January 11
2010: The Oy!hoo Music Festival, which is designed to bring together established, new and emerging artist in the Jewish and Israeli music scene in New York City is scheduled to take place at The City Winery in New York City.
314: Militades, who was the Pope when Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Toleration which effectively recognized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, passed away.
347: Birthdate of Theodosius I the last emperor to rule both the western and eastern portion of the Roman Empire. As powerful as Theodosius may appeared to be, he was no match for the rising power of the Christian church leaders. When a bishop had incited a group of his followers to burn down a synagogue, Theodosius ordered the bishop to pay for re-building the Jewish house of worship. But Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, overruled the Emperor contending, according to one source, that Christian money should not be used to pay for Jewish things.
630: As Islam begins its march into North Africa, East Asia and parts of Europe with all that that will mean to the Jewish people for the next millennium and half, Mohammed conquers Mecca.
1313: The Council of Zamora (Spain) made a ruling which was allegedly based on a ruling by Pope Clement V, in which he allowed the Christians to legally deny accruing any interest on loans from Jews.
1755: Birthdate of Alexander Hamilton, aide to General George Washington, ardent Federalist and the 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton was in Charleston, a city on Nevis, an island in the West Indies. He was the son of James A. Hamilton and Rachel Facucett Lavien. Although the facts are a little murky, it would appear that Hamilton’s mother was Jewish. She had left her husband, Johann Michael Lavien, a Jewish planter before she began her affair with Hamilton was a married man. Since Hamilton was born out of wedlock, he could not go to school at the school run by the Church of England. Instead he attended classes at a Jewish private school. If Hamilton’s mother was indeed Jewish and not just a woman married to a Jew, he would be Jewish according to Halachah. Hamilton never identified himself as a Jew and lived his life in New York as a Christian.
1775: Francis Salvador of South Carolina became the first Jew to be elected to a state legislature. An ardent patriot, Salvador lost his life and his hair while fighting the Cherokees who were allies of the British.
1787: William Herschel discovered the Uranian moons Titania and Oberon. Herschel’s ethnic origins are part of an oft told tale among Germans of this period. William Herschel was the son of German Jew named Isaac Herschel. Isaac married a Christian woman and the children, including William, were raised as Christians.
1799: A state of siege was declared in Jerusalem, as Napoleon approached Gaza and Jaffa.
1819: In Bridgetown, Barbados, Esther Hannah (Montefiore) Levi and Isaac gave birth to Jacob Isaac Levi Montefiore. His brothers were Edward Levi Montefiore and George Levi Montefiore. In 1835, he moved to Sydney, Australia, assumed his mother’s name and became a successful merchant and investment banker. He passed away at Norwood, London in 1885.
1849: Birthdate of Dr. Oskar Lassar, famed German dermatologist. He also developed a public bath house system designed to give improve the hygiene of the less fortunate.
1859: Birthdate of Lord George Nathaniel Curzon. Curzon was one of two members of the British Cabinet who were opposed to the Balfour Declaration; the other was a Jew, Edwin Samuel Monatgue. In the end, Curzon did vote to accept the declaration. In the 1920’s Curzon served as Foreign Secretary. He negotiated the agreement that resulted in Egypt gaining her independence. He also oversaw the division of the British Mandate in Palestine which resulted in the creation of the Kingdom of Jordan on the land east of Jordan River. Some Jewish leaders decried this as an illegal act. When partition was later proposed for the land west of the Jordan, many opposed it saying that Curzon’s earlier partition had already given the Arabs their state. For a time, Winston Churchill was one of those who made that argument.
1860: Two factions clashed today at a contentious meeting of the shareholders of the Great Eastern that took place today at the London Tavern in the UK. One faction was led by the Chairman, a man named Campbell. The other was led by Simon Magnus, a English Jew who had made his fortune in the coal industry.
1873: An article published today entitled “The Persecuted Hebrews” described efforts by the government of the United States to ameliorate the suffering of the Jews of Romania. Among other things the U.S. Ambassador in Vienna has enlisted the help of the Austrian government in an attempt to pressure the Prince of Romania to improve the conditions of the Jews living in Moldavia and Wallachia.
1888(27th of Tevet, 5648): Prominent Jewish businessman Jacob Magnus passed away. He was buried in Balls Pond Jewish Cemetery, Islington, Middlesex, England.
1890: It was reported today that during December, the Unite Hebrew Charities provided assistance to 3,578 people who belonged to 778 families in the amount of $3,381.50 while giving $210 to “87 transients.” (More for 2014)
1890: It was reported today that Jacob Schiff has given ten thousand dollars “to Harvard University for the establishment of a museum for the study of the literature, history and remains of the Semitic people” (When Harvard decided to change its admission policies because it had too many Jews, it did not return the funds because it had too much Jewish money)
1891: The 8th annual meeting of the patrons and members of the Hebrew Technical Institute was held this morning at 10:30 at 34 Stuyvesant Street where it was reported that 150 students are now attending the school which began with only 28 students.
1891(2ndof Shevat, 5651): Samuel Joseph Fuenn, the Talmudic scholar who was born at Vilnius in 1819 whose works include Shenot Dor we-Dor, a chronology of Biblical history, passed away today.
1891: It was reported today that many of the famous 19th century scholars “were very unhappy at school.” This included Heinrich Heine who according the “Reisebilder, “used to pray to a big crucifix ‘O Thou, Poor Deity, if it be possible grant that I may remember the irregular verbs.”
1892: It was reported today that Baron de Hirsch refused to accept payment from the North American Review for an article he had written for the July edition and had instructed the editor, Lloyd S. Price to send the check for $250 to the Hebrew Technical Institute.
1892: Simon Borg, Sol B. Solomon and Abraham Herrman continue to serve as trustees the Hebrew Technical Institute even though their terms were supposed to end yesterday because a fight over the by-laws prevented elections from taking place.
1893: A large house and saloon belonging to David Sampson, a Jewish resident of Elizabeth, NJ, burned down today.
1893: Commissioner Adolph L. Sanger “was chosen President of the School Board” in New York today. A native of Baton Rouge, Sanger was a graduate of CCNY and Columbia and had served as President of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1894: It was reported today that Henry Pereira Mendes, the rabbi at Shearith Israel who was shot two years ago by a Jew named Joseph Misrachee has been threatened by an unnamed “mendicant who boasted that he was “one of Mizrachee’s fellows.” The police take the threat so seriously that they have assigned detectives to find the man who made approached the rabbi.
