December 10
1475: Seventy eight year old Italian artist Paolo Uccello passed away. Like many artists of his time, Uccello produced what today would be called anti-Semitic art. Among his works was “Miracle of the Host”
1508: The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II, Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of Aragon as an alliance against Venice. From a Jewish point of view, this item presents a mixed bag. Ferdinand ruled over a kingdom that had expelled its Jews and was home to the inquisition. But Pope Julius employed a Jewish physician, Samuel Sarfatti and practiced a policy of “benign neglect” when it came to dealing with the Jewish people. While Venice had enacted its share of ant-Jewish laws (and in 1516 would create the first Ghetto), it was a better place for Jews to settle than other parts of Europe. This is attested to by the fact that many of the Sephardim who had been expelled from Spain made their new home in the city of canals, including Isaac Abravanel.
1520: Martin Luther, who would condemn the “inhuman treatment of the Jews” in 1523 before turning anti-Semite in 1536, to responded to the Papal Bull of excommunication by burning it (Exurge Domine) “along with the book of church law and many other books by his enemies in Wittenberg” at a spot now known as the Luther Oak.
1768: Birthdate of “Christian Orientalist and theologian Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmuller” who among other things “brought out a pocket edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1822.”
1675: A German Jew, Alexander Polak, became a citizen of The Hauge. He was the progenitor of the Polak Daniels family, and gave the congregation a cemetery in 1697.
1773(25th of Kislev, 5534): Chanukah
1774: After just a little over three months of Austrian rule, General Gabriel Freiherr von Spleny reported on the conditions at Czernowitz including a description of the Jewish population whose presence in the city dated back to the 15th century during the reign of Moldavian Prince Alexander the Good.
1776: Birthdate of Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of Moses Mendelssohn and the father of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. A successful banker, he would change his name to Abraham Ernst Mendelssohn Bartholdy and change his religion to Christianity. "Once I was the son of a famous father, now I am the father of a famous son."
1803(25th of Kislev, 5564): Chanukah
1804: Birthdate of German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi. Jacobi was the German mathematician who, with the independent work of Niels Henrik Abel of Norway, founded the theory of elliptic functions. He also worked on Abelian functions and discovered the hyperelliptic functions. Jacobi applied his work in elliptic functions to number theory. He also investigated mathematical analysis and geometry. Jacobi carried out important research in partial differential equations of the first order and applied them to the differential equations of dynamics. His work on determinants is important in dynamics and quantum mechanics and he studied the functional determinant now called the Jacobian. He passed away in 1851.
1806: Aharon ben Yevzlah Hollander married Esther bat Zemel at the Great Synagogue today.
1807: In Bavaria, “Lob Moses Mack and Henriette Samuel Mack” gave birth to Moses Loeb Mack
1814: Birthdate of Sebastian Brunner, the Benedictine trained priest who was one of a group of authors including Anton E. von Roasa, Count Ferdinand Schirnding and Albert Wiesinger and who launched a libel case against Ignaz Kuranda and Heinrich Graetz.
1816: Birthdate of Dr. Albert Lowey, the rabbi who led the West London Synagogue of British Jews, the “first reform synagogue in England.”
1817: Mississippi was admitted to the union as the 20th state. The Jewish community in Mississippi dates back to the 1840’s. There are Jewish houses of worship and cemeteries dotted in many towns across the state including Jackson, the state capital, Greenwood and Vicksburg. The Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience (MSJE) is located in Utica, Mississippi. Utica is also the home to Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the summer destination for thousands of southern Jewish youngsters in the last forty years. The Mississippi Jewish community has produced several prominent individuals including Shelby Foote and Rabbi Fred Davidow.
1818: Alexander Barnet Gompertz, the son of Barent Solomon Gompertz and the former Miriam Keyser got married today in London.
1826 (10 Kislev 5587): Rabbi Dovber of Lubavitch was released from prison after being arrested the week after Sukkot on slander charges.
1836: Emory College was chartered in Oxford, Georgia. Today Emory University is located in Atlanta, Georgia. One third of the undergraduate student body is Jewish and in 2005 Hillel received a three million dollar grant to upgrade its services and facilities on campus. The university offers a two year graduate degree in Jewish Studies.
1848: Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte won a four-way race and was elected President of France today which led Michael Goudchaux to withdraw his support of the government.
1850: Judah Leib "Leopold" Löw was installed as the rabbi at Szeged, Hungary
1851: At Friedland, Germany Miriam Lessler and Wolf Schreier gave birth to Eugene Schreier who was married Martha Kasprowicz and who was the “first president of the reorganized Congregation Jeshuat Israel” for which he procured a charter from the State of Rhode Island in 1894.
1854: In Berlin tax-collector Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Henrici and his wife Wilhelmine gave birth to Carl Ernst Julius Henrici the anti-Semitic leader who founded the Social Nazi Party in 1881
1855(1st of Tevet, 5616): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1855: Birthdate of Mrs. James (Selina) Levi. The Dubuque native was the daughter of the founder of Iowa Jewry and one time held the record for being the oldest Jewish woman born in the Hawkeye State.
1858: The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York sent a letter to President James Buchanan which described a public meeting held on December 4 in which Jews and non-Jews gathered to demand the return of Edgardo Mortara to his parents. Those attending the meeting also petitioned the President to join with the several European nations who were protesting the kidnapping of the youngster by representatives of the Pope. This letter was a follow-up to a communication sent by the same group on November 20, 1858.
1858: Caleb Lyon delivered his second lecture on The Holy Land under the auspices of the Mercantile Library Association at Clinton Hall this evening. His lecture included a description of the mountains of Moab, the Dead Sea and “the silvery Jordan River.” He described his trip to Jerusalem which he said was populated by six thousand Jews as well as a visit to the Siloam Springs, the Wailing Wall and attendance at a Jewish wedding.
1861: An article entitled “Sold by a Jew Peddler” reported that John H. Bornisky had filed a complaint before Judge Osborne claiming that a Jewish peddler name August Seligman had sold to him seven pieces of linen, for the sum of $38 50. The sale was made by sample, and the complainant had paid the money upon the promise of Seligman to deliver the goods immediately. Since the goods were not delivered Seligman was arrested and held because bail had not been posted.
1861: Rabbi Arnold Fischel arrived in Washington, D.C. this evening. He hopes to meet with government leaders including President Lincoln in an attempt to change the law so that Jews can serve as chaplains with the Union Army.
1861: Moses Grinnell wrote a letter of introduction to President Lincoln on behalf of Rabbi Arnold Fischel.
“Sir, permit me to present to you Rev .Dr. Fischell of this city who visits Washington as a delegate from the Board of Delegates of American Israelites, having been selected as chaplain to the Jews of the army around Washington estimated at about 8000. Dr. Fischell is of high literary abilities and greatly esteemed by distinguished men of all religious denominations. Believe me, etc.”
1864: Sherman’s Union Army reaches Savannah in what history will call “Sherman’s March to the Sea.” Among those with Sherman was Major General Frederick Knefler. The native of Hungary was the highest ranking Jewish officer in the Union Army. He was commander of the 79th Indiana regiment before he was promoted to brigadier general for his performance at the Battle of Chickamauga and then to major general during his service with Sherman on his march through Georgia.
1864: While serving with Company A, of the 65thRegiment-Fifth Cavalry, Max Armhold was taken prisoner and held until the following April when the Confederates surrendered to the Union.
1864: While the Union forces were besieging the Army of Northern Virginia, Abraham Schloss of Company E, 65th Regiment-Fifth Cavalry was wounded at Richmond.
1865: The reign of Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians, who was friendly enough with the Rothschilds to have stayed with Carl von Rothschild at his villa in Naples came to an end today.
1869: Ellen Cohen, the daughter of Louis Cohen and Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling gave birth Louis Samuel Montague, the 2ndBaron of Sawyling, “the merchant banker and communal leaders who “in 1911 became the first professing Jew to inherit a peerage and a seat in the House of Lords..
1869(6th of Tevet, 5630): Fifty-four year old Rabbi Maier Zipser passed away at Rohonc.
