In 1911, David Ben-Gurion spent several months in Salonica and declared that it was "the only Jewish labor city in the world." Now, because of an open-minded mayor and his nationalist opponents, this formerly Jewish city is experiencing a peculiar mix of Jewish memory and anti-Semitism. READ MORE

In 1986, the discovery of non-kosher vinegar in a classic Jewish delicacy led to a revolution in kosher supervision. READ MORE

Freud's favorite Jewish comic was Heinrich Heine—a half-hearted convert to Christianity who was only half-joking.  How is humor related to other psychological phenomena, and specifically to the Jewish psyche? The founder of psychoanalysis, loved Jewish jokes and for many years collected material for the study that would appear in 1905 as Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. He appreciated one-liners: "A wife is like an umbrella; sooner or later one takes a cab." He was fond of wordplay: old people fall into "anecdotage"; the Christmas season kicks off the "alcoholidays." He especially favored Jewish jokes in which matchmakers, rabbis, and sophisticated beggars, or schnorrers, upend our expectations of them. READ MORE