially on the sephardim because it’s difficult to find much material of substance on that area of jewry. And that has personally helped me to connect better to my heritage.
Do you have any resources you can point me to where I can learn about the history of the Mishnah and Talmud from a scholarly perspective?
I have a passion for ancient history, archaeology, and pretty much anything before the medieval period.
And I’m having a discussion with a Christian friend of mine who claims the New Testament documents were much closer to the events they describe than that of the Mishnah (and by extension the Talmud), and I’m having trouble finding the latest scholarship on this topic.
Thank you very much!
Xeilias
The weight of proof is on him, since he suggested an obscure concept. Most messianic Christians don’t go further than their bible. I wouldn’t give too much credence to this. And – this is personal – but, it’s bad taste suggest to someone that their religious or canonical information is more valid than your religious foundation.
Dear Dr. Abramson, I attempted earlier this morning to contact you on Facebook. In case it doesn’t work, I am doing so here, too. As it turns out, I have a significant family connection to Englehart, ON, as my great-grandfather Gedaliah (James) Kruger’s (of Winnipeg) first wife was Sonia Korman (nee Fried, born in Russia) and was married to Isaac Korman. Together Isaac and Sonia Korman raised five children, in Detroit and then Englehart, with a brief time resident in Iroquois Falls. I would like to discuss how I can pursue this research. Indeed, in my research I’ve come across Abramsons already related to the Korman family. Much thanks in advance for reading this message. I’m looking most forward to hearing back from you.
Good morning—I’ll forward your message to my cousin, whose mother was a Korman of Timmins.
Hello Dr. Abramson. I just listened to your lecture on Paul. It is the most balanced lecture I have ever heard on him. I found the statement about pushing with two hands both fascinating and exciting. I am a Jew by birth who believes Y’eshua is messiah. Many people like myself and MANY MANY MANY Gentiles believe Paul got it wrong. Many many many wish to find a way to believe in Y’eshua and do as the other ELEVEN apostles did and be a part of the Jewish community. Many “Christians” believe there will be at the end of time a reunification of Jews and Christians into family, even if we disagree as to many issues. I found your lecture very unlike others on both sides and very hopeful.
Hi Dr Abramson,
I’ve looked hi and low for a lecture on king Solomon from you and can’t find one. I love your lectures and would greatly appreciate one on king Solomon (and Mordechai Hatzadik and Shmuel Hanavi) if possible. Thanks so much for everything you do!!!
Shalom Dr Abramson
I’ve included a link to a recent lecture by Rabbi Michael Skobac that you should find insigtful. It deals with the duality between the image of Jesus presented by Paul of Tarsus and that of the other apostles. Rabbi Skobac makes the case that one version of Jesus described by those claiming to have known Jesus is a Torah Observant Jew and in polar contrast Paul of Tarsus describes a Judaism hating Jesus spewing anti Judaic rhetoric. There seems to be. Jesus 1.0 and a Jesus 2.0 versions!
And of course we all know which version was adopted by the Imperial Cult of Rome at the Council of Nicaea.
🎯🤔
Sorry, I neglected to include the link to the Rabbi!
https://youtu.be/gjQDz-a16OE
https://youtube/gjQDz-a16OE
The other link wasn’t working.
Dr. Abramson,
Do you remember me? We learned Zevachim together at Ohr Somayach in 1995, I think.
In your article “Meet the Non-Jew Who Made Daf Yomi Possible”, you repeatedly mention that Rabbi Meir Shapiro initiated this worldwide phenomenon of Daf Yomi. In fact it was Rabbi Moshe Mendel Spivak who initiated it. It was actually his brain child, See page 37 – http://agudathisrael.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/JO1997-V30-N08.pdf. There was a beautiful write up correcting this in the book given out at the last Daf Yomi gathering. Since you are mentioning Daniel Bomberg place in learning the daf, it would be only right to correct the misconception about it’s origin.
