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Articles by Dan Rich
The Hidden Refuge of Two Jewish Sisters
The first trapdoor was hidden in the floor. In 2012, Dutch corporate attorney Roxane van Iperen bought a secluded nine-room house on a quiet forest path and began to renovate it. The house started giving up its secrets almost at once. There were more trapdoors, secret rooms, and double walls. Then came stranger finds: old resistance artifacts, sheet music, candle stubs, and faded photographs. These were the remains of lives lived in hiding.
15 Jewish Communities in the Most Unexpected Places on Earth
From Arctic Russia to the Amazon jungle, Jewish communities have taken root in the most unlikely corners of the globe. Jewish communities took root in places no one would expect. Amazonian villages, isolated mountain ranges, even polar outposts. They held onto their own customs for centuries, often under difficult or hostile conditions. Here is a look at some of those strange corners of the earth where Jewish communities grew. Some still thrive today, others have disappeared.
Sabina Spielrein: The Woman Freud and Jung Wrote Out of History
Meet the brilliant Jewish woman who helped invent psychoanalysis, only to be erased by the men who used her ideas. Sabina Spielrein was 19 years old, locked in a Swiss psychiatric ward, twitching and sticking out her tongue while doctors debated whether she was mad. Within a decade, that same "hysteric" would be publishing groundbreaking psychoanalytic theory, treating her own patients, and quietly shaping ideas that made Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung famous.
The Woman Who Hid 100 Jews in Her Attic
Tina Strobos built a secret attic hideout the Nazis never found, stole identity cards, and survived eight Gestapo raids. She lived ten minutes from Anne Frank and never knew. Tina Strobos was born in Amsterdam in 1920 to a socialist, atheist family that treated resistance as second nature. They were freethinking activists with generations of women who had sheltered refugees long before the Nazis darkened Europe.
Arthur Szyk: The Artist Who Fought Hitler with a Paintbrush
His rifle was his paintbrush, and he became one of the most feared weapons in the Allied arsenal. History has fought fascism with armies, speeches, and uprisings. Arthur Szyk fought it with a paintbrush and a fearless imagination. Szyk became internationally renowned for two things: his breathtaking, jewel-like miniature style and his ferocious political art, especially his anti-Nazi caricatures during World War II. He never picked up a rifle to fight tyranny.
The Teenage Assassins
Three teenage girls slipped through Nazi-occupied Holland hiding in plain sight, and left a body count behind them. They slipped through Nazi-occupied Holland like ghosts. Three teenaged girls, a quiet red-haired law student and two sisters on bicycles who looked so harmless they glided past checkpoints with a smile. Their innocence was a mask. Behind it stood a trio bound by nerve, discipline, and an iron refusal to bow. Hannie Schaft gathered intelligence and struck at those who enabled oppression.
Jews and Pickles: A New York Love Story Thousands of Years in the Making
From Eastern European survival food to TikTok sensation, the pickle's journey is really a Jewish story. The pickle didn't conquer New York by accident. It arrived in a barrel, on a pushcart, hauled by Jewish immigrants who had been brining vegetables to survive Eastern European winters for generations. They brought the technique, the garlic, the dill, and the hustle, and within a generation they had transformed a preservation technique into a New York obsession that endures to this day.
The Sobibor Uprising
A quarter million Jews were murdered at Sobibor. But on one October afternoon in 1943, nearly 300 prisoners fought back and ran for their lives. On Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), as we remember the six million, Sobibor demands we remember something else: the moment when Jews marked for certain death rose up and demonstrated that even inside a killing factory, courage and defiance were still possible.
How The Three Stooges Humiliated Hitler
While Hollywood cowered, the Three Stooges mocked Hitler to his face. People either howl with delight at the Three Stooges or stare in bewilderment that anyone could. But spend even a few minutes with their classic shorts and something becomes impossible to miss: their antics and banter are soaked in Jewish identity. And at one of the most dangerous moments in modern history, that identity became a weapon. Who Were the Three Stooges?
When American and German Soldiers United to Fight the Nazis
In the final days of WWII, one last, improbable battle unfolded inside a medieval castle where American soldiers and German defectors fought side by side against SS troops. By late April 1945, Hitler was dead, Germany was collapsing, and surrender was just days away. The Red Army was driving in from the east, Italy had fallen in the south, and Western Allied forces were pushing into Tyrol from the west. World War II was in its final breaths.
The One-Woman Bomb Squad
She survived the Siege of Leningrad and defused 750 mines by hand. Meet Sofia Golovinskaya, the female Jewish Red Army sapper history nearly erased. On June 22, 1941, Hitler unleashed the largest invasion the world had ever seen: three million German troops surging across an 1,800-mile front. He expected the Soviet Union to collapse quickly. Instead, he encountered staggering resistance—compounded by the brutal force of the Russian winter.
