Jewish History
Quiz: Which came first?
Can you identify the correct order of these famous events in Jewish history?
Shopping: A Southern Jewish Tradition
It’s that time of year again. Just when Southerners are celebrating football and the waning summer heat, the holiday shopping ...
Seminole’s Henry Katz Shares Stories with Style
Since the 1940s, the Jews of Seminole, Ada, Nowata, and Shawnee, Oklahoma, have met at the Seminole Hebrew Center for ...
“The Guthrie Incident”: An Episode of Anti-Semitism in Oklahoma
The idea of a Jewish conspiracy to control the world has long been a canard of anti-Semites. Its most infamous ...
From the Collection: High Water
As stated in one of our last posts about the hurricane, we are familiar with what the devastation of hurricanes ...
Writing Biography: The Historian’s Challenge, Part 2
Can biographers really know their subjects fully? Was Mark Twain right when he said that “a man’s real life is ...
Why I Care About Trans Day of Remembrance as a (“Cisgender”) Gay Man
I’m a white gay Jewish man. Up until a few years ago, I didn’t even know what “cisgender” meant.Three weeks ...
Writing Biography: The Historian’s Challenge, Part 1
For historians, writing biography presents a number of challenges. One of the more important comes from scholars who tend to ...
How did they get here?
When I tell people about Jewish families in the small towns I’ve visited, they often ask, “How did they get ...
Let’s Dance at The Kotel
The recent reports of women being dragged from the Kotel — the Western Wall — while Torah scrolls were ripped ...
It’s Not All in a Name
It’s clear from the names of my two pop culture humor books, Cool Jew and Hot Mamalah, that my Jewish background is ...
From the Collection: “What My Lady Should Not Wear”
There are moments as an archivist when something unusual (like a fur muff or a military notebook) sticks out from ...