The Jews of Bukhara (Denver, CO); The Jews of the Lesser Antilles; Varieties of Crypto-Jewish Identity; Wait, Alexander Hamilton was Jewish?

Looking forward to a wonderful Shabbat in the Denver Jewish community!


Our Itinerary of Discovery in the Western Caribbean


Channel Members


Premiering at 10am ET


  • Stephen Samuel Wise and the Jews of America

    Stephen Samuel Wise and the Jews of America

    A presentation on the life and work of Stephen Samuel Wise (1874-1949), an important American communal leader. The lecture will take a broader focus, looking at the history of Jewish settlement in the United States during the 19th century and the major issues facing this immigrant community through the middle of the twentieth century.  The…

  • Menachem Begin: A New Israel

    Menachem Begin: A New Israel

    A study of the life of Menachem Begin (1913-1992). A native of Poland, he was a proponent of Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party that stood in dramatic contrast to the dominant left-wing tendency in the Zionist movement. A major figure in Israel’s struggle for statehood, and a founder of the Likud party, he was elected to…

  • Mitnagdim, Hasidim, Maskilim: The Cultural Geography of Jewish Eastern Europe

    Mitnagdim, Hasidim, Maskilim: The Cultural Geography of Jewish Eastern Europe

    This lecture presents a broad overview of the three main intellectual-religious trends present in 19th century Jewish Eastern Europe: the traditionalist Mitnagdim, the innovative Hasidim, and the modernizing Maskilim. Good as an overall introduction, although I go into more detail on all of these movements in other lectures on this website.  Taped on April 21,…

  • Golda Meir and the Foundations of Israel

    Golda Meir and the Foundations of Israel

    A presentation of the life of Golda Meir (1898-1978), spanning her immigration to Israel in 1921 through the end of her term as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel in 1974. The lecture will discuss the foundations of the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community, and touch on the major social and military conflicts that Israel…

  • Evgenia Ginzburg: Jewish Life Under Stalin

    Evgenia Ginzburg: Jewish Life Under Stalin

    Evgenia Ginzburg (1904-1977) was a Jewish woman who endured the horrors of the Stalinist Gulag.  Charged and convicted of anti-Soviet activity in 1937, she was sent to the infamous work camps of Siberia for nearly two decades until her case was reviewed two years after Stalin’s death.  She was ultimately rehabilitated, and published her memoirs…

  • Emanuel Ringelblum: Heroic Scholar of the Warsaw Ghetto

    Emanuel Ringelblum: Heroic Scholar of the Warsaw Ghetto

    An examination of the life and work of Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944), the heroic Polish scholar who organized the underground Oneg Shabbat society in the Warsaw Ghetto. Ringelblum recognized the extreme and unprecedented nature of the Nazi onslaught early in the war, and brought together a group of highly dedicated volunteers who recorded every aspect of…

  • Solomon Mikhoels: Jews and Jewish Art in the USSR

    Part I: Part II: Part III: Solomon Mikhoels (1890-1948) was one of the most prominent actors and directors in early Soviet Russia. His career coincides with the brief flourishing of Yiddish culture under the policy of korenizatsiia, or “indiginization,” when the Communist authorities sought to develop folk culture as a means of developing loyalty to the…

  • Shimon Dubnow: The Politics of Jewish Identity in the Modern World

    Shimon Dubnow: The Politics of Jewish Identity in the Modern World

    Shimon Dubnow (1860-1941), a noted historian and activist whose theories of Jewish survival in the diaspora were extremely influential in the shaping Jewish identity in the modern world, from the future of Russian Jewry to the establishment of the modern Federation movement in the United States.  Dubnow’s scholarship was inextricably intertwined with the effort to…

  • Moses Mendelssohn and the Haskalah Movement

    Moses Mendelssohn was a hugely influential thinker in 18th-century Germany.  An unusually gifted intellect, he became the primary spokesperson for the emancipation of Jews in the 18th century, and his cause was championed by many non-Jewish liberals of the era. Heralded as the founder of the Reform movement even though Mendelssohn himself maintained an observant…

  • Nathan of Hanover and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1648-1649

    Nathan of Hanover and the Ukrainian Revolution of 1648-1649

    Nathan of Hanover is best known for his moving chronicle of the Khmel’nyts’kyi (Chmielnicki) Rebellion. Entitled Yeven Metsulah (“The Abyss of Despair”), it records with remarkable fairness the social, political, economic and religious background of the mid-17th century Ukrainian movement against the Poles, along with the horrible pogroms perpetrated in the context of that violent…

  • Don Isaac Abravanel and the Spanish Expulsion 1/3

    Don Isaac Abravanel and the Spanish Expulsion 1/3

    Here’s the Torahcafe.com edited version, in one piece, with the PPTs integrated.  A little easier to watch.

Visits to Synagogues in Bordeaux and Libourne (France); Another Open Letter to Jewish Participants in anti-Israel Protests re: Amsterdam; Conference Presentation on Sheptytsky and WW II

Fantastic Voyage of Discovery with Kosher River Cruises


A Difficult Conversation


Recent Conference Presentation in Toronto


Jewish Life in Visigothic Spain; Commemorating October 7

This is one of the most bizarre periods of Jewish history, and that’s saying a lot.

Dropping on Sunday, September 22 at 10am ET. 70 minutes.


A Thousand Years of Ashkenaz

New Lecture Series: The Sweep of Sephardic History; Faith in Times of Crisis: Commemorating the Tragedy of October 7

New Lecture Series: The History of Sephardic Jewry

Public at 10 am ET. Duration: 72 minutes.
Channel Members: Duration 70 minutes.
Channel members: 44 minutes.

Shabbat in Silver Spring; The History of Sephardic Jewry; Jews, Wine, and Bordeaux; Napoleon’s 1808 Decree on Jewish Names

Stories of Personal Transformation for Elul


Napoleon’s 1808 Imperial Decree on Jewish Names


The History of Sephardic Jewry (Lecture, 75 minutes)

Jews, Wine, and Bordeaux (7 minutes)


A Thousand Years of Ashkenaz

Four Jewish Survival Strategies in the Byzantine Era; The Strange World of Hebrew Abbreviations; Volume II of The Jewish People: A History Online; Shabbaton in Greater Washington

Jewish Resilience after the Bar Kochba Rebellion


New Series! Cool Things I Read in the Encyclopedia Judaica


YouTube Colleagues: Volume II of The Jewish People: A History now appearing online



Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Up ↑