5000 Years of Jewish History with Rabbi
Berel Wein
Rabbi Wein and the Destiny Foundation present 33 short talks on
Jewish history. The Destiny Foundation produces educational and
entertaining media to tell the story of the Jewish people to the
Jewish people.
Ahmedinejad Invited to Auschwitz
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has become the world's
leading denier of the Holocaust. In Jerusalem, Noah Flug, President
of the Auschwitz International Committee, of former prisoners of
Auschwitz has sent an invitation to the Iranian leader to visit the
death camp to see it for himself.
American Jewish Committee Archives
The AJC has launched ajcarchives.org, a massive online archive
that contains materials from AJC's last hundred years. The website
features speeches, radio programs, commercials, articles and much
more. See and hear Bella
Abzug, George Burns, Gerson Cohen, Abba Eban, Hank Greenberg,
Mordecai Kaplan, Golda Meir, Arthur Miller, Molly Picon, Neil Simon,
Isaac Bashevis Singer, Rosalyn Yalow and much more.
Amos Oz Israel - Peace and War
Amos Oz, acclaimed Israeli novelist, peace activist, and professor
at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, speaks about life in
Israel. Princeton University, November 10, 2003.
BBC reporter Patrick Gordon Walker was among the press corps
during the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in
Northern Germany on April 15, 1945. Over the next few weeks, he
documented what he saw, recording the first Sabbath ceremony openly
conducted on German soil since the beginning of the war,
interviewing survivors, and speaking to British Tommies about what
they had witnessed at liberation.
These podcasts were created from recordings of Louis
Brandsdorfer’s mother, who recollected her experiences of the Shoah.
She describes how many members of her family, from a small Polish
town near the German border, died, while she and her sister
survived. The quality of the recordings varies.
This website offers outstanding and timely lectures and music from
the Center for Jewish History in New York City. Topics include
considerations of Freud, anti-Semitism, Klezmer, Baruch Spinoza, and
Jews and genes, among others. The center is a joint venture of the
American Jewish Historical Society, the Leo Baeck institute, YIVO
Institute, Yeshiva University Museum, and the American Sephardi
Federation.
Center
for Online Judaic Studies
The Center for Online Judaic Studies (COJS), is an organization
which is revolutionizing the study of Jewish history with
cutting-edge internet and digital imaging technologies, including
webcasting. Their
interactive encyclopedia, vast database of primary sources,
multimedia presentations, and innovative educational materials serve
as resources for students, teachers, adult learners, and scholars.
Centrality Of Jewish Values In Shaping
The Jewish Future
Professor Calvin Goldscheider of Brown University presents this
talk on Jewish values based on his interviews with European Jews who
survived WWII. Produced by University of Washington, May 2000.
Since 2000, Centropa has interviewed 1,350 elderly Jews still
living in the 15 countries between the Baltic and the Aegean (from
Estonia and Russia to Greece and Turkey), but we never use video nor
do we focus primarily on the Holocaust. Instead, we collect and
digitize family snapshots—tens of thousands of them. We spend
between six to twenty hours with each respondent, asking them to
paint for us a picture of the world they grew up in—as well as the
world they rebuilt for their families after the war (we also
dutifully record everything our respondents wish to share with us
about the Shoah).
Constantine's Sword
The Church and the Jews
James Carroll's book, Constantine's Sword The Church and the Jews,
is both a powerful and disturbing analysis of the history of
Christian, especially Roman Catholic, dealings with the Jews. He
argues that Christians took anti-Semitic forks in the road when they
might well have written a less tragic history by following another
road.
Countering Holocaust Denial in Arab and
Muslim Societies
On October 20, 2006, Robert Satloff, Akbar Ahmed, and Gregg
Rickman addressed The Washington Institute’s Special Policy Forum.
Dr. Satloff is the Institute’s executive director and author of
Among the Righteous Lost Stories from the Holocaust’s Long Reach
into Arab Lands. Dr. Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun chair of Islamic
Studies at American University and former Pakistani high
commissioner to Great Britain. Dr. Rickman is special envoy for
monitoring and combating anti-Semitism with the State Department.
Crash Course in Jewish History
Jewish history "in 24 hours"; 32 classes of 45 minutes each, with
Ken Spiro, overviewing 4,000 years of Jewish history!
Deborah Hertz How Jews Became Germans
UCSD Professor of Modern Jewish Studies Deborah Hertz discusses
her new book, which traces the social history of German Jewish
families from 1645 through the 1930s.
