January 15
America 's Standing in the World at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington .
588 BCE : On the secular calendar, Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon lays siege to Jerusalem under Zedekiah's reign. The siege lasts until July 18, 586 BCE
69: Servius Sulpicius Galba 6th emperor of Rome (68-69) was killed by Praetorian Guard in the Forum Rome. Following the death of Nero, there was a power struggle. Rome had four emperors in one year of whom Galba was one. This state of anarchy came during the Jewish Revolt against the Romans. The Jews actually had a year in which to improve their military position before the Romans resumed their attacks or to possibly negotiate some kind of peace. The Jews squandered the chance by fighting among themselves, with the religious extremists becoming the dominant force. When the dust had settled Vespasian was the Emperor and he sent his son Titus with reinforcements to crush the Jewish rebellion.
409:Roman emperors Honorius and Theodosius II decree that previous laws against pagans and Jews must continue to be enforced."The Donatists and the rest of the vain heretics who refuse to be converted to the Catholic communion, including all Jews and pagans, must not imagine that any laws previously issued against them have diminished in force.” (The Donatists were a Christian sect that was seen as a rival to the Church at Rome. In this case, the Jews may have been “collateral damage” as the Roman emperors used the Catholic Church to consolidate their political power)
1559: Coronation of Elizabeth I of England. Elizabeth’s experience with Jews and Marranos was uneven, to say the least. By the end of her reign, small Morrano communities existed in Bristol and London. Dr. Nunes, a secret Jew, was the first to bring word of the sailing of the Spanish Armada in 1588. On the other hand, Dr. Lopez, also a secret Jew, was one of Elizabeth’s physicians. He was accused of trying to poison the monarch; a charge which he died. However, after being tortured in Tyburne prison, he confessed and was executed
1582: Russia cedes Livonia and Estonia to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. There are reports of Jews living in Estonia as far back as the 14th century. The Jewish community Livonia dated back to 1572. This change in “nationhood” had to be good news for the Jews of Livonia and Estonia since the 16th century Poland was a haven for Jews. They were protected by the monarchs, allowed to name a chief Rabbi and were governed by their own communal administration or Kahal. According to one source, during the 16th century, three quarters of all the world’s Jews lived in Poland.
1595: Murat III passed away. During his reign as Sultan,the Ottoman Empire continued to be a comparatively good place for Jews to live as can be seen by Murat relying on Izak Amon as an advisor and employing Doctor Domenico Yerushalmi and Doctor Eliezer Iskenderi as court physicians.
1630: In Santa Engracia (Lisbon ), Simon dias Solis, a young New Christian was seen near the local church (on his way to a rendezvous with a young woman) and was arrested for allegedly stealing a silver vessel from the church. After his hands were cut off he was dragged through the streets, and then burned. The real culprit, a common (Christian) criminal, admitted to the crime one year later. As a result, Solis's brother, a friar, fled to Amsterdam and reconverted to Judaism.
1711(24th of Tevet, 5471: After two days, the fire that had burned its way through the Judengasse in Frankfurt came to an end. The fire claimed the lives of four and was so destructive that the Jews who had lost their homes were allowed to rent dwellings outside of the ghetto until new houses could be constructed. The 24thof Tevet became a day of communal fasting to mark the anniversary of this disaster.
1784: Congress resolved "that a triplicate of the definitive treaty [of peace] be sent out to the ministers plenipotentiary by Lieut.-Col. David S. Franks." Franks was a native of England who had settled in Montreal before the American Revolution. He became a supporter of the patriot cause and joined a military unit from Massachusetts. He overcame unjustified charges of treason in the case of Benedict Arnold and went to serve his adopted homeland in several different capacities.
1822: Birthdate of Isidor Bush, the native of Prauge who came to the United States after the failed Revolutions of 1848 ultimately settling in St. Louis where he became a leader of the fledgling Jewish community, a supporter of the abolitionist movement and ultimately an expert in viticulture who wrote The Bushberg Catalogue
1840: A new Jewish School was opened in Riga with Rabbi Max Lienthal serving as principle. In recognition of the sentiments expressed in the sermon with which Lilienthal opened the school the emperor Nicholas presented him with a diamond ring.
1842: Birthdate of Josef Breuer, Austrian physician and early founder of psychoanalysis.
1844:University of Notre Dame received its charter in Indiana . The famous Catholic college is home to the Notre Dame Holocaust Project—an interdisciplinary faculty group that designs educational opportunities for students to engage in the study of the Shoah. Rabbi Michael A. Signer is Director of the Project. For many students, he is the first Jewish religious leader with whom they have had any in depth contact.
