Menachem Begin: A New Israel

Menachem Begin in 1978. Source: Wikipedia Commons

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 the office of Prime Minister in 1977. Despite his hawkish ideology, he was the first Israeli leader to sign a peace treaty with an Arab country. Lecture was recorded on Wednesday, May 1 at the Young Israel of Bal Harbour.

April 28, 2013 0

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 establish equal rights for Jews in the Tsarist Empire during a period of phenomenal change. Martyred at the hands of the Nazis, his last words were “shrayb–un farshrayb” (write..and record), a Yiddish phrase that has motivated generations of Jewish historians.

Here’s a link to the improved TorahCafe version. Click on the link below:

March 4, 2013 1

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 lifestyle, his activity spawned a wholesale abandonment of traditional Judaism. Within a century of his death, his strategy of acculturation to the modern era was widely accepted by most Jewish thinkers in western Europe, but not a single one of Mendelssohn’s descendants remained Jewish.

Please click here to view the version of this lecture edited by torahcafe.com.

February 24, 2013 1

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.

February 11, 2013 0

Don Isaac Abravanel and the Spanish Expulsion 2/3

February 11, 2013 0

Don Isaac Abravanel and the Spanish Expulsion 3/3

February 11, 2013 0

Bruria: Women in the Talmud

Here’s a lecture I delivered at the Shul of Bal Harbour, not part of the regular HIS 155/156 Series, but kind of nice. Edited by the great people at TorahCafe.com. Please click on the icon above to see the video. I hope you find it interesting!