Commemorating the Warsaw Uprising

By Ruth E. Gruber
Published on April 24, 2003

On April 19, 1943, heavily armed Nazi troops penetrated into the Warsaw Ghetto with a grim goal: the liquidation of the ghetto and the deportation of the last remnants of Warsaw's Jews -- some 40,000 men, women and children.

History Comes Alive

By Ruth E. Gruber
Published on August 29, 2002

Italian scholar Francesco Spagnolo is keenly aware of the long-standing Jewish presence in Italy.

"Never before the creation of the State of Israel did Jews of so many varied origins live together, and in such a stimulating, if at times threatening, environment as in the land they called in Hebrew 'I-Tal-Yah,'" he says.

"I-Tal-Yah" -- Island of Divine Dew in Hebrew -- means Italy in Italian, a land where Jews have lived for more than 2,000 years and which has seen layer after layer of immigration from all over the Jewish Diaspora.

When in Rome

By Ruth E. Gruber
Published on December 6, 2001

The election of Dr. Riccardo Di Segni as the new chief rabbi of Rome opens the latest chapter in the tumultuous life of a Jewish community that traces its history back to the days of the Maccabees.

‘Neighbors’

By Ruth E. Gruber
Published on March 15, 2001

Responding to widespread debate over Poles' participation in a 1941 massacre of Jews, Poland's political and religious leaders are calling on Polish citizens to confront their past.

‘Haven’ for Sweeps

By Tom Tugend
Published on February 8, 2001

"Haven" is an intriguing but seriously flawed depiction of how nearly 1,000 European refugees were transported and admitted to the United States in 1944, which CBS-TV will present as a four-hour miniseries on Feb. 11 and 14 at 9 p.m.