Crash Course

Jews in Russia in the 1800s faced a series of anti-Semitic decrees by the Czars that sought to destroy them....

Napoleon profoundly influenced not only the world generally, but the Jewish world as well, even attempting to revive the Great...

The Vilna Gaon was a once-in-a-thousand years genius who spent his days in secluded study, yet had the most profound...

Chassidus spread through Eastern Europe but only through a surprising counter revolution within the movement that eventually made it the...

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...