The spiritual vacuum created by false messiahs, poverty and persecution in Eastern Europe was filled by the Chassidic Movement, founded ...

As the French Revolution raged, Jews in Western Europe created Reform Judaism, which provided a greased slide into assimilation and ...

Enlightenment ideals brought great upheaval to world Jewry. Frederick the Great, Amschel Mayer Rothschild and Moses Mendelssohn define the era ...

In the struggle to uproot vestiges of Sabbatai Zevi, Rabbis Jacob Emden and Jonathan Eybeschutz engaged in a bitter controversy ...

According to Kabbalistic tradition 1648 was destined to be a messianic year, and hopes for the coming of the messiah ...

The years 1648 and 1649 (Tach V’tat) were supposed to be messianic. Instead, they turned into a catastrophe on par ...

The 17th century marks the rise of mercantilism. Jews were active in it on many levels. At the same time, ...

In the 1600s, Jewish mysticism became widespread, but was countered by Renaissance skepticism. This laid the ground for the calamitous ...

Yiddish was more than a language to Jews. It presupposed the knowledge of Bible, Midrash and Talmud. It was the ...

The Protestant Reformation changed forever the face of Western civilization, and in so doing changed world Jewry, shifting its center ...