5/4/20: Golden Age or Gilded Age?

Jews and Muslim rule in Medieval Sepharad.  Jewish life under Muslim rule in Sepharad has often been depicted a veritable Golden Age.  How true is that?  Was Andalusian Islam uniquely tolerant?

5/11/20: Was It Bad for the Jews?

Jews and Christian rule in Medieval Ashkenaz.  Part of the myth of the Sephardic Golden Age involves contrasting Jewish life in Sepharad with Jewish life in Ashkenaz, suggesting that the latter was a land of intolerance and persecution.  The truth may be more complex.

5/18/20: Coming to America

Immigration and American Jewish Folk-history.  How German were the "German Jews?"  Was Eastern European Jewish migration really a flight from pogroms?  Were there Jewish illegal aliens?

5/25/20:  Miracle or Master Plan?

Zionist and Anti-Zionist Mythology and the War of Independence.  While the Zionist narrative often depicts the '48 war as nothing less than a miracle, and the ant-Zionist narrative casts it as the culmination of decades of planning to ethnically cleanse Palestine, the truth may lie somewhere in between.

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