Segula - The Jewish Journey Through History, 10 Yad Harutzim, Jerusalem (2025)

21/12/2025

The young women would gather at one of the girls' homes. They’d approach one another, clasp hands, and ask forgiveness for any wrongs that had passed between them; once their reconciliation was completed, they’d embrace – much as on Yom Kippur. Then they’d exchange gifts and set aside a charity tithe for those in need.
Madame Cohen lived at the end of the street and had no children of her own. She’d open her house to all the unmarried girls for an evening of joy and thanksgiving, as was the custom on the night of Eid al-Banat. She liked to remind everyone that this celebration was a charm for a good match. Madame Cohen even allowed me to sneak into the singles’ party. I would sit in a corner, studying each girl – who was prettiest, what she wore. At first they danced indoors, but swept up in excitement they burst into the courtyard, while mothers and grandmothers watched from windows and balconies, accompanying them with ululations.
(Esther Dagan Kaniel, on Eid al-Banat celebrations in her hometown of Souk el-Khemis, Tunisia)

💃🏿💃🏿💃🏿
Today, Rosh Chodesh Tevet, Jewish communities across North Africa celebrate the Festival of the Daughters – Eid al-Banat.

“Festival of the Daughters,” or “the girls’ Rosh Chodesh,” was an intimate, festive women’s holiday observed during Hanukka, devoted to women’s courage, wisdom, strength, and the special bond between them. 👭

In the communities of Tunisia, Djerba, Libya, Algeria and Morocco, women and girls gathered on this day to dance, sing and learn together.

Sometimes the celebration was especially for unmarried women, believed to be a charm for a swift and happy match.

Elsewhere, joint bat mitzvah festivities were held. Often the day functioned as a kind of women’s retreat: a time for reconciliation, shared prayer and communal meals – dairy foods in memory of the milk that Hanukka heroine Judith gave Holofernes, the Assyrian general, and wine recalling his drunken stupor.
The dances echoed the women’s joy at Judith’s safe return home.

Customs varied from place to place. In Tunisia, girls exchanged gift baskets and presents and refrained from work.

In Libya and Djerba, young women visited one another and hosted joyful gatherings. When an engagement was involved, the families of bride and groom swapped gifts, then shared a meal.

As in Tunisia, the Salonikan custom was for girls to ask one another for forgiveness, probably influenced by the penitential customs of the eve of Rosh Hodesh, often called a minor Yom Kippur.

Folklore scholar Dr. Yom-Tov Lewinsky, author of The Book of Festivals, suggested that the holiday’s ancient roots may reach back to the days of Ezra the Scribe. The Book of Ezra recounts that on the first of Tevet, Ezra began a campaign to separate his flock from their foreign, non-Jewish wives. Lewinsky proposed that the daughters of Israel marked this date for generations as a day of gathering and remembrance, when women stand together. This association also linked the festival with Queen Esther, who was taken to Ahasuerus’ royal palace in the month of Tevet – and with the legend of the “women’s banquet” held by her predecessor Vashti at the Persian court.

Photo: Jewish women in Algeria. Courtesy of the National Library of France.
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16/12/2025

🕯️ One hundred and three years ago today, on 26 Kislev 5683 (December 16, 1922), Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, reviver of the Hebrew language, passed away.

🪔🪔🪔 In his honor – and in honor of the third Hanukka light – we revisit a dramatic episode connected to Hanukka from Ben-Yehuda’s life:

📰A few days before Hanukka in 1893 (5654), Ben-Yehuda published a short item relating to the upcoming holiday in his newspaper HaTzvi. The author was Ben Yehuda’a father-in-law, Shlomo Naftali Hertz Yonas.

The article urged readers to see the lighting of Hanukka candles not only as a reminder of divine salvation, but as a tribute to Judah Maccabee – the man who led his people to victory over the Greeks against all odds:

We light the Hanukka candle just to fulfill the obligation, without reflecting on its source and meaning! We forget the most important thing – who was God’s messenger? Who was the warrior?
Where is Judah Maccabee, who defended his brothers with sword and bow, who slew Apollonius and girded himself with his sword?
Where is Judah Maccabee who defeated the two generals of Antiochus, sending their mighty army fleeing the battlefield?
Where is Judah who purified the Temple, renewed its sacred vessels, dedicated the altar, and established the 25th of Kislev as a festival for generations?
Where is the Maccabee who did not lay down his sword until his final breath? ⚔️

Yonas concluded with a powerful call:

We fail to learn from this great and enlightened hero – to strengthen one another, to do all that lies within our power, not to despair in times of calamity, to guard our honor, to stand up for our lives, to gather strength and move forward.