Interesting! Success has many fathers. The Knessiya Gedola took place in 1923, not 1924 as the article erroneously states, but that doesn’t disqualify the gist of the article. It may well be so that Spivak thought of the concept first. The adaptation by Aguda however is Meir Shapiro’s work. There is a story (I have to look up the source) that the Chortkover and the Lubliner schemed a plan to have it accepted, and that the Chortkover said Shapiro should come in late. So he did, and as he walked past the Chofets Chaim, the latter, even though he was much older, rose for Shapiro. This of course gave Shapiro enormous standing. Also it was Shapiro who said aloud what the Chofets Chaim said. Furthermore see https://www.facebook.com/vienna2vilnius 🙂
Hello Dr Abramson, I tried to send you an email, but maybe you didn’t receive it. I am studying a Aguda trip that took place in 1931 shortly after tisha b’av. In 1931 a few articles appeared in the Dutch and German press, and Joseph Zwi Carlebach wrote a book about it, but maybe you know if there is more information about this trip, which purpose was to show the world what the various aguda organizations achieved between 1923 and 1931. Also I am interested to know who’s picture you have on the painting on the wall of your study.
Hi Dr. Abramson, do you have any material on the history of moroccan Jewery?
Go on Facebook, ethnic jewelry. Search Wikipedia, etc. Also Pinterest.
Dr. Abramson, I am listening to your Jewish history presentation on YouTube. One thing seems to be missing, namely, the explanation of how the liberation of the Temple Mount on June 7, 1967, was foretold in the Book of Daniel, chapter 8, verses 13-14, more than two-thousands years before it happened. In my opinion, that recent prophetic fulfillment is the most important event in modern Jewish history. You can download and read my explanation at: http://www.prophecysociety.org/PDF/Jerusalem_Liberation.pdf
The fact that the mosque remains on the Temple Mount can hardly be seen as a liberation!
Well it’s up to The Father as He chooses to decide actually “allowing” (for now, temporarily, mind you!) that obnoxious but beautifully crafted structure to remain where it doesn’t belong in our opinion!
Him “letting” it stay for now reminds me of how Job/Iyov was “allowed” by the Father to be pelted by Satan briefly for a time, after what still to me seems an unfair round-table discussion between Ha Satan/Hashem of Job behind his back.
The hardly comprehensible Holocaust was also allowed to happen even though 1948 was right around that tough corner, & we will rejoice when the obnoxious bldg. is finally GONE from that precious real estate! (good comments in this thread, regarding 1967, Daniel, & FORETOLD! what an encouragement to hang onto, thanks!)–Frederick Woods now in Michigan from Wisconsin, miss my late wife so much…
…great lectures from H. Abramson! Felt luxurious to see his original ones from FL!
Dr. Abramson-
Though I was a History major I was not aware of the history of the Jews and the many intellectual giants.
Your knowledge, passion and humor are a delight.
Every Blessing to you and yours !
Hello Henry… Just a big hello from one former Iroquois Falls resident to another! I was born & raised in Iroquois Falls, born in 1984 at the Anson General Hospital and moved to North Bay, Ontario in 2008 where I’ve been since. When searching notable people from Iroquois Falls, your name popped up as one of the top (one that wasn’t a hockey player) and I see you’ve done well for yourself and done Iroquois Falls proud too. 😉 I’ve been pouring over your work on Jewish history and being a history bookworm myself, I think I know what my next Amazon book-binging purchase will include hahaha! Cheers and mazel tov Henry!
Miles Mathis: Does anyone come close to his genius? Google miles Mathis extended biography. Or miles Mathis updates and check out his science and math website. For history, try miles Mathis the beer hall putsch or Hitler’s Geneology. I enjoy your lectures, Henry.
Dear Dr Abramson,
Love your lectures, and I”m addicted to your short history videos on history in the daf (on the OU site). I esp. love the intro music to each video and would love to hear more of it. Is it a recorded piece or an original composition?
