Jewish History

Why Is Challah So Beloved by the Jewish People?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

How did challah become the favorite Jewish bread? It goes back to the medieval times, when in South Germany (15th century), Jews started to adopt from their neighbors this type of bread for the Sabbath and holidays.

Reform Jewish students visiting Selma, Alabama

Social Justice

Reckoning with the Truth: Reform Jewish Teens Confront Racial Inequality

Rabbi Ellen Nemhauser

February 17, 2020

Learn how a trip in the South helped a group of Reform Jewish teens confront racial inequality and explore their own connections to promoting racial justice.

Arbeit Macht Frei sign at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp

Jewish History

Why Did Roosevelt Abandon Europe's Jews?

Aron Hirt-Manheimer

January 23, 2020

January 27th is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Learn what author and historian Dr. Rafael Medoff thinks about FDR’s failure to rescue Jews from World War II Europe.

Opening panel of the RBG exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History

Women's Rights

The Jewish Women Who Influenced Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Aron Hirt-Manheimer

January 8, 2020

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court, became the 21st inductee into The National Museum of American Jewish History's Hall of Fame.

A man and woman exchanging a Hanukkah gift in a bag patterned with colorful dreidels

Jewish History

The History of Hanukkah Gifts: Is This Custom Really a Jewish One?

Rabbi Jill Crimmings

The contemporary custom of wrapping presents gifts arose in conjunction with Christmas, but many aspects of gift-giving have distinctly Jewish roots, each of which has helped set the stage for the development of the ritual into what it is today.