Soon after the article appeared, Ben-Yehuda was put on trial, accused of inciting rebellion against Ottoman rule. 👮🏻‍♂️

Some claimed that members of the Old Yishuv – Jerusalem’s traditional community of ultra-Orthodox Jews whom Ben-Yehuda often criticized – had seized upon the Hanukka article and reported it to the authorities as a call to revolt. Others insisted the accusation was a fabrication, arguing that Ottoman censors themselves had flagged the piece. 📃

At his trial, Ben-Yehuda denied the charges. Nevertheless, the court convicted him and his father-in-law of conspiracy, sentencing them to a year’s imprisonment.

Following the verdict, rabbinical courts of both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi communities of the Old Yishuv declared a boycott against him. In nationalist circles, however, the ruling sparked outrage. Ben-Yehuda and Yonas appealed – and were fully acquitted. Yet the governor of Jerusalem refused to allow HaTzvi to resume publication for another 14 months. 💸

With his newspaper – his sole source of income – silenced, Ben-Yehuda and his family were plunged into severe financial difficulties.

📷 Photo: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Cambridge Collection, Widener Library.
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14/12/2025

Illuminate your Chanukah with a special offer from Segula Magazine!

Chanukah 1+1 Offer: Purchase the latest issue of Segula and get a bonus issue absolutely FREE – all for just 69 NIS/$35 (including postage).

Segula Magazine brings the rare stories of our past to life, introducing you to the people and events that shaped Jewish history. Each issue is meticulously researched, superbly written, and lavishly illustrated with photos, maps, timelines and more.

Order your magazines (and view the contents) here: https://segula.vp4.me/Chanukah-2025

Check out a past issue here: bit.ly/Segula_sample

Wishing all of our readers a Happy Chanukah!

10/12/2025

“When I look through the lists and see how many Jews left each month, I tell myself: this is unbelievable. How did such a small group of people manage to bring nearly 90,000 Jews to Israel?!”
— Meir Knafo, member of the Jewish underground in Morocco

🕯️ Sixty-four years ago today, on 20 Kislev 5722 (28 November, 1961), Operation Yakhin – Moroccan Jewry’s mass exodus to Israel – began.

In the mid-1950s, as Morocco struggled toward independence and drew closer to the Arab world, its Jewish population grew increasingly uneasy. Many Jews left their villages and flocked to the large cities, fearing their Arab neighbors and facing mounting economic hardship. 🏘🏭

Against this threatening backdrop, the State of Israel sent Mossad operatives to Morocco to help establish a local Jewish underground – a self-defense and rescue network for Jewish communities bracing for the worst. 💪🏼

After independence in 1956, Moroccan authorities barred Jews from leaving the country. They argued that emigration to Israel would strengthen Israel’s military capabilities while draining Morocco’s economy.

The underground responded with feverish clandestine activity: forging passports, coordinating people-smuggling routes, and searching relentlessly for safe coastal escape points. ⛵

Its unit known as “HaMakhela,” founded in the mid-1950s, guided thousands of Jews along complicated routes to smugglers’ ships. It was a perilous emigration operation, shadowed by constant fear of discovery and the resultant Moroccan government reaction. 🚢

In January 1961, the sinking of the Egoz – a vessel chartered by the Mossad to bring Jews from Morocco to Israel – marked a turning point. The tragedy exposed the secret operation and Moroccan intelligence launched a manhunt for those behind it. One detainee broke under brutal torture and revealed the name of the underground’s first and most senior leader: Meir Knafo. ⛓⛓

For 21 days Knafo was subjected to severe torture, including electric shocks, until he lost consciousness and was hospitalized. He was then held in an underground cell on death row, awaiting ex*****on, only to be condemned months later to 42 years imprisonment. His release was only obtained after Mossad operatives saved the King of Morocco by warning him of an assassination plot; the king repaid the debt by freeing Knafo. 🫅🏻

As Morocco sought to improve its relations with the West and clean up its international image, a narrow window opened. Jews would be allowed to leave the country in exchange for a ransom – in a covert operation conducted “under the radar,” and not under a Zionist banner. 💰

These were the conditions that launched Operation Yakhin: a large-scale, precise, and highly effective operation carried out in full coordination between the Jewish Agency, the Mossad, the Jewish underground and the Moroccan authorities. Moroccan Jews received exit visas to third-party countries, from which they continued safely to Israel.