1851: In Cayuga County, NY, the defense presents its case in the People v Baham, a murder case in which the victim was a popular Jewish peddler from Syracuse named Nathan Adler.
1852: Mt. Sinai Hospital New York City . It was the first Jewish hospital in the United States. A native of Danbury, Connecticut, Simson graduated from Columbia University with a law degree in 1800. Simson was well-known for his charitable contributions to both Jewish and non-Jewish causes. Two years before his death in 1857, Simson was a co-founder of synagogue that would become known Beth Hamedrash Hagadol.
1859: The Jews of San Francisco are scheduled to hold a meeting today to express their feelings over the kidnapping of the Mortara child and the refusal of the papal authorities to return him to his parents.
1855: Birthdate of Aristides Damalas who was known as Jacques Damala, the non-Jewish husband of Sarah Berhnhardt.
1861: Today, as Southern states were seceding from the Union and it became apparent that war was inevitable, North Carolina’s Governor John W. Ellis began “the first definite endeavor” to have Major Alfred Mordecai resign from the United States Army and join the Confederate forces. The governor asked fellow North Carolinian, Representative Warren Winslow to offer Mordecai, who was a Tar Heel by birth and who many family members still living in the state, “ ‘a good position and a good salary’ if he would resign from the Army and take on ‘the work of putting N.C. on a war footing.’” Captain Theodore Laidly, a mutual friend of the two men, actually conveyed the offer to Mordecai, an offer the talented ordinance offer would refuse.
1862: Birthdate of dancer Loi Fuller whose rumored engagement to Jacob Cantor would keep him from being elected to New York’s 15th Congressional District in 1894.
1864(7th of Shevat, 5624): Isaac Nathan passed away today in Sydney, Australia in what was the Land Down Under’s first fatal tram accident. Born in 1792 at Canterbury (UK), Nathan was the son of a chazzan who went to a musical career of his own in England and Australia.
1866: In Switzerland , Jews are finally granted equal rights. It took yet another seven years for the Constitution to be changed.
1870: It was reported today “that a large immigration of indigent Jews” will soon be on their way from Western Russia to the United States. The Jews, most of whom are poor,. are fleeing from persecution.
1872: In an article published in Havazelet, Jeshua Heschel Levin of Volozin becomes the first to issue a call for a truly great National Jewish Library. Havazelet was an early Hebrew language newspaper which published articles by Eliezer Ben Yehuda among other notables.
1874: In Chicago, Temple Sinai, a Reform congregation held Sunday services at Martin’s Hall. The congregation’s original home had been destroyed during the Chicago Fire and its new home would not be finished until 1876.
1876: Birthdate of Ibn Saud, the first king of Saudi Arabia whose rise to power destabilized parts of the Middle East, who kept his country neutral during WW II and who led his country in the fight against the creation of the State of Israel.
1877(1stof Shevat, 5637): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1879: In New York, Mr. Henry Berg will deliver a lecture to the Young Men’s Hebrew Association at Chickering Hall entitled “Humanity and Civilization.”
1879: James Levy, a New York Jew described as “a most expert swindler” pleaded guilty to one of the four charges against him – forgery, obtaining money by false pretenses and violation of the Hotel Act - and was sentenced to five years at hard labor in a New York state penitentiary.
1881(15thof Shevat, 5641): Tu B’Shevat
1889 The Coca-Cola Company, then known as the Pemberton Medicine Company, is originally incorporated in Atlanta. In 1888, a customer who had a headache came into Jacobs Pharmacy in Five Points which was owned by a prominent Atlanta Jew, Joe Jacobs, “and asked that John Stith Pemberton's tonic be mixed with seltzer water—and Coca-Cola was born." Cokebeen certified kosher, including kosher l’Pesach since 1935 thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Tobias Geffen
1891: Birthdate of Osip Mandelstam Soviet poet and essayist.
1892: It was reported today that the late Cardinal Manning was held in such high esteem by non-Catholics that the Jews of London presented him with an address of praise when he celebrated his ordination jubilee.
1892: James Naismith publishes the rules of basketball. A sport born at a YMCA quickly gained popularity with Jewish youngsters. One sports writer even said that the game was uniquely suited to Jews because it called for people who were shifty and good with their hands. (Okay, it ia an anti-Semitic stereotype, but for once it is meant as a compliment.) Jews figured prominently in the early days of the NBA and Abe Saperstein, with the Harlem Globetrotters, was the first person to give a comparatively large number of African-Americans a chance to play basketball for pay.
