Jewish history

Israel’s war doctrine is ancient wisdom wrapped in modern warfare - opinion

Israel’s willingness to act decisively and preemptively is sometimes misunderstood by outsiders but rarely questioned within the Jewish world.

 Smoke seen rising from a building after a reported Israeli strike in the southwest of Iran, June 21, 2025
 SAJMIŠTE DETAINEES in a nearby labor camp located at the very confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where inmates from Sajmište worked.

Staro Sajmiste: Belgrade's fairground of death for the Balkans' Jews

 Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, March 16, 2024

Maryland man arrested for threats to Philadelphia Jewish museum  

 THE WAZE app came out in 2013 (hence, the older-model smartphone pictured)

This week in Jewish history: Haganah formed in Israel, Google acquires Waze


A Name Worthy of Gratitude

Why “Donald” should join “Alexander” as a name of honor in Jewish history

US President Donald Trump attends a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, US, April 10, 2025.

Shavuot 2025: Why do we group Jewish holidays together?

By adding Purim to the duo of Passover and Shavuot, this trio reminds us that hiddenness is not static. It is dynamic.

 PRESIDENT ISAAC HERZOG attends a ‘Book of Esther’ reading wearing a protective mask, at the Ahavat Tzion synagogue in Beit Shemesh in 2022. ‘God is hiding His face, and we are experiencing a world in which it seems that God is absent,’ says the writer.

Shavuot in 1948: Harvesting the first fruits of Israeli statehood under siege

It was the collision of Israel’s past with its present and future. The offerings may have been meager. The dairy dishes improvised. But the spirit was resolute.

 SHAVUOT, ONE of the three pilgrimage festivals, marked the wheat harvest in biblical Israel. It concludes the seven-week period beginning at Passover

Reaccepting the Torah: Looking back the first Shavuot after the fall of Nazi Germany

For many Holocaust survivors, May 18, 1945 was the first Shavuot they were able to celebrate after years of war.

 AMERICAN CHAPLAIN Rabbi Herschel Schacter conducts religious services at the liberated Buchenwald concentration camp in 1945

Shavuot's mystical incident: Uncovering the secrets of King David’s Tomb

“We have conclusive evidence that Kings David, King Solomon, and King Hezkiyahu are all buried on Har Zion,” one rabbi told The Jerusalem Post.

 PEOPLE PRAYING at King David's Tomb

'The Jews, 5,000 Years and Counting:' Jewish history can be funny - review

The Jews: 5,000 Years and Counting achieves an incredible feat: It covers our entire “epic journey through time, space, and guilt” in 224 pages.

BEN-GURION AIRPORT security, Terminal 1, during the COVID-19 pandemic

This week in Jewish history: Shavuot, and the Six Day War

A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History.

DAVID RUBINGER’S iconic photo of the IDF paratroopers at the Kotel during the Six Day War in 1967.

14th century Shem Tov Bible comes home to Jerusalem

The Shem Tov Bible, a stunning 14th-century manuscript created by the renowned kabbalist Rabbi Shem Tov ben Abraham Ibn Gaon, will be displayed in the National Library of Israel.

 Presentation of the Shem Tov Bible at the National Library of Israel.

The matriarchal language: Ladino singer Nani Vazana on her rise to fame

Nani Vazana explained that Ladino, not just in her personal story, is the matriarchal language.

 NANI VAZANA: Restoring traditions

A Jewish outlook on life can help Israel win war against Hamas - opinion

Judaism is an answer to man’s ultimate questions. But nothing is more irrelevant than an answer to a question nobody asks.

 An Israeli soldier with a prayer shawl seen during a morning prayer near his tank near the border with Lebanon, northern Israel, October 25, 2023

Jewish people must remember their history and regain religious pride - opinion

History may confront us with sorrow or struggle, but we still choose whether to respond with pride and confidence or with frustration and self-doubt.

 RECONNAISSANCE FORCES from the IDF’s Shaked Unit in Sinai during the Six Day War.