As the largest Jewish community in prewar Europe, Warsaw, Poland is a prime destination on many European Jewish history tours. One of the unique elements of a visit to Jewish Warsaw is a walk through its vast cemetery. Full of history, kivrei tzadikim and

Metz, France was host to one of the most prominent Jewish communities in the world at one point in history. An ancient Jewish community, it experienced a flourishing during medieval times before the Jews were expelled in 1365. Jewish settlement was again

Germany Jewry of the 19th century was going through a period of transition. Emancipation was a struggle which was incrementally achieved, and rampant secularization and integration into German society followed. The rise of Orthodoxy was an attempt to pres

The field of Holocaust research has been enriched over the decades in both its scope and depth by generations of historians and researchers worldwide. For more than 60 years one of the premier scholars in this field was Professor Yehuda Bauer, whose groun

With the Jewish calendar full of happy holidays and joyous occasions, and Jewish history filled with tragic events, an inevitable paradox is confronted when wishing to commemorate a tragic occasion during a happy time. Unfortunately this was recently expe

Following the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century, there were several attempts of the Polish people to revolt against Czarist Russia or Austria during the 19th century. An interesting component of this story is the Polish patriotic positio

On January 1, 1837, a devastating earthquake hit the upper Galilee and southern Lebanon, destroying towns, villages, property and roads, disrupting commerce and claiming the lives of thousands of victims. The ancient and mystical city of Tzfas was essenti

Towards the end of 1944, as it became clear to the senior officers of the Nazi SS that the war was lost, they decided to evacuate the many concentration camps which held several hundred thousand inmates, and which stood in the path of the rapidly advancin

Rav Avraham Matisyahu Friedman of Shtefanesht (1849-1933) was a grandson of Rav Yisrael Friedman of Ruzhin, leader of the Shtefanesht Chassidic dynasty for 65 years, and one of the most important rabbinical figures in Romanian Jewry during his lifetime. T

The Jewish enlightenment movement known as the Haskala, endeavored to implement changes within the Jewish communal structure in the modern era. Though the haskala in its many manifestations existed in many countries in the modern era, this episode will