1892: It was reported today that the President of Young Men’s Hebrew Association of America, Alfred M. Cohen has said that he could think of “no better work” for the Association than to provide for the influx of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He expressed special concern for providing proper education for the young immigrants who will need it to meet their “altered conditions.”
1893: It was reported today from Tangiers that Mohammed Benivda, the governor in Morocco has been imprisoning Jews and subjecting them to the last before finning them. The Jews have broken no law and the governor is doing this simply as a way of making money.
1893(27thof Tevet, 5653): In New York Dr. Eleazar Phillips, the author of Passages from the Prophets passed away unexpectedly this afternoon. Born at Schiverin (Prussia) in 1809, he came to the United States in 1849 where he lived in St. Louis and Cincinnati before settling in New York where he served as rabbi for Adas Israel for 25 years. Among his survivors is Emanuel Phillips, a grandson who teaches at the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society.
1893: Members of the Cloakmakers Union held a meeting this evening at the Hebrew Institute in Manhattan. (The choice of meeting places indicates the close association between the Jewish people and the American working class, especially in the garment industry)
1893: It was reported today that in one three room apartment on the Lower East Side a family composed of six Jewish immigrants from Russia shared their space with 15 boarders, most of whom were infected with Scarlet Fever. This was considered to be the most deplorable of the various unsanitary living conditions which were common throughout New York’s tenements.
1894: At a meeting held today In Philadelphia, PA, a new Auxiliary Association of Congregation Rodeph Shalom was formed with the aim of furthering “the religious, educational and moral undertakings of the Congregation…” It replaced the Jewish Cultural Association which had been formed by members of Rodeph Shalom.
1894: Birthdate of songwriter and music scout, Irving Mills. Mills played a key role in the development of jazz because of his willingness to work with talented black musicians. He is credited with “discovering” Cab Callaway and Duke Ellington. His most famous hit was “It Don’t Mean a Thing If It Ain’t Got No Swing.”
1895: “The North German Anti-Semites” are supposed to meet in Berlin today to decide if they shall accept Hermann Ahlwardt as a member since “he wishes to join the Parliamentary group of ‘jew-baiters’ instead of occupying…a seat in the visitor’s row.”
1895: It was reported today that the claim that some Jews are opposing William Brookfield’s attempt to be re-elected of the Republican County Committee because of his affiliation with the Union League “does not hold water” as can be seen by the support he is getting from Benjamin Oppenheirmer. (The Union League had blackballed a candidate because he was Jewish and, following the resignation of its remaininh Jewish members was proudly “Jew free’.)
1896: Jacob Schiff was among those attending the “fifth annual meeting of the University Settlement Society” which among other things seeks to create “a better understanding between the rich and the poor.”
1896: “The Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home gave a reception and dance” this evening at the Carnegie Lyceum.
1898: It was reported today that that there was a renewal of anti-Zola demonstrations in Paris where students “paraded down the boulevard St. Michel shouting: ‘Down with Zola!’ ‘Down with the Jews!’:
1898(21st of Tevet, 5658): Seventy-one year old Solomon Latz passed away in New York City. He came to the United States fifty years ago and became a successful real estate dealer. He retired twenty years but remained active in communal affairs serving as President of the B’nai B’rith Home in Yonkers and a trustee for the Hebrew Orphan Asylum, the Montefiore Home and Mount Sinai Hospital.
1899: Birthdate of Goodman Ace, American radio/TV actor/writer/columnist/humorist.
1899: It was reported today that under a law recently passed by the Imperial Senate, Jews in Russia do not have the right name their own children as they please. Jews are only allowed to use Biblical names and they may not use a modernized form of these. The police have the power to regulate these and other rules which mean Jews may use only the Hebrew or Yiddish forms of names
1899: “Untaxed Property Worth $96, 162, 500” published today provided a compilation of the valuations of all of New York City’s tax exempt property including 2 Mt. Sinai Hospital properties, $360,000 and $175,000; Mt. Sinai Dispensary, $96.000; Hebrew Institute, $400,000; Hebrew School on 104th Street, $5,000
1903: Herzl met with Lord Rothschild. Herzl shows him the correspondence with the British government and asks for three million pounds from the I. C. A. for the Jewish Eastern Company
1904: Birthdate of Hyman /Reznick who co-founded the Halevi Choral Society in 1926.
1908: Birthdate of Edward Teller. Born in Budapest Hungary , this famous physicist worked on the Manhattan Project. He later clashed with Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer opposed the building of the H-bomb. Teller favored it. Teller became known as the “father of the Hydrogen Bomb.”
