Was There an Exodus?

Many are sure that one of Judaism’s central events never happened. Evidence, some published here for the first time, suggests otherwise.

Joshua Berman for Mosaic

To this day, no pulpit talk by a contemporary American rabbi has generated greater attention or controversy than a sermon delivered by Rabbi David Wolpe on the morning of Passover 2001. “The truth,” Rabbi Wolpe informed his Los Angeles congregation, “is [that] the way the Bible describes the exodus [from Egypt] is not the way it happened, if it happened at all.”

Beyond dropping a theological bombshell, the sermon ushered in a new era, one in which synagogue-attending Jews could increasingly expect to be confronted with the findings of academic study of the Bible. To Rabbi Wolpe, intellectual honesty mandated that, with respect to the exodus in particular, these findings be not only confronted but embraced, and it was the duty of spiritual leaders like himself to help the faithful assimilate them.

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Why Do We Eat Coconut Macaroons on Passover?

By Aly Miller in The Nosher for MyJewishLearning.com

Few foods represent Passover as much as a box of matzah, gefilte fish, and those dense and chewy coconut macaroons. Most foods at the seder have symbolic ties to the story of Passover, or at least to a traditional Eastern European or Sephardic recipe. But not so for coconut macaroons. How did these tropical coconut-based treats make their home on the Passover grocery store shelf?

With some recipe sleuthing, linguistic investigation, and history lessons, we might just get to the bottom of this Passover mystery.

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Exhibit shows new works by iconic photographer who immortalized pre-WWII Jewry

Roman Vishniac retrospective at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum includes never-before-seen footage of 1939 Poland

By Lisa Klug for The Times of Israel

When Roman Vishniac began documenting impoverished Jewish communities with his camera in 1935, he unwittingly sealed his photographic legacy by capturing a rare glimpse into a world that was soon to disappear.

On the eve of World War II, while on assignment for the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Vishniac created what would become the most widely recognized and reproduced photographic record of European Jewry. In the many decades since they were first distributed, his iconic black-and-white images continue to capture the public’s interest with their portrayal of a vanished world.

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What happened to the Jewish orphans who were brought to Britain in 1945?

The stories of the 732 orphans - of which only 80 were girls - who were taken in by the British government are now being recorded in 'Memory Quilts' at the Jewish Museum

By Jenni Frazer for The Telegraph

Bela Rosenthal was three years old when she came to Britain in August 1945. She spoke no English and even her German was limited to a few words, dog and soup.

Born in Berlin, Bela, was the youngest of six Jewish orphans liberated from the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in April 1945.

Her mother – whose name the toddler didn’t even know until years later – had died in the camp in March 1944, her father had been killed in Auschwitz the year before. In June 1945, the six were taken to houses outside Prague, while the Red Cross searched to see if there were still any surviving relations of the children.

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With 75% non-Jewish students, Utah’s Jewish school seeks to universalize Judaism

By Uriel Heilman for JTA

SALT LAKE CITY (JTA) – It’s Friday afternoon at the McGillis School in Salt Lake City, and students from the third through fifth grades are gathered for the weekly Shabbat celebration.

They read and discuss a passage about humility by former British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Then a blond girl with braided hair prepares to light the candles. A hush falls over the room as the flames are kindled, and the students recite the practiced benediction in unison:

“As we bless this source of light, the warmth these candles bring reminds us of times we gave light and received light,” they sing, followed by a recitation of the traditional Shabbat candle-lighting blessing in Hebrew.

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Uganda Rabbi Wins Opposition Seat in Parliament as Authoritarian Leader Clings to Power

Sam Kestenbaum for The Jewish Daily Forward   

Far from political discussions about Bernie Sanders and the meaning of secular Jewish socialism, Jewish political history has just been made — in Uganda.

An African Jew, and chief rabbi, no less, has just won a parliamentary seat, a first for the country.

On February 19, Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the spiritual leader of the century-old Abayudaya Jewish community, was named the winner in a heated race among eight candidates, including two main rivals from Uganda’s ruling National Resistance Movement party. Sizomu, who ran with the main opposition party, will represent Bungokho North, a rural district outside the town of Mbale, about an hour’s drive from the Kenyan border.

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Who Was Abba Eban?

The “voice of Israel,” as David Ben-Gurion dubbed him, was revered abroad, mocked and sidelined at home. A new biography helps explain why.

Neil Rogachevsky for Mosaic

For much of the second half of the 20th century, Abba Eban was one of the world’s most famous Jews. As the first representative of the fledgling state of Israel to the United Nations in 1948, and then as its ambassador to the UN and Washington, Eban shot to prominence through his eloquent defenses of the Jewish state in some of its most perilous early hours. For two decades after 1960, serving as Israel’s on-again, off-again foreign minister, he remained in the eyes of the world the indispensable “voice of Israel,” as David Ben-Gurion had dubbed him. His books on Jewish and Israeli history and a hefty autobiography were best-sellers, and Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, a 1984 public-television series in which he served as both writer and presenter, drew more than 50 million viewers.

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