Navigating Northern Ireland
The HMS Caroline, a First World War light cruiser, is worth visiting. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields) Identified for so long – from the late 1960s to the late 1990s – by “the Troubles,” peace appears to be bringing both…
Travel
Bevis Marks 315 years later
The interior of Bevis Marks Synagogue looking towards the ark and with the bima in the left foreground. The ark is made of oak, but painted to look like Italian marble, as are the supports to the ladies gallery. (photo…
Feeling at home in Ecuador
The Jewish Community Centre of Quito is a magnificent building containing two synagogues, its architecture reminiscent of Old Jerusalem. (photo by Lauren Kramer) It was Friday night in Quito, Ecuador, and, as dusk fell, my husband and I approached the…
A physical, emotional hike
Arlene Doyle, right, was joined for part of her adventure by her friend, Jennifer Williamson. (photo from Arlene Doyle) In early February, Arlene Doyle, a 53-year-old massage therapist and writer based in Ottawa and Perth, Ont., set off on the…
Jewish tourists in Romania
The Choral Temple in Bucharest. (photo from Wikimedia Commons) We spent two weeks in Romania in the late summer of 2015, also visiting Bulgaria. We took this trip partly because it was an area of vibrant Jewish life from Roman days…
Consider an African safari
In Livingstone, Zambia, visitors on the Jewish tour will see a church that used to be a synagogue. The Jewish population peaked in the late 1950s, to some 1,000 community members. (photo by Rebecca Shapiro) “This guy came to stay,…
Tower of David a must-see
A scene from Migdal David’s The Night Spectacular: the Queen of Sheba with her entourage. (photo by Amit Geron) While growing up in the United States, my friends and I never seemed to tire of asking each other, “Who is…
Where David fought Goliath
The author, Sybil Kaplan and Prof. Yosef Garfinkel at the opening of the exhibit In the Valley of David and Goliath, now at Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem. (photo by Barry A. Kaplan) “As the Philistine moved closer to attack…
Jerusalem’s French aspects
Salt print of Adolphe Crémieux, December 1856, by Nadar (1820-1910), from the J. Paul Getty Museum. (photo from Wikimedia Commons) While Jerusalem’s French connection thankfully lacks the violence and crime of the 1971 movie by the same name, both the…
The old town that Jan built
Zamosc town hall. (photo by Tomasz Zugaj) If you were rolling in money, what would you do with it? Would you build a town for yourself? That’s what Jan Zamoyski did. As you approach the town’s main square, you might be…
