Israel Beat

Elhanan Leib Lewinsky wrote the first sci-fi book in Hebrew in 1892 called Journey to the Land of Israel in the Year 5800 . Find out how much of his futuristic vision came true. Would Lewinsky love Levinsky market in Tel Aviv which is named after him? Will Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives get an astronomical observatory as described in his book? Find out as we go back to the future and learn about the...

The story of the Vietnam Boat People who were rescued in the late 1970s. Learn about the reaction of Israeli officials like Menachem Begin who compared them to Jews fleeing the Holocaust and how the Vietnamese felt arriving to a country they never heard of before. NOTES: * 35 years on, where are Israel’s Vietnamese refugees? - Times of Israel * 45 years on, Vietnamese refugees are still writing th...

For about 30 years, Gush Katif was a miracle in the desert where Jewish agricultural towns grew bug-free lettuce, cherry tomatoes and developed thriving communities with innovative, organic farming techniques. Join Avner Franklin of the Gush Katif Museum as he takes us on a journey from the 1970s when Golda Meir, Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin developed the Five Finger Plan to develop Israeli Gaza...

George Eliot was neither Jewish, nor religious, but her 1876 novel Daniel Deronda influenced many Jewish leaders to become Zionists and seek the repatriation of the Jews to the Land of Israel. Learn about Eliot’s relationship to Emanuel Deutsch, the Jewish scholar who taught her Hebrew and about the reaction of Victorian-era England to the celebrated writer’s unusual subject matter for the time. I...

Join me on a tour of the National Institutions building in Jerusalem with Eitan Behar of the World Zionist Organization as he shows us the secret chambers where Jews hid weapons to prevent them from being confiscated by the British as the War of Independence loomed close. Learn about the deadly terrorist attack in 1948 which injured the parents of today’s Israeli President Isaac Herzog and the dra...

Jewish athletes were discriminated against in Europe, so in the late 1800s they created their own sports clubs which grew into the Maccabiah Games, an international competition held in the Land of Israel, despite British opposition. Learn about Zionist leader Max Nordau’s “Muskeljuden” or Muscular Jews, and Yosef Yekutieli who created what was called the “Jewish Olympics” during a time when the Na...

Rabbi Chaim ibn Attar, author of the seminal work on Torah, the Ohr HaChaim led the Jewish community in Morocco. Learn about the difficulties the community faced including the tale of how he survived being thrown into a pit of lions. He led a group to make Aliyah to the Land of Israel in the mid 1700s and founded a yeshiva in Jerusalem which still stands to this day. Find out about how his writing...

Famous American writer Mark Twain visited the Land of Israel in the 1860s and found “its soil rich enough” but “a silent, mournful expanse.” Were his words insulting, or simply the reality of Ottoman-era Palestine? Compare his biting wit to that of a writer of the same period whom Twain mocked: William Cowper Prime, who poetically praises the Holy Land. Plus, Mark Twain’s classic essay Concerning...

This is from the audio Bible project I worked on. I read the Book of Psalms in its entirely. This is Book 1, chapters 1 - 41. I tried to pronounce all the Hebrew names and terms as they would be in Hebrew as opposed to their common English translation i.e. Daveed instead of David. Get full access to Jewish History Moment podcast with Ben Bresky at benbresky.substack.com/subscribe

In the 1950s, the pioneers at the Weizmann Institute of Science built WEIZAC, a groundbreaking computer that launched Israel’s high-tech industry. Learn about Dr. Chaim Pekeris who had to convince Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer of the idea, the immigrant-run bicycle repair shop that supplied the material, and how Shimon Peres found a way to have the computer run seven days a week without b...

The Golem is a legendary creature made of clay who comes to life through holy Hebrew words to protect the persecuted Jewish villagers. Learn the true history of Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague who befriended Emperor Rudolph II, Johannes Kepler and whose Kabbalistic spiritual teachings are still studied 400 years later. Plus learn about Rabbi Eliyahu Baal Shem, credited with cr...

Learn about the thriving Jewish community in Rafah during the Byzantine era, the attempt to establish a modern community and the detention of over 1,000 Jews by the British during Black Sabbath (Operation Agatha). Plus, the success of Kfar Darom, a kibbutz in Gaza populated by Holocaust refugees in the 1940s and Moshe Smilansky, the peace activist who purchased the land. Hear about their idealisti...

In his most personal podcast reveal ever, Ben Bresky shares the shocking truth about his dislike for the traditional Jewish Shavuot delicacy of cheesecake. He interviews Jewish and Israeli food connoisseur Joel Haber, licensed tour guide and host of the 18 Jewish Foods podcast about how cheesecake and dairy food came to be associated with the Shavuot holiday. Learn about Arnold Reuben, the New Yor...

