Rich Tenorio

Woman hands burning white sage. (iStock photo/ ninelutsk)

May 30, 2023, 2:10 am

Check yourself before you hex yourself: An expert’s guide to the evil eye

In his new book ‘The Evil Eye: The History, Mystery, and Magic of the Quiet Curse,’ Antonio Pagliarulo gives a practical overview of one of history’s most durable forces

By Rich Tenorio

The 12th century Crusader fortress Belvoir, at Israel's Kochav HaYarden National Park in the Jordan Valley (Shmuel Bar-Am)

May 27, 2023, 10:05 am

Between bloodbaths, Jerusalem’s Crusader-era Christians, Muslims coexisted in peace

In ‘Jerusalem Falls,’ Prof. John Hosler analyzes what happened in the Holy City between the battles of the Middle Ages – and finds unexpected religious tolerance

By Rich Tenorio

Illustrative: 'Jewish Wedding' by Marco Marcuola of Venice, painted around 1780. (Wikimedia commons/ CC SA 4.0/ Moise Nedjar)

May 26, 2023, 9:44 am

Massive history book charts how the Jewish Diaspora reached all corners of the globe

In the 1,200-page fifth installment of the Posen Library series, Prof. Yosef Kaplan gives a thorough and colorful look at Jews’ cultural and geographical expansion from 1500-1750

By Rich Tenorio

Abigél Szõke and Károly Hajduk in 'Those Who Remained.' (Courtesy: Menemsha Films)

April 28, 2023, 10:16 am

In Hungarian film ‘Those Who Remained,’ how 2 Holocaust survivors adapt to new lives

In the 2019 film making its US debut in NYC on April 28, a man and a young girl learn to lean on each other for support as the Communist regime ushers in an era of fresh challenges

By Rich Tenorio

Rescuer Chiune Sugihara as the consul of Japan in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1940. (Courtesy Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations Archive)

April 19, 2023, 3:36 am

Musical tribute to ‘Japanese Schindler’ Chiune Sugihara has US debut in Carnegie Hall

The story of the Japanese consulate worker who saved thousands of Jewish refugees in Lithuania in 1940 is now being told in concert halls around the globe – and in NYC on April 19

By Rich Tenorio

'The Baron: Maurice de Hirsch and the Jewish Nineteenth Century,' by Prof. Matthias B. Lehmann. (Courtesy)

April 11, 2023, 10:24 pm

How Orient Express’s Baron Maurice de Hirsch changed the track of Jewish migration

In bio ‘The Baron,’ Prof. Matthias B. Lehmann takes a new approach to history-telling by following the man who helped resettle Jews in locales ranging from Istanbul to Argentina

By Rich Tenorio

College of the Holy Cross visual arts professor Amanda Luyster, guest curator of the new exhibit 'Bringing the Holy Land Home,' shows a reconstructed conception of a floor design at Chertsey Abbey, England, bearing images of the Crusades, in Worcester, Massachusetts, on March 8, 2023. (Photo / Laura C. Arena)

April 4, 2023, 4:15 am

In the Holy Land, clashing Crusaders and Muslims led to a fruitful cultural exchange

Through April 6, an exhibit at Massachusetts’s College of the Holy Cross shows how the violent religious wars also had an indelible artistic and aesthetic impact on Europeans

By Rich Tenorio

Oren Levy filming with his video camera in a still from 'I am Not.' (Courtesy/ Itai Raziel)

March 21, 2023, 3:37 pm

What’s in a name? Poignant documentary plumbs identity of complex Israeli young man

Screening in Boston on March 21, Tomer Heymann’s award-winning film ‘I am Not’ follows Oren, an adopted Guatemala-born Israeli, on a journey beyond his multiple diagnoses

By Rich Tenorio

Christina, played by Lena Fraifeld, and Valeria, played by Dasha Tvoronovich, in 'Valeria is Getting Married' by director Michal Vinik. (Courtesy)

March 19, 2023, 3:34 pm

A match made in desperation: New Israeli film unveils plight of mail-order brides

Playing at the Boston Israeli Film Festival, ‘Valeria is Getting Married’ touches on the murky morality of these mutualistic relationships – and their resulting emotional toll

By Rich Tenorio

Photographer Ardon Bar-Hama's digitizing camera setup. (Courtesy)

March 18, 2023, 10:31 am

Photographer who digitized Dead Sea Scrolls completes new Kirk Douglas archive

Ardon Bar-Hama regularly works with rare documents such as the Aleppo Codex, so when the Douglas Foundation tapped him for a 10,000-item collection, he was ready. Now it is, too

By Rich Tenorio

Albert Rosenberg image designed by Josh Sinclair. (Courtesy Melbar Entertainment Group)

February 17, 2023, 5:36 am

In ‘The Talented Mr. Rosenberg,’ a con artist tale so strange it’s hard to believe

Acclaimed filmmaker Barry Avrich covers what might be his most peculiar subject to date: Albert Rosenberg, a charlatan with so many cover stories, even his family doesn’t know him

By Rich Tenorio

Franklin D. Roosevelt, flanked by Winston Churchill, right, and Joseph Stalin, sit on chairs outside the Russian embassy during their conference between November 28 and December 1, 1943, in Tehran, Iran. (AP Photo)

February 4, 2023, 10:59 am

The (probable) Nazi plot to kill Churchill, FDR and Stalin all at once in Tehran

In their new book ‘The Nazi Conspiracy,’ political thriller writing duo Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch dig into a mysterious assassination attempt that some scholars deny to this day

By Rich Tenorio

In this still from the new feature film 'Alegria,' Yael (Laia Manzanares) is at right, with her mother Raquel (Adelfa Calvo) at left. (Courtesy/ Julio Vergne)

January 20, 2023, 10:12 pm

In ‘Alegría,’ Jews, Christians and Muslims come to a boil in a Spanish melting pot

The new film by director Violeta Salama, screening at the New York Jewish Film Festival on Jan. 22, embraces complexities of identity in the tumultuous African port city of Melilla

By Rich Tenorio

'Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison,' by Daniel Genis, pictured at right in weightlifting gear, in an undated photo taken during his prison time. (Courtesy)

December 21, 2022, 3:54 am

A first ‘real’ Hanukkah helped an inmate find light during a decade behind bars

In his memoir ‘Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison,’ Daniel Genis tells how voracious reading and finding his Jewish identity saved his life in more ways than one

By Rich Tenorio

Illustration from the 13th century Morgan Bible, of David bringing the Ark into Jerusalem. (Public domain)

December 17, 2022, 10:05 am

How priests, prophets and kings united Israel in monotheism and codified the Torah

In ‘The Book of Revolutions,’ Rabbi Edward Feld analyzes three of the Bible’s main precepts, written over hundreds of years and later compiled by exiled priests in Babylon

By Rich Tenorio