Over the course of just three years (1961–1964), more than 80,000 Jews made their way to Israel.

📷 Photo: a family of new immigrants from Morocco arriving at Haifa Port, December 1, 1961. Israel National Photo Collection
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04/12/2025

"She was a genuine child prodigy. By the age of two, when I read stories and rhymes to her, I was stunned to discover that this tiny girl could repeat everything she’d heard once or twice – word for word, without a single mistake." 👧🏻

One hundred and two years ago today, on 14 Kislev (November 22, 1923), a baby was born in Berlin who would one day win the Israel Prize for Theatre – and become the Guinness world record-holder for the longest stage career in history: Hanna Maron. 💃🏿

🍎When little Hanna was four, her mother took her to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Berlin. As the witch handed Snow White the poisoned apple, Hanna stood up in her seat and shouted toward the stage, “Don’t eat it! Don’t eat it! Don’t eat it! There’s poison in the apple!”
Her mother tried to hush her, but Hanna wouldn’t calm down. She burst onto the stage, pleading with the actress not to take a bite – until she finally dissolved into a stream of tears.

The Berlin press covered the incident in detail, and the theater’s director told her mother: Your daughter is an actress.
That was Hanna Maron’s stage debut. 🎭

A few months later – still not yet five – little Hanna starred in Tom Thumb and quickly became one of Berlin’s most popular child actors. Offers poured in for adult theater productions, and by age six she had conquered Berlin’s radio stations, recording dramas and songs for children. 🎙

Her success on stage and radio soon drew the attention of film directors, and one movie followed another. 📽

Her mother devoted herself entirely to her daughter: accompanying her to every rehearsal and performance, memorizing her lines so she could help her learn them better and make her acting a shared, supported experience.

By 1933, Hanna – known to the public as “Anna” – was a famous celebrity, beloved by audiences. Her plays and films broke box-office records, and a dazzling future seemed certain for the ten-year-old star.

But with Hitler’s rise to power, Jewish actors were forced off every major stage – though no one imagined that little Anna was Jewish.

📻 In February 1933, Radio Berlin invited Anna to play the lead in a program marking the Führer’s birthday. Terrified, her mother tried to decline the invitation with a string of excuses, but the station director insisted: Anna would take part.
Finally, she burst out: “But we’re Jewish!”

Two days later, mother and daughter were out of Germany. Thanks to the intervention of the French consul, they reached Paris.

In 1934 they immigrated to the Land of Israel. Anna became Hanna – and although she spoke French, English, German and Hungarian, she refused to speak Hebrew for months, staying silent at school. She told her mother she would only start speaking once she was sure she wouldn’t make a single mistake.

When she was finally confident in Hebrew, she went on to perform in literally hundreds of productions, soon becoming the first lady of Israeli theater. 🦹🏻‍♀

Photo: Hanna Meron demonstrating against the proprietors of the Mugrabi movie theater in Tel Aviv, 1950. By Hans Pinn, Israel National Photo Collection
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02/12/2025

“The Arabs have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”
(Abba Eban)

Twenty-three years ago today, on 12 Kislev (November 17) in 2002, Israel lost the man many regarded as its greatest diplomat: Abba Eban.

He was born Aubrey Solomon in Cape Town to a Jewish family originally from England. When he was five, they returned to London – and shortly afterward his father passed away. His mother remarried, and the boy took the surname of his stepfather: Eban.

🇮🇱 Zionism pervaded the Eban home. His mother was Nahum Sokolow’s secretary and worked in the Zionist Organization’s Piccadilly office.

🎓 Eban took Oriental Studies at Cambridge, quickly standing out as a prodigy. He graduated with a rare triple distinction.

He mastered seven languages – but his English was legendary. His speeches were masterfully crafted: elegant, layered, and dazzlingly precise. People joked that during UN debates he would slip into ancient Welsh, forcing even the British delegation to reach for their headphones. 🎧

His diplomatic journey began in 1939, assisting Chaim Weizmann in negotiations with the British War Office to form a Jewish fighting force.

