Really looking forward to meeting this community!

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




To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OnArXdHQdc

L.L. Zamenhof (1859-1917) was a Polish Jew who invented the world’s most successful artificial language, Esperanto. Conceived as a vehicle for world peace, Esperanto is even regarded by the Oomoto religion of Japan as the “language of heaven.”

This week marks the death anniversary of King Boleslaw V (The Chaste) in 1279. Boleslaw followed the tradition of his predecessors in Poland by creating incentives for Jewish settlement in Poland, including the establishment of Magdeburg Recht. Ultimately, these policies proved extremely attractive to Ashkenazi Jews from the Rhineland, making Poland a great center of……

To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here.

To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here.

The Fourth Lateran Council, which met in 1215 at the behest of Pope Innocent III, issued several pieces of Church legislation with dire implications for Jews. The doctrine of transubstantiation was confirmed, leading to a new element in antisemitic canards: accusations that Jews “desecrated the host.”

Poet, politician and philosopher, Shmuel ha-Nagid was an exemplar of the Golden Age of Spanish Jewry.

In November of 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat flew to Israel to address the Knesset. His meeting with his former enemy Prime Minister Menachem Begin ultimately resulted in the sometimes strained but nevertheless enduring Israel-Egypt peace accord, but his unpopularity with hardline Egyptians, opposed to making peace with Israel, resulted in his assassination in 1981.

To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here. Excerpts from The Sea of Talmud: A Brief and Personal History Henry Abramson (2012) The Yeshiva administration must have put considerable thought into the wording of the hand-lettered sign posted outside the cafeteria. Many young men studying Talmud at this Jerusalem institution were taking……

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (1135-1204) was a towering figure in medieval Jewish history, and continues to cast a long shadow into the Jewish present. Nevertheless, the work of the philosopher-physician endured significant controversy, including an especially sad episode in which Jews actually consigned his works to the flames.

To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here.

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……