Dennis Ross - at the World Affairs Council of Northern California
Ambassador Dennis Ross' address on "The Missing Peace The Inside
Story of the Fight for the Middle East Peace", delivered September
30, 2004. For more than 12 years, Ambassador Ross helped shape U.S.
involvement in the Middle East peace process.
Here, he discusses the lessons he learned and the advice he
has offered for bringing peace to the region.
A collection of over 4,200 videotaped interviews with witnesses
and survivors of the Holocaust, the Fortunoff Video Archive for
Holocaust Testimonies is part of the manuscripts and archives
collections at Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
From Golden Age to Expulsion History,
Society, and Culture of MedievalSephardic Jewry
"120 Minutes With JTS" provides an in-depth exploration of a wide
range of Jewish topics and interests. Each issue is covered in six
distinct twenty minute learning modules by a noted JTS scholar and
is designed to educate and inspire. This installment covers "From
Golden Age to Expulsion History, Society, and Culture of Medieval
Sephardic Jewry".
Haven to Home An American Journey
(Library of Congress)
This live performance tells the stories of Emma Lazarus, an
immigrant's daughter who became known as Lady Liberty's poet, and
Irving Berlin, an immigrant who became one of America's best loved
composers.
Holocaust and the Importance of Museums
Anthony Platt's Bloodlines is the story of how an original copy of
the 1935 Nuremberg Laws, signed by Hitler and turned over to General
George S. Patton, ended up in the Huntington Library vault and
remained there – unknown to the world - for 55 years.
Platt discusses wartime looting, Patton’s bigotry, the
Holocaust, eugenics, Jewish identity, and the responsibility of
museums and cultural centers.
Introduction to the Old Testament
(Hebrew Bible) with Professor Christine Hayes
This Yale College course examines the Old Testament (Hebrew Bible)
as an expression of the religious life and thought of ancient
Israel, and a foundational document of Western civilization. A wide
range of methodologies, including source criticism and the
historical-critical school, tradition criticism, redaction
criticism, and literary and canonical approaches are applied to the
study and interpretation of the Bible. Special emphasis is placed on
the Bible against the backdrop of its historical and cultural
setting in the Ancient Near East.
Iran Hosts Holocaust Deniers Conference
- from NPR
NPR report, December 11, 2006, on the two-day conference that
brings together Holocaust deniers and foes of Israel from around the
world
Iranian Jewry From Past to Present
Webcast of lectures from the 2008 conference organized by the
University of Maryland and the Library of Congress.
The Jews of Iran comprise not only one of the oldest
populations of Jews in the world, but also one of the most ancient
threads in the diverse fabric of the ancient Iranian community.
Beginning with the Achaemenid period (550-330 B.C.) and lasting
beyond the emigration of a portion of Iran's Jewish population to
the United States and Israel in the late 1970s, Jews have had a
complex interaction with the Persian state and culture.
The morning session focused on Jews in Medieval Persian
Cultures and Resources for the Study of Iranian Jewry.
Click here for the Morning session
http//www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4507 .
The afternoon session focused on Jewish Material Culture and
Folk Art and Jewish Culture in Twentieth Century Iran. Click here
for the Afternoon session
http//www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4508
Iraqi Jewish Archives Lack Funds for
Restoration
“All Things Considered,” NPR, May 9, 2005. As related in this
audio piece, in 2003, U.S. forces discovered a cache of documents
and sacred texts that had belonged to Iraq's once-thriving Jewish
community in a flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police.
The records were transported to the U.S., where efforts to restore
them are stalled by a shortage of funds.
Israel-Palestine Conflict, Davos 2007
Venue World Economic Forum - Davos, Switzerland.
The World Economic Forum “Enough Is Enough - Israel and the
Palestinian Territories”.
Middle East leaders talk about a proposed Arab peace plan and
efforts to achieve sustainable peace based on a two-state solution.
Topics include the major obstacles to negotiating a peace
settlement, building trust and momentum towards a resolution, and
methods Israeli and Palestinian politicians could use to end a
self-perpetuating cycle of violence.
Jadio is a Jewish streaming audio site providing on-demand
delivery of Jewish lectures and discussions authored by some of the
world's most compelling and inspiring Jewish scholars, including
Kenneth Adelman, Yehuda Bauer, Dr. Sara Bloomfield, Shmuley Boteach,
Abba Eban, and Esther Jungreis
Jewish Book in America - Library of
Congress
Jonathan Sarna, who here discusses the Jewish book in America, is
the Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History
at Brandeis University and chairs the Academic and Editorial Board
of the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives. He
also is the author most recently of American Judaism A History.
