The Jewish women who pioneered modern Arab music: Why were Jewish female singers so prominent among the pioneers of modern Arab music? And how did it come about that in Morocco and other places, they are engraved in the collective memory and remembered with esteem − yet most Israelis never heard of them?
Once a year, Israel’s Jewish war veterans don suit jackets and uniforms dripping in Red Army medals, the shiny bronzes and silvers pinned to their chests in tight rows like armor.
How the humble Jewish herring became haute American cuisine: Jews from Eastern Europe brought the recipe to America, where it became a cheap protein; but the status of herring in the culinary world changed when the little fish made aliyah to Israel. Read more.
The world media has gone wild for this photo of an ultra-Orthodox man, fully visible yet completely encased in a clear plastic bag, sitting on an airplane. Despite its questionable origins, the photo has racked up over a million views on Imgur. Haaretz’s Allison Kaplan Sommer asks: Why is the virtual world so fascinated by images of the extremes of Israeli reality?
The Portuguese parliament passed legislation facilitating the naturalization of descendants of 16th-century Jews who fled because of religious persecution.
The motion allows descendants of Jews who were expelled in the 16th century to become citizens if they “belong to a Sephardic community of Portuguese origin with ties to Portugal.”
Obama’s candidate for U.S. defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, who was described by critics as anti-Israel, wrote in a 2008 book that Israel’s Jewish identity is a non-negotiable issue in any Mideast deal.
Hagel wrote in the book that at the core of the U.S. approach to Middle East “there will always be a special and historic bond with Israel.”
Israel’s National Library recently purchased 1,000-year-old Jewish documents from Afghanistan. The documents were reportedly discovered by villagers in a cave in eastern Afghanistan, near the Iranian and Uzbeki border. The collection of 29 pages includes writings by Saadia Gaon.
