Take a class at the Center! We are proud to announce the first in a series of courses presented in a partnership between the Center for Jewish History and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, as part of a shared mission to promote open, rigorous and critical academic study for the general public. Spinoza and Mendelssohn: Politics of the Sacred and Profane Wednesdays, beginning…
Refuseniks (отказники)by Anna Khomina, Research and Special Projects Intern, Center for Jewish History The refuseniks were Soviet Jews who sought and were denied permission to emigrate out of the USSR in the ‘60s and ’70s, and who organized protests (such as the ones pictured above) to call attention to their plight. Jews in the Soviet Union were systematically discriminated against and barred from certain…
A Perspective on the Revolutionary Warin honor of the Fourth of Julyby Anna Khomina, Research and Special Projects Intern, Center for Jewish History Although the Declaration of Independence–the symbol of America’s freedom and autonomy–was signed July 4, 1776, the real battle for independence had just begun. The American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 to 1783, came as a shock to many colonists, most of…
Molly Picon in Bublitchki Year: 1938Type: PhotographRepository: American Jewish Historical Society Moshe Leib-Halpern had this to say about Yiddish theater in America: “There was once a vulgarian who went to synagogue … when he wanted to weep, and to a bawdyhouse … when he wanted to be gay. But once, when he wanted to weep and be gay at the same time, he put…