Really looking forward to meeting this community!

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




Premiering today at 12:00 noon ET.

Preliminary remarks on the study of the Jews in Africa, followed by The Jews of Ethiopia (origins to 1862). Premiering today at 12 noon ET. Note: for some reason this particular topic attracts an unusual amount of inappropriate commentary. Scholarly, collegial discussion is welcomed here; but I intend to remove hateful remarks, and commentators who……

Some thoughts on the literary figure of Queen Esther on the eve of the holiday of Purim. Talk originally delivered to members of Project Makom on February 21, 2022. http://www.projectmakom.org

Jewish History Lab Report February 12, 2021 Jewish History Lab Lectures Scheduled for Next Week (Advance access for YouTube channel members at the Student Level) 49. Early Jewish Settlement in Spain (Scheduled for Sunday @ 1:00 PM ET) 50. Jews in Visigothic Spain (Scheduled for Monday @1:00 PM ET) Researchers: The Amazing Journey of Yisrael……
Jewish History Lab Report for February 5, 2021. Videos dropping next week (advance viewing for Students now available): Researchers video: Text version at JTA here. Colleagues Live Class on Wednesday: Jews in Visigothic Iberia Other Publications: The German Convert who Illustrated the Maxwell House Haggadah Have an excellent Shabbos! Looking forward to learning more Jewish……

Hello fellow students of Jewish History! Here’s this week’s Jewish History Lab Report. Dropping next week: Researchers Video: Who Illustrated the Amsterdam Haggadah of 1695? Next Week: Under Christian Rule A Bird-Headed Haggadah (Why?) https://www.thejewishstar.com/Print_E…

A brief overview of some historiographic theory as it relates to Jewish history, also considering the impact of Postmodernism. Here’s a link to Rosman, Moshe. How Jewish is Jewish History?. United Kingdom: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2009. Another fairly recent and important work is Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. Zakhor: Jewish History and Jewish Memory. United Kingdom: University of Washington Press, 2011.

Good morning fellow students of Jewish History! Do you watch the Jewish History Lab series? If so, please contribute your thoughts in this brief, anonymous survey. We’ll be starting the second semester later this month, and I value your opinion! https://bit.ly/jhljanuary2021

Sunday, January 10, 8pm. Sponsored by Congegration Darchei Noam of Fair Lawn, NJ. Register at dno.am/5781/webinar.

The Holocaust Writings of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira (The Aish Kodesh הי׳׳ד) Please join me on Sunday, January 10 at 8PM ET for a discussion of the Warsaw Ghetto experience of the Aish Kodesh, and what lessons we may glean for the present season of quarantine. http://dno.am/5781/webinar
Hello fellow students of Jewish history! I hope this message finds you and your loved ones healthy and secure. Just a brief note to let you know the website will have some reduced functionality over the next week or so. I like to take the turn-over of the Gregorian calendar to renovate and reorganize my……

Join us for a live chat alongside the lecture on the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry! Click on the image above for the address. Stay safe, stay healthy!

Out of an “abundance of caution” (the key phrase of the month), we’re going to move tonight’s lecture to an online platform. Please click on the image or here at for the lecture at 7:30-8:30 pm tonight. The password is YILC. Looking forward to seeing you tonight!

Join me tonight (Sunday 8pm) for a live chat and this lecture, looking at the experience of Jews under Islamic and Christian rule in the early medieval period. Click on the image above or use this link: https://youtu.be/X4JppODXdSY. Looking forward to learning with you!

Thanks to Laura Adkins of JTA for her superb editing, as always.

Origins of the Talmud: Premiere with live chat Monday night at 9PM EST. Join us!

Fellow students of Jewish history! Here’s an article I just published on JTA. about Nissim Black’s remarkable Mothaland Bounce. The genre is a little outside my comfort zone–I normally only write on Jewish history and thought–but I had a LOT of fun writing it. Thanks to my 18-year old son for explaining hip-hop to me….…

Good morning fans of Jewish History! We are scheduled to begin Series 2 of the “I Survived Jewish History” lectures, moving from the origins of the Talmud to the Golden Age of Spain. Live on Wednesday night, Members get the unedited video online sometime Thursday, and finally the Premiere of the edited version (cheesy jokes……
A tribute to the Founding President of Touro College on the occasion of his 10th Yohrzeit.

Good morning students of Jewish history! Here’s a planning note for your Presidents’ Day. Join me tonight for a lecture and live chat online at 9:00 pm EST. We will be discussing the Roman-Jewish Wars of the 1st and 2nd centuries: the initial rise of the rebellion against Rome, the intervention of Vespasian and the……


