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Michael Freund

Michael Freund

Michael Freund, the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, served as the deputy director of communications under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. An ordained rabbi, he has lived for the past 25 years in Israel.

Despite decline and persecution, a small Jewish community kept on going.
The state offered economic opportunities that drew immigrants, turning into generations who helped build the state’s businesses, cities and civic institutions.
More than eight decades ago, amid the Holocaust in Poland, a rabbi looked at a Jewish child beside a Torah scroll and saw the Jewish future.
Over the centuries, communities around the world added their own touches, drawing on the plants, foods and decorative traditions of the places in which they lived.
Long before all the Israeli tourists, Thai and Jewish lives were intertwined.
Hopefully, recent violence against a Chabad center will prove to be a footnote to a long saga.
A unique community has survived for centuries and serves as a bridge to Israel.
From peddlers to power, Jews have been woven into the fabric of the nation’s life.
The Jews helped build Karachi, the country’s capital and largest city, before prejudice finally forced them out.
An ancient community has, in its small way, resurrected itself.
Ancient background matters because it reminds the world of something too often forgotten: Jews lived, traded, prayed and built families across the Arab and Muslim world for centuries.
Few tourists today encounter the extraordinary, tropical story of Alexander Salmon.