🪖 During World War II he served as a British officer in Egypt and Mandate Palestine. In 1946, Weizmann called him to join the Jewish Agency, where he soon became its leading expert on Arab-Jewish affairs.

From that point, his public affairs career that lasted more than half a century was to be one of the longest and most remarkable in Israeli politics.

In the dramatic months before Israel’s independence, as the UN deliberated the Partition Plan, the 33-year-old Eban – the youngest among 58 national representatives – served as advisor to Moshe Shertok.

When he first filled in for Shertok at the UN Political Committee, Eban’s calm demeanor was mistaken for insecurity. But then he spoke – offering the most thorough, insightful presentation of the Arab-Jewish conflict the delegates had ever heard. The hall understood: this young British diplomat not only grasped the Middle East – he could shape its future.

📰 Reporters hailed Eban as a “discovery.” Even as he shunned the spotlight, journalists across the world eagerly followed his work.

After the Partition Plan passed and the path to statehood opened, Eban continued pressing in Washington and New York to ensure the decision was upheld. His diplomatic skills, eloquence and persuasive power – as well as his polished English – played a critical role in securing support for a Jewish state.

📸 Photo: Abba Eban in the 1950s. Israel National Photo Collection.
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24/11/2025

“We must parachute into Europe as a mother bursts into a burning house to save her children.”

Eighty–one years ago today, on 4 Kislev, November 20, 1944, parachutist Haviva Reik was murdered.

She was born Marta Reik in Slovakia and grew up in the town of Banská Bystrica.
Reik was eighteen when she first encountered Zionism and fell in love with the movement, joining the socialist group Hashomer Hatzair as a counselor and later heading her local branch.

Her drive quickly proved unmistakable. She launched energetic fundraising campaigns, forged ties with Jewish and Slovak leaders, and used those connections to prepare young people for immigration to the Land of Israel.

Before she turned twenty, Marta Reik was known across the city.
Her tireless work enabled many Jews to reach Palestine, and in 1939 she herself took the plunge, choosing a Hebrew name for her new life as a Jewish pioneer: Haviva.

She joined Kibbutz Ma’anit and again threw heart and soul into her work. She assigned herself to “men’s jobs” – in the orchards and the quarry – and within months was running the entire citrus operation while launching new social initiatives. 🍊

Mid-war, in May 1942, Reik volunteered for the Palmach underground militia and soon distinguished herself as an exceptional fighter. 👩🏻‍🏭

She was sent to a commanders’ course, and upon completing it, her name was submitted by the Haganah as one of a select group of candidates for a Jewish volunteer unit in the British army. Their mission was dangerous beyond belief: to parachute behind enemy lines into occupied Europe, provide reconnaissance for the Allies, aid partisans in their resistance to the N***s and run rescue operations. 🪂

The hundreds who volunteered were reduced to an elite group of thirty-seven, trained by both the British Army and the Haganah. They were known as the “Yishuv parachutists.”

Autumn 1944. A secret mission unfolded in war-torn Europe: Operation Amsterdam.
Four of the Yishuv parachutists were dispatched to rescue Jews hiding in the forests after the collapse of Slovak Jewish communities and to assist the Slovak underground by establishing lifelines of communication, intelligence, food distribution, shelter and improvised displaced-persons camps.

Haviva Reik was part of this small team, returning, now in uniform, to her childhood city of Banská Bystrica.

From the moment she landed, she worked without pause: smuggling food, setting up kitchens and makeshift DP camps, finding hiding places for Jews, coordinating support between donors and resistance fighters, helping to organize escape routes as German forces approached – and saving hundreds of lives.

Her rescue efforts lasted six intense weeks before she and her comrades were captured by the N***s. She was imprisoned for weeks, enduring brutal physical and psychological torture.
Eventually, Haviva was taken with 250 other Jews to the nearby village of Kremnička and shot. She was buried beside them in a mass grave.
📸
Photo: Haviva Reik, from a booklet entitled HaGalgal.
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20/11/2025

“The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
(Robert H. Jackson)
🌍
Eighty years ago today, on November 20, 1945, the Nuremberg Trials began. Senior N**i officials and leading figures of the regime were brought before an international tribunal on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Six months after the guns fell silent, at 10:00 a.m., in Courtroom 600 of the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, chief U.S. prosecutor Robert H. Jackson opened the trial with the words above. It was a seminal moment.
🏛
At the front of the chamber, on a raised dais, sat the judges of the four powers – America, Britain, France, and the Soviet Union – with the flags of the Allied nations rising behind them.

