An engineer by trade, Solomon (Shlomo) Dreizner joined a secret Zionist organization in Leningrad, his birth city, and was a member of the “Leningrad Nine” when Soviet authorities cracked down on the group. Along with his confreres, Dreizner thought that Jewish culture might flourish in a less repressive Soviet Union. The government thought otherwise. Dreizner was arrested, convicted, and sentenced in a trial whose outcome was a fait accompli. Upon his release, Dreizner promptly returned to activism. He fulfilled his long-deferred dream of emigrating to Israel, arriving just before the Yom Kippur War.
History will record that as the twentieth century drew to a close, American Jews were facing a political crisis unprecedented in its scope and nature. For the first time in their three and a half…
Born to converso parents and baptized as Manoel Dias Soeiro, Menasseh Ben
Israel moved as a boy with his family to Amsterdam, where
they reverted openly to Judaism. In 1626, he established the first…
This bronze medal by Jacques Elion commemorates the opening of a Jewish orphanage in Amsterdam. The Hebrew inscription reads: “Orphanage.” It was customary for Jewish communities to issue medals to…