1870: It was reported today that ground has been broken for a new synagogue located at Lexington and 55th in Manhattan. Henry Fernbach who was the architect for the 34th and 44th street synagogues as well as one of the architects who worked on Temple Emmanuel, designed this building which he estimates will cost $180,000, [Today this synagogue is the Central Synagogue which was formed from the merger in 1898 of Shar HaShomayim (meaning Gate of Heaven), founded in 1839 by German Jews, and Ahawath Chesed (meaning Love of Mercy), founded in 1846 by Bohemian Jews. Its name was changed to Central Synagogue in 1920 symbolizing not only its location, but also its change to Reform Judaism.”]
1870(16th of Kislev, 5631): Parashat Vayishlach
1870(16th of Kislev, 5631): Russian born author Joseph Schonhak, whose leading worked was Toledot ha-Arez passed away today.
1871: In Leipzig, Henriette Goldschmidt “founded the Association for Family and Popular Education (Verein für Familien- und Volkserziehung) today.
1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has a published “a very discriminating criticism on the character of Shylock as a representative of the Hebrew nation.” According to the Messenger, “as an embodiment of the Jewish people Shylock stands forth strong in his love of religion, family and neighbors but impotent to remonstrate against injustice or to resent it.”
1873: Philadelphian and veteran of the Union Army Myer Asch was elected Commander of the George G. Meade Post, Number 1 of the Grand Army of the Republic today.
1874: During today’s meeting of the Board of Alderman in New York, a resolution authorizing the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Society to sub-let the property they obtained from the City was referred to the Committee on Law.
1875: Birthdate of Russian native Benjamin Duberstein who owned the Dayton (Ohio) Mineral Water Company and was named as a defendant in 1917 “infringement of trade-mark suit” brought by the Coca-Cola Company against him and several defendans.
1875: Today’s session of the Hebrew Charity Fair which closed at 4 o’clock because of erev Shabbat raised $1,155.65.
1876(24th of Kislev, 5637): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light.
1876: Birthdate of Baltimore native Ernest Wise Keyeser, who like his uncle Ephraim Keyser was a sculptor who was a member of the “National Sculpture Society” and whose work include a statute of Sir Galahad.
1876: It was reported today that the Purim Association will manage the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball which is fund raiser for the United Hebrew Charities.
1876: It was reported today that New York’s Hebrew Free School Association is serving 580 students and that the association’s President has announced that additional efforts will be made to provide more facilities for the youngsters.
1876: Rabbi Lukskar officiated at the funeral of 27 year old Abraham Stettaner (sp) at the Cypress Hills Cemetery. He was one of the victims of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire.
1879: The New York Times publishes a lengthy article about the history of Chanukah which begins with the erroneous statement, “The Jewish feast called Chanukah or the Feast of Dedication will be honored by the adherents of the ancient faith on the 16th.” On the evening of December 16th, Jews will be lighting the 8th candle
1879(25th of Kislev, 5640): First Day of Chanukah
1880: It was reported today that a fundraiser is to be held to benefit the 44th Street Synagogue.
1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Association is planning on hosting a ball in celebration of Chanukah at the Academy of Music that will feature several tableaus depicting events in Jewish history.
1881: In Brooklyn, the fair sponsored by Temple Israel which opened on November 30 is scheduled to close this evening.
1882: The annual meeting of the Hebrew Free School Associations is scheduled to take place at ten o’clock this morning in Manhattan.
1882: Four days after she had passed away, Adele (Fermi) Foa, the wife of Octave Foa, with she had had six children, was married today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1882: It was reported today that Alfred Steckler has obtained an injunction preventing the police from arresting several Jewish shopkeepers and workers for violating the Sunday Closing Laws. The injunctions were based on Section 264 of the Penal Code which permits people to work on the first day of the week if they “uniformly keep another day of the week as holy time” and that their labor does not disturb those “observing the first day of the week as holy time.” (In our world where everything it is 24-7-365 it seems hard to remember that Sunday Closing Laws were the norm and vestiges of them still exist such as the prohibition on buying and selling vehicles in Iowa on Sunday.)
1882: Birthdate Austrian-born British philosopher Otto Neurath. The Marxist radical and refugee from Hitler’s Europe passed away in 1945.
1882: It was reported today that the Jews are one of only “religious sects” (the others being Catholics, Episcopalian and Presbyterians) who have founded one or more hospitals in New York City.
1882: It was reported today that that the Prefect of Police has ordered the expulsion of all Jews “residing within the boundaries of St. Petersburg without official permission.”
1883: Birthdate of Shakhne Epstein the native of Vilna who came from a long line of “distinguished rabbis and maskilim.”
1884: It was reported today that the state of Connecticut has had a law on the books “designed to exempt Jews and Seventh Day Baptists who conscientiously observed Saturday as a day of religious worship from the penalties apply to a violation of Sunday laws.
1884(22nd of Kislev, 5645): Abraham Placzek, the chief rabbi of Moravia, passed away today.
1887: In “Shemele, Russia (Belarus), “Ya’acov Abraham Davidowitz” and “Taube Hinda Schwartzman” gave birth to Harry Hirsch Davidowitz, the Columbia and JTS trained rabbi “severely wounded by shrapnel” while serving in France during World War I as the chaplain of the 78thDivision and who was the husband of Ida Chaya Bloom with who he had one son and two daughters.
1888: “He Wants To Be A Boss” published today described moves by Ernst Nathan to take control of “the Republican machine in Kings County (NY)” by asserting his role to dispense patronage following the election of Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency of the United States.
1889: In Brooklyn, founding of Congregation Mikro Kodesh Anshey Klodower which was served by Rabbi S.L. Westman and President Jonas Cohn.
1889: In the U.K. Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, and Alice Edith Cohen gave birth to Gerald Rufus Isaacs, 2nd Marquess of Reading the WW I veteran, British barrister and MP who was the son-in-law of Alfred Moritz Mond and the father-in-law of Solly Zuckerman.
1889: It was reported today that the Montefiore Home Fair of 1887 which raised $158,000 was the most successful fundraiser sponsored by the Jewish community to date.
1889: It was reported today that this year’s Hebrew Educational Fair is being sponsored by the Hebrew Free School Association, the Aguilar Free Library and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. Funds raised during this two long event will go the Hebrew Institute.
1890: In London, The Lord Mayor presided over a meeting at the Guildhall today “to consider the condtion of the Jews in Russia and to take action to secure some alleviation of their distress.”
1890: A benefit performance of the play “Ein Konigreich um ein Kind” presented by Amberg’s company “for the benefit of the building fund of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum” will take place tonight at New York’s Lexington Avenue Opera House.
1890: The forty-piece juvenile orchestra of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum performed at the Teacher’s Bazaar, an event designed to raise funds for teachers’ pensions.
1890: In New York the State Senate Committee on Finance whose members included Jacob Cantor met today to “consider what disposition should be made of the 121 acres of land on Ward’s Island” which had been the entry point for untold thousands of immigrants including Jews from Russia and Poland.
1890: In New York, William Lesser who was accompanied by Jacob Finkelstone of the United Hebrew Charities Organization, identified the corpse of Maximillian Laski just before it was about to be dissected in the amphitheater of the University Medical School
1891: Two days after shad had passed away, 80 year old Barbara Cohen, the wife of I.M. Cohen and mother of “Meyer, Mina and Alida Cohen” was buried today at the “Stockton Jewish Cemetery.”
1891: Birthdate of Nelly Sachs. Born in Berlin, Sachs was a German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. Sachs found sanctuary in Sweden in 1940. When, with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, she observed that Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish people." She passed away in 1970 and was buried in Sweden.
1891: Sixty-three year old Abraham Kuenen, “a Dutch Protestant theologian” who specialized in the Hebrew Bible including as can be seen by his text on the Hexateuch” passed away today at Leiden.
1891: “Our Foreign Relations” published today noted that President Harrison’s “references to the persecution and expulsion of the Russian Jews are just and temperate.” The President showed a “practical as well as a humane and sympathetic interest in persuading” to “abate her cruelties” when dealing with the Jews.
1892: Lucius Weinschenk, a member of the firm of Bryan, Weinschenk & Hirschel and prominent member of the Chicago Jewish country fled the United States “leaving a shortage in his accounts…of about $20,000.”
1893: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address at Carnegie Hall this morning on the teachings of Jesus Christ which began with a comparison between Jesus and “the older prophets of Israel.”
1893: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered a sermon this morning at Temple Emanu-El on “Who Are the Enemies of Judaism?”
