History

Prehistoric humans may have used fire to smoke meat one million years ago, study suggests

Over time, as the availability of large game declined, humans had to adapt to hunting smaller animals and using fire more consistently.

 Ran Barkai holds a segment of an ancient elephant at the La Polledrara site in Italy.
 Fisherman discovers century-old J.C. Ames tugboat wreck in Lake Michigan.

Fisherman discovers century-old J.C. Ames tugboat wreck in Lake Michigan

 SHAVUOT, ONE of the three pilgrimage festivals, marked the wheat harvest in biblical Israel. It concludes the seven-week period beginning at Passover

Shavuot in 1948: Harvesting the first fruits of Israeli statehood under siege

 PEOPLE PRAYING at King David's Tomb

Shavuot's mystical incident: Uncovering the secrets of King David’s Tomb


Operation Benjamin: Finding lost Jewish-American war heroes and honoring their memory

An organization tracks down the Jewish heroes of World Wars I and II, and honors them with the symbol of their faith, even more than a century after they made the ultimate sacrifice.

 OPERATION BENJAMIN’S co-founder and chief historian, Shalom Lamm, estimates that between 600 and 900 American Jewish soldiers from both World Wars are mistakenly buried under crosses. Here, late US serviceman Howard Feldman receives a Jewish headstone.

Grapevine: True shofar blower

Movers and shakers in Israeli society.

 Holding the Torah that was carried by IDF chief rabbi Shlomo Goren in the 1967 Six Day War, during a ceremony with 75 Torah scrolls from around the world in memory of the soldiers killed in the 2014 Operation Protective Edge and in Israel’s wars, at the Western Wall, 2015.

Poland votes for its next president, with Polish-Jewish history on the ballot

Voters are casting their ballots in the decisive runoff between Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal-centrist mayor of Warsaw, and Karol Nawrocki, a right-wing historian rewriting Holocaust history.

Presidential campaign posters in Poland.

New doc tells story of Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel

An Elie Wiesel documentary presents a compelling portrait of a Holocaust survivor who bore witness.

 IMAGES FROM the documentary ‘Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire.’

This week in Jewish history: Shavuot, and the Six Day War

A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History.

DAVID RUBINGER’S iconic photo of the IDF paratroopers at the Kotel during the Six Day War in 1967.

Scientists date 20,000-year-old whale bone tools as earliest in Human history

The scientists analyzed nearly two hundred bone tools found in sites around the Bay of Biscay.

 Whale bone arch in Utqiagvik, Alaska at the edge of the Arctic Ocean.

A little-known Jewish tragedy is told in new film

A new docu-drama focuses on the 2,000 Jewish children who were seized by order of King Joao II of Portugal in 1493.

 A SCENE from ‘The 2,000 Kidnapped Jewish Children.’

Lessons of the Six Day War - opinion

There is no Jewish future in a world where we must rely on the benevolence of non-Jews to guarantee our survival. 

 SOLDIERS sit in front of the Western Wall after its capture in the Six Day War. The panic of the month before gave way to national joy, states the writer.

On This Day: Operation Solomon’s record-breaking flight and humanitarian triumph

Ethiopian Jews who escaped remember being woken up by their parents in the middle of the night and being told to pack very few items.

 NEW OLIM rescued from Ethiopia step out of an IAF Hercules at a base in Israel, during Operation Solomon, May 1991.

Lidar technology reveals lost world of the 'Cloud People' in the Andes

'This discovery fundamentally expands our understanding of Gran Pajatén,' says de la Puente Brunke.

 Lidar technology reveals lost world of the 'Cloud People' in the Andes.

This week in Jewish History: Eli Cohen hanged in Syria, Bob Dylan's birthday

A highly abridged weekly version of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History.

Reproduction of an Israeli stamp being issued to honour the Mossad intelligence agency spy Eli Cohen who was hanged in Damascus