Betty has lived with PTSD for 70 years since surviving the Holocaust. Although she has endured extreme tragedy, Betty still believes there are good people in the world. Today she is a proud great-grandmother and hopes others will understand that inside we are all human. This Sunday, Betty will be […]
Did you know that Irvine ‘Irv’ Robbins, co-founder of Baskin-Robbins, opened his first ice cream store using money he saved from his Bar Mitzvah? Born in Winnipeg to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Robbins grew up working in his father’s ice cream parlor in Tacoma, WA. After serving as an army […]
Dazs interesting. Häagen-Dazs was invented in the Bronx by Jewish Polish-American immigrants Rose and Rueben Mattus. The couple opened their first store in Brooklyn on November 15, 1976. The name “Häagen-Dazs” is a made up word meant to sound Danish as an acknowledgement of Denmark’s exemplary treatment of Jews during […]
This portrait is the most important photograph I’ve taken in my life. My father’s sister, Irene “Irka” Basista, visited my father about a month before he passed away a few years ago. We didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the last day they would ever see […]
‘I have everything in my life because of him.’ Holocaust survivor Joshua Kaufman reunites with Daniel Gillespie, the American soldier who rescued him. 70 years later, the two men reconnected in California, where they have lived only one hour’s drive from each other, but neither knew. Video: HISTORY
Corned Beef and Cabbage is a popular dish among Americans on St. Patrick’s Day, but did you know the Jewish history behind it? Traditionally, in Ireland, cabbage is paired with pork bacon. However, during the 19th century, as Irish immigrants moved to the U.S., they discovered there is a lower […]
This is Adolfo Kaminsky. During WWII, he saved the lives of 14,000 French Jews. Adolfo was born on October 1, 1925 in Argentina to Russian Jewish parents who fled pogroms. In 1930 the Kaminsky family moved to France. After his mother was killed by the Nazis in 1941, Kaminsky joined […]
Harry Rabinowitz poses for a photo outside of his Delicatessen in New York City, 1910. The Rabinowitz family lived above the store at 1403 Madison Avenue and East 97th Street in the Upper East Side. Harry’s son Jerome later changed his last name to Robbins. Jerome Robbin’s is world renowned […]
Albert Einstein was born in the German Empire on March 14, 1879. When he arrived to Hollywood in 1931, it was said that the only person he wanted to meet was Charlie Chaplin. Einstein: “What I most admire about your art, is your universality. You don’t say a word, yet […]
Happy 75th Birthday to Billy Crystal! The legendary comedian posted these photos to Twitter for his milestone birthday; a nod to his iconic role in When Harry Met Sally. #MazalTov
“These are three sisters. The eldest, Leah, my grandmother, held the hands of her two younger sisters, Esther (left) and Rivka (right) while in line to be tattooed, hence the consecutive numbers. All three have passed away since the picture was taken in 1992, but among them they have 11 […]
Happy 103rd Birthday to Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. He was an investigator of Nazi war crimes after WWII and the chief prosecutor for the US Army at the Einsatzgruppen Trial, one of the 12 Nuremberg Trials. All of the 22 men on trial were […]
Here’s a photo of my mother at the Western Wall in July 1967. The photographer was my grandmother, who was born just steps away in the Old City and moved to the US in the early 1920’s when it was unsafe for Jews to live in Jerusalem. The photo was […]
My dad is a Holocaust survivor and last month, he celebrated his 99th birthday and 71st wedding anniversary, on the same day. Abe Lerman was born on February 23, 1924 and married Clara Lerman February 23, 1951. He was born in Radom, Poland and is now residing in Delray Beach, […]
Condolences: Chaim Topol Known to all by one name, ‘Topol’, the Israeli actor, singer and illustrator was also known by another single name, ‘Tevye’, his signature role from Fiddler on the roof. Born September 9, 1935 in Tel Aviv, his father Jacob was a Russian immigrant and plasterer, who later […]
“My inspirational 99 year-old great grandmother Lily Ebert MBE (Member of the order of the British Empire), an Auschwitz Survivor, sitting with her daughter, granddaughter & great granddaughter.” – Dov Forman
“Purim is one of my favorites holidays and making Hamantash with my girls is definitely one of my favorite things about it ” – Gal Gadot
“Five generations of women… What a gift and a blessing to have had an opportunity to pose for such a wonderful photo… With my mother and my grandmother, and with my daughter and granddaughter… We will miss my grandma terribly but we will cherish the many wonderful years and precious […]
Lainie Kazan was born Lainie Levine in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Ben, was of Ashkenazic decent, and her mother, Carole, was from a Turkish Sephardic family. Kazan’s grandparents lived in Israel before moving to Manchester, England and eventually settling in Brooklyn. She attended Brooklyn’s Erasmus Hall High School with […]
Judith Love Cohen was a NASA engineer who helped create the Abort-Guidance System, used to rescue the Apollo 13 astronauts. She went to work one day and started going into labor. Judith took a printout of a work problem she was working on to the hospital. She later called her […]
“When you get up in years, Even half birthdays deserve some cheers!” – Iris Apfel #MazalTov and Happy 101 1/2 Birthday to fashion icon Iris Apfel, born August 29, 1921!
This is R’ Yosef Levkovich, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor arriving in Israel from Poland while carrying a recovered Torah that was stolen/lost during the war. Photo: Rabbi Dr. Yosef Lynn
