by Admin | Dec 28, 2016 | The Portion of Vayigash
The first Israeli to win a Nobel Prize offered a sweeping account of the wanderings of the Jewish people throughout exile in his banquet speech. Dressed in tails and a black tie with a giant black kippah on his head in 1966 in Stockholm, writer Shai Agnon began his...
by Admin | Dec 28, 2016 | The Portion of Miketz
In 1949, the Provisional Council selected an official emblem for the fledgling Jewish state to display its sovereignty in the community of nations. Graphic artists Gavriel and Maxim Shamir came up with the famous design of a menorah flanked by two olive branches,...
by Admin | Dec 28, 2016 | The Portion of Vayeishev
During the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir visited a tank battalion on the Golan Heights. An IDF soldier asked the Prime Minister, “My father was killed in the 1948 war, and we won. My brother lost an arm in the Six Day War, and we won. Last week I lost my best...
by Admin | Dec 13, 2016 | The Portion of Vayishlach
As the situation for European Jewry began to deteriorate, the Chofetz Chaim was asked in 1933 about the fate of the Jewish people. As recorded by one of his close disciples, the revered rabbi answered, “Hitler shall fail! No one has ever succeeded in destroying our...
by Admin | Dec 6, 2016 | The Portion of Vayeitzei
In his influential book “The Jewish State”, Theodore Herzl made the case for designing a proper symbol: “We have no flag, and we need one” he wrote. “If we desire to lead many men, we must raise a symbol above their heads. I would suggest a white flag, with seven...
by Admin | Nov 14, 2016 | The Portion of Toldot
In 1897, after the First Zionist Congress, an American Evangelical pastor named William E. Blackstone sent Theodor Herzl a bible marking all the references to the Jewish people’s right to the Land of Israel. Blackstone’s fervent campaign for the Jewish return to...
