-The Baker of Uzghorod

“People back in America say that Jewish life in Ukraine is finished, that there used to be a lot of Jews here, and now there aren’t, after all that happened. I don’t look at it this way. Ukraine was always a Jewish place, with a Jewish history and a Jewish identity, and will always be.”

-Shushan Purim

Jerusalem, Israel – 17th of March, 2014: Jerusalemites get drunk and dance at a street party in the Nachlaot neighborhood, during the holiday of Purim, which celebrates how the Jews of Persia were saved from an evil plot to destroy them.

-Lehava and Jewish Women

Jerusalem, Israel – 8th of March, 2014: A sticker on a light pole by the road which marks the border between east and west Jerusalem admonishes readers to “not even think about a Jewish woman”. Aiming to dissuade Arab men from approaching Jewish women, the sticker is widely visible across mixed cities in Israel and comes from Lehava, a Jewish organization dedicated to “preventing assimilation in the Holy Land”, mostly by opposing mixed marriages both in theory and in practice. Alongside the stern warning, the sticker bears the organization’s hotline to which one can “report” cases of assimilation.

-600,000 Jews

Jerusalem, Israel – 2nd of March, 2014: Hundreds of thousands of religious Jews took part in a massive prayer rally at the entrance to the city, protesting against a proposed law that would punish religious communities that fail to meet their quotas for recruitment in the IDF. Members of countless haredi sects and groups prayed together, allegedly managing to bring to the same spot 600,000 Jews. This number was not accidental, for it was that many Jews who stood on mount Sinai to receive the Torah, and it is said that when as many Jews gather in one place, a …

-Prayer Against “Kerry’s Decrees”

Jerusalem, Israel – 30th of January, 2014: Israeli religious Zionist activists, rabbis and politicians held a mass prayer at the Kotel “for the redemption of the people of Israel” and calling for the failure of US secretary of state John Kerry’s efforts to convince the Israeli leadership to accept his peace plan, which would establish the Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and divide the city.