Jewish Education for Adults from the
comfort of your home
Got Torah? Comes to you from Oorah, a Jewish outreach organization
based in Lakewood, New Jersey. For more than two decades, Oorah has
been helping Jewish families connect to their heritage. Most of its
volunteers are young rabbinical students who are eager to share and
teach what they’ve learned.
The Jewish Giant began with photographer Jenny Carchman’s search
to uncover a story that remained secret for 25 years the story of
the very large man whom Diane Arbus photographed towering over an
older couple. The caption read, "Jewish giant at home with his
parents in the Bronx , NY, 1970,” and this man was Jenny’s cousin.
The Jewish Giant is a story of suffering, of not fitting in, of the
body betraying itself, and of the bizarre life-twists that can
subsume a family.
Jewish Heritage on Beacon Hill
Ellen Smith, lecturer in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies at
Brandeis University, discusses the history of Jewish immigration in
Boston. Boston's first Jewish congregation established a synagogue
in the South End in 1852. By 1907, Boston's Jewish population had
grown to 60,000 with many families settling in the West End. The
Vilna congregation began to hold services on Beacon Hill in 1903 and
remained there until 1985.
Jewish History by Rabbi Berel Wein
Rabbi Berel Wein is a noted scholar, historian, speaker, and
educator who is admired the world over for his books and cassette
tapes – particularly on Jewish History.
JLTV is a 24/7 Jewish television channel serving all 50 states.
JLTV features news and sports, movies, music videos,
documentaries, magazine programs, shows for children and young
adults, comedy and more.
Jewish Museum - Online Exhibitions
Online exhibitions at The Jewish Museum of New York give viewers
opportunities for in-depth, interactive encounters with the
collection, as well as with featured special exhibitions.
Jewish National & University Library -
National Sound Archives
Nineteen songs we love to hear from the early days of Israel –
from the recording collection of the national sound archives.
JTN was founded in 1981 as an independent, not-for-profit,
production, distribution, and broadcasting company, the only
producer and distributor of Jewish television in the United States.
Its programming reflects the richness and diversity of Jewish
traditions and experience through children’s shows, network quality
news, and documentaries, as well as arts and entertainment.
JEWISH THOUGHT LEADERS is a production of the Koret Taube Center
for Jewish Peoplehood at the Osher Marin Jewish Community Center.
This podcast features talks that we have presented at our center.
Each presentation is introduced by Joanne Greene, Director of our
Center for Jewish Peoplehood.
Judah L. Magnes Museum of Berkeley
The Magnes is a museum of art and history focused on the Jewish
experience. The Museum
demonstrates a commitment to both tradition and experimentation
through wide-ranging collections, original exhibitions, provocative
programs, and research facilities, including the largest history
center relating to the Jews in the American West.
Here are public lectures on wideranging topics, from "Is
there Intelligent Art in Outer Space? to "Through the Eye of the
Needle Fabric Art of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz".
This is the TV station of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament).
It webcasts live
Knesset and committee meetings as well as other programs.
In Hebrew.
Lebanon, Before and After the
Israel-Hizballah War
On September 16, 2006, Jamil Mroue and Misbah al-Ahdab addressed
The Washington Institute’s annual Weinberg Founders Conference.
Misbah al-Ahdab is a member of the Lebanese parliament, and Jamil
Mroue is editor in chief of the Beirut Daily Star.
Michael Oren discusses "America and the
Shaping of
Venue Commonwealth Club - San Francisco, CA.
From the first cannonballs fired by American warships at
North African pirates to the Marines' conquest of Fallujah, the U.S.
has been dramatically involved in the Middle East. A senior fellow
at Jerusalem's Shalem Center, Oren explores the diverse and
remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this
alluring, yet sometimes hostile, land.
Michael Oren Interviewed by Harry
Kreisler
Welcome to a Conversation with History, a program hosted by Harry
Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.
The guest today is Michael B. Oren who is a historian and a
novelist. His publications include Six Days of War June 1967 and the
Making of the Modern Middle East, and a novel, Reunion. He is a
senior fellow at the Shalom Center in Jerusalem.
Middle East Media Research Institute
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) explores the
Middle East through the region's media. MEMRI bridges the language
gap that exists between the West and the Middle East. It provides
timely translations of Arabic, Farsi, and Hebrew media, as well as
original analysis of political, ideological, intellectual, social,
cultural, and religious trends in the Middle East.
National Sound Archives Digitization
Project
Jewish National and University Library, Hebrew University - Givat
Ram, Jerusalem, Israel.
