Shai Afsai is a writer living in Providence, Rhode Island. His articles and short stories have appeared in The Providence Journal, The Jerusalem Post, Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association Notes, Rhode Island History, Heredom: Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly, Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, and Anthropology Today. His “Jews and Freemasons in Providence: Temple Beth-El and Redwood Lodge” won the Rhode Island Jewish Historical Association’s 2013 Horvitz Award. His website is https://shaiafsai.com.
Though not always able to offer definitive evidence of a link between the two men, since the nineteenth century Jewish scholars have affirmed that Sefer Heshbon Ha-nefesh (The Book of Spiritual Accounting) — a Hebrew work published in 1808[1] by the early Eastern European maskil (Jewish enlightener)[2] Rabbi Menahem Mendel Lefin of Satanow (1749-1826)[3] — […]
Thomas Paine’s close associations with famous Freemasons in America, England, and France have not only frequently been taken as evidence that he was a Freemason himself, but have also been seen as explaining his sudden rise to literary and political prominence after arriving in the American colonies from England. His writing of an essay “On […]