1894: In Baltimore, Rabbi Tobias Schonfarber officiated at the marriage of Mrs. Ida McKenna and Jacob G. Schonfarber, the editor of The Journal of the Knights of Labor.
1895: As part of the Dreyfus Affair, Major Ferdinand Esterhazy faces a court-martial where he is confronted by Colonel Georges Picquart who offers indisputable evidence of Esterhazy’s guilt and Dreyfus’ innocence. As had happened previously when Picquart had presented his evidence to the deputy chief of staff, the court attacks Picquart and disregards his testimony.
1896: It was reported today that “the United Hebrew Trades and Halevy Singing Society” were among the organization who took part at ceremonies memorializing the late champion of Russian freedom Sergey Mikhaylovich Stepnyak-Kravchinsky
1896: Based on information that first appeared in the Philadelphia Ledger, it was reported today that Dr. Paul Haupt, a professor at Johns Hopkins University delivered a lecture “under the auspices of the Gratz College Trustees at Mickve Israel ” on the subject of “The Site of Paradise and the Babylonian Nimrod Ep
1897: It was reported today that during the 13 years of its existence the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York “has graduated 239 students” all of whom but five are still alive. Approximately 75% of the graduates are employed in some kind of “mechanical occupation” which consistent with the kind of training offered by the Institute. (More for 2014)
1898: It was reported that the late Rudolph Hertzog was unpopular with German Jews because he refused to employ his co-religionists in his dry goods stores.
1898: After overcoming considerable opposition because of his origins, Herman P. Faust, a converted Jew will be ordained as Presbyterian minister.
1898: Anti-Semitic riots broke out in Paris after Ferdinand Esterhazy was acquitted by a secret French Military Court of charges that he, and not Dreyfus, was the spy who had sold military secrets to the Germans.
1899: It was reported today that in the deposition that had been cabled from Cayenne to Paris by Alfred Dreyfus, the convicted Captain denied that he had ever made a confession “to a Republican Guard or Gendarme’ including Captain Lebrun-Renault and Colonel du Paty de Calm. He has “always declared that his innocence would be proved in two or three years.
1899: It was reported today that “the Dreyfus affair has…entered one of its bitterest chapters” when Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire, the President of the Court of Cassation (France’s court of final appeals) discredited his colleagues as having conspired with the Dreyfusards in making their upcoming decision on the Captain’s final appeal. He thought they were going to overturn the conviction, a move that he opposed as an “antidreyfusard” who sought to become leader of the French right wing.
1905 (5th of Shevat): Chasdic Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter passed away in Góra Kalwaria, Poland. He was born in Warsaw in 1847. When he was young his father died, so that when it came time to lead the Ger Hasidic dynasty, he was under-age and he refused the mantle of leadership for many years. Eventually his followers succeeded in gaining his assent for him to become their leader as Rebbe. Thus he succeeded his grandfather, Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Alter, as the second Rebbe of the Ger dynasty of Chasidic Judaism. He was a prodigious scholar and his work the Sfas Emes (or Sfat Emet) deals with the legalistic Talmud, the ethics of Midrash, and mysticism of the Zohar. During the Russo-Japanese War many of his young followers were drafted into the Russian Army and sent to the battlefields in Manchuria. Alter was very worried over these devotees and would constantly write to them. It began to be detrimental to his health. He was only 57 when he passed away. He was succeeded by his son Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter. Following the Holocaust, the Ger dynasty became a large movement in Israel.
1907: Birthdate of Pierre Mendes France French political leader who was Prime Minister of France during the Fourth Republic
1908: Birthdate of Lionel Jay Stander, the gravely voiced actor who had a career in movies, radio, television and theatre who was a victim of the infamous Blacklist. Younger viewers best remember him as the butler on the television hit “Hart to Hart.”
1912: Morris Hillquit debated fellow Socialist “Big Bill” Haywood at New York City’s Cooper Union. Haywood who had no qualms about violent action, claimed that Hilliquit had a betrayed the “class struggle” by helping the garment workers negotiate a contract with their employers.
1912: The Russian consul in New York City refuses to grant a visa to Jewish journalist Herman Bernstein.
1918: Birthdate of composer Albert Weisser.
1919: Romania’s Jewish population grew today when it annexed Transylvania. Romania promised that it would grant full emancipation to its Jewish population at the time of the annexation. The changes were met with opposition by the National Christian Defense League and riots by right-wing students.
1921: A month before assuming his responsibilities at the Colonial Office, Winston Churchill “was in Paris where he discussed” Middle East policy with French President Alexandre Millerand, “who criticized Britain’s support for a Jewish National Home.”
1921: Birthday of Judith Lieber, luxury handbag doyenne. She “was the first woman to become an apprentice and then master in the Hungarian handbag guild. She survived World War II in hiding and met her husband—an American soldier—on the streets of Budapest. A GI Bride, she moved to the United States and began working as a pattern maker and later foreman at a handbag company before launching her own company in 1963. Lieber's small firm quickly grew, and she soon opened a factory to produce her designs. Today, Lieber's handbags, still made in the United States by skilled artisans, are cherished by celebrities and collectors alike. In 1953, throngs of guests and reporters turned out to see the Judith Lieber bag carried by Maimie Eisenhower at her husband's inauguration; every first lady since Nancy Reagan has carried one. Although she retired from designing handbags in 1998, many of her most famous lines, including the classic beaded Chatelaine, are still in production. Her bags have been featured in numerous art exhibitions and are included in the collections of London's Victoria and Albert Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., among others.
1922: Insulin was first administered to a human patient with diabetes in Toronto, Canada. The study of the pancreas and the function of insulin took place over many decades and took the efforts of numerous scientists. As you would imagine some of these were Jewish. Two of these were Oscar Minkowski who played a key role in establishing the relationship between the pancreas and diabetes and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow who received the 1977 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the development of the radioimmunoassay for insulin.
1922: Release date for “Foolish Wives” billed as Hollywood’s “first million-dollar move” written, directed and co-starring Erich von Stroheim, co-produced by Irving Thalberg and Carl Laemmie with music by Sigmund Romberg.
1922: Birthdate of Lawrence Garfinkel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society who helped design landmark studies that linked smoking to lung cancer. (As reported by Denise Grady)
1927: Birthdate of Gerald Gold, the Brooklyn native who as an editor for the New York Times “helped supervise the herculean task of combing through a secret 2.5-million-word Defense Department history of the Vietnam War, later known as the Pentagon Papers, to produce articles showing that officials had lied about the war…” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1928: Birthdate of David Wolper “an award-winning movie and television producer best known for the groundbreaking mini-series Roots.”