David miller
Dr. Abramson, I hope you can find a moment to answer a puzzling question for me. I have found your video lectures helpful to my family research after finding some evidence linking them to Jews in medieval France and England. Although my surname is PAYNE, in medieval times the name is found in Latin records as PAGAN, PAGANUS, PAGNELLUS, etc. After the Conquest, it is found as PAYNEL/PAGANEL, FITZ-PAYN, or simply PAYN(E). In those records, the name (in all cases) is closely associated with the rather unusual name, TRUSSEBUT, to which they were related by marriage. I found in one of your videos a reference to the name SESSEBUT and wondered if TRUSSEBUT (in some form) might be Hebrew in origin as well? Have you encountered any examples of it or similar in your experience? I have found no reference to the origin of this name elsewhere, except the Danish word Trussebutik (meaning Panty Shop of all things!)
DNA testing doesn’t indicate a genetic Jewish ancestry for me (solidly Atlantic Modal Haplotype- R1b), but the records certainly have me speculating not only due to their associations with known Jews and crypto-Jewish names, but also because of their associations with Templar knights. I know this association has become associated with myth and legend similar to Bigfoot and Alien sightings, but my research findings are absolutely real. Thank you for whatever assistance you can provide.
Love your online lectures.
I can’t find your mail address. I wanted to ask you about the mystery of the birds head Haggada. I thought these “masks” were worn in the time of the pest ?!?
https://www.torahanytime.com/#/lectures?v=79435
In your excellent lecture on Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra, at around 55 minutes you say he is the only medieval Rabbi after whom a crater on the moon is named.
What about Ralbag or even Rabbi Zacuto?
https://henryabramson.com/medieval-jewish-history-2/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbi_Levi_(crater)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zagut_(crater)
Hello Rabbi Abramson. I wanted to know if u would consider doing a webinar for us here in Perth Australia? I have given u my email address below. Thank you 😊
Can you please do a lecture on Abigail? Thank you 😊
Henry congratulations this the first time I have watched a program for 2 years, my interest started because of my ancestry and crossed over to my passion for history. you missed out one rule from Elvira ‘ that the keeping of Christian concubines was forbidden to Jews’ despite Elvira the two were not seperated for centurys facsinating it makes you wonder what could have been, as said fantastic work rgds Kevin
Your YouTube lectures are a huge blessing!
Dear Professor Abramson,
Your lectures are informative and entertaining. However, I had to watch twice the one on Soviet Jewish history, as I had not heard any mention of Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. But no, you really did not mention this experiment which, although failed, gives important insight into the Soviet strategies of dealing with the Jewish population. Did you leave it out on purpose?
Best regards,
David Seligson
France
Hi, can you please post more lectures on TorahAnytime.com? i can’t access youtube. Thank you
Just came across your history lectures on UTube – wonderful – thank you THANK YOU, your delivery is pleasant your personality is welcoming and you know how to laugh at your own jokes. Most engaging
you mentioned [Oct 25, 2017] that a moon crater is named after R Av ibn Ezra you would probably be pleased to know that Rabbenu Gershom also has a moon crater named after him – the Medieval French Jewish scholar Levi ben Gershon, better known by his Graecized name as Gersonides.
Rabbi Levi (crater) – Wikipedia
Thank you for the kind words, and the note on the Ralbag!
Shalom Rabbi Abramson,
I’m an avid viewer of your Daf Yomi in History (on the All Daf platform), and enjoy it immensely.
While visiting your website, and stumbling upon ‘Yikes’ (gotta admit, it caught my attention!) I was confused, even surprised, to find the mug of Shabbetai Tzvi amongst your merch’s. Judaism has many stories that can amaze friends and relatives, in a good way, rather than one portraying an outspoken heretic and apostate. If you can please ‘illuminate’ me (pun intended) as to why you have chosen Shabbetai Tzvi, the self-proclaimed Messiah, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Yossi R.