Spies, Saboteurs, and Couriers: The Heroic Women of Winston Churchill’s Secret Army
They helped defeat the Nazis with microfilm tucked into gloves, messages woven into yarn, and intelligence smuggled by bicycle, ski, sewing needle, and hair ribbon. During World War II, as more than 127 million Allied men and women mobilized across continents, one of the war’s most daring efforts unfolded far from the front lines. It belonged to Winston Churchill’s clandestine “secret army”—the Special Operations Executive (SOE)—a network built to strike the enemy from within.
Jewish Americans Who Were Awarded the Medal of Honor
From the battlefields of the Civil War to the mountains of Korea, the jungles of Vietnam, and the deserts of Afghanistan, Jewish Americans have stood shoulder to shoulder with their fellow servicemembers in defense of the nation. Millions have worn the uniform; a courageous few have earned America’s highest military distinction—the Medal of Honor.
From Auschwitz to KISS: The Survivor Who Raised Gene Simmons
Some stories are so improbable, they almost defy belief. A teenage girl in Hungary loses her entire family in Auschwitz, endures slave labor, and somehow survives. She builds a new life out of the ashes, immigrates with her only child to America, and raises him as a single mother in Queens. That boy, once a lonely immigrant struggling with English, would one day breathe fire, spit blood, and command stadiums of screaming fans as one of the most recognizable rock stars in the world.
Foreclosure with Reverse Mortgage
I was considering to bid on a property that will be up for auction but I am trying to understand what is going on. This is what the clerk of court shows by the defendant (now deceased) 1. Satisfaction of Mortgage (Chase had the property in the foreclosure process) 07/2023 2. Home equity conversion mortgage filed from FINANCE OF AMERICA REVERSE LLC $1.5M 07/2023 2. Owner deceased 03/2024 3. FINANCE OF AMERICA REVERSE LLC files Lis Pendens 08/2024 4.
“The Marvelous Jew”: Larry Harlow and the Unlikely Birth of Salsa
When Larry Harlow passed away on August 20, 2021, the Latin music world mourned not just a pioneer, but a paradox: a Jewish man from Brownsville, Brooklyn, hailed across the Americas as “El Judío Maravilloso” — The Marvelous Jew. Though Harlow was neither Puerto Rican nor Cuban, he became a founding father of salsa, a genre born from the streets and barrios of New York City—a vibrant fusion of Afro-Caribbean rhythms, jazz, and Latin soul that became a cultural force.
Morris Katz: The King of Schlock Art
Morris Katz was a one-of-a-kind artist. Two-time winner of Guinness Book of World Records for fastest and most prolific painter who used 10,000 rolls of toilet paper instead of paint brushes. His paintings can be found in over 100 art museums around the world, including three at the Smithsonian Institute.
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 women tailored and crafted exquisite garments for the wives of SS guards and high-ranking Nazi officers in an exclusive salon the Nazis called the “Upper Tailoring Studio,” located within the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Magda Goebbels, wife of Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, was one of their clients. Founded by Hedwig Höss, the wife of the camp commandant, their work was in such high demand that there was a six-month backlog of orders.
The Mighty Atom | Aish
His stage name was “The Mighty Atom”. He was just five feet four (1.63 meters) and weighed 145 pounds (66 kilograms), but Joe Greenstein was strong enough to pull 30-ton trucks and hold back an airplane with his hair, chew iron chains and coins in half, crush steel bars and drive nails through wood boards with his bare hands, and flatten a bullet with his skull. Childhood and Early Life Yoselle (Joe) Greenstein was born to a Jewish family in Suwalki, Poland in 1893.
The Happiest Man on Earth: Eddi Jaku’s Inspirational Story of Survival, Forgiveness, and Love
December 9, 2024 10 min read After surviving Auschwitz and a Death March, Eddie Jaku dedicated his life to be happy and kind. Eddi Jaku survived Auschwitz and became a beloved humanitarian preaching love and forgiveness in his adopted country of Australia. Toward the end of his 101-year lifetime he delivered a Tedx talk “The Happiest Man On Earth” that has received 2,000,000 views on YouTube.
Was the DNA Molecule Discovered by a Female Jewish Scientist?
Ask any schoolchild “Who discovered the double helix molecule of DNA?” and their response will be Francis Crick and James Watson. After all, along with Maurice Wilkins, they all won a 1962 Nobel prize for that discovery. But is that answer totally accurate? Did sexism and prejudice account for overlooking another scientist? Who was Rosalind Franklin? Rosalind Franklin was born into a distinguished Jewish family in the Notting Hill neighborhood of London on July 25, 1920.
The Two Jewish American Athletes Excluded from 1936 Berlin Olympics
Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were likely removed due to antisemitism and the desire by the USA and International Olympic Committees to not embarrass Hitler. Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller were getting ready for the race of their lives. It was the morning of August 8, 1936, and in just a few hours they’d be representing their country by running the first two legs of the 4 x 100-meter relay race trials for the United States at the Berlin Summer Olympic Games.