1894: “Cheap Loans A Success” published today described the activity of the Provident Society, which had been established to lend money to the needy at a rate far below of the pawnshops whose founders included August Belmont and Jacob Schiff, had made half of its loans to Jews with the rest going mostly to “Americans and Germans.”
1895: Today, twenty-four women organized the Tri-City Section of the National Council of Women which included Davenport Port, Iowa, Rock Island, Illinois and Moline, Illinois.
1895: Large crowds visited all of the booths and displays at the Hebrew Fair in New York City. Isaacs S. Isaacs is editor in chief of the Fair Journal. Rebecca Kohut is the business manager of the Fair Journal.
1896: A secretary for President-elect William McKinley wrote a letter to Rabbi Emanuel Schwab in response to one that Rabbi Schwab had sent to him congratulating McKinley on his election and telling the former Civil War major that he had voted for him.
1897: Two days after she had passed away, 42 year old Rosie (Levy) Sampson, the wife of Nathan Sampson with whom she had had eleven children was buried today at the “Plashet Jewish Cemetery” in London.
1897(15th of Kislev, 5658): Charles Louis Fleischmann passed away. Born in 1835, he “was an innovative manufacturer of yeast and other consumer food products during the 19th Century. In the late 1860s, he and his brother Maximilian created America’s first commercially produced yeast, which revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and consumption of bread possible.”
1898(26 of Kislev, 5659): Shabbat shel Chanukah; Parashat Vayeshev
1898(26th of Kislev, 5659): Seventy-three year old Josef Pick, “the son of Markus and Elisabeth Sara Pick” and the “husband of Eleanor Pick” passed away today in Vienna.
1898: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the Spanish-American War. Following the war, a number of Jewish veterans settled in Cuba. By 1904, they were able to establish a synagogue in Havana.
1899: The National Jewish Hospital for Treatment of Consumptives opened today in Denver, Colorado.
1901: The first Nobel Prizes were awarded. In 1905, Adolph von Baeyer, a German chemist, became the first Jew to win a Nobel Prize. He won it in Chemistry for his work in synthesizing dye indigo.
1903: “The Early and the Girl” a two-act musical comedy for which Jerome Kern would write the song “How’d you like to spoon with me?” opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
1903(21st of Kislev, 5664): Fifty-three year old Baron Arthur de Rothschild, a member of the French branch of the famous banking family who collected stamps, was an active yachtsman and who bequeathed part of his art collection to the Louvre passed away today in Monte Carlo.
1904: In New York City, Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton Bloomingdale gave birth to Josephine Bloomingdale Sperry.
1905: The Jews of Manchester, England called for a meeting to publicly protest the treatment of Russian Jews as typified by the Kishinev Pogroms.
1905: “Five hundred Jews who fled from Russia because of the massacres arrived” in New York today aboard two separate steamships and are awaiting approval from the immigration authorities to enter the United States.
1905: The Janitors’ Society held a meeting at the Educational Alliance auditorium tonight and “took up a collection for the relief of the Jews sufferers in Russia.”
1905: It was reported today that $1,111,183 has been contributed to the fund for the Jews suffering from the Massacres in Russia including $100 from I. Gothstein of Muscatine, Iowa, $500 from G.A. Efroymson of Indianapolis, Indiana, $1,547.84 from Leo K. Steiner of Birmingham, Alabama and $100.50 from Herman J. Nathanson of Virginia, Minnesota.
1906: Albert Lowey, the retired Rabbi of the West London Synagogue of British Jews, “the first reform synagogue in England” celebrated his 90th birthday today “in the full possession of his mental faculties.”
1906: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize. Roosevelt never intended to keep the money that was part of the prize. Finally, in 1918, he was able to donate the money to a variety of charities. Among those receiving funds was the Jewish Welfare Board, which received $4,000 for War Activities. The funds were to be handled by the treasurer, Mr. Walter E. Sachs.
1907: Birthdate of Michael Blankfort, the New York native who gained fame as the author and screenwriter who converted his novel The Juggler into of the earliest Holocaust movies, “The Juggler” and who risked his career to see to it that the Blacklisted Albert Maltz was able to continue his career as a screenwriter.
1908: The trial of San Francisco political boss Abe Reuf ended today “with a verdict of guilty and the maximum sentence for bribery—14 years in San Quentin.”
1909(27th of Kislev, 5670): Mrs. Rose Samuelsohn passed away today.
1909: Bessie Ida Ginsberg married Jesse Lasky, the co-founder of Paramount Pictures.
1910(9th of Kislev, 5671): Seventy-seven year old Michael Friedländer passed away. Born in Posen, and educated in Germany, he moved to England in 1865 when he back principal of Jews’ College in London, a position he held until three years before his death. His English translation of Maiimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is considered to be a classic. He was the father-in-law of Moses Gaster.
1910: German-Jewish author and translator Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1910: Sir Edward Grey, the man who signed the Sykes-Picot Agreement which has had such a significant impact on the Middle East and Israel, began servicing as Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs.
1910 Birthdate of historian Jack D. Foner. (As reported by William H. Honan)
1911: The Emperor appointed Dr. Desiderius Markus as Judge of the Royal Curia, “the highest Court of Justice in Hungary.”
1912(30th of Kislev, 5673): Rosh Chodesh Tevet and 6th day of Chanukah
1912(30th of Kislev, 5673): Thirty-eight year old Harry Milton Samson, the husband of Sarah C. Samson, “the son of Lena Samson and the brother of E.J. Samson and Mrs. Victor J. Lowenthal” passed away today.
1912: Isidor Schuman married Ida Schiff today at the Ashland Club House today.
1912: Funeral services are scheduled to be held at the Rosehill Chapel today for the mother of Mrs. J.S. Kimmelstiel, Yetta Ballenberg who passed away “in her 91st year.”
1913: “In the Richmond Hill section of Queens, NY, a Viennese born real estate agent and his Russian born wife gave birth to composer Morton Gould.
1913: In London, Charles Rothschild and his wife, Hungarian baroness Rozsika Edle von Wertheimstein, daughter of Baron Alfred von Wertheimstein of Transylvania gave birth to Kathleen Annie Pannonica Rothschild “a British-born jazz patroness and writer.”
1914: Under the caption “The Kaiser’s American Agents,” The Times of Londonprinted a letter from Israel Zangwill in which he wrote “I should add that since receiving Sir Edward Grey’s assurance that England’s sympathies lay with the emancipation of the Russian Jews I have had a number of applications from Jews – Rumanian and English as well as Russian Jews living outside of Russia – anxious to enlist in the Jewish Territorial Organization under the idea that is a branch of the British Army.” (Gray was the British Foreign Minister who is credited with the lines as he walked out of his ministry on the evening that Britain declared war on Germany – "The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”
1915: Moise Cohen of Constantinople was appointed professor of finance at Ottoman University.
1916: Sir Edward Grey, who in 1914 when asked by MP Herbert Samuel “about a homeland for the Jewish people” replied “that the idea had always had a strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work for if the opportunity arose” completed his 11 years of services Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
1916: Alfred Mond began serving as First Commissioner of Works under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
1917(25th of Kislev, 5678): First Day of Chanukah
1917: Four days after he had passed away, 76 year old Isaac Henry Samuel was buried today at the “Balls Pond Road Jewish Cemetery.”
1917: Sydney L. Nyburg of Baltimore, MD, the author of the Chosen People is scheduled to speak at this afternoon’s meeting of the Council of Jewish Women at Chicago’s Sinai Temple.
1917: Today, “Andrew Bonar Law, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced in the House of Commons today that Jerusalem after being surrounded on all sides by British troops, had surrendered and that British, French and Mohammedan representatives were on the way to Jerusalem to safeguard the holy places.”
1917: “There was an outburst of applause which lasted for several minutes” today at the gathering of those leaders working to raise the five million dollar fund for Jewish war relief and welfare work in the Army and Navy when Henry Morgenthau talked about the “recapture of Jerusalem from the Turks” saying that “We ought to be particularly happy today, for apart from all political considerations the capture of Jerusalem by the English is a momentous occasion in the history of the Jews.
