Not enough snow to cancel tonight’s class on Nathan of Rome!

A medieval historian recounts the remarkable story of four Rabbinic captives.

Please click here for a link to my recent article on a document I came across in the archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. I’m really grateful to Laura Adkins, Opinion Editor, for shaping the piece. Also thanks to the incredibly helpful staff of YIVO for permission……

Was the Rebbe’s faith “broken” by the Holocaust?

SPIRITUAL HEROISM AND TRAGIC MARTYRDOM IN THE WARSAW GHETTO.

Get a head start on the first lecture by watching these intermittently interesting videos while peeling potatoes.

Good morning fellow students of Jewish History! Really excited to be starting the Spring Semester of Jewish History Lectures next week–it’s going to be a busy February, but I’m certainly looking forward to speaking with you about these fascinating topics! Here’s a quick list of what, where, and when. Unfortunately not all of these lectures……

Hello fellow students of Jewish history! I am delighted to inform you that, beginning in April 2019, we will embark on a pilot project to explore the historical aspects of the Talmud as part of the incredible OU Daf Yomi Initiative led by Rabbi Moshe Schwed. We will start with tractate Bechoros and, with favorable……

Hello everyone–it’s still a while till our first public lecture on campus, but I was so fascinated by this topic I had to talk about it with you. I hope you enjoy the video! Don’t forget to print out and post the Spring 2019 Schedule of Lectures on your refrigerator of your home, or wherever……

The Jews of Italy Lectures in Jewish History (Spring 2019) The Origins of Italian Jewry Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto: Persecuted Genius Tuesday, February 12, 7:00 PM Sponsored by the Chaim Yaakov Shlomo College of Jewish Studies The Shul, 9540 Collins Avenue, Surfside FL 33154 Torah from the Years of Wrath: The Warsaw Ghetto Writings of……

Very pleased to see this revised edition of my first book available. Includes a new foreword and afterword.  

To the Hasidim steeped in the religious significance of the ritual calendar, the Sabbath known as Zakhor (March 23, 1940) must have seemed a cruel redundancy. Literally called “remember,” the Sabbath preceding the holiday of Purim is named for a few publicly read Torah verses (Deuteronomy 25:17-19) that memorialize the attack of Israel’s primordial enemy,……

Hey friends in Crown Heights! Please drop by and say hello.

(Well, not Yehudah Ha-Levi, but a lecture about the great Spanish-Jewish poet-philosopher of the 12th century). With Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum. 

Sponsored by Brandon Sultan in honor of the Sultan and Benarroch Families, whose Sephardic roots are expressed in a desire to honor the Convivencia; and also in loving memory of Mrs. Jean Milstein, whose relentless optimism was an inspiration to all.

Someone told me that this was printed in The Vues. I’m not a Rabbi, but I’m kind of pleased that Ari Hirsch asked for my opinion anyway. Makes me feel like I actually belong in Brooklyn, somehow, if I’m included in this paper known as “the Heimishe Voice.”

The last weeks of winter 1942, ironically, represented a kind of plateau for the Jews of Warsaw. The typhus epidemic abated, and the Nazis had established some work facilities (“shops”) that led many to believe that through productive labor, the Jews would endure. The general feeling was, in the words of historians Barbara Engelking and……

The life and times of an important woman of the early post-Expulsion generation of Sephardic Jews. Can’t see the video? Click here please.

We’re starting on Monday! Please visit http://www.jewishhistorylectures.org for details on the schedule. Free and open to the community, Monday nights at 7:00 pm at the mighty Avenue J campus of Touro College, 1602 Avenue J, Brooklyn NY 11230. Call (718) 535-9333 or write to me at henry.abramson@touro.edu. Some sponsorships are still available ($250 per lecture),……

Searching for an escapee from the notorious Pawiak Prison, the Nazis arrested 255 Jewish leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto, holding them hostage and demanding that the community turn over the 21-year old resistance fighter Andrzej Kott. The rebel was not found. The Jewish hostages were eventually killed.  The Rebbe was forced to spend that Sabbath……

  Just got my first copy of the hardcover edition of Torah from the Years of Wrath: The Historical Context of the Aish Kodesh. Special thanks to Mr. Sam Sapozhnik for making this possible! The hardcover edition hasn’t migrated yet to Amazon, but the good news is that I can offer my students, colleagues and friends 20%……