1929: Birthdate of Rafael "Raful" Eitan, the native of Afula who became Chief of Staff of the IDF, an MK and Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.
1931: Governor Franklin Roosevelt and Mayor Jimmy Walker were among the dignitaries who expressed their sense of loss when informed that Nathan Straus had passed away today.
1933: In Hamburg, Germany, the Altona Confession was issued by area pastors. In light of the confusing political situation and the developing Nazi influence on the State Church, it offered Scriptural guidelines for those seeking lead a Christian life.
1935: Hakibbutz Hadati, the religious kibbutz movement was founded. Actually, the movement was styled after the moshav, which allowed for ownership of private property. It was affiliated with the HaPoel Ha Mizrachi movement the religious Zionist Labor Organization. Its idea was to combine religious life and labor in a communal agricultural settlement the first being Tirat Tzvi
1941(12th of Tevet, 5701): Seventy-two year old chess champion Emanuel Lasker passed away today in New York City
1942: The Nazis seized 1,500 Jews in Vienna and sent them by train to Riga.
1942: The Los Angeles Times reported that “Charles A. Levine, the ex-junk dealer who claimed the now-obscured fame of being the first trans-Atlantic airplane passenger in 1927, was jailed in New York on a Los Angeles indictment of conspiring to smuggle a German alien into the United States.”
1943: The Höfle Telegram was sent by SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle to SS-Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann in Berlin listing 1,274,166 total arrivals to the four camps of Aktion Reinhard through the end of 1942, as well as the total arrivals by camp for the last two weeks of 1942.
1943: Birthdate of Steven Neil Posner, the Baltimore native “who with his father, Victor, was caught up in a major corporate raiding case that led to the convictions of Ivan F. Boesky and Michael R. Milken”
1944: “Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner said today that he had been particularly impressed by the good care taken of American soldiers in all the theatres he had visited, including India, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East…Rabbi Brickner is administrative chairman of the Committee examining religious activities on behalf of the military as well a member of the National Jewish Welfare Board.” Brickner shared with his religious counterparts “the task of making a survey of the morale” of America’s fighting men and women.
1944: The Nazis established the Crakow-Plaszow Concentration Camp.
1945: The deportations of Jews from Hungary to Austria have ended. In Budapest, 120,000 Jews await in protected housing for the arrival of the Red Army. Hungarian Fascist Nyilas thugs entered "protected" Jewish houses throughout Budapest, murdering dozens of residents. A gang of eight Nyilas enter one of the houses and kills 15 men, 26 women and one child. Another group surrounds the Jewish hospital, torturing and killing 95 patients.
1947: In “The Arabs Mobilize” published today Edward P. Morgan provides a snapshot of the preparation for battle taking place in Palestine.
1948: Maurice Fischer, the Jewish Agency Representative in Paris sent a telegram demanding that the negotiations with the French over allowing them to see secret British documents recently seized by the Haganah be held in Paris and not in Jerusalem.
1957: In Savannah, GA, an expanded structure designed to replace the original Mordecai Sheftall Memorial space was dedicated at Mickve Israel.
1961: The Egoz, a small boat leased by the Mossad to smuggle Jews from Morocco to Gibraltar, capsized. All forty-four of the olim drowned, half were children. After the Egoz disaster, the Jewish Agency and the Mossad worked with threatened Moroccan communities to rescue the children first. In Operation Mural, 530 Moroccan Jewish children were sent by their families on an ostensible holiday in Switzerland—and, from there, flown to Israel. (As reported by Diana Muir Appelbaum)
1962: Sir Gilbert Mackereth passed away. While serving as a British diplomat in Syria he sought to limit the number of Jews entering Palestine when in 1937 he called for an “increase in border patrol” along the Syrian border “due to the high numbers of Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler’s Germany
1965: Morton Halperin and Ina Young gave birth to Mark E. Halperin, American political analyst for Timemagazine and Time.com. and the co-author of Game Change
1968(10th of Tevet, 5728): Assara B’Tevet
1968(10th of Tevet, 5728): Moshe Zvi Segal an eminent Israeli rabbi, linguist and Talmudic scholar passed away. Segal was born in Lithuania in 1876. In 1896, he moved with his family to Scotland and subsequently to London. He was ordained as a rabbi in 1902 and later obtained a degree from Oxford University. He emigrated to the then British Mandate of Palestine in 1926. In 1936 (jointly with Raphael Patai) and again in 1950, Segal was awarded the Bialik Prize for Jewish Thought. In 1954, he was awarded the Israel Prize, for Jewish studies.
1971: Israel's population reached 3,000,000.
1972: East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh. East Pakistan had gained its independence from Pakistan as a result of war between India and Pakistan.“The major general who masterminded and spearheaded India’s offensive, and who accepted Pakistan’s surrender, was Jack Frederick Ralph Jacob, the scion of an old Jewish family from Calcutta.” There are no definite numbers available as to the size of the current Jewish population of Bangladesh due to a fear of persecution.
1977: Bollingen Prize is awarded to David Ignatow. David Ignatow was born in Brooklyn, and has lived most of his life in New York. He has published sixteen volumes of poetry and three prose collections. Included in these are Poems, The Gentle Weightlifter, Say Pardon, Figures of the Human, Earth Hard: Selected Poems, Rescue the Dead, Poems: 1934-1969, Facing the Tree, Selected Poems-1975, Tread the Dark, Whisper to the Earth, Leaving the Door Open, Shadowing the Ground, Despite the Plainness of the Day: Love Poems-1991, Against the Evidence, and I Have a Name. He has taught at Columbia, the New School for Social Research, the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas, York College of the City University of New York, New York University, and Vassar College. At various times he has worked as an editor for the American Poetry Review and Beloit Poetry Journal. The National Institute of Arts and Letters has presented to Mr. Ignatow an award "for a lifetime of creative effort." His work has been recognized also with the Bollingen Prize, two Guggenheim fellowships, the Wallace Stevens fellowship from Yale University, the Rockefeller Foundation fellowship, the Poetry Society of America's Shelly Memorial Award, and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is president emeritus of the Poetry Society of America and a member of the executive board of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association. Ignatow passed away in 1997.
1977: France set off an international uproar by releasing Abu Daoud, a Palestinian suspected of involvement in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics
1982: The New York Times includes a review of The Dean’s December. It is Saul Bellow’s ninth novel and his first since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
1984: Religious women of many backgrounds gathered for a Women of Faith conference sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. “
1984: Birthdate of Oshri Cohen, the Israeli actor who starred in “Beaufort.”
