Jews questions

Hanukkah is a Jewish holiday that lasts eight days. It commemorates the miraculous event that took place during the Maccabees' uprising under the leadership of Judah Maccabeus. It was a rebellion of the Jews against the king of Palestine, who decided to introduce the cult of Zeus to the great temple in Jerusalem. After the victory of the Jews, the olive lamp consecrated by the High Priest was on for eight days, although it should have enough oil for only one.

Maus, which depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a Polish Jew, is considered an important work of Holocaust literature, and studies of it have made significant contributions to Holocaust studies.

Saul Wahl Katzenellenbogen (1541–1617) was a wealthy and politically influential Polish Jew who is said to have briefly occupied the throne of Poland on 18 August 1587. He has historically borne the nickname, "Le roi d'un jour" (king for a day). While no physical evidence exists to prove the veracity of the story that Saul was briefly king of Poland,[citation needed] it has nonetheless gained a firm place in the folklore of the Jewish people.

Bricha was the underground organized effort that helped Jewish Holocaust survivors escape post–World War II Europe to the British Mandate for Palestine in violation of the White Paper of 1939. It ended when Israel declared independence and annulled the White Paper. After the Kielce pogrom of 1946, the flight of Jews accelerated, with 100,000 Jews leaving Eastern Europe in three months.

Thomas Michael Keneally, is a prolific Australian novelist, playwright, and essayist. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

A gabbai is a beadle or sexton, a person who assists in the running of synagogue services in some way. The role may be undertaken on a voluntary or paid basis. A shamash (literally 'servant') can also mean an assistant to a rabbi. The word gabbai is Aramaic and, in Talmudic times, meant collector of taxes or charity, or treasurer.

When Moses went up into Biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (Exodus 24:12-18), he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "gods" to go before them (Exodus 32:1).

Doctor Zhivago is a novel by Boris Pasternak, first published in 1957 in Italy. The novel is named after its protagonist, Yuri Zhivago, a physician and poet, and takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War II.

According to Jewish law, children become accountable for their actions once they reach a certain age; 13 for boys (Bar Mitzvah), and 12 or 13 for girls (Bat Mitzvah). Prior this age, the child's parents hold the responsibility for the child's actions. After this age, children bear their own responsibility, and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life.

Adolf Eichmann was tasked with facilitating and managing the logistics involved in the mass deportation of Jews to ghettos and extermination camps in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe during WW II. In 1960, he was captured in Argentina by the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service. He was found guilty of war crimes in a widely publicised trial in Israel, and was hanged in 1962.