I’ve always been fascinated by the Dead Sea Scrolls, where it came from, the enigmatic Essenes sect, and more. When I last saw the Dead Sea Scrolls at a museum exhibit in Toronto a couple of years ago, I noticed…
Jewish History
Rabbi Herschel Schacter Is Dead at 95; Cried to the Jews of Buchenwald: ‘You Are Free’
by Margalit Fox • • 0 Comments
The smoke was still rising as Rabbi Herschel Schacter rode through the gates of Buchenwald. It was April 11, 1945, and Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army had liberated the concentration camp scarcely an hour before. Rabbi Schacter, who was…
The Swastika: Did the Nazis Come Up With it First?
by Rafael (Rafi) Hecht • • 4 Comments
Probably the most hated symbol in modern history has been the Swastika. The main reason for that is because it has been synonymous with the Nazis of Germany and consequently, 6 million Jews being murdered by subhumans of a culture once hailed…
HITLER’S CHILDREN
by Rafael (Rafi) Hecht • • 0 Comments
William E. Grim Posted Sep 13 2002 I’m not Jewish. Nobody in my family died in the Holocaust. For me, anti-Semitism has always been one of those phenomena that doesn’t really register on my radar, like tribal genocide in Rwanda,…
Room 47 – Lower Tunnels, secret tunnels underneath the “basement”
by Rabbi Eli Teitelbaum • • 0 Comments
Exhibit 47a- Secret Tunnel. Below King Solomon’s Stables there are two levels of secret tunnels. No one knows why they were built. Possibly they were an emergency exit from the Bais HaMikdash. Exhibit 47b- Niche. In the right wall of…
Hanna’s War from VHS Video into DVD
by Rafael (Rafi) Hecht • • 3 Comments
One of the Holocaust videos I watched as a child really stayed with me until today. The movie, like many, was far from a best-seller (there will only be one Schindler’s List), but I believe it was immortalized in video…
The Evolution Of American Orthodoxy: An Interview with Yeshiva University Librarian Zalman Alpert
by Elliot Resnick • • 0 Comments
Books. Some people love them; others claim they can do without them. For Zalman Alpert, they are essentially his life. For the past 35 years, Alpert has served as a reference librarian at Yeshiva University (YU). Educated at Columbia University’s…
The Vilna Gaon’s Theorem – Fact or Urban Legend?
by Rafael (Rafi) Hecht • • 0 Comments
In the Yeshiva world some people like to attribute the Vilna Gaon’s mathematical expertise (from his publication of a Trigonometry book Ayil Meshulash) and giving him credit to Cramer’s Theorem (his grandfather’s last name was Kremer, hence the derivative). I…
Availability of Kosher Food Aboard Titanic Sheds Light on Immigration Via England
by Marshall Weiss • • 0 Comments
(The Dayton Jewish Observer) — Of the 2,225 people aboard Titanic on its maiden voyage, 1,512 perished in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic when the ship went down in the early hours of April 15, 1912. Charles Kennell…
Ramchal – Beards and Beardlessness in Italian Jewish History – is Rabbi Reisman Correct That “All Great Tzaddikim” Had a Full Beard?
by Rafael (Rafi) Hecht • • 0 Comments
Bottom line, Italian Rabbis and Kabbalists didn’t have beards as they felt that Mekubalim having beards was only applicable in Eretz Yisrael. The following was reprinted from Onthemainline: On pg. 416 of Rabbi Yisroel Reisman’s Pathways of the Prophets1, in the…