1909: Birthdate of Elie Siegmeister. “Elie Siegmeister is one of the large group of American composers who have productive careers -- as performer and influential educator as well as composer in this case -- but who are hardly known to the public. Siegmeister was born in New York "into an upper- middle-class family of Russian-Jewish origin." His father's enthusiasm for serious music infected young Elie, and he studied music theory and composition first at Columbia , then in Paris with Nadia Boulanger. After four years in Paris , he returned to New York , where he spent the rest of his life. During the 1930s, he was involved with the Composers' Collective of New York, a group whose project was to introduce "classical" music to students and workers. In the 1940s, Siegmeister continued in that vein by incorporating "the American folk-song tradition" in his compositions. ‘Many of his most popular works come from this period and coincide with an overall shift in American composition towards music of simplicity and directness.’" He passed away in 1991.
1909: “If Charities Unify They Get $1,000,000” an article published today described the terms of the will of Louis A. Heinsheimer who passed away on January 1 of this year. According to the will, Heinsheimer will contribute $1,000,000 to the Jewish charities of New York if these institutions consolidate to form one organization or form a federation that will collect and distribute funds for the Jewish charities. Regardless of which format is chosen six charities – Mount Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asylum of the City of New York, the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids and Country Sanitarium for Consumptives, the Educational Alliance, the Home for Aged and Infirmed Hebrews of New York and the United Hebrew Charities – must all agree to join for them to get the million dollar bequest. The charities have one year to create the new organization. The new organization would not be limited to these six charities and all such similar organizations would be invited to join. Heinsheimer was a supporter of the federation format which is used in many other cities because it enabled the maximum amount of money to be raised with least amount of cost. Failure will mean that United Hebrew Charities will get $100,000 and the Montefiore Home will get $25,000. Heinsheimer left many generous bequests to family members including approximately one million dollars to his brother, Alfred M. Heinsheimer. The estate is reported to be valued at five million dollars. The executors include Jacob H. Schiff, Alfred M. Heinsheimer, Felix Warburg, Paul M. Warburg and Mortimer L. Schiff.
1914: In Amsterdam, Esther “Etty Hillesum, Riva (Rebecca) Bernstein and Levie (Louis) Hillesum gave birth to Esther "Etty" Hillesum, the young Jewess whose letters and diaries, kept between 1941 and 1943 describe life in Amsterdam during the German occupation. She died at Auschwitz in in 1943.
1915: The Hahambashi of Turkey protests the creation of schools designed to convert Jews to Christianity. The schools are located in the Haskoy quarter of Constantinople. He is assured the school will be closed, and not reopen. At request of the Hahambashi, the Ministry of Public Instruction cedes the building of the missionary school over to the Jewish community.
1917 The 25th council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations opens in Baltimore . Henry Morgenthau, former Ambassador to Turkey and Jacob H. Schiff are scheduled to speak at the gathering at which Jewish women will be taking a more active role.
1918: Birthdate of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser was an officer in the Egyptian Army. He helped engineer the coup that ended the reign of the corrupt King Farouk in 1953. The Israelis were hopefully that the new regime would accept the Jewish state and end hostilities. Such was not the case. Nasser became President of Egypt in 1954 and served as virtual dictator until his death in 1970. Nasser was a Pan-Arabist who had a secular version of Bin Laden’s dream. As part of his dream, Nasser was committed to the destruction of the state of Israel . He opened the Middle East to the influence of the Soviet Union and became a virtual client of the Communists in order to get the weapons of war he thought would bring him victory. His greatest miscalculation resulted in the Six Day War of 1967. Nasser did put the conflict with Israel in its true perspective. He said that he did not hate the West because of Israel ; he hated Israel because it was of the West. In other words, peace would not come to the Middle East even if Israel were destroyed. Peace would only come when there was an end to Western influence in the swath of land stretching from Morocco to Indonesia .
1919 (14th of Shevat 5679): Rosa Luxembourg Marxist revolutionary and leader of the German Spartacus League was murdered by members of the Frei Korps, a group that later would support the Nazis. Luxembourg was attempting to lead a Communist Revolution in Germany that would follow the lead of Lenin’s successful revolt a year earlier.
1919: Birthdate of “Maurice Herzog, a French alpinist who was hailed as a hero in his country in 1950 when he and a fellow climber became the first men to conquer a peak of more than 26,000 feet, that of Annapurna I in the Himalayas…” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1926: Birthdate of Herman Ginsberg. Born in Kansas City, MO to Rose and Izzy Ginsberg, Herman grew up in Cedar Rapids, IA. As the longtime proprietor of Ginsberg’s Jewelers, Herman is pillar of the Cedar Rapids business community. A member of Temple Judah, Herman’s contributions and involvement in the Jewish community are too numerous to mention here. But most important of all, today marks the birthdate of man who is a mensch in the truest sense of the term.