I put a comment on your YouTube video about Jewish Humour. It was so stimulating. I have always been naturally funny as the youngest of 4 children and my father is Professor Aubrey Newman historian so he is the greatest heckler ever. I start a joke and he says ‘ get to the point’ within seconds of me starting. He is 93 so he knows that time is of the essence and in comedy timing is of the essence. I am practicing the joke about the man who goes into the church to be converted for £500. I am now wondering how much money it would take for someone to convert me. On a bad day it would take the price of a giant chocolate bar: on a good day it would take the threat of a bullet to my head. After all without our identities we are nothing. Without my father I will lose all my reflected glory so if anyone knows my father, please contact me now because when he is gone it will be too late to tell him that I am proud of him (Judith Newman from Pandemic ridden Cognitive Dissonance Central)
Esteemed Dr. HENRY ABRAMSON. I am an avid follower of your u tube presentations and have now purchased your second edition book of UKRAINIAN JEWRY updated in 2018. I am greatly impressed with the depth of the scholarship but terribly disappointed that the document was obviously not proof read and is littered with grammatical and simple mistakes. What a disappointment. My interest lies in the fact that my late father was born in ZAPOROZHYIA and I visited therein 2017 to endeavor to establish my roots and to visit the grave sites of my grandparents, without much success. I had wonderful assistance from the CHABAD ROV EHRENTREAU who together with the HEAD ARCHIVIST uncovered documents of my late grandparents marriage, my father and his siblings birth records and even the list of male membership of the SHUL in 1912. My father and his siblings were rescued by ISSAC OCHBERG and brought to SOUTH AFRICA in 1922 after being orphaned either in the revolution or in the pandemic which followed. I can forward a more detailed account of my PATERNAL ROUTES if you are in any way interested in receiving it.
With profound respect for your literary achievements covering the JEWISH PEOPLE.
Would appreciate a response.
Yours faithfully,
BARRY SLAVIN. ( DOV BEHR BEN NACHUM HALEVI )
Dear Professor,
I am delighted to have just stumbled on your lecture on Maimonides on Youtube. Thank you, it’s wonderful, and I’m going back to watching right now.
I hope you will forgive me a tiny tiny correction: the plural of magnus opus is magnum opera.
Dr. Abramson,
I’ve been enjoying your Youtube Jewish History Course, and wanted to drop you a note about your introductory lecture (92?) on Jews in the Americas.
You omitted Barbados!
I think it’s worth including in that lecture for a few key reasons:
1) Jews from Recife were invited to Barbados in the early 1600s to found the sugar industry on an island which had struggled to grow cotton. Barbados was a British-controlled island which was the first British Colony to grow cane. The wealthy planter class began on Barbados, and spread from there to Jamaica when the British later came to occupy that island. It could be said that Jews played a key role in the spread of sugar cultivation within the British Empire (with the many obvious significant sequelae)!
2) The Jews of Barbados founded a synagogue in 1648 which remained in use until the 19th century and which was restored in the 1980s with many of its original furnishings. The adjacent cemetery in Bridgetown goes back to the early 1600s and includes headstones inscribed in Ladino, testifying to the survival of that Sephardic language generations after the expulsion.
3) Other testaments to that Jewish community survive in Barbados, such as the Montefiore Fountain, donated to Bridgetown in 1865 as a drinking fountain by local Jewish businessman John Montefiore, whose father was described as a “Free Coloured”.
4) A second, unrelated Jewish community was founded in Barbados in the 1930s which continues to this day and which now uses both its own synagogue (est. 1950s) and the 1648 synagogue for its services. Descendants of the 1930s community emigrated to many cities in Canada in the 1960s.
I’m obviously biased as a descendant of the 1930s community, but I think the Jews’ role in the economy of the British West Indies makes this a more important point to note than the fact that some Jews reached Jamaica a century or so later.
Of course, knowing your erudition, I expect I will ultimately come across some reference to this little island in your works.
