(Author: Dorothy Kowen, Vol. 64, No. 2, Rosh Hashanah 2009) My mother, the daughter of a rabbi in Germany, had escaped from Nazi Germany to Rhodesia and had married a Lithuanian Jew. My mother and father did not communicate much, so the telephone became my
(Author: Bernard Katz, Vol. 64, #3, Chanukah 2009) The history of Spanish Jewry has been characterised by periods of extreme oppression and hardship, but also by periods of significant growth, creativity and genius. The 19th Century Spanish historian Jose-Amador de los Rios wrote that
(Author: Tony Leon, Vol. 64, #3, Chanukah, 2009) The Jews of Harbin existed for only 82 of the 6000-plus years of Chinese history recorded since the advent of the Xian Dynasty founded in 2100 BCE. Yet, in many ways, like the Jewish community of
(Author: Irina Shub, Vol. 64, #3, Chanukah 2009) One day, a print-out from a local newspaper appeared on my desk. One of the articles was entitled ‘Lieut. Albert Isaacs’ and reported on the funeral of that individual, describing him as a “victim of the
(Volume 64, #3, Chanukah 2009) Editor’s Note: The Jewish Chronicle, organ of UK Jewry, enthusiastically backed the British war effort in South Africa. Its wartime issues regularly carried war news, specifically relating to the Jews on active service. The example of the latter was played
(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 64, #1, Pesach 2009) Feature image: View of Kommetjie, early 20th Century The year 2006 marked the centenary of the declaration by the French Court of Appeal that the evidence against Alfred Dreyfus was completely unsubstantiated; moreover, that no conclusive
(Author: Bernard Katz, Vol. 66, No. 1, Pesach 2011) Already in the Talmud, there is a reference to the military strength of ‘Germania’ (or ‘Germamia’) and its threat to the Roman Empire.1 Accompanying the Roman legions manning the German border were the first Jews
(Author: Bernard Katz, Vol. 68, No. 3, Chanukah 2013) Jews probably lived in Britain from as early as mid-Roman times. After the destruction of the Second Temple in CE 70, the Roman world was flooded with Jewish slaves and it is likely that a
(Author Anny Wynchank, Vol. 68, No. 3, Chanukah 2013) The Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU)1 is a Paris-based international Jewish organization. Over 150 years old, it was founded in Paris in 1860 by Adolphe Crémieux and six other prominent French Jews. It is probably the
(Author: Gwynne Schrire, Vol. 68, No. 1, Pesach 2013) It is not every day that Cape Town’s Cape Jewish Chronicle receives an e-mail from overseas asking for something that had appeared in one of its distant back issues. The item requested in this particular