1927: The City College Club, composed of 1,000 City College (NY) alumnae announced that Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler had been elected President of the organization.
1929: Birthdate of Reverend Dr Martin Luther King. Dr. King’s birthdate is a good time to remember the role that Jews and Jewish values played in the American Civil Rights Movement.
1930: Josephine Esther Mentzer married Joseph Lauter. She changed the spelling of the name from Lauter to Lauder and became Estee Lauder.
1930: Birthdate of David Zelag Goodman, the Manhattan native who became a prolific screenwriter who, with Sam Peckinpah, wrote “Straw Dogs” and was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on the romantic comedy “Lovers and Other Strangers.” (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)
1935: Birthdate of Robert Silverberg, American science fiction writer. Silverberg is a multiple winner of the “Hugo”. Science fiction and fantasy author Robert Silverberg is known for such novels as Dying Inside, Son of Man, and Lord Valentine's Castle. His short fiction includes "Nightwings" (later an award winning novel), "A Time of Changes", "Good News from the Vatican ", and "Born with the Dead". In his 40 years as an author Silverberg has won five Nebula Awards and four Hugos and is a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Science fiction icon Isaac Asimov once said of him, "Where Silverberg goes today, the rest of science fiction will go tomorrow!"
1935: Birthdate of award winning filmmaker Saul Irwin Landau
1936: The Women’s League for Palestine held its fourth annual luncheon at the Waldorf Astoria today where it launched a campaign to raise $50,000 to finish building a home in Tel Aviv for Jewish refugee girls from twenty different countries including those fleeing Nazi Germany. Mrs. William Prince, president of the League, sought to raise $25,000 from today’s donor luncheon.
1939:“L'Osservatore Romano, the official newspaper of the Vatican, publishes a homily by Bishop Giovanni Cazzani of Cremona supporting the Italian anti-Semitic race laws because they accomplish something the Church has long sought: to reverse Jewish emancipation.”
1939: Alfred Rosenberg, the Nazi leader who would be executed after the Nuremberg Trials in 1946 expressed his opposition to a Jewish state in Palestine
1939: Dr. Peter Gradenwtiz reports on the opening of the Palestine Orchestra’s third season. The orchestra was officially launched in December of 1936 with a concert conducted by Arturdo Toscanini. Conductors for this year’s Winter Season, which actually began in November, include Dr. Malcom Saregent, Issay Dobrowen and Georg Szell. Dr. Gradenwitz also reports that the Palestine branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music which was founded in 1938 opened its concert series with a program devoted to the works of Maurice Ravel.
1943:In a tribute to the late Dr. Arthur Ruppin appearing the New York Times Book Section, Louis E. Leventhal writes“Dr. Arthur Ruppin, who died recently in Jerusalem at the age of 67, after nearly forty years of intensive but modest labor in promoting the colonization and modernization of the Holy Land deserves an expression of tribute on behalf of the numerous friends and admirers he won in the United States as well as in many other countries.”
1943: The Germans emptied the detention camp at Zaslaw and placed the Jews in trains to be sent to Belzac to be gassed. Given neither food nor water, the train remained stationary for three days. All but one of the prisoners was eventually killed. He was Emil Manaster who was able to jump from the train and found sanctuary with his sister Jaffa , with Jozef Zwonarz, a Polish engineer.
1943: The first transport of Jews from Amsterdam was sent to concentration camp Vught located in southern Holland .
1943: A non-Jewish Polish woman and her one-year-old child are shot at the Pilica River Poland because the woman has aided Jews.
1943: Seventy-seven Jews leap from a deportation train traveling east from Belgium . Most are hunted down and killed by German and Flemish SS troops
1944: At the Vught Concentration Camp 74 women were put in 1 cell. Ten died of the overcrowding.
1944: The Jews of Belgium were among the latest victims of the German efforts to rid smaller areas of their Jewish population. Most were sent to Birkenau.
1945 (1st of Shevat, 5705): All Jewish women at the Brodnica labor camp who were too sick or weak to be moved were shot
1945:SS camp officials report that there are almost 54,000 prisoners in the Ravensbrück camp, including nearly 8,000 men.. Ravensbrück had grown into an administrative center for more than 40 subcamps located near armaments factories across east-central Germany. (Jewish Virtual Library)
1945: During its major winter offensive, the Soviet Army freed Crakow-Plaszow concentration camp. As the war came to an end, many Jews had a mistakenly positive view of the Soviet Union because she was seen as the liberator of concentration camps.