Shuly Nathan and a young amateur singer in the Israel Defense Forces was almost rejected from performing at the Israel Song Festival, but songwriter Naomi Shemer insisted that this young IDF soldier be the one to debut her now classic anthem, performed just weeks before the dramatic victory of the Six Day War in 1967. Hear Shuly in her own words describe her life and learn the back-story of how th...

Learn about the “fiery and passionate merriment” of the Jewish festival of Lag BaOmer in Meron as described by Rabbi Hayyim Vital in the 16th century, Haym Zvi Sneersohn in the 19th century and today in the 21st century State of Israel. Not much has changed. Plus, the biography of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the Kabbalist who hid from the Romans and inspired generations of Torah scholars. Also, the h...

Israeli civilian aviation had humble beginnings as the Flying Camel Club, to the respected El Al airline of today. Learn about the French daredevil who became the first person to land in Israel, the tragedy of moshav Atarot, and how an American Jewish WWII vet snuck airplanes into beleaguered Israel during the War of Independence. NOTES: * From Flying Camels to Flying Stars: Israel Reborn - Israel...

The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra started as the Palestine Symphony Orchestra when violinist Bronisław Huberman took Jewish musicians fired from their jobs by the Nazis and brought them to the Land of Israel. Learn about classical music during wartime including the dramatic Isaac Stern performance during a Gulf War Iraqi missile attack as the audience donned gas masks. Plus the stories of composer...

The Israel Electric Corporation didn’t just build itself, it was the brainchild of the scowling ex-Socialist Pinhas Rutenberg. After almost getting shot in the Bloody Sunday massacre of 1905, he gravitated to Zionism, Zev Jabotinsky, and eventually building a hydro-electric station on the banks of the Jordan river. Learn about the humble beginnings of Palestine Electric Company and the First Jorda...

Mendel Beilis was falsely accused of murder in a sensational 1913 Russian blood libel trial. After his not-guilty verdict he moved to the land of Israel and visited the Western Wall and Temple Mount. “I saw for the first time a race of proud, uncringing Jews, who lived life openly and unafraid,” wrote Beilis. Learn about his dramatic murder trial in which the matzah, afikoman and other Passover tr...

Mordechai Manuel Noah was a prominent Jewish-American who advocated creating a Jewish State in the Land of Israel. But in the interim, he created Ararat, City of Refuge in New York State. Thousands attended the inauguration but no one actually moved there. The Ararat cornerstone can be seen today at the Buffalo History Museum. Learn about this fascinating figure and hear in his own words his passi...

In 1844 Warder Cresson, born a Philadelphia Quaker, became the first United States Consul to Jerusalem. While there, he fell in love with the Jewish faith and promoted the return of Jews to the land of Israel. Upon his return his family sued him for his estate claiming he was a lunatic for converting to Judaism. The trial was called a fight for American religious freedom. Upon his return to Jerusa...

Dr. Moshe Wallach was strict with his own Jewish observance and strict with the staff and maintenance of the Shaare Zedek hospital, which opened in 1902, a 20-minute donkey ride from the Old City of Jerusalem. Hear stories of this colorful Jerusalem character, who ran the hospital for 45 years and of head nurse Schwester Selma Mayer whose kindness was as legendary as her dedication. NOTES: * My Li...

The Jewish holiday of Purim celebrated the defeat of the wicked Haman and the victory of Esther and Mordechai. Back in 1991, Saddam Hussein of Iraq shot Scud missiles into Israel. The Gulf War ended on Purim and the similarities were not lost on those who lived through the gas masks, safe rooms, and rocket attacks. Hear from those who lived through it in their own words in this special Purim podca...

Hebron’s ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs was banned for Jews to enter for 700 years. But after Israel’s stunning victory in the Six Day War, General Moshe Dayan was determined to explore it. The only person small enough to fit inside the opening was 12-year-old Michal Arbel. Hear her description of this extraordinary exploration and the mysteries hidden below. NOTES: * Living with th...

Dr. Max Nordau helped Theodor Herzl found the Zionist Congress. Despite his secular background he was inspired by the words “VeShavu Banim l'Gvulam – Our children will return to their borders.” Hear Nordau in his own words describe how he was swayed to the Zionist cause and seek a homeland of Jews in the Land of Israel. NOTES: * Address by Max Nordau at the First Zionist Congress * Max Nordau biog...