1986: In an article published today famous chef Marian Buros described the delicatessen started by Arnold Reuben as “the quintessential New York restaurant" decorated with "Italian marble, gold-leaf ceiling, lots of walnut paneling and dark red leather seats.”
1987: The complexities of life in Israel will be the focus of a five-part film series starting today entitled ''A Lens on Israel: Society Through Its Cinema'' at the 92d Street Y
1988: Israeli television reported tonight that a Palestinian was shot dead in the Khan Yunis refugee district in the Gaza Strip as he tried to grab a soldier's rifle. He was identified by the Palestine Press Service, an Arab-run news agency, as Mustafa Youssef Khadir, 20 years old.
1988(21st of Tevet, 5748): Isidor Isaac Rabi nuclear physicist passed away at the age of 89. He won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1944. According to Rabbi Fred Davidow, The Healer of Shattered Hearts: A Jewish View of God by David Wolpe contains the following story about Rabi. "The renowned physicist I. I. Rabi was once asked to name the most significant intellectual influence in his life. The interviewer expected to hear "Einstein" or perhaps "Newton.""My mother," Rabi replied instantly. For each day, he explained, when he would come home from cheder ..., his pious mother would say to him, 'So Isaac, did you ask any good questions today?' From her, said Rabi, he learned that the key to wisdom is to ask good questions."
1989: The High Court has overturned an Israeli military censor's ban for the first time, allowing the publication of criticism of the head of the Mossad intelligence agency.
1990: According to reporter Michael Wines, following the invasion of Panama, U.S. officials are still trying to understand the role Mike Harari, a 62-year-old retired agent of the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, played under the role of General Noriega.
1992: Paul Simon opens a tour in South Africa. This was his first appearance in South Africa after the boycott of the formerly white supremacist government had ended. Simon played a key role in bringing certain types of African music to Western audiences.
1993: Howard Stern's radio show begins transmitting to Buffalo NY (WKBW).
1997: On the third day of, the Red Sea International Music Festival, the festival returns to Eilat where the opera chorus performs an “a capella” concert at 11 A.M.
1998: The New York Times featured a review of the paperback edition of Don’t Call It Night by Amos Oz; translated by Nicholas de Lange. “Not surprisingly, the author's latest novel is set in his native Israel, but it is not a landscape of political turmoil and terrorism that he surveys, but one of discordant domesticity between two middle-aged lovers.”
2001: As the attempt to control cell phone usage in such places as churches and restaurants heats up Gil Israeli, the chief executive of NetLine, located in Tel Aviv, is quoted as saying that a sign saying ''No Cell Phones'' does not go far enough.
2001: In the following letter-to the editor of the Wall Street Journal the leaders of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs take issue with a column by Ira Stoll that “attacks” Rabbi Yitz Greenberg and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council.
On behalf of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), which represents 13 national and 123 local Jewish community relations and public affairs organizations throughout the United States, we want to express our dismay over Ira Stoll’s op-ed in the December 29 edition attacking Rabbi Yitz Greenberg. Any reasonable person who has read the full text of Rabbi Greenberg’s speech given last November at the United Jewish Communities’ General Assembly in Chicago -- which provided the selective quotes that formed the basis for Mr. Stoll’s attack -- will conclude that the op-ed is a blatant distortion of reality. Rather than accusing Israeli soldiers and policemen of using excessive force in responding to the recent Palestinian violence, Rabbi Greenberg, Chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, actually praises them for their restraint under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He notes that in a small number of cases there may have been an overreaction and that Israeli officials are properly investigating them. Rabbi Greenberg, who has had a long and illustrious career supporting Israel and the Jewish people, was simply doing in this speech what he has been doing for decades -- providing our community with a thoughtful, loving analysis of the dilemmas Israel faces in exercising power in one of the world’s toughest neighborhoods. Mr. Stoll also unfairly attacks the Council that administers the Holocaust Museum. While no institution is beyond criticism, we believe that overall this important institution has done an outstanding job of educating Americans and its many visitors from abroad about the history of the Holocaust and current human rights concerns. We are confident that under Rabbi Greenberg’s inspired leadership the Museum will continue to serve this important function.
Sincerely,
Chairperson Leonard A. Cole,
Executive Vice Chairperson Hannah Rosenthal
2000: On his return from West Virginia, Prime Minister Ehud Barak tonight broke the silence that governed the closed-door negotiations with Syria to say that the peace talks had reached a ''decisive stage'' in which both sides would have to make difficult decisions. Speaking in a television interview, Mr. Barak said it was impossible to predict whether the round of talks that begins next week would be ''conclusive.'' He said that he had witnessed ''certain fissures in the Syrian rigidity'' but that he was not reading much into them.
2002: In an article entitled “When Jews Found a Place Among European Artists,” Grace Glueck provides a fascinating trip through the world of Jewish art as she reviews an exhibition at the New York’s Jewish museum, ''The Emergence of Jewish Artists in 19th-Century Europe''
2004: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Battle For Rome The Germans, the Allies, the Partisans, and the Pope, September 1943-June 1944by Robert Katz (author of Black Sabbath, a Holocaust study of the deportation of the Jews of Rome) and The Doctor’s Plague: Germs, Childbed Fever, and the Strange Story of Ignac Semmelweis by Sherwin B. Nuland.
2004: Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel said today that he saw no risk that Palestinians could undermine Israel's Jewish identity by gaining a demographic majority, dismissing a reason pressed by some members of his Likud faction for a swift exit from some of the occupied territories.
2005:While delivering a speech opposing the disengagement plan from Gaza, Effi Eitam called Prime Minister Sharon a “refuser of democracy.”
2006: The New York Times described the struggle of F Line Bagels to remain open despite attempts by the MTA to stop the owners from selling what has been a traditionally New York Jewish delight in an atmosphere that resembles a sanitized version of a subway station.
