Really looking forward to meeting this community!

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




Deconstructing a slogan and what it means to those who chant it A Pioneering Historian of Portuguese Jewry

Part III Premiers at 10am with Live Chat Parts I and II

Premiering at 10am ET (New York time) The Amazing Career of Duarte De Paz Peer-reviewed The Jewish People: A History now online With gratitude to the hundreds of students of Jewish history who contributed suggestions and edits to the first volume of The Jewish People: A History, and the constructive edits provided by the peer…

Premiering Sunday at 10am EST. Join us for a live chat. The video is currently available to Channel Members for advance viewing.

Students Please RSVP for the Bus to DC What is Islamic Antisemitism? Talking Gaza to Teens (also adults, and also Safed) How did Portuguese Jews Survive the Inquisition?

Sadly, an Evergreen Topic Please join me at Palm Beach Synagogue on Nov 12 for a discussion of Gaza in Jewish History (general lecture and a special session for teens) and a look at 16th century Safed Click here to register. Biblical History Course Updated Many of you followed the Jewish History Lab series of…

A deep and meaningful journey with Kosher Riverboat Cruises.

New lecture in the series Jewish History for Parents and other Teachers of Children This 13th Century Rabbi Refused to be Ransomed from Captivity
I recorded this before Simchas Torah, so the tone is a little more cheerful and upbeat than I feel. But maybe that’s appropriate: we must continue.


Happy to see this Spanish translation of The Kabbalah of Forgiveness forthcoming in the next few weeks! The cover is really striking. Thanks to Jésica Neuah at Editorial Perspectivas!
Can’t see the video? Try clicking here.

Wow–just heard that Torah from the Years of Wrath got promoted to the window display at M. Pomeranz Books in Jerusalem! Thanks to my friend Dr. Mike Chigel for plugging the book to MR. POMERANZ HIMSELF, shown here just outside the display!

In commemoration of Yom Ha-Shoah, our Jewish History lecture on Monday night will be dedicated to a topic frequently overlooked in discussions of the Holocaust: the experience of Sephardim. Please click here for details. Most of my own published work on the Holocaust has been in the Askhenazic world, notably my recent study of the…

Very honored to be speaking with Rabbi Eli Mansour for The WELL, a wonderful new institution dedicated to women’s education in the Sephardic community. Please spread the word! This lecture is open to men and women.

Available from Amazon Hardcover 15% off at Lulu After the fall of the Russian Empire, Jewish and Ukrainian activists worked to overcome previous mutual antagonism by creating a Ministry of Jewish Affairs within the new Ukrainian state and taking other measures to satisfy the national aspirations of Jews and other non-Ukrainians. This bold experiment ended…

After several weeks without recording a drashah, perhaps related to the horrendous typhus outbreak of the late winter of 1941, the Rebbe delivered a series of powerful derashot for the Passover holiday. On the Seventh Day of Pesach he turned his attention to the subject of Torah learning. The memoirs of Chaim Kaplan, a former principal, describe…

Passover in the Warsaw Ghetto: Inspiration for the Second Seder Taken from Torah from the Years of Wrath (Aish Kodesh) אני מבקש ומתחנן לפני כל אחד מישראל שילמוד בספרי, ובטח זכות אבותי הקדושים זצוקלל״ה יעמוד לו ולכל ביתו בזה ובבא “I request and plead every person of Israel to study my works—surely the merit of…

Brief lecture on the life and work of Judah Touro, an important 19th-century American philanthropist for whom, together with his father Isaac, Touro College was named.

School principal Chaim Kaplan recorded the bleak mood in the Warsaw Ghetto on the eve of Passover of the Hebrew year 5701 (1941): Like the Egyptian Passover, the Passover of Germany will be celebrated for generations. The chaotic oppression of every day throughout this year of suffering will be reflected in the days of the…

Really nice to see that readers in my native Canada are encountering the Piaseczno Rebbe: Here’s a new review by Dr. Norman Ravvin, appearing in the current Canadian Jewish News. Note to my dear readers: the book is in Judaica stores, on Amazon and Kindle, but my favorite (and the best value) is the beautiful…