Rod Serling’s Moral Fight Against Evil
The creator of The Twilight Zone used his trailblazing series to wrestle with the moral issues of his time. In addition to co-writing the screenplay for the original 1968 Planet of the Apes movie that launched the third longest running movie franchise in the world, Rod Serling’s greatest achievement was his TV series The Twilight Zone, which he used as a platform to fight against fascism, racial injustice, and prejudice, while promoting social equity.
The Jewish Ukrainian Immigrant who Clothed Elvis, Johnny Cash and Hendrix
Nudie Cohn was a desperate Jewish immigrant child who fled Ukrainian oppression and made his mark with outlandish rhinestone suits. The list of inspirational Jewish immigrants is a long one. But the improbable story of the Jew who crafted a $10,000 gold lamé jumpsuit for Elvis Presley may be wildest thing you’ll read today. Nuta Kotlyarenko was born to Jewish parents in the Russian Empire’s Ukrainian city of Kyiv on December 15, 1902.
The Jewish Woman who Revolutionized Emergency Medicine
Nancy Caroline was born in the Boston suburb of Newton, MA on June 27, 1944. Her parents, Leo and Zelda Caroline, valued education and impressed upon their daughter and son a concern for the Jewish value of correcting social injustices and problems. Nancy developed her interest in medicine early and worked during her teenage years at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Pathology Department as a photographer and lab worker.
From pushcart to American icon: Levi Strauss, denim blue jeans, and San Francisco's Jewish community
What American product is more popular than the denim blue jean? Each year, around 450 million pairs of jeans are sold across the U.S. and a whopping 1.25 billion pairs are bought worldwide. A 2023 PBS documentary, “Riveted: The History of Jeans,” tells us “half the population of the planet are wearing them on any given day.” But did you know that the incredible story of blue jeans starts in the Kingdom of Bavaria (now Germany) and a Jewish merchant’s 1873 invention?
Hank Greenberg: The Hebrew Hammer's legacy of breaking barriers and inspiring pride
Hank Greenberg, a power-hitting first baseman for the Detroit Tigers, won two MVP awards and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956. Beyond his legendary baseball career, Greenberg was also Jewish and became a symbol of Jewish pride for many Americans. Let’s unpack everything we know about Greenberg’s Jewish identity, starting with the historical backdrop of his era — World War II and rising antisemitism in the United States. The 1930s were a dark time for Jews globally.
Wilmington schools plan a step in the right direction
Elizabeth Lockman is vice-chair of the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission. Dan Rich is policy director of the commission and a professor of public policy at the University of Delaware. After long and arduous negotiations, the Christina teachers’ union and the district’s school board have decided to move forward with Governor Carney’s proposal for improving its Wilmington schools.
Enforcing community association rules by imposing fines
One of the most common challenges for community associations is how to effectively enforce association rules against residents who repeatedly violate them. To start, it is important that the rules and regulations, as set forth in a community’s governing documents, be enforced consistently for each and every member, director, officer and resident or else the rules may be rendered unenforceable over time.
The Law: Post-hurricane advice on tree liability in Florida
By Dan Rich As relief efforts remain ongoing, it is evident Hurricane Irma has had a very drastic effect on our local community, especially the massive amount of downed trees and vegetation. We all are aware of the dangers of fallen trees, but, in the wake of Irma, I thought it would be helpful to answer some basic legal questions associated with trees, shrubs and vegetation and the liabilities associated with them.Q. Can I trim my neighbor’s tree branches if they are growing into my yard?A.
The Law: Buying in an HOA? An an estoppel letter helps
By Dan Rich Prior to 2007, Florida did not allow a homeowners association to pursue a former owner for unpaid HOA assessments and fees.This changed in 2007 when the Florida Legislature amended Chapter 720 of the Florida Statues by adding Section 720.3085, which provides that “[a] parcel owner is jointly and severally liable with the previous parcel owner for all unpaid assessments that came due up to the time of transfer of title.”This means is that if the previous owner owed the HOA any...
Too many Delaware children are living in poverty
Children live in poverty in every part of our state. These children are racially and ethnically diverse. Without thoughtful interventions beginning at birth, most will bear hardships throughout their lives. Those hardships limit life opportunities and translate to costs for our state that increase if we do not invest early and consistently, even when times are hard. In 2009, the Delaware Child Poverty Task Force recommended actions to reduce child poverty by 50 percent over 10 years.
The Law: Is 'scalping,' or reselling, tickets illegal in Florida?
By Dan Rich Remember when your favorite band came to town but you couldn’t go because all of the tickets sold out in less than five minutes, but then were being resold for thousands? I do.
Lotsa latkes: Cooking contest winner Dan Rich mixes it up for Hanukkah
The great latke debate rages in my family. Go traditional -- or tinker? Crispy or creamy? Applesauce on top, gravy or sour cream? That's why I mix it up each year during the eight-day Jewish holiday, also called the festival of lights. The holiday's roots go back more than 2,000 years. After a bitter battle and several years of political and religious oppression, a group of Jews, led by Judah Maccabee, took back the holy temple in Jerusalem from their Greek-Syrian foes.
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