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ISRAEL AT WAR - DAY 644

American history

Beth Joseph Synagogue in Tupper Lake, New York, July 28, 2024. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
Reporter's notebook
NY’s rural 120-year-old ‘Peddlers’ Synagogue’ charts new path — without a congregation
By Luke Tress
Beth Joseph in the Adirondack Mountains is a monument to Jews’ role on the American frontier. Those with ties to its former Jewish community will gather on July 13 to honor its birthday
Beth Joseph Synagogue in Tupper Lake, New York, July 28, 2024. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
July 11, 2025, 3:33 am
NY’s rural 120-year-old ‘Peddlers’ Synagogue’ charts new path — without a congregation
Beth Joseph in the Adirondack Mountains is a monument to Jews’ role on the American frontier. Those with ties to its former Jewish community will gather on July 13 to honor its birthday
By Luke Tress
Robert Einstein's family, Nina, Lorenza, Paola, Cici, Seba and Luce in Perugia, Italy, in an undated photo. (Courtesy of Anna Maria Boldrini)
June 23, 2025, 1:58 am
With Albert Einstein safe in NJ, how vengeful Nazis hunted down his cousin Robert
Acclaimed British author Thomas Harding’s new book ‘The Einstein Vendetta’ focuses on brutal murders in a remote Italian villa during the final hours of the German occupation
By Robert Philpot
Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins stitches the first Blue Eagle label into a dress during a ceremony marking the inauguration of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) code label for women's dresses in New York City, January 22, 1934. (AP Photo)
May 19, 2025, 4:37 am
How trailblazing US labor secretary Frances Perkins quietly lobbied for Holocaust refugees
While the labor activist is famous for being the first female Cabinet member, on the 60th anniversary of her death, a new book explores her overlooked efforts to help Jews fleeing the Nazis
By Rich Tenorio
A reenactment of the American Revolution's Battle of Great Bridge takes place in Chesapeake, Virginia, December 8, 2024. (iStock photos/ Bill Chizek)
April 18, 2025, 5:11 pm
How Jewish patriots in the US Revolutionary War helped shape the First Amendment
In new book ‘A Promised Land,’ history professor Adam Jortner looks at the role of Jews – then just 0.1% of the population – in fighting for independence and forging America
By Rich Tenorio
Then-Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, left, walks with US president John F. Kennedy at the residence of the US ambassador in Vienna, Austria on June 3, 1961. (AP Photo, File)
March 4, 2025, 2:32 pm
Journalist who had Khrushchev’s ear as nuclear war loomed says Putin wouldn’t have caved to US
When 94-year-old veteran foreign correspondent Marvin Kalb speaks, world leaders should pay attention. His new memoir, ‘A Different Russia,’ serves as both warning and plea
By Mordechai I. Twersky
The entrance to Holy Land USA, a defunct religious theme park in Waterbury, Connecticut, that closed in 1984. (Cathryn J. Prince)
January 11, 2025, 5:52 am
A long-abandoned Christian theme park sits just off a US highway. Will it rise again?
Shuttered in 1984, Connecticut’s Holy Land USA is a crumbling hodgepodge of biblical settings that was also the site of a grisly 2010 murder; a local priest works for its resurrection
By Cathryn J. Prince
Two 'Puck' satirical magazine covers featuring Mrs. Mandelbaum. On left (Summer 1884): The public feud between D.A. Olney and police inspector Byrnes. In the middle, depicted in blatantly anti-Semitic caricature, is a bejeweled Mrs. Mandelbaum. On right (1885): Mrs. Mandelbaum, safely on the Canadian side of the ‘fence’ for American defaulters." (Public domain)
July 3, 2024, 1:24 am
How a Jewish German woman in NY became America’s first major crime boss in 1859
Margalit Fox’s new book uncovers the fascinating life and capers of Fredericka Mandelbaum, who fenced stolen property and orchestrated complicated jewel heists and bank robberies
By Renee Ghert-Zand
Jon Bernthal and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor in a scene from 'Origin.' (Array Filmworks/Neon via JTA)
January 26, 2024, 1:29 am
‘Origin’ story: How Ava DuVernay’s new movie connects the Holocaust, slavery and caste
Based on Isabel Wilkerson’s bestseller, the drama, now in theaters, includes a portrayal of the real-life author and uses historical recreations to capture the book’s cerebral tone
By Andrew Lapin
The pro-Nazi German American Bund holds a parade on East 86th Street in New York City on October 30, 1937. (Library of Congress)
January 23, 2024, 12:53 am
New PBS documentary ‘Nazi Town, USA’ looks at 1930s heyday of Hitler’s US admirers
A packed Madison Square Garden giving the Nazi salute and a fascist summer camp show the German American Bund at its peak, with 100,000 members
By Linda Buchwald
Clockwise from right: 'Fascism in America,' edited by Gavriel Rosenfeld and Janet Ward; American Nazi supporters salute at an event in White Plains, New York, in the 1930s (AP photo); Trump supporters try to break through a police barrier at the Capitol building in Washington, DC, January 6, 2021. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)
December 21, 2023, 8:58 pm
Is American democracy safe? These historians say the US may be slipping toward fascism
The editors of ‘Fascism in America: Past and Present’ posit that though most Americans see the idea as ‘unrealistic in the extreme,’ there’s nothing fictional about it
By Cathryn J. Prince
Rick Rubin, left, with Russell Simmons in 1997. (Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images/ via JTA)
August 11, 2023, 9:56 pm
From Rick Rubin to Doja Cat, Jews have helped shape the first 50 years of hip-hop
As the genre that influenced music the world over celebrates its 50th birthday, a look at Jewish contributions on stage and behind the scenes
By Andrew Esensten
Rabbi Alexander D. Goode and a view of the Dorchester, which was requisitioned by the US Army during World War II. The ship was sunk by a German torpedo on February 3, 1943. (Courtesy Mark Auerbach via JTA)
February 8, 2023, 10:39 am
Honoring a US rabbi who went down with his torpedoed warship 80 years ago this month
Mark Auerbach works to preserve the memory of his relative Alexander Goode, an army chaplain who gave away his lifejacket and calmed panicked soldiers after a German U-boat attack
By Lisa Keys
Clint Smith is the author of December’s cover story in the Atlantic, 'Monuments to the Unthinkable,' exploring how Germany — and by extension, the United States — accounts for the crimes of its past. (Courtesy the Atlantic via JTA)
December 3, 2022, 9:13 am
A Black writer explores how Germany remembers its ‘unthinkable’ past
Poet and journalist Clint Smith pens an insightful analysis on seeing Germany’s commemoration of the Holocaust firsthand and how it impacts his conception of US penance for slavery
By Andrew Silow-Carroll
German Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis, June 29, 1939. (Public domain)
September 19, 2022, 2:38 pm
The uncomfortable truths in new documentary by Ken Burns, ‘The US and the Holocaust’
The three-part miniseries airing this week recognizes a part of WWII history many Americans are unfamiliar with – or would prefer not to know about
By Jordan Hoffman
FILE - In this Nov. 9, 2016, file photo, Hillary Clinton pauses while delivering a speech conceding her defeat to Republican Donald Trump after the hard-fought presidential election. The AP reported on Nov. 10, 2017, that an article claiming Clinton didn't give a concession speech was false. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)
September 4, 2022, 3:14 am
The undelivered speeches that reveal a series of unrealized alternate US histories
In his new book, presidential speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum opens the archives, uncovering the scenarios American leaders had prepared for — and the ones they avoided by keeping mum
By Rich Tenorio
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