2006: Senator Barak Obama visits a remote Israeli town with Chicago ties. Illinois Senator Barack Obama flew to areas along the northern border with Lebanon today. Obama's first Middle East visit took him to a small village that is well-wired to Chicago. Israel may be a Jewish state, but more than a million people who live there are non-Jews, most of them Christian. But the Christian population in Israel is rapidly declining. That exodus has attracted the attention of the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese and the Chicago Jewish Federation. Israel's loss of its Christian minority attracted the attention of Senator Obama. Three hours from Jerusalem, as far north in Israel as possible, just before Lebanon, this is the town of Fassouta, and this is where the village worships. All 3,000 residents of Fassouta are Israeli, Palestinian and Catholic. The Catholic pastor for this entire village in upper Galilee welcomed visiting Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who is traveling with leaders of Chicago's Jewish community. Fassouta is a living example of interfaith good will in action, an overseas extend-a-hand. A computer lab is part of a literacy project funded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and the Jewish Federation of Metro Chicago. "This community center had been built not long before that, but it's empty. Ours was the first project that went into it, and it became a draw for the other things that are now functioning in here. Children's ballet classes, chess classes," said Linda Epstein, Chicago Jewish Federation. Senator Obama may be the first member of congress ever in Fassouta, and a grateful mayor and village leaders proudly gave him a look around. A prominent Northwestern and Tel Aviv University professor says his visit sends an important signal. "Israel has a minority of 20 percent non-Jewish Arab minority, And the visit of the senator to this village is an acknowledgment that there is this minority that needs to be acknowledged and seen," said Elie Rekhess, Northwestern University. But the real winners are the young people of Fassouta, who for the first time have new computers and are wired to the world. Many villages along the northern Israel border have a more troubling distinction. They are easy targets of Hezbollah terrorists just over the border in Lebanon. For years Lebanese militant groups perched just north of Israel have opened fire on Israeli border towns. Most recently, on December 22, the village of Kiryat Shmona was hit by Hezbollah rockets. ABC7 news flew with Illinois Senator Barack Obama in an Israeli army Blackhawk helicopter to the border zone. The news crew flew over Israel's most vulnerable border areas,the narrowest part of the country between the West Bank and the Mediterranean Sea, over Arab villages in the Galilee and then on to the Lebanese border region that recently came under attack. It also visited one of the Israeli homes that was hit by Katyusha rockets in the overnight barrage that killed 14. The family that lives in the house was asleep when the terrorist missiles hit. They survived but their home is badly damaged and their lives shaken. "I thought it was a gas tank that had exploded, because it smelled like fire. We couldn't come out of the room because this room was all filled with shrapnel," said Kiryat Shmona, Israeli. Israeli military officials mapped out for Illinois' junior senator how Hezbollah terrorists unsuccessfully tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers during the attack. They offered information to Obama that the militant militia group is going unchallenged by Lebanese leaders and United Nations commanders, hoping Obama and the US will press Lebanon to stop the border assaults. The Palestinian problem has recently received far more attention than the Lebanese border stand-off with Hezbollah. With the country now preoccupied by the recent stroke of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and upcoming elections, military commanders on the ground in northern Israel are concerned that the rocket attacks will get worse.
2006: The Nation published Elizabeth Holtzman's essay calling for the impeachment of U.S. President George W. Bush for authorizing "the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act."
2007: The free newspaper Israeli which is poised on the brink of closure published its last edition. Israeli is a Hebrew language daily with a press run of 150,000 copies that is handed out free at such locations as bus and train stations, as well as malls and other business centers.
2007: Ruth Dayan was awarded the Partner of Peace Award by the Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam community, a cooperative village of Jews and Arabs mid-way between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
2007: The Baltimore Jewish community bade farewell to Morton “Sonny” Plant at his funeral held at Chizuk Amuno Congregation.
2007: Representative James “Jim” McGorvern introduced a House Resolution to Reverend Waitstill Sharp and Marsha Sharp for their recognition by Yad Vashem “as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroic efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust.”
2008: Today's edition of the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles published a detailed report about The Spinka Financial Controversy alongside a number of subsidiary articles. The article was the papers cover story and was written by the paper's religion editor Amy Klein.
2008: In New York City, the 92nd Street “Y” presents “Desert Soul Music” featuring Matt Turk and Basya Schechter, the founder of the neo-Chasidic world music band Pharaoh’s Daughter..
2009: In Irvine, CA, Volley Ball Team USA trys out as part of the 18th Maccabiah Games.
2009: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Bill Morgan, The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder edited by Bill Morgan and The Journey by H.G. Adler.
2009: The Washington Post featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Sashenka, Simon Montefiore's first novel and With Wings Like Eagles by Michael Korda.
2009: A pro-Israel rally was held at Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation this afternoon to respond to the spate of hate crimes and support Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip.
2009: Israel's "Waltz with Bashir" won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film. The victory solidifies its front-runner status to win Israel's first Oscar at the Academy Awards next month.
2009: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a moving eulogy today at the military funeral of a Jewish soldier killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan. At the request of the slain soldier's family, donning a yarmulke, Rudd delivered a euology, telling almost 2,000 mourners at Melbourne's Lyndhurst Jewish Cemetery that Pvt. Gregory Sher's death was not in vain
2009: JTA reported that As Good As Anybody by Richard Michelson and illustrated by Raul Colon, a book that traces the lives and friendship of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel won the Sydney Taylor Award for Young Readers which is an award for Jewish children's literature.
2010: The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI) is scheduled to conduct a walking tour for English speakers living in Jerusalem of Montefiore's Windmill and the Yemin Moshe neighborhood.
2010:The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency, according to a report in today’s issue of the U.S. weekly Defense News.
2010: A leading pro-Israel congressman hosted a business meeting in his offices between Israeli officials and a defense contractor in which he profitably invested. Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Middle East subcommittee, told the New York Daily News, which published the revelation today that he did not profit in any way from the meeting between Alan Magerman, the founder of Xenonics, and two Israeli officials.
2010:Remains of a prehistoric Tel Aviv building, which is the earliest ever discovered in the area and estimated to be 7,800-8,400 years' old, have been unearthed in an archaeological excavation,the Israel Antiquities Authority announced today. The excavation was carried out prior to the construction of an apartment building in the "Green Fichman" project in Ramat Aviv. Ancient artifacts thought to be between 13,000 and 100,000 years' old were discovered there. Archaeologist Ayelet Dayan, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities
2010:Miep Gies, the office secretary who defied the Nazi occupiers to hide Anne Frank and her family for two years and saved the teenager's diary, passed away today at the age of 100. Gies' Web site reported that she died after a brief illness. The report was confirmed by museum spokeswoman Maatje Mostar, but she gave no details. The British Broadcasting Corp. said she died in a nursing home after suffering a fall last month. Gies was the last of the few non-Jews who supplied food, books and good cheer to the secret annex behind the canal warehouse where Anne, her parents, sister and four other Jews hid for 25 months during World War II. After the apartment was raided by the German police, Gies gathered up Anne's scattered notebooks and papers and locked them in a drawer for her return after the war.
