All Articles Fromיהוסף יעבץ

Older synagogues had adjacent mikvahs, but at some point, they disappeared. Why did synagogues stop having nearby mikvahs?

This isn't the only word that appears in slightly different forms in various places. We, who believe that every letter in the Torah is precise, trust that everything has a reason, even if we don't always know it.

Despite references to camels in biblical times, archaeological digs initially found no camel remains from that era. What does this mean?

Beilis was thrown into a Russian prison without a clue of the charges against him. During his "interrogation," he discovered he was accused of murdering a boy named Andrei Yushchinsky, found dead in a cave months earlier.

The assassination, famously dubbed "the shot heard around the world," triggered a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I.

On that fateful Yom Kippur, the brilliant Rabbi Yisrael Salanter stood on the synagogue's platform in Kovno and called upon the worshippers to join him in a life-preserving act.

The Torah mentions seven Canaanite nations, but by the time the Israelites entered the land, one seemed to vanish. Where did the Girgashites go?

Discover the fascinating stories of revered Jewish figures who became fathers at an advanced age, from Abraham to contemporary scholars.

As night fell, the struggling whale lay dying. The crew worked quickly, and within minutes they pulled the body of a young man from the depths. It was James Bartley, who despite being shrunken and unconscious, was miraculously alive and breathing.

In ancient times, when the Temple stood, Adar was filled with joyous celebrations marked in the "Scroll of the Fasts." On these days, people rejoiced, and mourning or fasting was forbidden.

There's a famous story about Plato encountering the Prophet Jeremiah lamenting the ruins of Jerusalem. But did it actually happen?

When a drunken king orders an execution, no court can save the condemned. The king might sober up, stand on his head, but he can't undo his own decree...

Stern-faced officers dragged a tall man ashore, muttering curses in French. His name was Alfred Dreyfus, and he was there not because he committed a crime, but because he was Jewish.

The Subbotniks are a community with ties to the Jewish people. Some are non-Jews drawn to Shabbat, while others have embraced conversion. Pre-Holocaust, they numbered in the tens of thousands, sparking significant discussions among Jewish legal scholars.

Young Eliyahu barely knew his father, who passed away a few years after his birth. His mother also died young, and from the age of four, he was raised by his uncle, the renowned Rabbi Yehuda Curiel. Excelling in his studies, he received rabbinic ordination at 18 and became the chief rabbi of Livorno. He was fondly known as "Rav Eliyahu Benamozegh."

A young scholar raised concerns, arguing it looked like idol worship. The community sought guidance from the distinguished Ben Ish Chai in Baghdad.

Whenever tensions flared between the Romans and the Jews in the Land of Israel, Roman citizens would incite hostility against the Jews of Alexandria. In what became known as the "Diaspora Revolt," the entire Jewish population of Alexandria was wiped out. The Jerusalem Talmud recounts this horrific event, noting that blood flowed into the Mediterranean Sea all the way to Cyprus.

A small figure clad in red ascended the stairs, flanked by two hooded executioners. Despite signs of torture, he paused on each step to shout in a hoarse voice, "Hashem is God," a total of 52 times.

When the second stamp reached his hands, the collector tore it to pieces and, to be sure, burned the fragments. Now the stamp he owned became the only one in the world, and its value skyrocketed to over a million dollars.

The Romaniote Jewish community is one of the oldest yet least known. Tragically, most of its members perished during the Holocaust, leaving this ancient community largely unfamiliar.