1917: As of today the team contributions made to the fund for the Jewish War Relief and Welfare Work in the Army and Navy included $231,888.00 from Mortimer L. Schiff’s Team 22, $179.026.00 from H.D. Rosen’s Team 18, $177,483.70 from William Goldman’s Team 4 and $173,798.00 from S. G. Rosenbaum’s Team 19
1918: “The Jewish War Relief campaign” designed to raise five million dollars “to aid the suffering Jews of Europe passed the two million dollar mark today” as it reached an actual total of $2,005, 840.
1919: A delegation of “prominent Jews from New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Newark and other cities representing the American Jewish Congress” meeting with Secretary of State Lansing and described to him “the terrible situation in the Ukraine” and protested “against the recent pogrom in which 40,000 Jewish men, women and children had lost their lives in that region.”
1920: In Chechelnyk, Podolia, a shtetl in what is today Ukraine Pinkhas Lispector and Mania Krimgold Lispector gave birth to Chaya Lispector, the youngest of their three daughters, “the Brazilian author” whom some describe as “the most important Jewish writer since Franz Kafka.”
1922: Due to travel problems, Albert Einstein was unable to attend the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and deliver his Nobel Lecture.
1922: Mrs. William Ratzenstein is the chairman responsible for tonight’s “entertainment and dance to be given by the Milton Vehon Charity Workers” at Chateau Hall.”
1922: The charity bazar sponsored by the Sisterhood of Temple Beth Israel is scheduled to continue for a second night.
1923: Dr. Arthur Ruppin tells the Keren Hayesod Council that “the housing shortage in Palestine has been relieved to a considerably extent by the establishment of the General Mortgage Bank of Palestine, which has invested more than $300,000 in mortgages, enabling the construction of 300 houses, chiefly in Tel-Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias.”
1924: In Cincinnati, OH, William Jacob Mack, Sr. the son of Lydia and Millard William Mack and Harriette L. Segal gave birth to Leon Meyer Mack
1923: Birthdate of Harold Gould. Born Harold Goldstein, Gould is one of those character actors whose face you know but name you don’t. One of his more memorable roles came in Paul Newman/Robert Redford hit, The Sting.
1926: In Hamburg, Germany, Solomon Birnbaum, the son of Nathan Birnbaum, and his wife gave birth to Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbuam who survived the Holocaust thanks to the Kindertransport and formed the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry”
1927: Seymour “Cy” Schindel fought his 20th bout which would prove to be his last victory even though he fought three more times before retiring.
1927: Birthdate of Danny Matt, the native of Cologne who made Aliyah in 1934 and in 1943 began a military career that stretched from the Jewish Brigade through the Yom Kippur and led him to the stars of a general in the IDF.
1928(27th of Kislev, 5689): Third Day of Chanukah
1928: WOR and nineteen other stations are scheduled to broadcast the Jubilee Hour this evening featuring soprano Isa Kremer.
1928: According to a report made public today by Bernard Flexner, the President of the Palestine Economic Cooperation, “extensive development in Palestine is provided for in the budget of $1,010,000 authorized at the executive committee meeting of the corporation” which was held last week.
1929: Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Jewish son-in-law of Mark Twain, conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall tonight.
1929: Twenty year old flyweight Moe Mizler fought his 36thbout which he lost on points.
1930: As the U.S. economy moved further into what we now call The Great Depression, the savings bank in which many members of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood in New York had placed their money closed and no funds were made available to depositors. The collection of dues began to fall off at an alarming rate, and there was a high demand for financial aid from the Secret Relief Fund.
1931: “Baron De Hirsch Centenary” published today traces the life of Jewish philanthropist who is all but unknown to modern generations.
1931: U.S. Premiere of “The Struggle” based on a novel by Emile Zola, the defender of Capt. Dreyfus which was filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg.
1931: U.S. premiere of “Men in Her Life” a drama with a script co-authored by Robert Riskin.
1932: “Central Park” featuring Harold Hubert as “Nick Sarno” was released today in the United States.
1934: Birthdate of Howard Martin Temin. Temin was American virologist who in 1975 shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his former professor Renato Dulbecco and another of Dulbecco's students, David Baltimore, for his co-discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. In 1961, Temin's formed a provirus hypothesis that cancer cells affect genetic material. The protein coat of certain viruses contains an enzyme that facilitates the copying of viral genes into the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the host cell. In 1970 he and Baltimore both independently isolated the enzyme, now called reverse transcriptase. The viruses that contain the enzyme are known as retroviruses. Temin also investigated how genetic information in the provirus transforms a normal animal cell into a tumor cell. He passed away in 1994.
1934: A dramatization of Charge It to Me written by Sara Smith, who “learned Yiddish to become a newspaperwoman” is scheduled to open today in Baltimore under the name “Pied Piper.”
1934: Birthdate of Ryszard Przecicki, who as Richard J. Pratt, became one of the richest men in Australia.
1935(14th of Kislev, 5696): Sixty-seven year old Bella (Epstein) Unterberg, the wife of philanthropist Israel Unterberg who founded the Young Women’s Hebrew Association in her home in September of 1902 passed away today.
1936: Jewish settlers erected the first of the “Tower and Stockade” settlements,Tel Amel which is now known Nir David. These settlements on remote parcels of land purchased by the Jewish National Fund were set up overnight with the help of prefabricated towers and walls. They were usually put up overnight with the help of hundreds of volunteers. Eventually 118 of this type of settlement were erected throughout the Galilee, Bet-She'an Valley and the Jordan Valley. The secretive construction method was one way of avoiding Arab attacks.
1936: In Jerusalem, at the morning session of the royal commission, Earl Peel, the chairman said that in his “opinion the Jewish Agency should have pressed its claim for State domains to which it is entitled according to the mandate” while Dr. Maurice B. Hexter “said that in the last six or seven years he did not recall that any pressured was exerted by the Jews on the Palestine Government in connection with the mandatory’s duty to allot suitable portions of State domains for Jewish coloniziation.” (Translation – the mandatory government did not give the Jews the arable land to which they were legally entitled.)
1937: The Palestine Post reported on the brazen attack carried out in the heart of Haifa's Hadar Hacarmel. An Arab terrorist first exploded a bomb and then fired two shots, seriously wounding 13-year-old Elimelech Gromet. Another bomb was thrown in the Tel Arza quarter of Jerusalem, next to the Weismann carpentry.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Sir Charles Teggart, who won his reputation as an indefatigable anti-terrorist fighter in Bengal, arrived in Jerusalem, to advise the government and police on new anti-terrorist tactics.
1937(6th of Tevet, 5698): Eighty-one year old Abraham Isaak the Russian born anarchist who worked as a journalist and founded Aurora Colony with his in California which was based on his anarchist belief
1938: Thanks to the effort of Mrs. Gertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer, a Dutch organizer of Kindertransporte, who had been active in this field since 1937,” a train filled with 600 children left Vienna today.
1939: Friedrich Ubelhor, governor of the Kalisz-Lodz district, issued a secret order for the establishment of a ghetto in the northern section of Lodz, where the Jewish Baluty slum quarter was situated. "Needless to say [stated his order] the establishment of a ghetto is only a provisional phase...the ultimate goal must be the total purge of this scourge."
1941: In the dark days of WW II, Japanese bombers sank the HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse, the last major battleships that would be able to standup to an invasion of Australia, which had sent most of its troops to the Middle East to fight against the Nazis.
1941: As of today, in the last 100 days an additional 600 Jews had been shot to death in and near the city of Liepāja
1942(2nd of Tevet, 5703): Seventh Day of Chanukah
1942(2nd of Tevet, 5703): Seventy-five year old businessman and philanthropist Louis E. Kirstein, the Chairman of the Board of Filene’s Department Store, President of the Graduate School for Jewish Social Work and husband of Rose Stein with whom he had three children passed away today.
1942: A transport of Jews from Germany arrives at Auschwitz.
1942: At Wola Przybyslawska, Poland, near the Parczew Forest, Nazis shoot seven Poles accused of aiding Jews.
1942: The Polish ambassador to Britain informs Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden that the Polish government-in-exile can confirm that the German authorities are systematically exterminating the entire Jewish population of Poland and the rest of Europe.
1943: As Soviet troops began to break through German lines, the Germans (and local Rumanians) tried cover up their actions by killing the surviving inmates of the labor camp and destroying the camp itself in Tarasika Rumania. This type of action was repeated over and over as Soviet troops moved toward Germany.