2011: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to present a program entitled “Undoing the Inquisition” featuring Rabbi Juan Mejia.
2011: The Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC, is scheduled to host “Food for Thought: Digesting Ethics, Mysticism and Philosophy with Rabbi Yosef Edelstein of MesorahDC.
2011:A senior Islamic Jihad militant was killed today by an Israel Air Force missile while he was driving a motorcycle in the southern Gaza Strip, according to local Palestinian officials. Gaza emergency services said that the targeted militant Mohammed A-Najar, 25, was killed immediately and that an additional casualty had been evacuated to hospital for treatment. Israel Defense Forces sources confirmed the attack, and said that Najar had been planning a terrorist attack within Israeli territory and with rocket-launching cells.
2011:Debbie Friedman was eulogized at her funeral today by friends, rabbis, and fellow musicians, both in words and through the songs she composed and sang, which transformed Jewish worship in synagogues and summer camps. Her acoustic guitar lay on top of her casket during the funeral service at Temple Beth Sholom in Santa Ana, California, the Orange County Register reported. Friedman died Jan. 9 at the age of 59, after being diagnosed with pneumonia and admitted to a hospital a few days earlier. She blended the folk music roots of the 1960s an 1970s and combined them with traditional Jewish prayers and liturgy, and was frequently described as the "Joan Baez of Jewish song." Mourners at the service joined Craig Taubman and other performers in singing such famous Friedman works as "Sing Unto God,""Devorah's Song,""You Are The One,""Miriam's Song" and "L'chi Lach." Perhaps Friedman's best known composition is "Mi Sheberach," a popular version of the prayer of healing for the sick. During the funeral, Rabbi Heidi Cohen of Temple Beth Sholom described Friedman as a modest artist, despite her fame, adding, "If Debbie were here today, she would say, 'What's the big fuss? I don't need this. I don't want this.'" Rabbi Richard N. Levy of Hebrew Union College in Los Angeles said of his former colleague, "Debbie wanted us to believe that God is good and God takes our prayers seriously. Even though all our prayers did not (heal her), they provided an escort into the next world that sang unto God, this woman is going to rock your throne."
2011: The Los Angeles City Council adjourned its meeting in memory of Friedman, whom Councilmember Paul Koretz eulogized saying "Anyone who has ever attended a liberal Jewish synagogue or summer camp or youth group event has been touched by Debbie Friedman. He added: "She was always ahead of the curve -- be it in songs for lifecycle events, Jewish feminist music, or interfaith spirituality. May her memory -- and her music -- be a blessing."
2011: The Jewish Book Council announced today that “When They Come for Us, We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle To Save Soviet Jewry,” Gal Beckerman’s comprehensive history of the popular movement to save Soviet Jews in the latter half of the 20th century is the winner of the Jewish Book of the Year Award
2011: Today, the Jerusalem Post published the following list of notables who passed away in 2010:
Theodore "Ted" Sorensen, 82, was President John F. Kennedy's speechwriter, a longtime adviser and a ghostwriter of Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage."
Daniel "Danny the Red" Bensaid, 63, a French philosopher and former student radical who was a leader in the student revolt in Paris in 1968, was described as France's leading "Marxist public intellectual" upon his death.
Ruth Proskauer Smith, 102, was an abortion rights pioneer.
Harry Schwarz, 85, was a South African anti-apartheid activist who was his country's ambassador to the United States during the transition from apartheid to the Mandela government. He also was a leader of South Africa's Jewish Board of Deputies, and he worked with Israeli leaders to ensure the safety and future of South African Jewry. Schwarz told his own story as part of a museum exhibit of German refugees in South Africa.
David Kimche, 82, was a founding father of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and a spy who worked undercover in Africa and with the Christian Phalangists in Lebanon before Israel's 1982 war there.
Dov Shilansky, 86, was a former Speaker of the Knesset.
Tony Curtis, 85, actor and artist, was born in the Bronx as Bernard Schwartz. A major sex symbol on the big screen from the 1950s on, Curtis helped finance the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Budapest in honor of his Hungarian roots.
Tom Bosley, 83, was probably best known as Richie Cunningham's dad, Howard, on the sitcom "Happy Days." The Jewish Exponent published a piece on Bosley in 2006 when he appeared in a stage production of "On Golden Pond" in Philadelphia.
Zelda Rubinstein, 76, a diminutive (4-foot-3) actress who won a science fiction film award for her role in "Poltergeist" in 1982, was an activist for "little people."
Harold Gould, 86, was best known for his role as the father of Rhoda Morgenstern in the TV sitcoms "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Rhoda." Gould, who held a doctorate in theater, taught for four years at the University of California, Riverside, before turning to acting. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies, including "The Sting." Gould was originally cast as Howard Cunningham in "Happy Days."
Maury Chaykin, 61, known for portraying detective Nero Wolfe on TV, had film roles in "Dances With Wolves,""WarGames" and "My Cousin Vinny."
Steve Landesberg, 74, an actor, comedian and voice actor, was best known for his work on TV's "Barney Miller."
Bud Greenspan, 84, who was best known for his production of documentaries about the Olympics, was called a "trailblazing filmmaker" by The Los Angeles Times.
Irvin Kershner, 87, a film director, was most noted for "The Empire Strikes Back," the 1980 sequel to the original "Star Wars" film.
Ingrid Pitt, 73, a Holocaust survivor, was an actress in horror films in the 1960s and 1970s.
Eddie Fisher, 82, was a pre-rock-era pop singer. He was married to actress Debbie Reynolds, but left her, scandalously, for actress Elizabeth Taylor -- a move that cost him his "Coke Time" TV series and a recording contract in 1959. Fisher made the first commercial recording of "Sunrise, Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof."
Mitch Miller, 99, a record company executive and conductor who became famous for his 1960s TV show "Sing Along With Mitch," (video clip here) was known for speaking derisively about rock and roll. He passed on signing contracts with Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly.
Malcolm McLaren, 64, was a rock and punk music impresario and performer who was most noted for managing the Sex Pistols, a seminal British punk band in the 1970s. London's The Telegraph ran an extensive obituary and photographs after his death.
Doug Fieger, 57, was co-founder of the power pop band The Knack and writer of the 1979 hit song "My Sharona."
David Soyer, 87, was founding cellist of the Guarnieri String Quartet, one of the modern era's most celebrated chamber music ensembles.
