Category Archives: CULTURE

The Black Jews of Africa: Oral Traditions, Religious Practices, Genetics

The mass aliya of Ethiopian Jews to Israel is the stuff of legend — but it was fraught with vexing issues. Perhaps most notable: the question of whether the new immigrants truly were Jews. Since then, that question has largely been answered in the affirmative. (The Ethiopian Jews had to undergo pro forma “conversions” to…

Cuba’s Jews: The Jewish Presence on the Island, Past and Present

Although Jews have lived on the island nation of Cuba for hundreds of years, their numbers today are greatly diminished largely due to emigration. In 2007, it was estimated there were approximately 1,500 Cuban Jews, the vast majority in Havana. Since then, hundreds of those have reportedly left for Israel. To learn more about this…

New Mexico’s Converso Jews: Forced to Convert by the Spanish Inquisition

The terms Conversos, Crypto-Jews, and Marranos are names applied to Jews in the Iberian Peninsula who were caught up in the nightmare of the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th — 17th centuries. Many converted to Catholicism under the most severe duress. Because of ongoing persecution, some of those migrated first to Mexico and later to…

Gentile Yiddish Teacher? Non-Jews Studying Yiddish? Who Knew?!

Yiddish was long thought to be a moribund language, expect among very old Jews and in ultra-Orthodox and Hassidic communities. Happily, the lingua franca spoken by 11 million Jews before World War II has been making a comeback — including in some unexpected quarters (see the links below).   Quote: “When I teach Yiddish, the…

National Yiddish Book Center: Preserving a Rich Jewish Linguistic Heritage

Before the Second World War, Yiddish was spoken by some 11 million Ashkenazi Jews, a majority of the world’s Jewish population. The Holocaust decimated Yiddish language, literature, and culture in Europe. After the war, assimilation in the West also took a toll, as did the establishment of Hebrew as the official language of the State…

Shtisel: A Rare Look Inside the Insular World of Haredi Jews

The Israeli dramatic television series Shtisel focuses on the Shtisels, a family of ultra-Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem. The show — whose dialog is in a mixture of Hebrew and Yiddish — is distributed in the U.S. by Netflix (with English subtitles). During its two-season run so far, the series has won legions of ardent fans,…

A Jew and a Muslim Work Together to Save Egypt’s Jewish Heritage

Last month we featured an item about the restoration of a historic synagogue in Egypt, a project financed by that country’s government. This month, along the same lines, we bring the extraordinary story of two Egyptian women -– Magda Haroun, a Jew (pictured left) and Marwa Abu Dagga, a Muslin of Palestinian background -– who…

YUM! Can You Guess What the Top 8 Jewish Foods Are?

Many elements comprise an ethnic and religious group’s culture — song, dance, literature…

Marra Gad: A Mixed-Race Jewish Woman Tells Her Complex Life Story

The biological mother of Hollywood producer and executive producer Marra B. Gad was a white, unwed Jewish woman; her biological father was a non-Jewish African-American man who never learned of the pregnancy. As an infant, Gad was adopted by a Midwestern Jewish couple. The fact that her biological mother was a Jew is significant: No…

JIMENA: Teaching About the Mizrachi and Sephardi Members of the Tribe

Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews are a small minority within the Jewish People (except in Israel, where they are a slight majority). Unfortunately, a great many Ashkenazi Jews (and even many Mizrachi and Sephardi Jews themselves) know little about this significant Jewish subgroup, which has a unique, rich history and culture of its own.   JIMENA…