Really looking forward seeing my friends at YILC!

Lectures in Jewish History and Thought. No hard questions, please.





Good morning students of Jewish History! Just a reminder that we will not be meeting tonight; classes will resume on Monday May 7. You can always use the extra time to catch up on some reading! Click here for a few suggestions. Looking forward to learning with you next week, the penultimate lecture in the…

Good morning– Just a quick note to those who attend in person at the Mighty Avenue J campus: we will not be meeting this Monday, April 30. Planning to reconvene on Monday, May 7 with the penultimate lecture of the season–the history of the Crypto-Jews. Fascinating stuff, I think. H P.S. Seeking sponsors for the…

Here’s the video of the talk I gave at The WELL, my favorite institution of Sephardic Studies in New York. Really wonderful audience. Having difficulty seeing the video? Click here.

In early April 1940, Warsaw Jews were distressed to witness the initial construction of walls in several parts of the city. Up until this point, the concentration of Jews in certain parts of Warsaw was effected by administrative decree, with few permanent physical structures demarcating the boundaries of the ghetto. Debates raged within the Nazi…

Happy to see this Spanish translation of The Kabbalah of Forgiveness forthcoming in the next few weeks! The cover is really striking. Thanks to Jésica Neuah at Editorial Perspectivas!
Can’t see the video? Try clicking here.

Wow–just heard that Torah from the Years of Wrath got promoted to the window display at M. Pomeranz Books in Jerusalem! Thanks to my friend Dr. Mike Chigel for plugging the book to MR. POMERANZ HIMSELF, shown here just outside the display!

In commemoration of Yom Ha-Shoah, our Jewish History lecture on Monday night will be dedicated to a topic frequently overlooked in discussions of the Holocaust: the experience of Sephardim. Please click here for details. Most of my own published work on the Holocaust has been in the Askhenazic world, notably my recent study of the…

Very honored to be speaking with Rabbi Eli Mansour for The WELL, a wonderful new institution dedicated to women’s education in the Sephardic community. Please spread the word! This lecture is open to men and women.

Available from Amazon Hardcover 15% off at Lulu After the fall of the Russian Empire, Jewish and Ukrainian activists worked to overcome previous mutual antagonism by creating a Ministry of Jewish Affairs within the new Ukrainian state and taking other measures to satisfy the national aspirations of Jews and other non-Ukrainians. This bold experiment ended…

This lecture was sponsored by Eva Zack de Waiser and Aliza Abramson.

This lecture is sponsored by Mr. Daniel Sommer. The TorahCafe.com people later edited this video very nicely, although for some reason they keep removing my opening joke! Still, it’s great to have the PowerPoints integrated into the video, so here’s a slightly different version for your enjoyment. Click on the icon below for the…
Correction: the reference in the lecture was to the Pittsburgh Platform (not the Philadelphia Platform). Even that, however, was a mistake: I was thinking of the 1883 Cincinatti “Trefa Banquet.” Thank you for the clarification, Menachem!
Lecture sponsored by Young Israel of Bal Harbour
Lecture Sponsored by Judy Seed
Lecture sponsored by Joe and Zohara Weiss
Rabbi Yosef Karo: The Kabbalah of Halakhah Delivered at the Young Israel of Bal Harbour, January 25, 2012. Lecture sponsored by Menachem Sternbaum, Susan Leaventon, and an anonymous donor. Correction: it wasn’t Rothschild after all, it was the Duke of Naxos. Update: The nice people over at TorahCafe took this video and improved it considerably.…
Welcome to the new website for Hillel Abramson‘s Lecture Series in Jewish History at Young Israel of Bal Harbour! This site will feature information on the series, and host video recordings of the lectures. We encourage you to sign up for our Email Newsletter below, which is our principal way of letting participants know what’s…