1943: IN Brooklyn Elaine and Arthur Niederhoffer gave birth to Victor Niederhoffer “a hedge fund manager, champion squash player, bestselling author and statistician” who is the older brother of Roy Niederhoffer.
1945: Birthdate of James Lee “Jimmy” Kessler, the founder of the Texas Jewish Historical society and the “first native Texan to serve as Rabbi of B’nai Israel, in Galveston Texas.
1945: The cover of Timefeatures a montage of Nazi leaders standing trial at Nuremberg under the title “Hitler’s Heirs”
1945: Timepublished “War Crimes: Day of Judgment” describing the trial of Hermann Göring, Alfred Jodl, Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht, Alfred Rosenberg, Julius Streicher, Julius Streicher and Rudolph Hess
1945: "The Chalice of Nurnberg," published today by Time described the purposed of the trials in the words US. Prosecutor Robert Jackson who defined the need for individual responsibility and the establishment of a rule of International Law that would prevent such crimes from happening again
1945: “Treason: The Seeker” published today described the condition Ezra Pound, the expatriate American poet who relished giving anti-Semitic and anti-American broadcast from his home in Italy. The latter earned him the dubious distinction of being one of the few Americans indicted for treason because of his radio broadcasts.
1945: President Truman names six U.S. members to Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. London announces six members
1945: SS Captain Theodore Dannecker, a henchman of Adolf Eichmann committed suicide after having been arrested by the United States Army.
1946: Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver criticizes President Truman, expresses his opposition to Partition and recommends resistance to the British Mandatory Government.
1947: British leaders will not alter the Jewish quota that limits the Jewish immigrants 1,500 a month.
1947: Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori became the first Jewish woman, as well as the first American woman, to win a Nobel Prize in the sciences when she received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine on. She won the prize jointly with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Bernardo A. Houssay. The scientists were honored for their research in identifying the "Cori Cycle" which explained how the body converts carbohydrates into sugars that supply muscles with energy. This research was particularly important in leading to the understanding and treatment of diabetes. Dr. Gerty Cori was born in Prague in 1896. Encouraged by her family, she enrolled at the Medical School of the German University of Prague, receiving her Doctorate in Medicine in 1920. Together with her husband, Cori immigrated to the United States and became a citizen in 1928. Carl took a position at the State Institute for the Study of Malignant Diseases in Buffalo, NY and Gerty was hired as an assistant pathologist. The Coris persisted in working together despite the discouragement of many institutions that sought to hire only Carl. In 1931, they moved to St. Louis where Carl became the chair of the pharmacology department at Washington University School of Medicine. Gerty was offered a position as a research assistant. When Carl was made chair of a new biochemistry department in 1946, Gerty was finally promoted to full professor. They won the Nobel Prize the following year. In 1952, President Truman appointed her to the Board of Directors of the National Science Foundation.
1947: A detachment of Palmach soldiers was attacked while paroling the water pipeline near the Arab village of Shu’ut in the Negev. The commander of the Palmach assured his men that they had nothing to worry about since the head man of the village had been a friend of his. But in the Arab’s undeclared war on the yet to be born Jewish state, friendships did not always matter.
1948: Speaking in the House of Commons as leader of the Opposition, Winston Churchill raised the question of why the British government continued to refuse to recognize the state of Israel since nineteen other countries including the United States and the Soviet Union had already done so. He appeals to Parliament to end its “sulky boycott” of the Jewish state
1948: Despite opposition from some of his ministers, Ben Gurion pressured the cabinet into committing to move the Israeli government to Jerusalem “without further delay.” Ben Gurion dismissed the fears of his opponents that the move would anger world opinion by pointing out that the occupation of the Old City and the West Bank by the Jordanians had changed the equation.
1948: Israel agrees to UN truce mission's request to let a trapped Egyptian force withdraw from Faluja in Negev. Was it only 6 months ago that the Egyptians invaders were bombing Tel Aviv and heading toward the “Jewish city” with the intent of driving the Jews into the sea.
1948: The Israelis devised Operation Horev, a new offensive plan designed to drive the Egyptian army out of the remaining areas of Mandatory Palestine south-west of Beersheba, along the western edge of the Negev.
1948: Moshe “Dayan gave a sealed letter to Abdullah el-Tell to be delivered to King Abdullah. Before delivering the letter el-Tell discreetly lifted the seal and made a photo-static copy of its contents, which was an invitation from Elias Sasson to King Abdullah to restart the negotiations which had been led by Golda Meir before the outbreak of war.
1949(19th of Kislev, 5710): Parashat Vayishlach
1949(19th of Kislev, 5710): Fifty-eight year old Russian born and Columbia University trained bio-chemist William Alexander Perlzweig, the “professor of biochemistry and department chair at the Duke University Medical School” best known for his work in the field of nutrition passed away tonight in Durham, NC.
1949: Birthdate of Harry Michael, a Labour Party MP, critic of Israel and according to the Daily Telegraph, “one of the MPs who allegedly made improper claims for expenses.”
1950: Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche was the first black American to receive the award. He was honored for bringing an end to the war between the Israelis and the Arabs that began in 1948 when the Arabs began their unsuccessful attempt to drive the Jews into the sea.
1951(11th of Kislev, 5712): Sixty-five year old Yampol native Solomon Pincasovich, the product of the Slobodka Yeshivan and the Odessa Conservatoire who became the cantor of the New Synagogue in Manchester, UK in 1921 and a lecturer at Jews College in 1947 passed away today.
1952: Members of the Jewish Education Committee of New York are scheduled to attend today’s funeral for “teacher and author” Abraham Epstein.
1952: Yosef Sprinzak, the first Speaker of the Knesset, completed his service as President of Israel which had begun following the death of Chaim Weizmann.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that at the end of the 30-day mourning period for the first president of the State of Israel, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, his successor, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, took the pledge of office.
1955(25th of Kislev, 5716): Chanukah
1955: “An Israeli police approaching the Sea of Galilee’s northwestern shored was fired on by Syrian guns” in the latest of a series of Syrian violations of the truce agreement.
1956: Seventy-two year old Moses “Mosey” King, the Yale lightweight who coached the boxing team for forty-six year and “was Connecticut’s first boxing commissioner” passed away today.
1956(6th of Tevet, 5717): David Shimoni, Israeli poet, writer and translator, passed away.
1961: Birthdate of Oded Schramm, who melded ideas from two branches of mathematics into an equation that applies to a multitude of physics problems from the percolation of water through rocks to the tangling of polymers.
1963: In Chamberlin v Dade County Board, the Florida State Supreme Court heard “new arguments in a challenge to public school students in Miami, Florida, being required to read passages from the Bible and recite the Lord's Prayer at the beginning of every school day” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1964: In Israel, the government resigned when “Ben-Gurion demanded that members of the Supreme Court Investigate the Lavon Affair.
1964: “Father Goose” a WW II comedy which won an Oscar for its screenplay co-authored by Peter Stone and with music by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh was released today in the United States.
1965: Birthdate of “Gary “The Kid” Jacobs the Scottish boxer who “wore a Star of David on his trunks and who “held the British Commonwealth and European (EBU) welterweight titles.”
1966: “A musical version of the Mossinsohn play, ‘Casablan’ starring Yehoram Gaon, opened today on the Alhambra Stage in Tel Aviv.”
1966(27th of Kislev, 5727): Shabbat Shel Chanukah; Parashat Miketz
1966(27th of Kislev, 5727): Seventy-seven year old Irving W. Halpern, the Russian-born school who rose from being a “probation officer with the Jewish Protectory and Aid Society” to serving as chief probation officer of the State Supreme Court in Manhattan” as well as a college lecturer on criminology while raising a family with his wife, “Judge Caroline K. Simon of the State Court of claims, passed away today.
1966: Israeli Samuel Yosef Agnon and German-Jew Nelly Sachs shared the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1967: “Bedazzled,” a comedy directed and produced by Stanley Donen was released in the United Kingdom today.
1969: “They Shoot Horses, Don't They?” a movie version of the novel of the same name directed by Sydney Pollack, produced by Robert Chartoff and Irwin Winkler and featuring Al Lewis was released in the United States today.
