history
Mammoth mine disaster memorial, Mount Pleasant PA (BuzzWeiser196, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
November 21, 2024, 12:12 pm
A forgotten immigrant: Rabbi’s inquiry sheds light on 1891 Mammoth Mine explosion
Halacha meets historical record
By Oran Zweiter
Jones & Laughlin Steel Company commissioned a new headquarters at 200 Ross St. and left in the early 1950s to join the new Gateway Center development (Photo courtesy of the Detre Library & Archives at the Heinz History Center)
November 17, 2024, 8:05 pm
The brief, consequential Jewish history of 200 Ross St.
The 11th floor of the historic downtown office building played an important role in the development of Jewish communal affairs in the 1950s.
By Eric Lidji
Dr. Hedwig O. Pregler (seated) was honored by a group of her former students in 1995, including Marga Silberman Randall, M. (Fuss) Chisick, Sidney Rosen, “David,” Soralie (Levin) Goldfarb, Ellen (Baskind) Langue, Lois Gershuny, and Anita “Nicky” Gordon. Dr. Pregler died the following year. (Photo courtesy of Rauh Jewish Archives)
October 16, 2024, 11:51 am
The Colfax Plan
Eighty years ago, the principal of Colfax implemented a new idea for educating gifted students.
By Eric Lidji
People visit the tomb of Christopher Columbus at the Cathedral of Seville, Oct. 11, 2024, shortly after forensic researchers from the University of Granada said they had confirmed that the bones buried there are in fact Columbus'. (Cristina Quicler/AFP via Getty Images)
October 14, 2024, 9:12 am
Christopher Columbus was genetically Jewish, Spanish researchers say
New research uses DNA analysis to add to longtime speculation about the explorer’s identity.
By Philissa Cramer
Historian Igor Bartosik at the former Union factory adjacent to Auschwitz, from which female prisoners smuggled revolt supplies to Sonderkommando prisoners living atop Birkenau gas chambers, August 2024 (Matt Lebovic/The Times of Israel)
October 9, 2024, 11:17 am
80 years ago on Oct. 7, Jewish Sonderkommando workers staged a failed revolt at Auschwitz
Decades before the Hamas atrocities, inmates took up arms against their Nazi tormentors. It didn’t succeed, but the revolt was singular, unprecedented, and facilitated by women
By Matt Lebovic
Starting in the mid-1960s, the Israel Aliyah Center posted regular advertisements in this newspaper encouraging locals to make aliyah. (Image from the Jewish Chronicle, Feb. 3, 1967, via the Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project)
September 23, 2024, 9:24 am
A firsthand view of war
Pittsburgh learned about the Yom Kippur War from a handful of Pittsburghers — including a small group of passionate teenagers and 20-somethings.
By Eric Lidji
Aerial view of the ruins of Masada, a fortress built by Herod the Great on a clifftop in the desert of what is now Israel. (Getty Images)
September 5, 2024, 6:25 pm
New archaeological research shows siege on Masada lasted just weeks, not years
The fortress site near the Dead Sea is a major tourist destination as well as the historic site for inducting Israeli soldiers responsible for contemporary Jewish self-defense.
By Jackie Hajdenberg
“The Aqueduct, Pittsburgh,” by Russell Smith, c. 1832, (from the collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art) shows the Pennsylvania Canal’s entrance in Pittsburgh.
August 26, 2024, 9:11 am
Going west
The Pennsylvania Canal and the founding of a Jewish community.
By Eric Lidji
Finds from the ancient drainage channel. (Photo by Emil Aladjem/Israel Antiquities Authority)
August 13, 2024, 6:34 pm
Jewish kitchenware unearthed in Jerusalem’s ancient drainage channel
Items found include expensive oils, grape seeds and 2,000-year-old eggshells
By JNS Staff
Ida Cohen Selavan Schwarcz (Photo courtesy of her family)
July 22, 2024, 2:08 pm
Ida (Chaya Sara) Cohen Selavan Schwarcz, z”l
Through a long and expansive career, Schwarcz built a foundation of scholarship that continues to shape our knowledge about the Jewish history of Western Pennsylvania.
By Eric Lidji
U.S. Army 1st Lieutenant Nathan B. Baskind's remains are transfered. (Photo courtesy of Samantha Baskind)
June 17, 2024, 5:19 pm
Jewish soldier who died in World War II finally laid to rest
'It's one of the biggest mitzvahs. It's a sacred task, and it's being fulfilled.'
By Adam Reinherz
Flyer image courtesy of GRIP
June 17, 2024, 12:56 pm
Ashkenazic Jewish genealogy program offered at LaRoche next month
Preserve the past and better one’s self through summer study of genealogy
By Adam Reinherz
The 2000 block of Murray, showing Pinsker’s, M. Fogel Meats, Murray News Stand, Stern’s Café, and Kablin’s Market— Nov. 3, 1965. (Allegheny Conference on Community Development Photographs, Detre Library & Archives)
June 6, 2024, 1:02 pm
Squirrel Hill gets parking garages
In the third of a three-part series, the city tries to accommodate a huge influx of traffic without upsetting the delicate balance between residents and businesses.
By Eric Lidji
Workers painting a storefront in the 2100 block of Murray Avenue, just up from the corner of Murray and Douglas, June 25, 1951 (Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh City Photographer Collection, University of Pittsburgh Archives & Special Collections)
June 4, 2024, 7:51 pm
Squirrel Hill gets parking lots
In the second of a three-part series, the city negotiates the construction of the first parking lots in Squirrel Hill. Giant Eagle works on building a third.
By Eric Lidji
Judge Henry Ellenbogen. (Photo courtesy of Rauh Jewish Archives at Heinz History Center)
May 24, 2024, 3:33 pm
Letters of Judge Henry Ellenbogen, now digitized, provide glimpse into Jews’ struggles in pre-war Europe
'Allow the information to sit in your mind, without having to necessarily draw a conclusion'
By Adam Reinherz
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