June 22, 2013
7:24 am

Author Adam LeBor (photo credit: Szabolcs Dudas)

New novel gives spy games a feminist sabra spin

Creating a modern Israeli heroine, author Adam LeBor crosses Lisbeth Salander with biblical Yael and lets her loose at the UN

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 23, 2013
12:38 pm

People laying flowers at Umschlagplatz at the Warsaw Ghetto, the monument at the site from which Jews were deported to Treblinka. (photo credit: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

An alternative Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial

During last week’s commemorations, the grave of the uprising’s last surviving commander was blanketed in daffodils. Here’s why

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 18, 2013
8:46 pm

Aerial view of the new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, in Warsaw (photo credit: courtesy)

At long last, Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews

More than 20 years in the making, the museum’s dedication this week coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

February 13, 2013
6:24 pm

Pope Benedict XVI leads a mass in the Kidron Valley, outside Jerusalem's Old City, in May 2009 (photo credit: Lior Mizrahi/Flash90)

Benedict’s papacy: Close Jewish relations with occasional bumps

‘History will view him as the last of the traditional European pontiffs, the last pope who personally experienced World War II and the Holocaust,’ says AJC’s senior interreligious adviser

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

January 23, 2013
4:11 am

Villa Torlonia, in Rome, Italy (photo credit: CC-By-SA, Lalupa, Wikimedia Commons)

Italy still years away from first Holocaust museum

Facility to be built on site of Mussolini mansion, where ancient Jewish catacombs were discovered

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

December 13, 2012
12:58 pm

The restored synagogue in Jicin, Czech Republic, will serve as one of 10 sites in a planned network of new Jewish museums. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Czech Jewish museum will literally be ‘scattered around the country’

Nationwide tribute to Jewish history will be spread across former synagogues in 10 cities

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

October 21, 2012
11:28 pm

Historian Ariel Toaff prepares to taste a goose roasted in the style of medieval Italian Jews in Bevagna, Italy. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Medieval Italian banquet resurrects forgotten Jewish delicacies

Goose — known to some as ‘the Jewish pig’ — among the ancient recipes back on the menu in small Umbria town

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

October 3, 2012
12:47 am

Used for centuries as a church, the former synagogue in Trani, Italy, has returned to its original role as a Jewish house of worship. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

In southern Italy, long-lost Jews return to the fold

A burgeoning community rediscovers the religion its ancestors were forced to abandon centuries ago

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

September 27, 2012
10:03 pm

Francesco Lotoro introduces a concert of cabaret music composed in concentration camps, part of the Lech Lecha festival of Jewish culture in Trani, Italy, earlier this month. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Italian pianist revives music created in concentration camps

A convert to Judaism, Francesco Lotoro has salvaged thousands of scores, diaries and other artifacts left by victims of the Holocaust

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

July 29, 2012
12:50 am

A sign denotes the empty space where the destroyed Great Synagogue in Oswiecim, the town in southern Poland where Auschwitz was built, once stood. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)

In Poland and Slovakia, restoring awareness of a forgotten Jewish past

Using new technology, the ‘lost cities’ of Bratislava and Oshpitzin come to life and foster a better understanding of the present — for locals and tourists alike

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

July 20, 2012
4:07 am

Graffiti on the wall of the Moment cafe in Krakow's Kazimierz Jewish quarter read 'Nazi Raus!' and also cross out the 'anti' in 'anti-Fascist.' (photo credit: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

When is anti-Semitism not anti-Semitism?

In Poland, a loud-mouthed waiter’s remarks and their hate-filled aftermath on the Internet can become an international incident

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

May 17, 2012
5:11 am

An anti-government demonstration in Budapest, December 2011. (photo credit: Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Political, social turmoil worries Hungary’s Jews

The anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma Jobbik movement entered Parliament two years ago as the country’s third largest party, bringing a sharp rise in anti-Semitism

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

May 8, 2012
5:34 am

Rabbi Tamas Vero and his wife, Linda Ban Vero, outside Budapest's Frankel Leo street synagogue, where they head a growing congregation mainly made up of young families like themselves. (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA)

Young families bringing new life to Budapest synagogues

With an estimated 80,000 Jews, Budapest has the largest Jewish population of any central European city, but many young Jews reject formal communities for the cafe scene. Three synagogues are working to change that

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

April 21, 2012
7:03 pm

Arial photographs of the Nis cemetery surrounded by the new construction and the Roma village. (Photo courtesy of Ivan Ceresnjes/JTA)

Putting the squeeze on a Serbian Jewish cemetery

The cemetery, believed to date from the 18th century, is considered one of the most important Jewish historical sites in Serbia and a reference point for local Jews. It now suffers from neglect and is virtually impossible to enter

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

Writer: Ruth Ellen Gruber

New novel gives spy games a feminist sabra spin

Creating a modern Israeli heroine, author Adam LeBor crosses Lisbeth Salander with biblical Yael and lets her loose at the UN

An alternative Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial

During last week’s commemorations, the grave of the uprising’s last surviving commander was blanketed in daffodils. Here’s why

At long last, Warsaw’s Museum of the History of Polish Jews

More than 20 years in the making, the museum’s dedication this week coincides with the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Benedict’s papacy: Close Jewish relations with occasional bumps

‘History will view him as the last of the traditional European pontiffs, the last pope who personally experienced World War II and the Holocaust,’ says AJC’s senior interreligious adviser

Italy still years away from first Holocaust museum

Facility to be built on site of Mussolini mansion, where ancient Jewish catacombs were discovered

Czech Jewish museum will literally be ‘scattered around the country’

Nationwide tribute to Jewish history will be spread across former synagogues in 10 cities

Medieval Italian banquet resurrects forgotten Jewish delicacies

Goose — known to some as ‘the Jewish pig’ — among the ancient recipes back on the menu in small Umbria town

In southern Italy, long-lost Jews return to the fold

A burgeoning community rediscovers the religion its ancestors were forced to abandon centuries ago

Italian pianist revives music created in concentration camps

A convert to Judaism, Francesco Lotoro has salvaged thousands of scores, diaries and other artifacts left by victims of the Holocaust

In Poland and Slovakia, restoring awareness of a forgotten Jewish past

Using new technology, the ‘lost cities’ of Bratislava and Oshpitzin come to life and foster a better understanding of the present — for locals and tourists alike

When is anti-Semitism not anti-Semitism?

In Poland, a loud-mouthed waiter’s remarks and their hate-filled aftermath on the Internet can become an international incident

Political, social turmoil worries Hungary’s Jews

The anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-Roma Jobbik movement entered Parliament two years ago as the country’s third largest party, bringing a sharp rise in anti-Semitism

Young families bringing new life to Budapest synagogues

With an estimated 80,000 Jews, Budapest has the largest Jewish population of any central European city, but many young Jews reject formal communities for the cafe scene. Three synagogues are working to change that

Putting the squeeze on a Serbian Jewish cemetery

The cemetery, believed to date from the 18th century, is considered one of the most important Jewish historical sites in Serbia and a reference point for local Jews. It now suffers from neglect and is virtually impossible to enter

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