The most monstrous dictator in Europe since Hitler, not just appeased, but fêted, honored, by President Trump, who is seemingly intent on giving Putin absolutely everything he wants, including Ukrainian land his barbaric forces have not yet even conquered. A shameful day.

I've just heard the terrible news that my friend - and friend of many here - Andrew West, @babelstone.co.uk, the incomparably brilliant Sinologist and Tangutologist passed away suddenly but peacefully on 10th July. 1/2

The official Harvard 2025 Yearbook: “October 2023: War Breaks Out in Gaza.”

"Never again"

"This was not just a handover of an Israeli captive. It was a ritualistic humiliation. A Jew was hauled to a public square packed with men who hate her kind. She was made into a spectacle for the sport of radical Islamists. It was an outrage from another century." www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-...

Why are 'anti-racists' silent about Arbel Yehud's terrible ordeal?

Watching Arbel Yehud being freed in Gaza today, I thought to myself: this is what it must have been like at Salem

spectator.co.uk

"The West’s progressive dogma has deprived it of a theory of mind for savagery." telegraph.co.uk/gift/fa907a1...

The so-called virtue of the West has blinded it to reality of Islamist cruelty

Even the suffering of Israeli hostages can’t wake progressives from their fantasyland morality

telegraph.co.uk

ברוך אתה אדוני, אלוהינו מלך העולם, מתיר אסורים

13 Jan. 1898 - Emile Zola addresses the President of France and accuses his government of antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army officer sentenced to life imprisonment for espionage. Zola points out a litany of judicial errors and an utter lack of serious evidence.

JEWISH PRINTING IN HEBREW, IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL IN 1578. This is Rabbi Samuel Aripul's "Sar Shalom", printed in 1578 by Abraham & Eliezer Askkenazi at Safed (צְפַת Tsfat), the highest city in the Galilee, in what is today northern Israel. Jews were printing books in Israel nearly 5 centuries ago.

In 1553, the population of Safed consisted of 1121 Muslim households, and 716 Jewish households, which rose to 945 households in 1567. There were more than 30 synagogues and 7000 Jews in Safed in 1576 when Murad III issued an edict for the forced deportation of 1000 Jewish families to Cyprus.

Jews have been a settled, permanent, continuous presence in the Holy Land for over three millennia, and have only ever left in numbers when exiled or forced out.

This is the beginning of the oldest Arabic version of Christ's Letter Sent from Heaven. This 10th century ms. (Munich BSB Cod. arab. 1067) is one of the oldest witnesses of this apocryphon in existence. Digital images are available online here: www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb0....

A machzor (prayerbook), printed in Sulzbach in 1794, with a contemporary Hebrew manuscript account bound in of the Jews murdered in a Polish pogrom on the 2nd day of Pesach 1655, together with an additional later Yiddish translation written in pencil. 1/

The 7 days of Sukkot start tomorrow. Sukkot is one of the three Jewish festivals on which the ancient Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. This beautiful machzor (prayerbook) for Sukkot according to the rite of Avignon, was written by David Tsoref in 1721. 1/

Sefer Chibat Yerushalayim. [Book of the Love of Jerusalem]. Written by Rabbi Chaim Horowitz, and printed at the Press of Moshe & Yehudit in Jerusalem in 1844. The first edition of the first book about Jerusalem printed in the Holy City, illustrated with the Western Wall on the title page.

JEWISH PRINTING IN HEBREW, IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL IN 1578. This is Rabbi Samuel Aripul's "Sar Shalom", printed in 1578 by Abraham & Eliezer Askkenazi at Safed (צְפַת Tsfat), the highest city in the Galilee, in what is today northern Israel. Jews were printing books in Israel nearly 5 centuries ago.

