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Jewish women in Morocco uttered her name with awe and admiration, pilgrims visit her tombstone in Fez to these days, almost two centuries after her death, and hundreds of poems, lamentations, piyyutim, essays and books in numerous languages were written about her. But Sol Hachuel is still a mystery. Was Sol Hachuel – Solica –[…]

The question of induction has kept scientists busy since the dawn of science. If you see a white swan, and then another white swan, does this mean all swans are white? How can one establish a scientific claim basing on even a large number of observations? What if the millionth observation will result in a[…]

Though Gnosticism was introduced in the Mediterranean basin 2000 years ago, splitting the world into the kingdom of good and the kingdom of evil, one 20th century man, a one-time Jewish genius personified this dualism in the most extreme, almost incomprehensible manner. On the one hand, there was Dr. Fritz, laureate of the Nobel prize[…]

It was a cold winter day in January 1880. Escorted, as always, by his dogs Bummer and Lazarus, Joshua Norton was having his daily walk in the streets of San Francisco, wearing his military suite decorated with medals, a large sword on his belt, and a peacock feathers hat on his head. Upon reaching the[…]

Admired by Frank Sinatra, adored by Judy Garland, and defined by Bing Crosby as his spiritual father, we can safely state that much like Russian literature came to the world from the creases of Gogol’s “The Overcoat”, as Dostoevsky said, the American entertainment tradition came out of the mythological black suite of Al Jolson, who[…]

On Yom Kippur Minha’s Haftarah, in the synagogue (this year also in yards and balconies all over) it is customary to read a short, somewhat odd story, only 48 verses long, of which the protagonist is one prophet called Jonah. In the beginning of Jonah’s story, he is ordered by God to speak to the[…]

If there was a Jewish years hit parade, 1948 would have undoubtedly made it to the top. 2000 years of yearning and hopes, poems and prayers, persecutions, golden ages, then the horrifying epilogue of the holocaust have passed – then on one crucial moment on 5 Iyyar 1948, one short great man got on a[…]

“Though Rembrandt was not Jewish, we must consider him as “a Jew of honor”, for his love and empathy towards the Jews”, the national poet Bialik wrote in 1932, in a preface he contributed to the Jewish painter Leonid Pasternak’s book on the art of Rembrandt. Bialik also noted that “this gifted genius has miraculously[…]

Flames and confusion wrap America in the past three weeks. Flames – the result of a hideous murder followed by bloody riots in which hundreds of years of black discrimination, anger, and hate exploded like bursting steam; and confusion – didn’t a black man ended two terms as one of the most popular American presidents,[…]

In the early 1990s, when commercial t.v. was first introduced in Israel, we finally learnt why we celebrate Shavuot. Cool creative copywriters brain stormed in their fancy agencies and fabricated for us the following story: 4,000 years ago, while crossing the Sinai desert on their way to the promised land, the Children of Israel suffered[…]