Recently on Jewniverse we featured information about Dr. Gisella Perl, a gynecologist who provided abortions to women in Auschwitz who would otherwise have been killed. One of the rather obvious implications here is that women were being raped in the camps. Some undoubtedly arrived pregnant, but others did not. Amazingly, there have never been any [...]

A man in a boat began to bore a hole under his seat. His fellow passengers protested. ‘What concern is it of yours?’ he responded, ‘I am making a hole under my seat, not yours.’ They replied, ‘That is so, but when the water enters and the boat sinks, we too will drown.’ –Rabbi Shimon [...]

The new book Folktales of the Jews: Tales from Arab Lands, edited by Dan Ben-Amos, collects hundreds of years’ worth of Jewish stories culled from all over the Diaspora. This is an excerpt, reprinted by permission of The Jewish Publication Society. Remember Days of Old! Told by Yosef Shmuli to Zvi Moshe Haimovits There was a [...]

“To act rightly or otherwise rests for the most part with man, but in each action Fate cooperates.” –Josephus Flavius Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on MJL.

Fox Studios released four new clips from the new X-Men movie last night. If you’ve followed our coverage of Magneto’s history as a Holocaust survivor — or if you’ve seen the opening sequence of the first X-Men movie in 2000 — you’re aware of his loaded and complicated history. But what follows might be the creepiest [...]

The text of President Obama’s Middle-East address. (Los Angeles Times) Akiva Eldar: “No American president or presidential candidate has ever told this large Jewish audience of supporters of Israel the truth”–including the fact that Americans will not support Netanyahu’s demand that the IDF control Palestinian territory. (Ha’aretz) Although the “AIPAC crowd was strikingly appreciative,” David [...]

A nice catch by Rabbi Jason Miller (and even nicer of him to record it and put it up on YouTube)… This week, Rabbi Joyce Newmark, a Conservative rabbi from Teaneck, NJ, won $29,000 on Jeopardy. The next episode, Trebek even gave a shout out to her ordination anniversary and asked her what it’s like [...]

Jdate is sponsoring a new program that’s something like a Jewish Film of the Month club. You can get a Jewish film sent to you on DVD or via streaming once every other month. Now, on the surface I can see how this seemed like a natural partnership. Jewish dating, Jewish movies, of course they [...]

“The Rabbis said: Even though you may think them superfluous in this world, creatures such as flies, bugs, and gnats have their allotted task in the scheme of creation, as it says, ‘And God saw everything that God had made, and behold, it was very good.’” –B’reishit Rabbah, 10:7 Find more Wise Fridays wisdom on [...]

Not sure if you’ve heard by now, but the United States killed Osama Bin Laden last week. A couple of days later, in a propaganda/awesome move, the White House released a picture of President Obama and his cabinet watching the raid on Osama’s compound in real time. Again, the picture is awesome. The picture and [...]