The library collects books, periodicals, manuscripts, documents,
recordings, maps, and pictures that represent the history of the
Jewish people.
Every year, some of the world’s most interesting writers, artists,
and scholars speak at the National Yiddish Book Center. The Center
offers complete sound recordings of these presentations. Just click
on the title you want to hear and the lecture will begin!
North African Jewry and the Trauma of
World War II
Aron Rodrigue, professor of History, Stanford University, Eva
Chernov Lokey professor in Jewish Studies.
Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies - 2005.
This lecture addresses the neglected story of the Jews of
present-day Algeria, Morocco, and Libya during the Holocaust. The
complex webs of relations created by the diversity of ethnic and
religious communities, the history of colonialism, and thealliances
among fascist powers created a climate in which anti-Semitism
wasmitigated for much of the 19th and 20th centuries in various
North Africancommunities. Whole communities were destroyed by the
same forces that wreaked destruction on European Jews. This story of
the intersecting histories of colonialism, nationalism, and the
modern machinery of the Holocaust has been largely eclipsed by the
history of Ashkenazim during the war, but is one which is entirely
parallel in its traumatic effect.
Nostra Aetate
Seeking Understanding in Our Age - Georgetown University
On October 28, 1965, the Second Vatican Council issued a statement
that called for increased relations with non-Christian religions.
This revolutionary document, named Nostra Ætate for the first two
words in its original Latin text, translated as "In our age," marked
a huge transformation not only in the history of Jewish-Christian
relations, but of relations with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and many
others.
This is a unique series of radio programs that shows the progress
of American Jews from a trickle of poor immigrants to today's
thriving community of six million. The programs offer interviews
with Elie Wiesel, Abraham Foxman, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Michael Steinhardt, Ambassador John L. Loeb, Jr., and others.
Ours to Fight For American Jews in World
War II
To accompany the new temporary exhibition at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage in New York, this is an online exhibit for “Ours To Fight
For American Jews In The Second World War”.
It features testimony, artifacts, and photographs that
illustrate the unique experiences of Jews during World War II.
A revealing 45-minute video documentary from the Military Channel
of the events leading to and after Israel's confidential military
mission "June 1981 -
Eight fighter jets are spotted in the skies of Baghdad in one of the
most potent military surprises of all time.
...This is a story of one of the most daring and most
dangerous operations ever attempted; this is the story of Israel's
'Raid on the Reactor'."
This site of The Rhodes Jewish Museum provides information
regarding the historical exhibition located in the rooms formerly
used as the women's prayer rooms at the "Kahal Shalom" synagogue.
The website also offers other interesting subjects that are unique
to the history of the Jews of Rhodes.
Road To Peace A Conversation With Leah
Rabin
Leah Rabin reflects on her life, the life of her late husband,
Israel’s former Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin, and Israel. She
delivered her talk, which is captivating, important, and
informative, at the Hillel Jewish Student Center, UCLA Jewish
Student Union, February 22, 1999.
Royal Court Preacher and the Hebrew Book
(Library of Congress)
In his talk at the Library of Congress, "The Royal Court Preacher
and the Hebrew Book Early Enlightenment and Hebrew Publishing in
Prussia, 1700-1750," Menachem Schmelzer examines the role of an
influential figure in the Prussian court, Christian theologian and
scholar D.E. Jablonski, who founded the Hebrew press in Berlin in
1690.
Sephardi Jewries and the Holocaust with
Aron Rodrigue
The Holocaust devastated European Jewry and dealt a death blow to
the Ashkenazi heartland of Eastern Europe and Russia. What is less
commonly known is the fact that it was also disastrous for Sephardi
Jewries. The Sephardi communities of Southeastern Europe, the Ladino
speaking centers of the Judeo-Spanish world, with Salonica as a
principal center, were destroyed or disintegrated, leading to their
disappearance from an area where the exiles from the Iberian
peninsula after 1492 had reconstructed a transplanted Sepharad.
Elsewhere, North African Jewries saw considerable hardship and
discrimination under the rule of Vichy France and fascist Italy, and
faced real dangers with the German armed forces in Tunisia and
Libya, leading in many cases to their profound destabilization which
contributed to their eventual mass departures from these lands.
The Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures in Jewish Studies of
2005 at the University of Washington.
Shimon Peres
Israel's War Against Hizballah (8/1/06)
On August 1, 2006, Shimon Peres addressed the Washington
Institute’s Special Policy Forum to discuss Israel’s political and
military strategy in its war against Hizballah. Peres is the deputy
prime minister of Israel and a member of Knesset from the Kadima
Party.
Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles
Hailed by The New York Times as "a lesson on how to connect the
eye to heart and mind," the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles
has established itself as one of the world's most dynamic Jewish
cultural institutions, and among the most prominent cultural venues
in the United States.
The museum has a number of interesting podcasts to choose from,
based upon public lectures at the museum.
Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
The Steven Spielberg Jewish film archive
started to make its films accessible online in 2002; today,
it contains more than 300 full films viewable over the Internet, for
the purposes of study, research, or production.
Films cover topics including Jewish communities, Holocaust,
pre-State, State of Israel, and Hebrew University.
Stuart Eizenstat - Harvard University
Great Negotiator of 2003
On October 1, 2003, Former Deputy Treasury Secretary and author of
Imperfect Justice Stuart Eizenstat received the annual Great
Negotiator Award from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard
University. His remarks about leading negotiations for Holocaust
restitutions on behalf of the Clinton Administration are of
particular interest.
A film about the mass exodus of Jews from the Middle East and
North Africa in the 20th century. The Forgotten Refugees explores
the history, culture, and forced exodus of Middle Eastern and North
African Jewish communities in the second half of the 20th century.
Using extensive testimony of refugees from Egypt, Yemen, Libya,
Iraq, and Morocco the film recounts the stories - of joy and
suffering - that nearly one million individuals have carried with
them for so long. The film weaves personal stories with dramatic
archival footage of rescue missions, historic images of exodus and
resettlement, and analyses by contemporary scholars to tell the
story of how and why the Jewish population in the Middle East and
North Africa declined from one million in 1945 to several thousand
today.
There Are No Fears (Library of Congress)
Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a poet, novelist, film maker, and professor
of literature and cinema, recited his poetry in both English and
Russian in a program titled “There Are No Fears.” He was born in
Siberia, where his ancestors were sent into exile at the end of the
19th century. His 1961 poem "Babi Yar," a denunciation of both Nazi
and Russian anti-Semitism, brought him international recognition.
Yevtushenko was awarded the American Liberties Medallion of the
American Jewish Committee in 1991.
Two Russian Jews - Moshe Leib Lilienblum
And Osip Mandelstam
Professor Michael Stanislawski analyzes two of the most famous and
controversial autobiographies penned by Russian Jews the late
19th-century Hebrew writer and critic M. L. Lilienblum and the great
Russian poet Osip Mandelstam.
On January 24, 2005, the UN General Assembly held an unprecedented
session commemorating the liberation of the Nazi concentration
camps. UN Secretary Kofi Annan, Nobel prize laureate Elie Wiesel,
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, U.S. Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and many other dignitaries spoke. The UN
Special Session was accompanied with a Virtual Exhibition about the
Holocaust.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. offers a
unique collection of materials concerning the Holocaust. It also
contains important collections about crimes against humanity carried
out in other times and places. Online catalogs provide partial
access to some of the museum’s collections. Webcasts are available
in the film and video, music, and oral history collections. The
multimedia archive of events also holds important resources.
UN Debates Israeli Actions - Nov. 17,
2006
The United Nation’s webcast of the UN General Assembly debate
November 17, 2006, entitled “Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied
East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
2 hours and 41 minutes.
Washington Institute for Near East
Policy - Current Webcasts
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy is in the news
virtually 365 days per year. Thanks to its reputation for solid,
objective research, the Institute has become a highly respected and
widely quoted source in the policymaking community and the media.
Institute scholars are regularly called upon to offer objective
analysis and timely commentary for television, radio, and print
media.
Western Wall Heritage Foundation
The Foundation's objective is to convey
the values inherent in the heritage of the Western Wall, to
preserve and develop the Western Wall and its Tunnels, and to
develop educational frameworks that make Jews everywhere feel closer
to Jerusalem.
What Went Wrong... and Why (Library of
Congress)
Bernard Lewis of Princeton University and Mohammed Arkoun of the
Sorbonne University discuss relations between the Middle East and
the Western nations. May 7, 2002.
Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs'and Heroes' Remembrance Authority
Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, is the Jewish people’s memorial to the
murdered Six Million and symbolizes the ongoing confrontation with
the rupture engendered by the Holocaust. Containing the world’s
largest repository of information on the Holocaust, Yad Vashem is a
leader in Shoah education, commemoration, research and
documentation.
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
The YIVO archives holds over 22 million documents, photographs,
recordings, posters, films, videotapes, and other artifacts. They
comprise the world's largest collection of materials related to the
history and culture of East European and American Jewry. YIVO has
the foremost collection of books and documents written in Yiddish.