BY TALIA BLOCH, JTA— In 1995, Demetrio Valdez, his wife, Olive, and some of their neighbors in Conjehos County, Colo., started a kosher food co-op. “We wanted to harvest our own meat, but we couldn’t get a good price for it, so we decided to do it kosher to make more money,” said Valdez, 64,…
BY MICHAEL FREUND, JPOST— By all accounts, Israel continues to enjoy widespread support among a large portion of the American public. Despite the hostility shown toward the Jewish state by the current occupant of the White House, sizable majorities of Americans from across the political spectrum continue to value Israel as a reliable ally. And…
by Michael Freund Earlier this year, a momentous event took place in the history of Iberian Jewry. For the first time since the Spanish Inquisition, a descendant of forcibly converted Jews returned to Spain to conduct outreach work among his fellow B’nai Anusim (Crypto-Jews). Rabbi Nissan Ben-Avraham, who grew up on the island of Palma…
by Victor Sharpe As Jews are vilified in the universities and colleges for support of Israel, it is good to remember the major contributions Jews have made to this country, beginning in their early years on these welcoming shores. When the subject of Jewish American contributions to American society and culture is discussed few ordinary…
By Shelley Neese Each year on the Ninth of Av, Jews fast and mourn in remembrance of the many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people. Reciting the Lamentations of Jeremiah, Jews weep for the loss of the first and second temple, destroyed on the same day of the Hebrew calendar, the Ninth of Av,…
Hisdai Ibn Shaprut (915-970 CE) was the first powerful Jewish politician to serve under the Umayyad caliphs in Spain. Hisdai’s career began as the physician for caliph Abd al-Rachman III. Known for his strong command of Latin and Arabic, Hisdai was commissioned to translate a famous medical text from Latin to Arabic that had been…
by Shelley Neese “The Wandering Jew”— a popular figure in medieval Christian folklore—walks the earth alone until Judgment Day, cursed for offending Jesus on his way to the cross. In some variants of the story, he is a Jewish shoemaker named Cartaphilus, who, when Jesus stopped to rest on the road to Calvary, taunted him…