1970: A small group of local Jewish activists gathered on the International Union of Electrical Workers plaza which was across the street from the Soviet Embassy. The group was protesting the verdicts of treason and death sentences of 11 Soviet citizens, 9 of them Jewish.
1970: First Human Rights Day on which “a daily Soviet Jewry Vigil is launched across from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC” which will last for twenty years.
1971: Dr. Gunter Kahn and one of his colleagues “went to Upjohn’s headquarters in Kalamazoo where they briefed scientists and executives” on minoxidil telling “them that he drug was a potential ‘gold mine.’”
1972: U.S. premiere of “Sleuth” the film version of Anthony Shaffer’s Tony Award winning play directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
1972(5th of Tevet, 5733): Forty-seven year old Tibor Szamuely, the Russian born English historian who was the nephew of Tibor Szamuely and the father of journalist George Szamuely, passed away today.
1975: Activist Andrei Sakharov is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, accepted by his Jewish wife, Yelena Bonner.
1976: The KGB increased pressure on the organizers of the symposium on Jewish culture by questioning “the main activists” responsible for the event.
1978: The New York Times features reviews of children’s books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “My Noah’s Ark” by M.B. Goffstein and “Hanukah Money” by Sholem Aleichem with illustrations by Uri Shulevitz.
1978: Richard Shepard reviews “The Girl From Tel Aviv,” a throwback to “the Yiddish musical theater of bygone years, the type of theater that provided escapism for the Lower East Side, which always enjoyed ‘tzoress’ on stage and had more than enough of its own waiting at the exit.”
1978: In Oslo, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accepted the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The two men earned the prize for breaking the cycle of violence. More to the point, their work has stood the test of time. These two certainly earned their award.
1978: “Superman” the movie that brought to the big screen the comic hero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster and directed by Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg) opened in Washington, DC today.
1980: Future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer began serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
1980: Two people were injured when a terrorist bomb “exploded under a car” in Jerusalem.
1981: Jules Pfeiffer’s "Grownups" premieres in New York NY.
1984: In “Jewish Federation Shifts Policy on Hospital Gifts” published today Ronald Sullivan described changes the organization is making in its distribution of five million dollars to local medical facilities
1986: Michiko Kakutani reviewed “Letters from Westerbrook” the posthumously published diaries of Etty Hillesum that describe life in Holland under the Nazi occupation. Westerbrook, where Miss Hillesum and a large number of Dutch Jews were held, was, in reality a transit camp with the next stop being Auschwitz
1986: Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel accepted the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
1986(8th of Kislev, 5747): Fifty-nine year old Susan Cabot (Harriet Shapiro) the actress who oddly enough was rumored to have had an affair and a child with Jordan’s King Hussein was beaten to death tongith.
1987(19th of Kislev, 5748): Yasha Heifetz passed away. Born in 1901 in what is now Lithuania, Heifetz joined a long list of world class Jewish violinist.
1989: The Intifada enters into its third year today.
1989: In “The Arab Uprising After Two Years: Voices From Both Sides” published today, Joel Brinkley examines the impact of the Intifada on average Arabs and Israelis.
1990: In Canada, Herb Gray, a member of the Liberal Party stepped down as the leader of the Opposition
1990(23rd of Kislev, 5751): Ninety-two year old Oil Tycoon Armand Hammer passed away today. (As reported by Eric Pace)
1992: In “Hafetz Hayim Journal; The Rabbis' Almanack of Seventh-Year Farming” Clyde Haberman described the implementation of the Sabbatical Year in modern day Israel
1994: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. Arafat betrayed Rabin, Peres and all who supported the peace process as can be seen by his continuing support of violence in the Middle East up until the day of his death.
1994(7th of Tevet, 5755): Eighty-seven year old Philip “Phil” Piratin who was one of the leaders of “Battle of Cable Street” in 1936 and one of two members of the Communist Party elected to Parliament in 1945 passed away today.
1995: Vice President Al Gore, Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Leah Rabin, addressed a crowd of nearly 15,000 people crowded into Madison Square Garden today to honor the memory of Yitzhak Rabin.
1995(17th of Kislev, 5756): Eighty-eight year old Philip Piratin, the circulation manager of The Daily Worker who was one of the first members of the Communist Party of Great Britain to be elected as an MP.
1996: Three hundred Palestinian students “suddenly barged onto the walled campus of Hebron University, closed by the Israelis since last March, and declared that they would stay until it was reopened.”
1997(11th of Kislev, 5758): Eighty-five year old Kalmen Kaplansky who was described as "the zaideh" (grandfather) of the Canadian human rights movement” passed away today.
1999(1st of Tevet, 5760): Eighty-nine year old Jack D. Foner, the black-listed historian who was the Eric and Thomas Foner passed away today on his birthday.
1999(1st of Tevet, 5760): Rosh Chodesh is observed for the last time in the 20th century.
2000: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak submitted his resignation.
2000: The New York Times book section includes a review of Open Closed Open by Yehuda Amichai whose “poems capture the joy of ordinary experience.”
2000: The Manhattan Theatre Club’s final performance of “Class Act” a musical “based on the life of composer-lyricist Edward Kleban” who had passed away in 1987 at the age of 48 took place at Stage II.
2001(25th of Kislev, 5762): Chanukah is celebrated for the first time in post 9/11 world.
2003: “The Big Fish” a cinematic version of a novel of the same name co-produced by Bruce Cohen was released in the United States today.
2004: Actor Jeffrey Michael Tambor and “his wife Kasia gave birth to Gabriel Kasper today.
2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her training in 1940 when she wrote today “we didn’t box or do the two-mile rue but other than that the police academy training for women was the same as for men.”
2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her support for the Knapp Commission because as she wrote today that while she was aware that “police officers were openly accepting money” “she was steadfastly again the taking of bribes or any other unethical behavior on the part of the police.”
2005: The first Asiatic elephant to be conceived in Israel through artificial insemination was born at the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens in Jerusalem. The Biblical Zoo joined the project to preserve the Asiatic elephant, which faces extinction, several years ago. The zoo's next goal is to mate the still-adolescent elephant bull Teddy -named after Jerusalem's former mayor, Teddy Kollek -with elephant cows around the world, again through artificial insemination.
2006: Reflections from the Heart, an exhibition of the works of CHIM (David Seymour) at the Albin O. Kuhn Library came to an end today.
2006: The curtain came down on an Off-Off-Broadway production of “Torch Song Trilogy” starring Seth Rudetsky.
2006: Celebration of Yud-Tes Kislev, the 19th of Kislev. “The 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev is celebrated as the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidism. It was on this date, in the year 1798, that the founder of Chabad Chassidism, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi was freed from his imprisonment in Czarist Russia. For Chassidim this event is more than a personal liberation. They see this as a watershed event heralding a new era in the revelation of the ‘inner soul’ of Torah. This is also the celebration of the birthday of Avraham Elimelech ben Yosef Dov, the Coca Chef.
2006: Under the title of “The Schindlers of the Middle East” The Washington Post book section features a review of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands by Robert Satloff.
2006: Actor Jeffrey Michael Tambor and “his wife Kasia gave birth to their second child, Eve “Evie” Julia today.
2007(1st of Tevet, 5768): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
2007: Publication of the Hebrew paperback edition of Sefer Ateret Yehosua.
2007: “President George W. Bush and Laura Bush invited Ruth and Judea Pearl, parents of Daniel Pearl to the White House Chanukah reception, to light the menorah that once belonged to Daniel's great grandparents, Chaim and Rosa Pearl, who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel in 1924 to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.”
2007: The New Republicfeatures a review of The Book of Psalms: A Translation With Commentarytranslated by Robert Alter. Over the centuries, The Book of Psalms has gained popularity with a wide variety of religious groups and leaders. However, this has led to translations and interpretations that fit their different agendas and often has meant drifting far from the original meaning of the words. Alter attempts to release this trend. “He has deliberately set out to evacuate these covert (and usually christological) assumptions” that distort or completely alter what the Psalmists actually created.
2008: Peter Yarrow, the Peter in “Peter, Paul and Mary” appears at the Barnes & Noble in Cedar Rapids, Iowa as he promotes “The Peter Yarrow Songbook Series.”