David Deckelbaum, 71, a Canadian/Israeli folk musician from the group "The Taverners," was described by the Israeli daily Haaretz as an "iconic banjoist" on the folk music scene in Israel. Click here to see a video of Deckelbaum and the Taverners on Israeli television.
Daniel Schorr, 93, was an award-winning journalist whose name appeared on Richard Nixon's "enemies list" and who angered both government officials and his employers for being a stickler for journalistic ethics and the protection of sources. Schorr spent many years as a commentator for National Public Radio. The station produced a lovely package of stories, audio clips and tributes about Schorr after his death.
Harvey Pekar, 69, was a cartoonist best known for his autobiographical comic series, "American Splendor." His life was the subject of a 2003 film with the same title, starring actor Paul Giamatti as Pekar and featuring a cameo by Pekar himself.
J.D. Salinger, 91, was one of the 20th century's most celebrated and reclusive American authors. Salinger's 1951 novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," still sells a quarter-million copies a year. The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani said Salinger "domesticated the innovations of the great modernists" and presaged the work of writers such as Philip Roth and Saul Bellow.
Erich Segal, 72, was an author and professor whose novel (and later film), "Love Story," became a touchstone of youthful romance in the 1970s. The film's signature line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," was 13th on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movie quotes. Segal, the son of a rabbi, also produced scholarly works in the fields of Greek and Latin literature.
Abraham Sutzkever, 96, was an acclaimed Yiddish poet who was considered one of the great poets of the Holocaust. Born in the Russian Empire, he was a partisan during World War II and spent more than 50 years in Israel, writing what Israeli scholar Miriam Trin called some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century. However, he was largely unknown in Israel because he wrote in Yiddish.
Shmuel Katz, 83, was a well-known Israeli caricaturist and illustrator of children's books. Haaretz said Katz, an Austrian Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel in 1948, drew some of Israel's "best-loved" children's books.
David Slivka, 95, who once famously made a death mask of his friend Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, was a sculptor and painter. The New York Times described Slivka as "one of the last living members of the New York school of Abstract Expressionists." His paintings and sculptures are in the permanent collections of many major museums, including the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Brooklyn Museum.
Ruth Proskauer Smith, 102, was an abortion rights pioneer.
Harry Schwarz, 85, was a South African anti-apartheid activist who was his country's ambassador to the United States during the transition from apartheid to the Mandela government. He also was a leader of South Africa's Jewish Board of Deputies, and he worked with Israeli leaders to ensure the safety and future of South African Jewry. Schwarz told his own story as part of a museum exhibit of German refugees in South Africa.
David Kimche, 82, was a founding father of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency and a spy who worked undercover in Africa and with the Christian Phalangists in Lebanon before Israel's 1982 war there.
Dov Shilansky, 86, was a former Speaker of the Knesset.
Tony Curtis, 85, actor and artist, was born in the Bronx as Bernard Schwartz. A major sex symbol on the big screen from the 1950s on, Curtis helped finance the rebuilding of the Great Synagogue in Budapest in honor of his Hungarian roots.
Tom Bosley, 83, was probably best known as Richie Cunningham's dad, Howard, on the sitcom "Happy Days." The Jewish Exponent published a piece on Bosley in 2006 when he appeared in a stage production of "On Golden Pond" in Philadelphia.
Zelda Rubinstein, 76, a diminutive (4-foot-3) actress who won a science fiction film award for her role in "Poltergeist" in 1982, was an activist for "little people."
Harold Gould, 86, was best known for his role as the father of Rhoda Morgenstern in the TV sitcoms "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and "Rhoda." Gould, who held a doctorate in theater, taught for four years at the University of California, Riverside, before turning to acting. He appeared in dozens of TV shows and movies, including "The Sting." Gould was originally cast as Howard Cunningham in "Happy Days."
Maury Chaykin, 61, known for portraying detective Nero Wolfe on TV, had film roles in "Dances With Wolves,""WarGames" and "My Cousin Vinny."
Steve Landesberg, 74, an actor, comedian and voice actor, was best known for his work on TV's "Barney Miller."
Bud Greenspan, 84, who was best known for his production of documentaries about the Olympics, was called a "trailblazing filmmaker" by The Los Angeles Times.
Irvin Kershner, 87, a film director, was most noted for "The Empire Strikes Back," the 1980 sequel to the original "Star Wars" film.
Ingrid Pitt, 73, a Holocaust survivor, was an actress in horror films in the 1960s and 1970s.
Eddie Fisher, 82, was a pre-rock-era pop singer. He was married to actress Debbie Reynolds, but left her, scandalously, for actress Elizabeth Taylor -- a move that cost him his "Coke Time" TV series and a recording contract in 1959. Fisher made the first commercial recording of "Sunrise, Sunset" from "Fiddler on the Roof."
Mitch Miller, 99, a record company executive and conductor who became famous for his 1960s TV show "Sing Along With Mitch," (video clip here) was known for speaking derisively about rock and roll. He passed on signing contracts with Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly.
Malcolm McLaren, 64, was a rock and punk music impresario and performer who was most noted for managing the Sex Pistols, a seminal British punk band in the 1970s. London's The Telegraph ran an extensive obituary and photographs after his death.
Doug Fieger, 57, was co-founder of the power pop band The Knack and writer of the 1979 hit song "My Sharona."
David Soyer, 87, was founding cellist of the Guarnieri String Quartet, one of the modern era's most celebrated chamber music ensembles.
David Deckelbaum, 71, a Canadian/Israeli folk musician from the group "The Taverners," was described by the Israeli daily Haaretz as an "iconic banjoist" on the folk music scene in Israel. Click here to see a video of Deckelbaum and the Taverners on Israeli television.
Daniel Schorr, 93, was an award-winning journalist whose name appeared on Richard Nixon's "enemies list" and who angered both government officials and his employers for being a stickler for journalistic ethics and the protection of sources. Schorr spent many years as a commentator for National Public Radio. The station produced a lovely package of stories, audio clips and tributes about Schorr after his death.
Harvey Pekar, 69, was a cartoonist best known for his autobiographical comic series, "American Splendor." His life was the subject of a 2003 film with the same title, starring actor Paul Giamatti as Pekar and featuring a cameo by Pekar himself.
J.D. Salinger, 91, was one of the 20th century's most celebrated and reclusive American authors. Salinger's 1951 novel, "The Catcher in the Rye," still sells a quarter-million copies a year. The New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani said Salinger "domesticated the innovations of the great modernists" and presaged the work of writers such as Philip Roth and Saul Bellow.
