Today is Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish holiday on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shevat. It is also called Rosh HaShanah La’lanot, meaning, “New Year of the Trees”. Did you know that Israel is 60% desert. But it has over 200 million trees? Israel is one of the […]
“They were just teenagers when they met. Through the barbed wire. In the concentration camp. They had nothing when they married. Hardly any family left. Hardly any clothing of their own. Little food. No money. Today my grandparents celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. They often hold hands, although they claim […]
‘My mother always said, “Troy, always be nice, you never know who you will meet that could change your life.” I had the pleasure of sitting next to Rabbi Kalman Samuels on my flight to Miami today and having the most fascinating talk about life: dreams, meaning of life and […]
Mazal Tov Lily Ebert MBE! The 99 year old Holocaust survivor received her MBE this week at Windsor Castle. *MBE: Member of the Order of the British Empire. Lily said to the King: “I was in the hell, Auschwitz. How special it is to be here today, with The King, […]
Known as the “Father of Peeps,” Ira “Bob” Born, passed away this week. He was 98 years old. ‘Peeps’, the popular bright colored marshmallow treat has a Jewish history. Here’s some background on the 100-year-old family-owned candy company. Russian-Jewish immigrant Sam Born came to the U.S. in December 1909. In […]
Colonel Ilan Ramon passed away 20 years ago today on February 1, 2003; he was an Israeli Air Force fighter pilot and Israel’s first astronaut for NASA. Ilan Ramon, Born Ilan Wolferman, was born in Israel on June 20, 1954. Ramon was the space shuttle payload specialist of STS-107, the […]
Source: Yoel Gold
“My father’s Jewish, my mother’s Jewish, I am a Jew.” Daniel Pearl’s final words 21 years ago, February 1, 2002. The world has come to know Daniel Pearl as the Wall Street Journal reporter with American and Israeli citizenship who was kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists and murdered in Pakistan in […]
“As a Jew, I need Israel. More precisely: I can live as a Jew outside Israel but not without Israel.” – Elie Wiesel
Did you know that there is a connection between Macys and Anne Frank? Nathan Straus Jr., son of Nathan Straus, co-owner of Macy’s Department Store and Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, were college roommates and remained lifelong friends. The two met when Straus attended Heidelberg University in 1908. At 20 […]
Historians estimate that around 1.1 million people perished in Auschwitz during the less than 5 years of its existence. This is a photo from January 27, 1945, the day that Auschwitz was liberated. #WeRemember
”This is such a powerful picture and felt I should share. My grandfather with my 3 week old daughter, the youngest great grandchild. They are 100 years apart! My grandfather is a survivor of 10 concentration camps. #trueblessings” – Stacey Ziegler
Harry Miller is a two time Emmy award winner and Upper West Side resident. Back in the day Harry babysat for Sinatra’s kids while Frank was out singing. Harry also helped design the original It’s a Small World Ride for Walt Disney at the 1968 Worlds Fair. Today, Harry is […]
Here is a page from ‘The Book of Names of Holocaust Victims’. The Book features the alphabetically arranged names of 4,800,000 Holocaust victims currently documented. At the end of the Book there are blank pages symbolizing the more than 1 million identities yet to be recovered. Standing at 6.56 feet […]
Holocaust survivor Steve Ross was born in 1931 near Łódź, Poland. He spent 5 years in 10 different concentration camps, including Budzyń, Auschwitz, and Dachau. He survived medical experiments, starvation, sexual abuse, and brutal beatings on a daily basis. When Ross was liberated from Dachau in April 1945, he was […]
Have you ever wondered what the nail polish brand, OPI stands for? It’s likely not what you think. Suzi Weiss-Fischmann was born in Hungary in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution to Jewish parents Magda and Laszlo Weiss, both Holocaust survivors. The family moved to Israel for a few years and […]
Have you ever heard of Johan van Hulst? He was a Dutch teacher that saved an estimated 600 children during the Holocaust. Van Hulst was the Principal at The Reformed Teachers Training College, which bordered on a Jewish daycare in Amsterdam. Babies and children were passed over a hedge to […]
At 102, Benjamin Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. Born on March 11, 1920 to a Jewish family in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, Ben Ferencz moved with his family to America when he was ten months old. After graduating Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in […]
Have you ever seen ‘School Ties’? Here’s a powerful scene from the movie, watch to the end.
Felix Nussbaum“Self-portrait in hiding place”, 1944.Oil Painting, 125 × 105 cm. Nussbaum was arguably on his way to becoming one of the great painters of the 20th century, when his life was cut short by the Holocaust. To hide from the Nazis, Nusbaum emigrated to Belgium in 1935. The family went […]
Always. Photo: Jewish Pride Always
Every year on January 18th, Holocaust survivor David “Dugo” Leitner invites everyone to eat falafel with him and hold up a sign that says “Am Yisrael Chai.” Why does he do this? It’s his private revenge. Born in Nyíregyháza, Hungary in 1930, Dugo was just 14 when the Nazis invaded […]
Rita Levi-Montalcini was an Italian Nobel laureate, honored for her work in neurobiology and won the 1986 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine with biochemist Stanley Cohen, for their discovery of nerve growth factor (NGF), making her the first Italian woman to receive the honor. Born in Turin, Italy in […]
Oldest living Pearl Harbor survivor and WWII veteran, Joseph Eskenazi, celebrates his 105th birthday this month. Eskenazi was born January 30, 1918 in New York to a Sephardic Jewish family. He enlisted in the U.S. Army several months before Pearl Harbor was attacked and is the oldest living veteran to […]
Located at 555 Seventh Avenue in New York’s Fashion District, ‘The Garment Worker’ by Judith Weller is a life sized bronze statue of a Jewish immigrant working at a sewing machine. Weller based the figure on her own father, a machine operator in New York’s garment industry. The permanent sculpture […]
Happy 77th Wedding Anniversary to my Grandparents and Holocaust Survivors, Joseph & Olga Garay. #MazalTov Source: Joshua Garay
Did you know that during the filming of Schindler’s List, Robin Williams would call Steven Spielberg and do stand up comedy to comfort the director? Spielberg and the late actor had worked together on the 1991 film Hook, where the two became friends. Schindler’s list was released 2 years later […]
Judith Leiber was born on January 11, 1921. Did you know that the iconic handbag designer was a Holocaust survivor? Leiber (née Peto) was born in Budapest, Hungary and became the first master craftswoman in the Hungarian Handbag Guild. During the war, the Peto family managed to obtain a Schutzpass […]