2008:J. Ezra Merkin informed investors in his $1.8 billion Ascot Partners fund that he was among those who suffered substantial personal losses, since all of the fund's dollars were invested with Madoff, a fact that Merkin had tried to conceal as can be seen by his lying to a client bysaying that he had not connection with Madoff and that the investments were with Morgan Stanley and therefore fully protected.
2008: Baal teshuvah Andy Statman who is at home with Klezmer and Country music joined Bela Fleck and the Fleckstone in a concert at the University of Buffalo.
2008: The month-long exhibition “The Nature of Dreams: Israeli photographs, selection from the collection of Yosefa Drescher Fine Art” has its final showing at Trinity College in Hartford. Artists featured during the exhibition included Noa Ben Shalom, David Harris, Menahem Kahana, Joel Kantor, Alex Levac, Shimon Lev, Tamir Sher, Ilan Spira, and David Rubinger. According to Yosefa Drescher, a well-known Israeli documentary photographer “The land in which [Israeli photographers] live and work is replete with gripping visual scenes, and striking images both human and landscape. The challenge is at once to do justice to the external reality and not attempt to usurp the power of the place and moment, while giving reign to deeply personal comment and reaction to the subject.”
2008 (13 Kislev): On the Hebrew calendar, Yahrzeit of Ravina II who passed away in 475 CE the same year in which he finished editing the Gemara portion of the Talmud Bavli ("Babylonian Talmud"), completing the work of his teacher Rav Ashi.
2008: At Princeton University, Dennis Ross former special Middle East Coordinator under the Clinton administration and consultant for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy delivers a speech entitled "Whither the Middle East?"
2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference which aims to "encourages encounters between Israeli creativity - in Hebrew and other languages - and world Jewish creativity that is both multilingual and multicultural," comes to an end.
2009: Screenwriter Steven Karras discusses and signs his first book, The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Military in World War II, at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, in Washington, D.C.
2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a screening of “Brothers,” a film that depicts the struggle of 2 brothers who struggle to come to terms with their political and religious beliefs when they reunite in Israel after years of silence.
2009: “Avatar,” the science fiction film co-produced by Jon Landau premiered in London.
2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival includes a screening of “Achziv,” a film that documents the unique story of Eli Avivi, President of "Achziv Land," from the time of the War of Independence when Eli appropriated a deserted Arab village called A'Ziv.
2009: The Israel Aerospace Industries made the first delivery of the Heron UAV to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) today. The ten unmanned aerial vehicles will be used in Afghanistan in the coming weeks.
2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference, a series of special workshops and meetings in Russian, English, French, Hungarian, Serbian and Spanish which aims to "encourages encounters between Israeli creativity - in Hebrew and other languages - and world Jewish creativity that is both multilingual and multicultural," comes to an end in Jerusalem.
2009: A four day conference entitled "A Century of Yiddish:1908-2008" came to a close in Jerusalem
2010: On Human Rights Day, the community is scheduled to hold a ceremony that will remember the Soviet Jewry Struggle and commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Washington, D.C. Vigil that became part of efforts to make it possible for Russian Jews to leave the Soviet Union.
2010: Daniel Burman, who lives and works in Argentina as one of its leading filmmakers today, and Jorge Gurvich, also an award-winning filmmaker who left Argentina for Israel are scheduled to present a program entitled “Argentina’s Jewish Community Through Filmmaker’s Eyes at the 21st Washington Jewish Film Festival.
2010: The 12th annual Jerusalem Festival is scheduled to come to a close. During this year’s festival, Frans Weisz, a Holocaust survivor who directed “Polonaise” (1989), “Qui Vive” (2001) and “Happy End” (2007) – a trilogy, about two Dutch Jewish families he co-wrote with playwright Judith Herzbergrecipient received this year’s Life Achievement Award.
2010: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Kadima chairwoman and opposition leader Tzipi Livni at the State Department in Washington today, only a few days after the U.S. and Israel announced that talks between Jerusalem and Washington over a new freeze on West Bank settlement construction in exchange for a set of U.S. guarantees had hit a dead end. The meeting, initiated by Clinton, marks the first time that Livni has been invited for a meeting with Clinton in Washington since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected in early 2009. Until now, the American officials had only met with Livni in Israel, so as not to give the appearance of interfering in Israel's internal politics.
2010: Rain began falling on different parts of Israel this afternoon, beginning what was expected to be a stormy weekend. Tel Aviv received its first raindrops early in the afternoon, along with Haifa, Netanya, Ra'anana and Kfar Saba.
2010: Thousands of people participated in a march celebrating International Human Rights Day in Tel Aviv this morning. Protesters were marching against what demonstrators called "the racist anti-democratic wave which is hitting Israel."
2010: Hundreds of people attended the funeral of former Knesset speaker and Holocaust-survivor advocate Dov Shilansky at the Kiryat Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv this morning. Shilansky served for 19 years as a Likud member. The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and former and current Knesset members and ministers. Netanyahu eulogized at the funeral, saying, "Dov believed that he was a remnant of the Jewish world which was destroyed. He did everything to remember and remind, so that we would not forget. Every man has a name, Dov, and you came with a good a name and left with a good name. Being goodhearted was the main theme during his entire life. You represent the community of Holocaust survivors, the heroes of hell who came and built Israel.
2010: Memorial services were held this morning for Lawrence E. “Larry” Gelf, the Professor-Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Iowa at Agudas Achim in Iowa City.
2011: As part of the Scholar-In-Residence Weekend at Touro Synagogue in New Orleans, Dr. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita of the University of Chicago is scheduled to lead the Shabbat Torah Study.
2011: Producer Aviva Kempner is scheduled to see the 2011 WJFF Visionary Award recipient at the 22nd Washington Jewish Film Festival followed by a screening of her documentary “Partisans of Vilna” the theme of which is "We will not allow them to take us like beasts to the slaughter."
2011: The second round of weekend events that are part of Hamshoushalayim are scheduled to end today.
2011:Israeli professor Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in Stockholm today, and said that scientists have many duties, including keeping an eye on politicians. "In the real world, politicians decide for us, but we must always watch over them," Shechtman said during his acceptance speech. Shechtman, a professor at Haifa’s Technion Institute, received the prize, valued at approximately one million Euros for cutting-edge work he did during the 1980s in the field of crystallography (the study of crystals). The prize was given for his discovery of atom patterns called quasicrystals, chemical structures previously thought impossible. "It is our duty as scientists to promote education, rational thinking and tolerance," Shechtman urged. "Science is the ultimate tool to reveal the laws of nature and the one word written on its banner is 'truth'," he said. "The laws of nature are neither good nor bad. It is the way in which we apply them to our world that makes the difference." Up until Shechtman's discovery, scientists had thought the atom patterns inside crystals had to repeat themselves. The Academy said Shechtman's discovery in 1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. Shechtman studied aluminum alloys, and found that they didn’t behave in a way solid matter had previously been thought behave. As a result he discovered a completely new class of solids. Israel has an impressive showing when it comes to Nobel winners, with 10 laureates in its 63-year history. Most recently, Israeli scientist Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute also won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2009, for her work on the ribosomes. Shechtman also won the Israel Prize in physics in 1998.
2012:The Sephardic Music Festival is scheduled to continue today with performances by Zion 80,Hasidic New Wave with Yakar Rhythms, and Mika Karney
2012(26thof Kislev, 5773): Second Day of Chanukah
2012(26thof Kislev, 5773): Eighty-six year old landscape architect Dan Zur, the partner of Lipa Yahalom, passed away today.
2012(26thof Kislev, 5773): Ninety-seven year old economist Albert O. Hirschman who helped to rescue artists and intellectuals from Nazi-occupied France passed away today. (As reported by William Yardley)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/24/business/albert-o-hirschman-economist-and-resistance-figure-dies-at-97.html?hpw&_r=0
2012(26thof Kislev, 5773): Zoltan Zinn-Collis, who was born at High Tatras in 1940 and “was one of only five living survivors of the Holocuast in Ireland” passed away today “in his Athy home.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoltan_Zinn_Collis
2012: The Washington Jewish Festival and the Hebrew Language Table are scheduled to present a screening of “There Was Once,” a film by Gabor Kalman, the focuses on the work of a high school teacher in Kalocsa, Hungary to teacher her students about the once thriving and now non-existent Jewish community that existed in their city. She does this against the backdrop of a rising tide of right-wing extremism.
