Yehuda Geberer

Tzippy I started planning Benny’s upsheren before he even turned one. Look, he was the first boy after three girls, so of course I wanted it to be special. And baby Aliza made her appearance a few months before Benny’s third birthday, so Benny was seriously outnumbered. It was definitely his turn for some real boy-friendly limelight. Maybe I went a little over the top with his car-themed party.

Title: Opening Up the Gates of Zion Location: British Mandate Palestine Document: Chief Rabbinate immigration dossier Time: 1920s and ’30s British authorities looked on sternly as the elderly rabbi pleaded on behalf of a boatload of “illegal” Jews who had slipped into Haifa harbor under cover of darkness. It was the early 1930s, and British Mandate officials were preparing to deport new arrivals to Palestine who exceeded the immigration quota.

Title: From Port Arthur to Portsmouth Location: Russia Document: Lithograph Time: 1905 ON September 5, 1905, after four weeks of tense negotiations, Russian and Japanese diplomats met in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to sign a treaty ending a war that had stunned the world and redrawn the map of East Asia. The Russo-Japanese War began in early 1904, driven by clashing imperial ambitions in Northeast Asia, particularly over rival claims to Manchuria and Korea.