1948: The issue of the Phoenix Jewish News was published today. By the end of the year, M.B. Goldman and Joseph S. Stocker would become co-publisher, changing the paper from a monthly to a bi-weekly and changing its name to the Jewish Jews of Greater Phoenix
1948: A platoon of 35 volunteers - half from Palmach and half from Hish - on its way to reinforce those holding the Etzion Bloc, was ambushed and killed by 100s of armed Arabs. The Jews fought to the last man.
1948:Jewish settlers, using aircraft for the first time, beat off a heavy Arab attack on settlements at Kfar Etzion, near Hebron, today. The fight there, and others in Haifa and near Beersheba , produced one of the heaviest daily casualty lists to date, with twenty-nine killed and seventy-five wounded so far.
1951: Ilse Koch, "The Bitch of Buchenwald", wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in West Germany.
1953: The Jerusalem Post was preoccupied with the "Doctors' Plot," the false charges instigated by Kremlin against Jewish physicians, but aimed by Stalin against the entire Soviet Jewry. In Rangoon , at the Asian Socialist Conference, Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett said that Soviet charges against Jewish doctors showed the Russians intended to "pursue with vengeance the line of making Jews a scapegoat." The Knesset and numerous Jewish organizations severely denounced this new, most dangerous and unjustified development. The Times of London perceived the possibility that the "Doctors' Plot" would be followed by the creation of controlled anti-Semitism, massive arrests and deportations.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that The Asian Socialist Conference in Rangoon had urged Israel and the Arab states to recognize the existing borders as the first step towards the solving the Palestine conflict and urged the adoption of a similar policy for India and Pakistan
1955: A television version “Naught Marietta,” an operetta which was first successfully produced by Oscar Hammerstein in 1910 was broadcast today.
1955: Dmitri Shostakovich's "From Jewish Folk Poetry" premiered in Leningrad .
1957:A ranking official of Youth Aliyah, an international agency devoted to the rescue and rehabilitation of Jewish children, expressed sharp concern over what he termed "virulent anti-Semitism" among Hungarian refugees in Austria . The Hungarians, Jew and Gentile alike, had taken refuge in Austria following the failed Hungarian uprising against the Soviets in the fall of 1956.
1960: When Israel move’s forces to its northern border in response to Syrian shelling from the Golan Heights, the Soviet Union deliberately seeks to heighten the crisis by misleadingly telling the Syrians that the Israeli’s are massing for an attack.
1964(1st of Shevat, 5724): Rosh Chodesh Shevat
1964: Birthdate of Bruce Schneier, computer programmer and author.
1964: David Merrick’s “Hello Dolly” opens on Broadway.
1967: An exhibition featuring Chanukah candelabras and lamps is scheduled to come to an end at the Jewish Museum in NYC.
1968: After leaving England, the INS Dakar arrived this morning at Gibraltar.
1970(8thof Shevat, 5730): Leah Goldberg passed away. Born at Königsberg in 1911, she “settled in Tel Aviv where she worked as a literary adviser to Habimah, the national theater, and an editor for the publishing company Sifriyat HaPoalim (Workers' Library).” This was the first step on road that would led to a career as a “prolific Hebrew poet, author, playwright, literary translator, and researcher of Hebrew literature.”
1970: Israeli archaeologists reported uncovering the first evidence supporting the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by military forces of the ancient Roman Empire.
1972:Birthdate of Claudia Anne I. Winkleman, a British television presenter, radio personality and journalist. Winkleman is the daughter of Eve Pollard, former editor of the Sunday Express, and Barry Winkleman former publisher of The Times Atlas of the World.
1973: Gene Shalit joins the Today Show panel. The Jewish film critic with the bushy moustache is father of Willa Shalit who has gained artistic fame in her own right.
1974(21st of Tevet, 5734): Sixty-seven year old Yosef Serlin a native of Bialystok who made Aliyah in 1933 and became an MK and cabinet minister, passed away today.
1974:"Happy Days" begins an 11 year run on ABC . This hit sit-com that presented an idealized picture of post-war America starred two Jewish actors – Tom Bosley as the father and Henry Winkler as the sanitized thug “Fonzie.”
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egyptian President Anwar Sadat complained that he got "nothing" from Israeli negotiators and saw no hope for an early Egyptian-Israeli agreement. But foreign ministers of both Israel and Egypt were conducting hectic consultations in order to prepare themselves for the joint meeting of the political negotiating committee, to be held in Jerusalem .