Thank you for your generous sharing. Should you have the opportunity to visit Barbados, I would be very pleased to suggest some points of contact.
Kind regards,
Jonathan Weisman
Vancouver, BC
Hello Dr. Abramson
My name Ryan, I am the user Phoenix999 on YouTube who is subscribed to your channel, I am interested in knowing more about the legacy of Medieval usury laws’ roles in antisemitism in that their applicability only to Christians and not to Jews allowed the growth of Jewish presence in the moneylending and banking sector of the economy and am interested to how this has influenced how Jews are viewed to this day with antisemitic claims of Jews controlling international banking to exploit non-Jews for their own benefit and similar accusations. If you could respond via e-mail to me to this that would be greatly appreciated.
Ryan
😃 thank you so much for this awesome internet site me and my kin favored this depicted object and perceptivity
Dear Dr Abramson–
After watching your YouTube video “Esther as Crypto-Jew” I looked up the beautiful murals from Dura-Europos, and was astonished that, unlike Hebrew writing, they seemed to read from left to right. Am I mistaken? And if not, is there a reason for this?
Thank you for all your wonderful stories! They make history come alive.
dr abramson i very much appreciate your lectures i learn in lakewood and have an appreciation for jewish history most of my life i have been interested in it. i was wondering if you could go back to posting your lectures on torah anytime because i dont usually have access to any other forums you post your lectures on. again thank you for your very interesting lectures.
Dear Dr Abrahamson
I just wanted to say that I love your lectures, I love the way that you go beyond “regular Ashkenazi history”, and I’m looking forward to listen to more of your talks.
Three things that I’d like to ask:
1) did you have any family in Zimbabwe, particularly Reb Lazer Abrahamson?
2) I wanted to comment this on the video of Josephus, but there’s no commenting allowed, I always understood that the name Perushim came from l’pharesh, because unlike the tzadukim who only took the Torah at “face value”, the Perushim were willing to do exegesis.
3) you said that Jesus might have been a Pharisee, I’ve heard it said that he may have been an Essene. The reason for the fights against the Pharisees is because by the time the gospels were written, the other sects had waned, so the biggest threat to the early church were the Pharisees. The classic proof of this is where a “Pharisee” challenges Jesus’s belief in the resurrection of the dead/life after death, when the identity of such a questioner is more likely to be a Tzaduki.
I look forward to listening to more of your lectures
Henry, I will continue to wait for your answer. Until the Jewish people are free there can be no Zion. Christianity stole freedom of conscience from the Jewish people. They were denied their right of conscience. The were forced to acknowledge an untruth. That tradition is still in play today. It must end and you can help.
Dear Dr. Abrahamson
Need to know how to sponsor one of your lectures and how much will it cost. Please respond to email address at your earliest convenience.
Thanks
Benjamin
Hello Benjamin–
Glad you enjoy the lectures. In recent years, however, I haven’t been giving the weekly classes on campus. I’m happy to support several causes, please see here: https://henryabramson.com/causes/
HMA
Dear Mr. Abramson; Shalom. I recently came across your work that was a breath of fresh air. You explain complex Jewish historical phenomenon in a concise and clear fashion. You transfer detailed knowledge that you acquire through extensive research and reading very easily to an average person. I enjoy it thoroughly as I have special interest in the ‘la convivencia’ era. Stay blessed.
Hamid Hussain, New York
Dr. Abramson: As a relatively recent convert (I actually identify as a Bu-Jew), I very much enjoy your lectures. They are very helpful to someone who is learning, from the ground up, about Jewish history; I am especially impressed with your approach in that you speak with just the right touch of humor, humility, and impressive knowledge.
My only comment is that I notice that you have identified Gutenberg as the inventor of the printing press but I believe this is not accurate. The printing press was first used in China in 868 ACE and the first text printed was the Diamond Sutra.
Best wishes and thank you.
David T Andersen, Ed.M., PhD, ABPP