This week, Israel and the Jewish world are celebrating the holiday of Purim. In honor of the joy the Jews felt at their last minute deliverance, Purim today is perhaps the happiest day on the Jewish calendar. Everyone dresses up in costume to read from...
Last week the Jewish world celebrated Tu B’Shvat, the annual “New Year for the Trees,” and Shavei Israel’s communities joined in the fun by holding parties, planting trees and eating plenty of fruits and nuts. From Portugal to Poland, Bogota to Beit Shemesh, “Lost” and...
What makes a successful Jewish event? When all the participants say they want to do another one…as soon as possible. That was the clear takeaway from Shavei Israel’s first ever “Teen Shabbaton” held in Warsaw, Poland, at the end of last year. As a result,...
For 8 days concluding last week, Shavei Israel communities celebrated Hanukah around the Jewish world by kindling the hanukkia together; frying (and then eating) some simply scrumptious sufganiyot and latkes; sitting together to study Hanukah-related Jewish sources with Shavei Israel’s eminent emissaries; and even competing...
Shavei Israel’s activities in Poland have been mentioned several times in the news in the past few weeks. The Times of Israel has an article about how young Polish Jews are embracing their “hip” Jewish ancestry. The Polish television station ITV has a report...
Rabbi Avi Baumol, Shavei Israel's emissary to Krakow, Poland, accompanied our annual summer seminar to Israel for young Polish Jews. He describes his experience with the group in this article, which also demonstrates Rabbi Baumol's "other" career - he is now a licensed Israeli tourguide!...
Before World War 2, the population of the small Polish town of Wolbrom was more than a third Jewish. But, by the end of the Holocaust, the Nazis had murdered nearly the entire Jewish community. Of the 7-member Narcissus family, only the oldest, 16-year-old Naftali,...
Martha didn’t have a Hebrew name but desperately wanted one. Damian has no documentation of a Jewish past but suspects he has Jewish roots. Iga is in the process of converting to Judaism and works at a Jewish organization called "Cholent." Dymitr's grandmother revealed the...
In 1909, Robert Desmond’s grandparents left their home and family in the small shtetl village of Chernigov, just north of Kiev in Ukraine, and moved to the United Kingdom. It would prove to save their lives. 100 years later, Desmond embarked on a modern day...
Shavei Israel Chairman Michael Freund has received the 2014 Moskowitz Prize for Zionism. Established in 2008 and dubbed the "Lion of Zion" award, the prize recognizes "people who put Zionism into action." Freund will receive the prize in a ceremony on Thursday, May 29, 2014,...
