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Readings in
Jewish History

The page before you is something of a placeholder for now, although it may expand, as things tend to on my site. Still, each of the two books listed here is important. They are in English, and shown in chronological order by subject.

The Rambam — rabbi, philosopher, physician — was born and raised in Spain, went into exile in Morocco, and ended his days in Egypt, greatly honored by the Fatimid government. David Yellin and Israel Abrahams' Maimonides gives us an essential biography of the man, simply and elegantly written.

[ 14 webpages
— 234 pages of print, unillustrated ]

Abyss of Despair, by Nathan Hanover, a native of Ostroh and a rabbi of Iziaslav (both towns now in Ukraine), chronicles sometimes as an eyewitness the appalling pogroms perpetrated in 1648‑1649 in Podilia and Volynia, and parts of modern Poland and Belarus as well, by the partisans of the Cossack hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky.

[ primary source (in part): 22 webpages
— 128 pages of print, 5 engravings, 1 map ]

I will also be adding a few journal articles from time to time. Here are the first:

Cochin in Jewish History

The Number of Jews in Dutch Brazil

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Readings in Jewish History

Readings in
Jewish History