History

The Yom Kippur War: How Israel missed the warning signs before the surprise attack - opinion

Israel’s greatest failure in the Yom Kippur War was self-inflicted, as intelligence chief Eli Zeira’s confidence in his own assessment led Israel to dismiss mounting warnings of an Arab attack.

Then-prime minister Golda Meir (R) accompanied by then-defense minister Moshe Dayan, meets with Israeli soldiers at a base on the Golan Heights after intense fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
(L-R): Photo of Maurycy Gottlieb’s “Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur”; One of the earliest surviving illuminated medieval texts of Kol Nidre (Worms Machzor, c. 1280).

The surprising history of Kol Nidre: How Yom Kippur’s legal formula became a sacred anthem

Dr. Chaim Meir Neria, curator of the Haim and Hanna Salomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel, with one of the two volumes of the Lisbon Mahzor recently received by the Library.

Yom Kippur through the centuries: The prayer books that preserve centuries of Jewish history

The Azcatitlan Codex, an ancient Aztec pictorial manuscript on loan from France, is displayed at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City on September 17, 2026

France loans Mexico rare Aztec manuscript as nations celebrate 200 years of diplomatic ties


Breaking the individual to break the collective - opinion

Occupation does not begin at a border. It begins inside the human mind. That is why sexual violence has remained such an effective weapon across centuries.

 Demonstrators hold signs against what they describe as international silence over sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women during the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, at a protest in Jerusalem, November 27, 2023.

The Somme, 110 years on: The Jewish soldiers who fought and died

The Battle of the Somme, one of the bloodiest and most infamous battles in history, was intended to break the German lines and bring World War I closer to an Allied victory.

British infantry soldiers running out of their trenches at the signal to assault  the Somme, France, 1916.

Sorin Hershko, soldier most severely wounded in Entebbe, honored on operation's 50th anniversary

The recognition was awarded by the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation, whose chairman is Chemi Peres, son of former prime minister Shimon Peres.

An Israeli hostage is greeted on her return to Israel after Operation Entebbe on 3rd July 1976, in which, Israeli special forces rescued 100 hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following their hijack of Air France Flight 139.

On this day: Bodies of Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel, and Eyal Yifrah found in West Bank

The murder of the three teenagers led to the IDF’s invasion of Gaza the next week, launching the 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge.

Eyal Yifrah, Gil-Ad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel (L-R).

Jewish hero’s inclusion in French Panthéon uncorks divisions over who wears mantle of resistance

About 80 national heroes have been inducted over two centuries in the Paris monument, from philosopher Voltaire and writer Victor Hugo to magistrate and Holocaust survivor Simone Veil. 

A portrait of the late historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch adorns the facade of the Pantheon before his induction ceremony along with his wife Simonne Vidal in Paris, France, June 23, 2026.

Damascus synagogue tours highlight renewed interest in Syrian Jewish history and diaspora ties

Tours of synagogues and meetings with religious leaders highlight renewed interest in Jewish history and unresolved questions over historic sites, property, and diaspora ties.

A rabbi holds a Torah scroll at the Ifrange Synagogue in the Jewish quarter in Old Damascus on April 29, 2025.

Resurrecting Herodium: A royal desert fortress awakens After 2,000 years

"Herodium became a living testament to the enduring roots of Jewish history."

The quiet weapon: Sexual violence is a strategy, not a byproduct of war - opinion

The United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict later concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe conflict-related sexual violence had occurred during the attacks

 The area of ​​the Nova party where hundreds of Israelis were killed and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists who infiltrated to Israel, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, photo taken on October 12, 2023.

Unearth World War II art history through people's eye

The true artistic and historical depth of renaissance of evil.

“Renaissance of Evil masterfully blends history, art, and fiction into an engaging and enlightening story.”

On this day: Russian Tsarist forces start Bialystok Pogrom, killing at least 70 Jews

Bialystok, an industrial town in modern-day Poland, had a major Jewish population that was terrorized by local antisemitic Russian military members and police officers.

Nurses stand with victims of the Bialystok pogrom in June 1906.