Really looking forward to meeting this community!

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




Officially banned in 1479, no Jews lived in the Russian Empire until Tsarina Catherine II conquered a major portion of Polish territory, instantly inheriting the largest single concentration of Jews in the world. Under her rule the Pale of Settlement was established, determining the region where Jews were allowed to reside, however tenuously, until the……

To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here. Excerpt from “The Jewish Diaspora: A Brief History” Henry Abramson 2. Jews and Judaism in the Year Zero Two Jews, three opinions. The year zero was not nearly as auspicious or significant for Jews as it would later be for Christians. Jews observe a……

Instructions: please watch the lecture, review the reading below, and kindly take the anonymous poll. Thank you! To view the Prezi associated with this lecture, please click here. Excerpt from The Jewish Diaspora: A Brief History Henry Abramson 1. What is Jewish History? “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat.” So runs the……

Devastated and demoralized after the violence of the Khmelnytsky rebellion, the Jews of Europe were astounded to hear that a young Kabbalist named Shabbetai Tsvi had proclaimed himself the long-awaited Messiah.

In 1847, the citizens of London elected its first Jew, Lionel de Rothschild, to the House of Commons. Rothschild, however, refused to take the Christian oath required of all members, and resigned without taking his seat in Parliament. He was immediately reelected a second and even a third time until the Jews’ Disabilities Act was……

Beloved for his children’s stories, Henryk Goldszmidt wrote under the pen name Janusz Korczak. A lifelong advocate for children’s rights, he ran an orphanage in Warsaw that was world-famous for his innovative pedagogic techniques. Imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation, he continued to serve in this capacity until the terrible order……

This is a course trailer for JSH 481: Jewish Biography as History, scheduled for the Fall 2013 semester.

In the summer of 1858, 6-year old Edgardo Mortara, a Jewish boy living in Bologna, Italy, was forcibly taken from his home by Italian police acting at the behest of the Inquisition. It had come to the attention of the Church that a teenage non-Jewish servant girl had performed an “emergency baptism” on Edgardo several……

For a larger discussion of the five historical narratives, please see my article The end of intimate insularity: new narratives of Jewish history in the post-Soviet era, in Acts of Symposium “Construction and Deconstruction of National Histories in Slavic Eurasia,” originally delivered at Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan, on July 10–13, 2002.

This is a new experiment, suggested by Elya at TorahCafe.com: a weekly, 3-minute “This Week in Jewish History” mini-lecture. I’m trying it out, let me know what you think! Please click here for the refined, edited version from TorahCafe.com.


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……