2012: The Sephardic Scholar Series is scheduled to continue this year with a free concert at the CUNY-Graduate Center with the New York Andalus Ensemble.
2012: Nechemya Weberman a 54 year old unlicensed therapist who is a prominent member of the Satmar Chasidic community in Williamsburg was convicted “of repeatedly sexually abusing a young girl who had been sent to him for help.” (As reported by Sharon Otterman)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/11/nyregion/hasidic-man-found-guilty-of-sexual-abuse.html?hp&pagewanted=all&_r=0
2012: After nightfall, Jews worldwide will celebrate the third of the winter festival’s eight nights at which time those in Jerusalem can see a Hanukkah menorah made from the ornamental headgear of a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
2012: The Palestinian Authority today granted Hamas permission to mount a 25th anniversary celebration in the West Bank in growing signs that Fatah and rival Hamas are working to end the five-year schism between them, Ma'an News Agency reported.
2012: Todayin Stockholm, the Royal Academy of Sciences is scheduled to present the Nobel Prize in chemistry to Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, and the Nobel in economics to Alvin Roth. (As reported by Mark Shulte)
2013: The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor a reading and discussion of The Reason I Jump by Naokj Higashida.
2013: “The Congress” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013:Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) is scheduled to begin distributing free Christmas Trees at Nazareth. (This is not a typo or a joke)
2013:“Hundreds of haredi men from radical sectors of the ultra-Orthodox community rallied once again in Jerusalem tonight in protest at the ongoing detention of two yeshiva students by the army, and against enlistment to the military and national service programs in general.” (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)
2013: “Emergency services across” Israel “were put on high alert as a major storm hit the region which is expected to last through the weekend. Mt. Hermon is already experiencing high winds and snow according to the Israel Metrological Service (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2013: Israeli-American chemists Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt were officially awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, today. The two, along with Martin Karplus, won the award “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said. (As reported by Adiv Sterman)
2014: At the Historic 6th& I Synagogue is “Rabbi Shira” is scheduled to present “What It Takes To Officiate at Your Friend’s Wedding.”
2014: “Lester L. Wolff, Civil Air Patrol veteran and former member of Congress, spoke today during a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony for World War II era Civil Air Patrol members, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C.’
2014: Rabbi Todd Thalblum officiated at the funeral of Sylvia Padzensky.
2014: The IDF bolstered security measures across the West Bank this evening amid fears that tensions could escalate after a senior Palestinian official died en route to a Ramallah hospital earlier in the day following clashes with Israeli troops.
2014: “Poland’s constitutional court today overturned a ban on the ritual slaughter of animals which had affected the Jewish and Muslim communities.”
2014: Today, Israeli novelist Amos Oz saw “a film documenting the journey of Haifa University historian Fania Oz-Salzberger, the author’s daughter, to the region in north-western Ukraine, which was populated by more than 350,000 Jews on the eve of World War II.”
2014: Today, Noah Mamet was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Argentina.
2014: “As part of its Righteous Among the Nations project, the Raanana Symphonette Orchestra has commissioned an original orchestral piece, “His Finest Hour,” from composer Moshe Zorman in tribute to Perlasca which will have its debut at concert today in Raanana in the presence of Perlasca’s son Franco and daughter-in-law Luciana Amadia.”
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a tour of its exhibition “Echoes of the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld.
2015(28th of Kislev, 5776): Fourth Day of Chanukah
2015(28th of Kislev): On the Hebrew calendar “Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Chizkiyah Da Silva, commonly known as the Pri Chadash, the name of the commentary he authored on the Code of Jewish Law.”
2015(28th of Kislev, 5776): Eighty-seven year old basketball pioneer Dolph Schayes passed away today. (As reported by Richard Goldstein)
2015: Jonathan Birnbaum, of JBirnbaum which is located on 47th in the heart of Manhattan’s famous diamond district reported today that diamonds worth between five and ten million dollars have been stolen from is safe.
2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host an evening with Dr. Danny M. Cohen, the author of Train“which follows the story of six teenage who try to escape Nazi round-ups.”
2015: Catholics should not try to convert Jews and should work with them to fight anti-Semitism, the Vatican said today in a major new document that drew the Church further away from the strained relations of the past.
2015: In Kensington, MD, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to host a presentation by The Foundation for Jewish Studies “Home and Homelessness: European Jews in 1948.”
2015: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “acclaimed Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler as he presents a unique chamber music concert featuring Brahms's Die schöne Magelone along with other 19th- and 20th- century classics dedicated to the word.”
2015: Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal
2015: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to “The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai” a celebration of the poet and his works with Robert Alter, Hana Amichai, Jonathan Galassi, Chana Kronfeld, Stanley Moss, Philip Schultz and Leon Wieseltier.
2016: Nobel laureates including Bob Dylan are scheduled to be honored today at ceremony on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Noble – a ceremony that Dylan will not be attending but for which he has sent a speech to be read aloud by somebody else.
2016(10th of Kislev, 5777): Shabbat Va-yaytzay
2016(10thof Kislev, 5777): Chabad Chassidim are scheduled to party today in celebration of the release of Dovber Schneuri, the second Lubavitcher Rebbe, by the Russians on the 10th of Kislev, 5587.
2016: Israeli sculptor Oren Pinhasi’s solo exhibition is scheduled to open at Temp Rubato.
2016: Everyone is scheduled to continue saying prayers on behalf of Rav Adin ben Rivkah Leah – Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz – who is recovering from a stroke.
2016: The Israeli Consulate is scheduled to host “special screening of ‘On the Map” followed by a discussion with Israeli filmmaker Dani Menken.
2017: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Remarkable Story of an Italian Mother, Her Two Sons and Their Fight Against Fascism by Caroline Moorehead, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life by Robert Dallek, The Education of Eva Moskowitz: A Memoir by Eva Moskowitz and the recently released paperback edition of The Fortunate Ones by Ellen Umansky
2017: The URJ Biennial is scheduled to come to an end today in Boston, MA.
2017: The Breman Museum is scheduled to host a lecture by Warsaw native George Rishfeld who “as an infant he was thrown over the barbed-wire fence of the Vilna Ghetto into the waiting arms of Halinka, the daughter of a man that worked for George’s father.”
2017: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is scheduled to host a lecture in which Dr. Ian Hancock, a Professor at the University of Texas, “discusses the experience of the Roma during the Holocaust, the persistence of prejudice, and the current struggle of the Romani peoples.”
2017: The Center for Jewish History and the Jewish Genealogical Society are scheduled to present a lecture by New York journalist Marisa Fox entitled “By Thread – A Daughter’s Search for Her Mother’s Hidden Identity” in which she examines the life of her mother Tamar Fromer Fox.
2017: Jewish Book Month, an annual event that provides us with a chance to contemplate Jewish books and the lives of authors such as military leader and archeologist Yigael Yadin whose works included Bar-Kochba: The Legendary Hero of the Law Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome continues today.
2018(2ndof Tevet, 5779): Eighth Day of Chanukah
2018: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present “The Displacement of Jewish Communal Life in Islamic Lands and Cultural Reconstruction in Israel”
2018: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host “Reclaiming Citizenship: Stories of a New Jewish return to Germany during which “Donna Swarthout, editor of a volume of essays by authors who reclaimed German citizenship as the descendants of persecuted Jews, discusses her story with historian David Sorkin (Yale), whose research on Jewish Emancipation illuminates the meanings of citizenship in Jewish history.”
2018: JW3 is scheduled to host a screening in London of the award winning “Three Identical Strangers.”
2018: As an example of the diversity of activities American Jewish congregations must offer in the 21st century, in Chevy Chase, MD, Ohr Kodesh is scheduled to host the Second Annual Mentsch Club Charity Bowling Tournament.
2018: As part of its Chanukah celebration, The Museum of Islamic Art is scheduled to host a production for children of “Shmulik the Hedgehog.”
2018: As part of its Chanukah Festival celebrations “for the whole family, The Bible Lands Museum is scheduled to host the final “interactive tour and creative workshop, The Mystery of the Hidden Pitcher.”
2018: In London, Jewish Museum is scheduled to present “Philippe Sands and Adam Wagner on Jewish Human Rights Heroes” as part of an evening that “celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the lives of the Jewish Human Rights heroes behind it.”