Really looking forward to meeting this community!

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




Hello fellow students of Jewish history! I’m very proud to announce the Fall 2016 schedule of lectures in Jewish history, featuring the Jewish History @ J series at the Mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College! Please visit this link for the full calendar, with photos and descriptions: https://jewishhistorylectures.org/upcoming-public-lectures/ Last year, without even trying, we received……

Fellow Scholars and Students of History! I’m busy working on my next book, and I’m really enjoying the writing process. I’ve been working on this research for over a decade, even wrote a 500-page manuscript before deciding to start over with an entirely new approach. This book is on the Holocaust writings of Rabbi Kalonymus……

MAIMONIDES ON TESHUVAH THE WAYS OF REPENTANCE Available now Paperback, 273 pages: $18 Ebook: $9

Here’s an interview I gave on the Baal Teshuvah Show with Pesach Charney. I like what they did with the green screen–image of the Toronto skyline!
A difficult course to teach, but a very important aspect of Jewish history. Tuesday nights on the mighty Avenue J campus, Fall 2016.

MAIMONIDES ON TESHUVAH THE WAYS OF REPENTANCE Available now Paperback, 273 pages: $18 Elul 5776 Special: $9 with discount code KCFLXGXU Ebook: $9 Elul 5776 Special: Free (!) with discount code CN84P

Very pleased to be invited to speak about Maimonides at the Tenth Anniversary Gala Dinner of the Jewish Rockville Outreach Center! If you are in Rockville, MD on September 25, would love to see you there! For more information please visit http://jewishroc.org/events/10thAnnual/.

MAIMONIDES ON TESHUVAH THE WAYS OF REPENTANCE Available now Paperback, 273 pages: $18 Ebook: $9

Maimonides on Teshuvah The Ways of Repentance Available now Paperback, 273 pages: $18 Elul 5776 Special: $9 with discount code KCFLXGXU Ebook: $9 Elul 5776 Special: Free (!) with discount code CN84P In memory of Jack David Abramson ע׳׳ה Sample Maimonides on Teshuvah The Ways of Repentance Henry Abramson בס׳׳ד To my father and teacher יעקב……

Primo Levi died in Auschwitz–forty years later. (Elie Wiesel)

Good morning students of Jewish History! I am proud to announce a new pilot project: Jewish History in Daf Yomi, part of the Orthodox Union Daf Yomi Initiative under the leadership of Rabbi Moshe Schwed. Here’s the basic idea: brief (5-minute) videos discussing a historical issue raised in the world cycle of daily Talmud study……

“The Light of the Eyes” caused an intellectually seismic event whose aftershocks reverberate in the Jewish world 500 years later.

Who was the mysterious dark-skinned woman in the Sarajevo Haggadah?

Brief overview of the life and work of Shmuel David Luzzatto (ShaDaL), an important 19th-century Italian-Jewish thinker.

Brief description of the world’s oldest illuminated Hebrew manuscript–and a 700-hundred year mystery, solved recently by a 10-year old boy.

He survived the 1570 earthquake in Ferrara–and became the world’s first Modern Orthodox Jew.

Brief overview of the life and work of Rabbi Ovadiah of Bertinoro (Bartenura), best known for his commentary on the Mishnah but also an important communal leader in late 15th-early 16th century Jerusalem.

Hello everyone–here’s a brief historical article for this time of year that appeared in today’s JTA. Thanks to my daughter Raphaela and Laura Adkins at JTA for some amazing editing help. Enjoy in good health!

Connect yourself with the Rav for as long as there is an Internet.

The remarkable story of two powerful Jewish women from Spain and Portugal and the challenge to Pope Paul IV for his maltreatment of Portuguese Jews in Italy.

True, he wrote a dictionary, but cryptic hints in his autobiographical poem suggest a more complicated background.