To the left stood a long wooden dock. Inside, under the watch of American military police in white helmets, sat the accused. 🧑🏼‍🏭🧑🏼‍🏭

🎧 In advance of the trial, IBM installed a new system of headphones to provide simultaneous translation for the first time ever in a courtroom. Everyone – judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and defendants – plugged into four channels: English, German, French and Russian.

Twenty-four senior figures of the N**i state and military stood trial, among them Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel. All pleaded not guilty.

📃 The proceedings opened with the reading of the general indictment, a recitation that lasted several days and mapped, in stark precision, the machinery of extermination, conquest and torture devised by the regime.

The trials continued for eleven months.
They established the legal precedent that leaders of a nation were personally accountable for the crimes of their government; that “following orders” could not excuse acts that violated international law. From this principle emerged the modern definitions of crimes against humanity and war crimes, shaping the foundations of contemporary international justice and enabling political leaders to be brought to justice.
⚖️
On October 1, 1946, the verdicts were announced:
Twelve defendants were sentenced to death including Göring (who took his own life the night before), Ribbentrop and Keitel.

The ex*****ons were carried out by an American military hangman.
The bodies were cremated at a city refuse site, and the ashes scattered in a river to prevent any future shrine.

📸 Photo: The defendants in the dock during the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg.
Photograph by Raymond D’Addario, U.S. National Archives, College Park.
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17/11/2025

“The matter before us is far too serious, far too painful, to be resolved by simply letting a few heads roll and declaring the case closed.”
(Golda Meir, 28 October 1973)

555 documents reviewed
90 witnesses heard
188 testimonies collected
156 hours behind closed doors

Fifty-two years ago today, on 26 Marheshvan 5734 (November 21 1973), the Agranat Commission was established – a state inquiry charged with analyzing the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.
📄
By the war’s end, Israel was entrenched deep inside enemy territory: almost at the gates of Damascus in the north, and at the 101st kilometer on the road leading from the Suez Canal toward Cairo in the south.

Yet the battle gains did little to soften the national heartbreak. Thousands of dead, and hundreds of wounded and captured, left the country shaken. Anger surged from the streets, from the press and from the Knesset.

A single question echoed everywhere: How did this happen – and who must answer for it?

The commission was chaired by Supreme Court President Justice Shimon Agranat, joined by Justice Moshe Landau, State Comptroller Yitzhak Nebenzahl, and former IDF Chiefs of Staff Yigael Yadin and Chaim Laskov.

Four months later, their interim report shook the country to its core.

The members concluded that Military Intelligence had indeed received clear warnings of a coming war – but failed to interpret them correctly.

To describe this failure, the commission coined the term “ha-koncepzia” – a fixed set of assumptions that lulled the army’s leadership, and with it the political echelon, into believing that war was unlikely, or that if it did break out, regular forces would hold the line until the reserves arrived.

The report placed full responsibility on the military command and the Chief of Staff, while exonerating the political leadership.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s conduct, it said, had been exemplary. Golda was praised for her leadership under fire.

In the aftermath, Chief of Staff David Elazar resigned and the head of Military Intelligence, Eli Zeira, was dismissed from active service.

The public exploded.
Many saw a glaring gap between the commission’s judgment of Dayan and its treatment of Elazar. Protests intensified, accusing the commission of shielding the cabinet and demanding that Golda – and especially Dayan – accept ministerial responsibility.

A week after the report’s publication, as the demonstrations swelled, Golda stepped down. Dayan never returned to the political front line, even after Rabin formed the next government.

📷 Photo: The Agranat Commission, by Yaakov Sa’ar, Israel National Photo Collection
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14/11/2025

Four hundred and fifty-six years ago today – on 23 Heshvan 5331 – Beatrice de Luna Miques, known to the world as Doña Gracia Nasi, passed away.

She was born in 1510 to a Portuguese Jewish family that had fled the terror of the Inquisition and was forced to adopt a Christian identity, at least outwardly. Behind closed doors, the family continued to live as Jews in secret. At eighteen, Beatrice married her maternal uncle, Francisco Mendes Benveniste, a wealthy spice merchant.

