Rabbi Mordechai Frizis (pictured, top) is the grandson, as well as namesake, of a famous Greek- Jewish war hero (pictured, bottom). Born and raised in

By the mid 18th century, separate communities of Ashkenazim and Sephardim developed in various parts of the Land of Israel. While there had been various

The marriage documents from the Jews on the Greek island of Corfu are distinguished for using double dating, the year since creation (which all ketubot

The portrait of Rabbi Shmuel Yaakov Falk (1710-1782) known as the “Baal Shem of London” is often confused with that of Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer,

Broadly speaking, Ashkenazim are descendants of Jews who migrated (or were expelled by the Romans) from Judea to Mediterranean Europe (what we now call Italy,

Remember that time when a Litvak fraudulently represented himself as a Turkish Sephardi scholar? It happened in Hungary in 1907. Shlomo Friedlander “Algazi” (1860-1924) managed

Part II Reviewing: “By Faith Alone: The Story of Rabbi Yehuda Amital,” by Elyashev Reichner. Maggid Books. 2011. English. Hardcover. 380 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1592641925. Rabbi

Part 3 (continued from last week) In an April 20, 1906, article for the English Jewish Chronicle, Herbert Loewe provides an eyewitness account of an

Part II(continued from last week) In an article on the Seder al-Tahwid liturgy, liturgical scholar Ezra Fleischer postulates that the Kiddush ceremony on the holiday

Part 1 It is early April and the weather is still cold. The sounds of Arabic music and exuberant conversation emanate from an elegant ballroom

Part 2 As mentioned last time, the Seneor family were from the upper class of Castilian society at the time of the expulsion. Slight correction:

The first Sephardic Jew recorded to have settled in Buda, the ancient capital of Hungary, is Shlomo ben Efraim Seneor (sometimes spelled Senior) who escaped