Monuments mean something. They remind us of people and history. Sometimes they recall movements that are meaningful to some whilst not to others. Other times, they celebrate dictators or regimes. More […]
The American Revolution pitted British subjects against one another. Patriots vs. Loyalists, Englishmen vs. Americans, brother vs. brother, and Jew vs. Jew. At that time there were only Sephardic congregations […]
Narratives are important. The same series of events can take on a completely different meaning depending on how they are told. A prime example of this is the story of Yosef and […]
I recently discovered more significant Jewish history in Hamburg than I had ever expected to find there. It turns out that Hamburg played an instrumental role in both the early […]
Tiny and hidden away is the second cemetery of New York’s first Jewish congregation, Shearith Israel. Located in Greenwich Village on West 11th st., it was in use from 1805-1829. This […]
The Jewish trial of the century has just concluded. The trial pitted the oldest American Jewish community against the oldest American synagogue. At stake was the legacy of America’s Colonial era Jews. […]
Shearith Israel is the oldest Jewish congregation in America, founded in 1654. It was there that I first encountered and then became inspired by and engrossed in the history and […]
I spent one of my last evenings in NY before moving to London at the location where it all began. In 1730 Congregation Shearith Israel constructed the first ever synagogue in […]
In 1751 a bell was cast. The work was carried out by the firm Lester and Pack, today named Whitechapel Bell Foundry, located just a few blocks away from London’s […]
The ‘Old Jewish Burial Ground’ in Savannah is surrounded by a tall wall outside of old Savannah. My visit to it therefore felt very much like a privileged introduction to […]