The Mendes family’s fortune was so vast that kings, princes, and governments borrowed from it. Their network stretched across Europe and reached deep into the Ottoman Empire and even the Far East. 👑

In early 1535 Beatrice and Francisco welcomed their only child, Anna. Soon after, Francisco died, leaving his young wife and infant daughter with half of the family fortune. 💰

Despite her wealth, or perhaps because of it, the young widow and her daughter found themselves moving from place to place. Beatrice’s life unfolded in a maze of intrigue –complicated further when she later inherited control of the remaining half of the family estate under circumstances that earned her painful enemies among her closest relatives.

Her journeys eventually brought her to Italy, where she became an active force in Jewish communal life. When the pope issued deadly decrees against the forced converts of Ancona, she organized a Jewish trade boycott of the port. The effort failed, and the Ancona martyrs were burned at the stake.

Once she settled her financial and family disputes, Beatrice left Italy with Anna for the Ottoman Empire. She made her home in Istanbul, where she openly returned to Judaism and took the name Doña Gracia. There she founded synagogues, Talmud academies, and hospitals. One of the synagogues she built still stands in Izmir and is known as La Señora.

In her final years, Doña Gracia turned to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent with a bold request: the lease of cities in the Land of Israel. Jerusalem was denied, but she secured the rights to Tiberias for a thousand gold ducats a year. Under her direction, the city was rebuilt and repopulated with Jews from across Europe. Some accounts suggest she hoped to settle there herself – but she died before she could realize her dream of returning to the land of her ancestors.

Illustration: Doña Gracia and Joseph Nasi, ink drawing by Arthur Szyk, 1931.

For the full, remarkable story of this extraordinary woman – generations ahead of her time – read Dr. Alex Tal’s article from Segula:
https://www.calameo.com/read/0078446406316ea61dc30
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11/11/2025

“When I write in Yiddish, I feel that I am writing for the entire Jewish people – living and dead. Millions who were murdered and have no voice in this world – I want to give them a voice.”
(Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Stockholm)

One hundred and twenty-two years ago today, in the Polish village of Leoncin, a red-haired baby was born – known to all as Itchele. 👶🏼

The truth is that November 11 is disputed as the date of his birth, especially as Bashevis Singer himself was inconsistent about it. But this is the day that fits Bashevis family biographies best.

He grew into a curious, mischievous boy with fiery sidecurls, raised in a modest rabbinic home on Krochmalna Street, in Warsaw’s poor Jewish quarter. 🏠

That street would later become famous, thanks to little Itchele – who grew up to be one of the world’s greatest Jewish writers, and turned the humble, crowded Jewish street and its unforgettable characters into the heroes of his stories.

But he didn’t just write about a street. He wrote about an entire world – the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry, its misery and its charm – opening a window for readers everywhere onto the life of the shtetl.

His father, Pinchas Menahem, was a sharp-minded Hasid and rabbinic judge in Warsaw, who authored a number of works and was forever immersed in study. His mother, Bat Sheva, was a striking redhead with a brilliant mind and extensive knowledge of Jewish law. To honor her memory – she perished in the Holocaust – he adopted her name as his own: Bashevi’s, “BasSheva's boy.” 👨🏻‍🎓

Isaac Bashevis Singer lived to see his genius celebrated.His vast body of work – some 150 books and stories – was translated into dozens of languages. He received honorary doctorates from more than 40 universities, and in 1978, aged 75, after decades as a Yiddish writer in New York, he stood on the grand stage of the Royal Academy in Stockholm to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature.🎖

He began his speech with a quiet revolution: He would speak in Yiddish. No one before him had ever uttered a word of Yiddish in that august hall. For several minutes he spoke in the language of his childhood – and though few understood the words, the audience sat entranced by their melody.

With gentle wit and old-world humor, Singer brought Yiddish to center stage and proved that even amid Europe’s stiffest ceremony, the biting wit of Jewish humor could still bring the house down. His words lasted twenty minutes; the applause, a full five more.

“Many have asked me: Why do I write in Yiddish? Why cling to a language so many call dying? Because Yiddish is the language of my soul. It’s the language in which I cried and laughed as a child. The language of my mother’s stories, my father’s Torah sermons, in which my brothers and sisters spoke to me.”

📸 Isaac Bashevis Singer speaking in Stockholm. Photo: Ulf Dan, National Library of Israel.
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