Wednesday, February 02, 2011

A Kovno convert.

Recently Google and Yad Vashem announced that Google has digitized 130,000 photos and helped Yad Vashem put them online. Furthermore, Google doesn't do anything half-baked, so they also used the latest ocr technology to make a great deal of the text included in some of these photos searchable.

Here's a picture of the Baal Shem Tov, apparently brought to us by the power of the bagel:


I found an interesting photograph of someone named Izak ben Avraham, a ger in Kovno:


EDIT: If you're interested, keep checking this post, as I will keep adding things I found interesting. This is R. Koppel Charif, the great British-Jewish historian Charles Duschinsky's ancestor:

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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:35 PM, February 02, 2011

    Excuse my ignorance but what does Kocho shel baigel mean?

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  2. Mar Gavriel2:08 AM, February 03, 2011

    Notice that the caption says that the picture of the Besht is from the 16th century?

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  3. JXG7:53 AM, February 03, 2011

    Mar G-- the Besht stories involve kefitzas haderech; why not kefitzas hazman?

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  4. Anonymous4:10 PM, February 03, 2011

    Mar Gavriel

    Good eye. But it is pretty obvious it's a typo, as the caption directly underneath the picture says it's from the 18th century.

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  5. Ari4:14 PM, February 03, 2011

    Bagel mystery solved?

    "In the 18th century, the Baal Shem Tov promoted Chasidism with parables about the bagel."

    http://thejewishchronicle.net/view/full_story/280597/article-----Bagels------Book-tracks-Jewish-history-through-the-hole-in-the-bread

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