Shabbat in Rosyln, NY; Hello from Jerusalem;

Really looking forward to meeting this community!


Message recorded from Jerusalem last week


Medieval Antisemitism and the Spanish Inquisition

Invitation to LCM Breakfast; Caribbean Jews and the History of Chocolate; Spanish Disputations and the Pogroms of 1391

Please join me at our First Annual Breakfast!


Jews and Chocolate! Who knew?


Disputations and the Pogroms of 1391

The Jews of Bukhara (Sunday in Denver); the Maimonidean Controversy; Save the Date for Roslyn NY

Really looking forward to speaking to the Or Avner community in Aurora, CO!


The Maimonidean Controversy


Save the Date: Shabbaton in Roslyn NY, December 20-21

  • Who Was Rabenu Bayha?

    Who Was Rabenu Bayha?

    This was a huge amount of fun. If you are into Duties of the Heart, I think you will like this lecture! The video has a reference to Despacito by The Maccabeats, link provided below. Enjoy in good health!

  • Lectures now on TorahAnytime.com

    Lectures now on TorahAnytime.com

    I’m really happy that TorahAnytime.com is including my lectures, starting with The Jews of Sepharad series! Sign up for a free membership–there are some amazing speakers at TorahAnytime.com.

  • Rabbi Efrem Goldberg on The Aish Kodesh

    Rabbi Efrem Goldberg on The Aish Kodesh

    I was stopped on my way in to davening this morning by someone who told me about the incredible shiur that Rabbi Efrem Goldberg of Boca Raton Synagogue gave on the Aish Kodesh this week. Here’s the excerpt–Rabbi Goldberg captures the agony of the Rebbe after the loss of his family in his typically powerful……

  • Tonight in the Five Towns

    Tonight in the Five Towns

  • Honored to receive this Review by the Kosher Bookworm

    Honored to receive this Review by the Kosher Bookworm

    Please click here to read the review at The Jewish Star. By Alan Jay Gerber The name and history of the Aish Kodesh in our community is well known. This legacy from the tragedy of the Warsaw Ghetto of one of its towering leaders, Rebbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, the Aish Kodesh, has been taught to us……

  • Thank you.

    Thank you.

    I was deeply moved by the kind support of my research into the life of the Aish Kodesh at the book launch this week. By all accounts, it was a wonderful evening–we had such a diverse crowd in attendance, from pious Hasidim well familiar with the Piaseczno Rebbe to students who knew nothing about his……

  • Piaseczno Visualization Exercise

    Piaseczno Visualization Exercise

    Thanks to Rabbi Pesach Sommer for recording my brief comments at the conclusion of the hilula (74th anniversary of his martyrdom) for Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira at The Shtiebl in Williamsburg, NY. SHOW MORE

  • Review by Rabbi Pesach Sommer

    Review by Rabbi Pesach Sommer

    Very grateful to Rabbi Pesach Sommer for writing a kind and generous review of Torah from the Years of Wrath! My favorite passage is at the end: “Dr. Abramson has written a book which is destined to lead to an increase of study of the rebbe’s Torah and thought in both the academic and Jewish……

  • What Torah from the Years of Wrath is All About

    What Torah from the Years of Wrath is All About

    Please watch this brief video. Really hoping you will join us for the book launch on Monday, October 30! Please visit bit.ly/aishkodesh to RSVP and for more information.

  • Deciphering the Rosetta Stone of the Holocaust

    Deciphering the Rosetta Stone of the Holocaust

      The Aish Kodesh died 74 years ago, martyred in the Trawniki labor camp. Now, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira is at the center of a surge of new research into the most profound questions surrounding the Holocaust. A new critical edition, prepared with phenomenal scholarly energy by Daniel Reiser, demonstrates that we have just started……

The Jews of Bukhara (Denver, CO); The Jews of the Lesser Antilles; Varieties of Crypto-Jewish Identity; Wait, Alexander Hamilton was Jewish?

Looking forward to a wonderful Shabbat in the Denver Jewish community!


Our Itinerary of Discovery in the Western Caribbean


Channel Members


Premiering at 10am ET


  • Albert Einstein Video (now with PowerPoint) from TorahCafe editors

    Albert Einstein Video (now with PowerPoint) from TorahCafe editors

    Here’s a new version of the Albert Einstein lecture, edited by the wonderful people at TorahCafe.com to include the PowerPoint. It’s basically the same, except without the lame jokes. Click on the icon below to watch the video.