1979: Yitzhak Moda’i began serving as Communications Minister
1981 (10th of Shevat, 5741): Representative Emanuel Celler passed away at the age the age of 92. “Manny” Celler was a Congressman from New York from 1923 to 1973. He was a champion of the underprivileged and the working class. He was a stalwart supporter of Civil Rights. As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee he maneuvered the 1964 Civil Rights Act through the House despite opposition from Southern segregationists and their Republican allies.
1982: German police searched for the perpetrators of a bomb attack that ripped through an Israeli restaurant in West Berlin . The blast killed a 14-month old girl and injured 25 diners. Six Palestinians belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) were suspected.
1983(3rd of Sivan, 5743): Meyer Lansky passed away, Born Maier Suchowljansky in Russia in 1902, Lansky moved to the United States in 1911. Lansky is probably the most famous of all Jewish mobsters. When faced with charges of tax evasion, Lansky fled to Israel, seeking protection under the Law of Return. Ultimately, the Israeli government gave him up and Lansky came back to serve a prison sentence
1988: Start of the first intifada which was really just another round of Arab mob violence and terror designed to drive the Jews from the land of Israel
1989: In article the following article published today entitled “Maine Rabbi's Specialty Is Helping Counselors” Lynn Riddle described the unique career of Rabbi Harry Sky.
1990(18th of Tevet, 5750):Uriel G. Foa, a social psychologist and professor emeritus at Temple University, died of an aortic aneurysm today at Osteopathic Hospital in Philadelphia. He was 73 years old and lived in Penn Valley, Pa. Dr. Foa, a specialist in interpersonal relations, joined the Temple faculty in 1971. He was born in Parma, Italy, and received doctoral degrees from the University of Parma and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He was a co-founder and executive director of the Institute of Applied Social Research in Jersualem and chairman of the department of psychology at Bar-Ilan University before coming to the United States in 1965. Dr. Foa is survived by two sons, Gad and Ephraim, who live in Israel; four daughters, Ora Tamar Goldstein and Hagar Foa, also of Israel, and Yael and Michelle, both of Penn Valley, and nine grandchildren.
1990: An off-duty Israeli soldier was stabbed as she walked along a narrow street in Jerusalem's Old City today, and 30 Palestinians were detained for questioning. The Israeli soldier, identified as Pvt. Halit Avni, 18 years old, of Tel Aviv, was stabbed six times in the back and chest, the police said. She was listed in stable condition at Hadassah Hospital in Ein Karem.
1991:Four hundred Yeshiva University students from New York City who formed Operation Torah Shield have paid $50 each for a seat on a charter flight from Kennedy International Airport so that they could be in Tel Aviv by this morning which coincides with the deadline set by the United Nations for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait. Iraq’s President Hussein has threatened Israel with missile attacks if the UN should take military action to enforce its deadline.
1991:On the day the United Nations set as the deadline for Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait, the commander of the Israeli Air Force said that the United States and Israel still have no mechanisms in place to coordinate the two nation's military activities. And, Maj. Gen. Avihu Bin-Nun said in a news briefing, Israel has little faith that the United States will give Israel advance warning if Iraq, as it has threatened, fires missiles at Tel Aviv. "We may not have any notice, and the first notice may be when the missile hits," the general said.
1993 (22nd of Tevet, 5753): Songwriter Sammy Cahn passed away at the age of 79. One of his most enduring hits was Bei Mir Bist Du Schön. (As reported by Stephen Holden)
1993: At the Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, a Palestinian from Gaza stabbed four people to death including a Lebanese Arab visiting the city. Islamic Jihad took credit for the attack.
2001:In an article entitled “New Conflict Begets Culture War by Israeli Artists,” Deborah Sontag describes ''Artists Against a Strong Hand,’’ an exhibit at Tel Aviv’s Beit Haam, that features the work of 70 artists who were asked to produce something specifically related to the current political situation. The works will be sold to benefit Palestinian medical clinics.
2002: The Governor General of Canada granted Herb Gray the title "The Right Honourable", in honour of his distinguished and record-setting contribution to Canadian political life
2002:Philanthropist Michael Steinhardt, founder of Steinhardt Partners and chairman of Tel Aviv University was named as one of those investing in The New York Sun, a daily newspaper being started by investors and former members of The Forward.Its editor will be Seth Lipsky, the former editor of The Forward, the English-language descendant of the Yiddish daily, and vice president of the new paper's parent publishing company.
2004(21st of Tevet, 5764): Olivia Goldsmith, author of The First Wives’ Club passed away.
2006: Silvan Shalom completed his term as Deputy Prime Minister.
2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Small Steps by Louis Sachar and The Cosmic Landscape:String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design by Leonard Susskind.
