On the Main Line

I would be remiss if I did not mention the passing of Prof. Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi this week.

The truth is that he was not influential to me in ways that some others historians/ academic scholars are, although I used his book about the marrano physician Cardoso in a post that I've been working on for a few weeks, and I'm proud of. (Stay tuned.) However, he will always hold a special place in my heart and mind because of his book Zakhor; Jewish History and Jewish Memory. I can't even think of what it was specifically about the book that moved me, but it was very exciting when I read it, as it was the two or three times I reread it. One haunting sentence in the book stands out to this very day: "...History becomes what it had never been before--the faith of fallen Jews." (pg. 86) In addition, I thought his prose in that book was gorgeous.

ת.נ.צ.ב.ה