YU News

The Mendel Gottesman Library was privileged to host the SAR Historical Society on December 4. Mr. Ben Zion Ferziger, the club’s adviser, and Professor Ronnie Perelis coordinated the visit with Shulamith Berger, Curator of Special Collections. Professor Perelis opened the class by asking the…

The seventh day of Hanukkah ( December 12, 1920) was a day of celebration in Telz (Telshe), Lithuania. [1] It marked the official opening day, the Hanukat HaBayit (dedication) of the Gymnasyon Ivri le-Banot (Hebrew Gymnasium for Girls). [2] Hanukkah, the holiday when the Temple in Jerusalem was re…

In the late 1950s, Mount Sinai Congregation and the Washington Heights YM & YWHA (Young Men's & Young Women's Hebrew Association) were faced with eviction from their buildings on Wadsworth Avenue and 178 th Street in Washington Heights. The properties were seized by the City of New York and…

Would you have thought that a 1722 century encyclopedic study of the peoples of the world would portray Jews in a positive light? Bernard Picart (1673–1733), a Protestant artist from France, settled in Amsterdam in 1710, in part to find greater religious freedom than he had in Catholic France ...

It is no secret that textbooks and course materials have become prohibitively expensive for many a student. But this year, YU Libraries, with the efforts of three instructors and librarians, were able to save YU students $15,918. YU Libraries’ strategic plan calls for the expanded use of open ...

Congratulations to our 2025 YU Student Library Research Award Winner Aden Lyons ! Aden, YC ’26, is a double major in history and political science. His paper, “ The Jewish Community of Lida During the Second World War ,” was written for Professor Joshua Zimmerman’s course “History of the Holocaust…

In the United States, in 1960, there were few family-friendly alternatives to the ubiquitous Maxwell House Hagadah . From Twilight To Dawn: The Traditional Pessach Hagadah , created in Washington Heights, filled that gap. The Hagadah was the brainchild of two distinguished residents of Washington…

Images of the Megillah are courtesy of the Yeshiva University Museum Did you know that Yeshiva University owns a Yemenite Megillat Esther? The Esther Scroll’s circuitous route to Yeshiva started in Jerusalem in 1868 when Reverend Joshua Weaver, then Rector of the St. James American Episcopal Church…

Yehudit (Judith) -- title page Are you able to imagine the story of Judith, with its bloody and gory aspects, as a Jewish children’s book in glorious color!? Although the figure of Judith holding Holofernes’ head was popular in classical art, a children’s version had to wait until 1945 in Memphis…