#221: Volcanoes, Plagues & the Childhood of a Kabbalist

An episode from 3/16/26: Tonight, I read about the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the year 535 CE, and the outbreak of plague in Constantinople (and elsewhere) only a few years later. It all comes from Susan Wise Bauer’s The History of the Medieval World: From the Conversion of Constantine to the First Crusade, and I give a handful of reasons why her histories for adults and children are definitely worth going to.

Bookending these stories are a few passages in Gershom Scholem’s (1887-1982) memoir, From Berlin to Jerusalem: Memoirs of My Youth. It turns out that the great kabbalist liked sweets, and riding around on roller-skates.

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