Erich Segal, 72, was an author and professor whose novel (and later film), "Love Story," became a touchstone of youthful romance in the 1970s. The film's signature line, "Love means never having to say you're sorry," was 13th on the American Film Institute's list of top 100 movie quotes. Segal, the son of a rabbi, also produced scholarly works in the fields of Greek and Latin literature.
Abraham Sutzkever, 96, was an acclaimed Yiddish poet who was considered one of the great poets of the Holocaust. Born in the Russian Empire, he was a partisan during World War II and spent more than 50 years in Israel, writing what Israeli scholar Miriam Trin called some of the greatest poetry of the 20th century. However, he was largely unknown in Israel because he wrote in Yiddish.
Shmuel Katz, 83, was a well-known Israeli caricaturist and illustrator of children's books. Haaretz said Katz, an Austrian Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Israel in 1948, drew some of Israel's "best-loved" children's books.
David Slivka, 95, who once famously made a death mask of his friend Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, was a sculptor and painter. The New York Times described Slivka as "one of the last living members of the New York school of Abstract Expressionists." His paintings and sculptures are in the permanent collections of many major museums, including the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and the Brooklyn Museum.
Martin Ginsburg, 78, was an internationally renowned taxation law expert and law professor, as well as the husband of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Howard Zinn, 87, was a radical historian and author of, among other titles, "A Peoples History of the United States."
Adam Max Cohen, 38, was an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. A Shakespeare scholar, he wrote about how the illiteracy caused by his terminal brain tumor enabled him to gain new insights into appreciating Shakespeare's plays as performance art, and not only as great literature.
Martin Grossman, 45, was executed in Florida 26 years after his conviction for the murder of a Florida wildlife officer. The Orthodox world campaigned to keep Grossman from execution.
Rosa Rein of Switzerland, who was believed to be the world’s oldest Jew and the oldest Swiss citizen, died in February, just weeks before her 113th birthday.
Mark Madoff, 46, was an American businessman and son of the infamous Bernard Madoff.
Miep Gies, 100, was a non-Jewish Dutch woman who enabled Anne Frank and her family to hide, and who later discovered and preserved Frank's diary. She was honored by many organizations in later years, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial organization in Israel.
Adam Max Cohen, 38, was an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. A Shakespeare scholar, he wrote about how the illiteracy caused by his terminal brain tumor enabled him to gain new insights into appreciating Shakespeare's plays as performance art, and not only as great literature.
Martin Grossman, 45, was executed in Florida 26 years after his conviction for the murder of a Florida wildlife officer. The Orthodox world campaigned to keep Grossman from execution.
Rosa Rein of Switzerland, who was believed to be the world’s oldest Jew and the oldest Swiss citizen, died in February, just weeks before her 113th birthday.
Mark Madoff, 46, was an American businessman and son of the infamous Bernard Madoff.
Miep Gies, 100, was a non-Jewish Dutch woman who enabled Anne Frank and her family to hide, and who later discovered and preserved Frank's diary. She was honored by many organizations in later years, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial organization in Israel.
2012: ‘The Bintel Brief Exhibit’ is scheduled to open at the Sixth and I synagogue in Washington, D.C.,
2012: “400 Miles to Freedom,” the untold story of the 1984 exodus of co-director Avishai Mekonen and his secluded Jewish community from the mountains of Northern Ethiopia is scheduled to be the opening feauture at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: Yeshiva University Museum is scheduled to present: Curator’s Tour: Old and the New: Mark Podwal’s Textiles for the Altneuschul in Prague
2012: “The Cantor’s Son” is scheduled to be shown at the Yiddish Film Series/ Fundación Marcelino Botín in Santander, Spain
2012:The leading French newspaper Le Figaro reported today that Israeli Mossad agents are recruiting and training Iranian dissidents from Iraq’s Kurdish region to work against the regime in Tehran. Quoting a security source in Baghdad, Le Figaro reported that members of the Israeli intelligence agency are actively operating in Kurdistan and recruiting Iranian exiles in the region.
2012:An explosive thrown through the window of a New Jersey synagogue and residence is being treated as attempted murder, the Bergen County prosecutor said. The latest in a string of attacks that have hit the county's synagogues recently took place this morning at Congregation Beth El in Rutherford. The Orthodox synagogue doubles as a home for its rabbi, Nosson Schuman, and his family. Schuman suffered slight burns but no one else was hurt, The Record newspaper reported. In the past month, synagogues have been attacked in Paramus, Maywood and Hackensack. Police are unsure if the attacks, which include anti-Semitic graffiti and a fire, are related. U.S. Rep. Steve Rothman, who represents Bergen County in the House of Representatives, in a statement called on the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office to pool their resources with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and Rutherford Police Department to solve the latest attack.
2013: The Studio Opera Singers of the Israel Opera are scheduled to perform at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2013: “Nor In Tel Aviv” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: In London, The Wiener Library is scheduled to present a lecture by Naomi Shepherd will described how Wilfrid Israel used his personal fortune and the resources of his firm to rescue “thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution from the 1930’s until his death in 1943.”
2013: New election polls headlined toay by the Hebrew-language dailies Yedioth Ahronoth and Maariv echoed several trends first revealed in The Times of Israel’s major opinion poll published earlier this week.
2013:Medical sources in Gaza said today that IDF gunfire killed one Palestinian and injured another east of the Jabaliya refugee camp near the border, AFP reported. The IDF Spokesman's Office stated that dozens of Palestinian rioters approached the Gaza border fence this afternoon and did not heed IDF warnings to desist.
2013(29thof Tevet, 5773): Oscar Straus II Chairman Emeritus of the Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, and the Fred Lavanburg Foundation passed away today.http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thestar/obituary.aspx?pid=162300264#fbLoggedOut
2013(29thof Tevet, 5773): Twenty-six year old programmer Aaron Swartz “was found dead” today. (As reported by John Schwartz)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/technology/aaron-swartz-internet-activist-dies-at-26.html?hpw&_r=0
2014: The New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to show “The Jewish Cardinal” and “The Congress”
2014: The 92ndStreet Y is scheduled to host a Saturday night dance party as part of its inaugural “Out of Israel” Dance Festival.
2014: “Nadine Animato” Theater Dance Company which was established in 2009 by choreographer Nadine Bommer in Rishon Lezion, Israel is scheduled to perform at the City Center.
2014(10thof Shevat): Yarhrzeit of Rabbi Joseph Isaac Sneersohn