  • Isaac Bashevis Singer: Singer in the Shtetl, the Shtetl in Singer (2004 lecture)

    Isaac Bashevis Singer: Singer in the Shtetl, the Shtetl in Singer (2004 lecture)

    This is a lecture I delivered at the University of Central Florida back in October 2004 (my hair was quite a bit darker and, well, there).  Found the CD when I was cleaning out some old files. There’s a PPT that goes with this lecture, and I’m going to try to find a way to……

  • Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad

    Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson of Chabad

    A presentation on the life and work of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (1902-1994), the Seventh Rebbe of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement. A native of Nikolaev, Ukraine, and educated in Germany and France, his leadership transformed his Hasidic followers into an international movement that continues to shape the lives of Jews world wide. The lecture was held……

  • Betty Friedan: Jews and American Feminism

    Betty Friedan: Jews and American Feminism

    A presentation on the life and work of Betty Friedan, a prominent American Jewish feminist leader. The author of the landmark The Feminine Mystique (1963), she later became the Founder of the National Organization of Women, and an important political activist for women’s rights.  The lecture was held at the Young Israel of Bal Harbour on May 29,……

  • Albert Einstein: Time, Space and the Jewish People

    Albert Einstein: Time, Space and the Jewish People

    A presentation on Albert Einstein (1879-1955), one of the best-known Jews of the twentieth century.  Although he had a complicated relationship with Judaism, he maintained a distinct pride in his Jewish identity, and once said “A Jew who abandons his Judaism is like a snail that abandons its shell.  It’s still a snail.”  The lecture……

  • Excerpt from The Kabbalah of Forgiveness Now Online

    Excerpt from The Kabbalah of Forgiveness Now Online

      An excerpt from The Kabbalah of Forgiveness: A Reader’s Guide to Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s The Palm Tree of Devorah, a new translation and commentary on the 16th-century classic of Kabbalistic musar, is now available online.  Anticipated publication date is August 2013.  The Palm Tree of Devorah first appeared in 1588 and became and instant classic….…

  • Stephen Samuel Wise and the Jews of America

    Stephen Samuel Wise and the Jews of America

    A presentation on the life and work of Stephen Samuel Wise (1874-1949), an important American communal leader. The lecture will take a broader focus, looking at the history of Jewish settlement in the United States during the 19th century and the major issues facing this immigrant community through the middle of the twentieth century.  The……

  • Menachem Begin: A New Israel

    Menachem Begin: A New Israel

    A study of the life of Menachem Begin (1913-1992). A native of Poland, he was a proponent of Vladimir Jabotinsky’s Revisionist party that stood in dramatic contrast to the dominant left-wing tendency in the Zionist movement. A major figure in Israel’s struggle for statehood, and a founder of the Likud party, he was elected to……

  • Mitnagdim, Hasidim, Maskilim: The Cultural Geography of Jewish Eastern Europe

    Mitnagdim, Hasidim, Maskilim: The Cultural Geography of Jewish Eastern Europe

    This lecture presents a broad overview of the three main intellectual-religious trends present in 19th century Jewish Eastern Europe: the traditionalist Mitnagdim, the innovative Hasidim, and the modernizing Maskilim. Good as an overall introduction, although I go into more detail on all of these movements in other lectures on this website.  Taped on April 21,……

  • Golda Meir and the Foundations of Israel

    Golda Meir and the Foundations of Israel

    A presentation of the life of Golda Meir (1898-1978), spanning her immigration to Israel in 1921 through the end of her term as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel in 1974. The lecture will discuss the foundations of the Yishuv, the pre-state Jewish community, and touch on the major social and military conflicts that Israel……

  • Evgenia Ginzburg: Jewish Life Under Stalin

    Evgenia Ginzburg: Jewish Life Under Stalin

    Evgenia Ginzburg (1904-1977) was a Jewish woman who endured the horrors of the Stalinist Gulag.  Charged and convicted of anti-Soviet activity in 1937, she was sent to the infamous work camps of Siberia for nearly two decades until her case was reviewed two years after Stalin’s death.  She was ultimately rehabilitated, and published her memoirs……

  • Emanuel Ringelblum: Heroic Scholar of the Warsaw Ghetto

    Emanuel Ringelblum: Heroic Scholar of the Warsaw Ghetto

    An examination of the life and work of Emanuel Ringelblum (1900-1944), the heroic Polish scholar who organized the underground Oneg Shabbat society in the Warsaw Ghetto. Ringelblum recognized the extreme and unprecedented nature of the Nazi onslaught early in the war, and brought together a group of highly dedicated volunteers who recorded every aspect of……

Visits to Synagogues in Bordeaux and Libourne (France); Another Open Letter to Jewish Participants in anti-Israel Protests re: Amsterdam; Conference Presentation on Sheptytsky and WW II

Fantastic Voyage of Discovery with Kosher River Cruises


A Difficult Conversation


Recent Conference Presentation in Toronto


Wait, Christopher Columbus was Jewish? Documentary on Roman-Jewish War now Online

Surprised how much attention this got.


Herod’s Tragic Reign

The Fatal Conflict

How Jewish Culture will Thrive after October 7; The Jews of Al-Andalus Part II

Remarks at Lander College for Men


Maimonides and the Controversy over His Work

Jews under the Visigoths II; The Spanish Golden Age

Public at 10am ET (44 minutes)


Online Courses in Jewish History

A Thousand Years of Ashkenaz

Jewish Life in Visigothic Spain; Commemorating October 7

This is one of the most bizarre periods of Jewish history, and that’s saying a lot.

Dropping on Sunday, September 22 at 10am ET. 70 minutes.


A Thousand Years of Ashkenaz

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