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My young co-worker once came late to a department meeting and found that there were no empty seats at the long conference table. She thought she was being discreet as she quietly pulled up a chair at the corner of the table in the back […]

Can you imagine leaving your home and family and most of your worldly possessions to move to a country where you didn’t speak the language and had only a few dollars to your name? I can’t. Yet, that is precisely the choice my parents made […]

For as long as he could remember, being Jewish was a central part of Morry Zolet’s life. As a young boy growing up in Randallstown, he recalls how everything from holiday traditions to his parents’ commitment to the Beth Israel sisterhood and brotherhood would play […]

After the war, as Communism spread, Jews living in Cuba had their livelihoods and possessions stripped by Fidel Castro’s new regime. Many of them had been refugees from Nazi Germany and were forced to flee their homes for a second or third time. In the […]

It was 1945 and the European Jewish community was devastated. Millions had been killed by the Nazi regime and those who had survived its atrocities were desperate for help. In Baltimore, the local office of HIAS, which had been working before and during the war […]

In 1978, on the 30th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Baltimoreans decided to throw a party. Myriad events took place from April 6 until June 22 throughout the community. The Baltimore Jewish Council and the Baltimore Zionist Federation organized a gala concert at the […]

In 1977, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin announced the start of Project Renewal, a joint program of his government and the Jewish Agency for Israel, for rehabilitation of 160 distressed neighborhoods throughout the country. The program “twinned” areas with individual cities in the United States, […]

With the founding of the Israeli state in 1948, the remaining Jews of Europe were finally able to secure a home of their own. But immigrating and settling in a new land brought colossal challenges. Through its “Exodus Campaign,” the nationally organized United Jewish Appeal […]

Just a few weeks ago, I found myself in Israel on the Ashkelon Agricultural Farm, Hava Haklayit, with the breathtaking Ashkelon skyline in the backdrop. While newly jet-lagged, taking in the view of the city behind the farm, and breathing in the sweet Israeli air, […]

Today, Ashkelon sits at the center of the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel. As a national information center, The Home Front Command, together with Professor Ronni Gamzu, national coronavirus “czar,” make regular visits to the city to check out how their instructions are being carried out […]