A shekel struck in year 3 of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, AD 68-69. Obverse: Chalice with Paleo-Hebrew: ŠQL YŚR’L (= Shekel of Israel) and the date: Y(ear) 3. Reverse: 3 pomegranates, with Paleo-Hebrew: YRUŠLYM HQDUŠH (= Yerushalayim Hakedosha = Jerusalem the Holy [Place]).

To all the acquaintances of mine in academia who casually repeat this blood-libel: like many Jews I will never forget, nor ever forgive. "There is a sadistic triumphalism in charging Jews with genocide, as though those making it feel they have their man at last." telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05...

No, Israel isn’t committing genocide

The charge goes unchallenged on the BBC. But it is a depressing rehashing of age-old anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish blood lust

telegraph.co.uk

I unreservedly support every word of this moving and brilliantly written letter. Am Yisrael Chai. 🇮🇱 docs.google.com/document/u/0...

may all sentient beings be at peace om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum om mani padme hum 🐀 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐂 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐅 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐇 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐉 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐍 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐎 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐑 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐒 唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐔 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐶 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🐷 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 👨 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 👩 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 🦏 唵嘛呢叭咪吽 👼 唵嘛呢叭咪吽👹唵嘛呢叭咪吽🧑‍🦲唵嘛呢叭咪吽🐈 唵嘛呢叭咪🌏🌍🌎

Digitization & cataloging is complete for the collection of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of ʻAkkār in northern Lebanon. The colophons and endowment notes testify to close interactions in the Ottoman period across what is now the border between Lebanon and Syria. Info: hmml.org/collections/...

Disappointing that there isn't a convenient way to say this in English. In South Africa, one often hears the wonderful Afrikaans equivalent: "moer-my-gesiggie". Do any other languages have a word or convenient standard phrase for this?

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · 2y ago

Learn a German word today: #Backpfeifengesicht (Someone deserving of a face slap).

A collage of Adhucs from a court record in 1250 Norfolk "Adhuc" means "Still" and appears at the top of some membranes. The heading tells readers the proceedings are a continuation from the same district listed on the previous membrane. For instance, a dragon breathes fire on "Still from Grimshoe"

A new free post on my Substack, 'All Old Strange Things', looks at 10 history books that have transformed the way I think drfrancisyoung.substack.com/p/books-that...

Books That Changed Everything

10 history books that changed the way I write - and think

drfrancisyoung.substack.com

To all the acquaintances of mine in academia who casually repeat this blood-libel: like many Jews I will never forget, nor ever forgive. "There is a sadistic triumphalism in charging Jews with genocide, as though those making it feel they have their man at last." telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05...

No, Israel isn’t committing genocide

The charge goes unchallenged on the BBC. But it is a depressing rehashing of age-old anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish blood lust

telegraph.co.uk

I unreservedly support every word of this moving and brilliantly written letter. Am Yisrael Chai. 🇮🇱 docs.google.com/document/u/0...

One of the best, most innovative booksellers in the US - if you're not on the @funkebooks.bsky.social mailing list, you should be.

mark funke@funkebooks.bsky.social · 2y ago

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new catalogue Dissertations & Theses: funkebooks.com/lists/dissertations-and-theses/ covering the years 1554-1773 that are on all manner of interesting subjects. #abaa #rarebooks #weird&obscureknowledge #impressyourfriends

You see the printed black square from a page in Robert Fludd's "Utriusque cosmi maioris" (1617) that represented the nothingness that was prior to the universe. The square is framed by four sentences in Latin: "Et sic in infinitum" (And so on to infinity). #earlymodern #skystorians

A hundred soldiers, museum conservators and even members of the public, joined the rescue effort. They climbed on each other's shoulders to pull down artworks mounted high up on walls.

Borsen fire: Denmark endures its own Notre Dame devastation

Danes recount watching in horror as the historic Borsen went up in flames.

bbc.com

Map of the world with Jerusalem in the centre, and some of its inhabitants are depicted. BL Add MS 28681; 'The Map Psalter'; 1262-1300 CE; England; f.9r