2006: Neil Diamond performed a concert on the opening night of the new Stockton Arena in Stockton , California
2006: The Israel Defense Forces are threatening to declare the Jewish settlement in Hebron a closed military area if settler riots against policemen and soldiers do not stop. Today marks the third straight of rioting. The riots have involved settlers throwing stones as well as eggs and paint balloons at soldiers and policemen. The rioters' goal is to thwart implementation of the army's order to evacuate Jewish squatters from the city's wholesale vegetable market.
2007: Sports Illustrated Magazine reported that long distance runner Mushir Salem Jawher was stripped of his Bahraini citizenship because he competed in Israel . The native of Kenya had moved to Bahrain where he was hailed as hero for winning a Silver Medal in the five thousand meter run at the 2006 Asian Games. But when he competed in, and won, the Tiberias Marathon in Israel , the head of the Baharain Athletics Association declared his behavior was “outside the rules.” According to SI, Jawher was “‘very proud’ to have run in Israel and that ‘people should live together in harmony.’”
2008: In Washington , D.C.
2008: In Rockville , MD
2008:Israel killed at least 18 Palestinians, most of them Hamas militants, in the Gaza Strip; in violence the Palestinian Authority said was a "slap in the face" to U.S. President George W. Bush's peace efforts. A volunteer from Ecuador , working on an Israeli kibbutz, or farming community, bordering the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, was killed by a Palestinian sniper near the frontier fence. Hamas claimed responsibility for shooting the man. Hamas fired five rockets that landed in Sderot, an Israeli border town. One hit a house. Five residents were wounded, some moderately and some slightly, including a 5-year-old girl, according to the ambulance service. One rocket landed several miles north of Gaza , on a road in southern Ashkelon , an Israeli coastal city of 120,000, causing no casualties.
2009:The IPO (Israel Philharmonic Orchestra) in Jeans performs at Tel Aviv's Mann Auditorium. In an effort to reinvent itself for the new millennium, the IPO has introduced the series to attract a broader audience. The "Jeans" concept offers late night informal performances to lovers of casual wear and night owls. Free beer is provided before the show and a DJ hosts a dance party afterwards.
2009: The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival features a screening “Strangers” a film about an Israeli kibbutznik and a Palestinian woman who meet serendipitously on their way to the World Cup finals in Berlin which was the Best Drama winner at the Sundance Film Festival.
2009: Today, some 25 rockets were fired on southern Israel. One hit the patio of a home in Sderot, causing serious damage to the building but no injuries. Despite his mother's best efforts to protect him with her body, a seven-year-old boy was seriously wounded in Beersheba when shrapnel from a Grad rocket penetrated his skull.
2009: An additional 86 counts of bank fraud, false statements and reports to a bank, money laundering and aiding and abetting and willful violation of orders from the secretary of agriculture were filed against Sholom Rubashkin and Agriprocessors.
2010(29thof Tevet, 5770): Seventy-one year old “Michael T. Kaufman, a former foreign correspondent, reporter and columnist for The New York Times who chronicled despotic regimes in Europe and Africa, the fall of Communism and the changing American scene for four decades, died today in Manhattan.”(As reported by Robert D. McFadden)
2010:In Washington, D.C., Adas Israel hosts The Ruach Minyan service and dinner in the Miller Chapel.
2010:Journalist and filmmaker Naomi Klein discusses and signs her books "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" and "No Logo: 10th Anniversary Edition" at Busboys and Poets (14th St.),
2010: The 10thannual Atlanta Jewish Festival features screenings of “Breaking Upwards” and “Berlin ’36.”
2010: Two planes are scheduled to land in Haiti today carrying the IDF medical teams and their supplies following Wednesday’s earthquake that devastated the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.
2010(29th of Tevet, 5770):Lydia Csato Gasman, sister of Joash Tsiddon, passed away in Charlottesville, VA today at the age of 84.
2011:Kol HaNeshama, Israel's largest Reform synagogue celebrates its 25th anniversary tonight
2011: The New York premier of “The Human Resources Manager” is scheduled to take place at The New York Jewish Film Festival. The film is based on novel by A.B.Yehoshua entitled A Woman in Jerusalem in which the human-resources manager at a bakery in Jerusalem must get to know one of his employees posthumously after her death in a suicide bombing as he finds himself the unlikely chaperone of the woman’s body to her native Romania.
2011: Stand-up comedian Keith Barany is scheduled to appear on opening night of the 2nd annual Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival.
2011: Herman Ginsberg, a mensch of the first order, owner of a Jewelry store that is a Cedar Rapids’ institution, leader of the Jewish community, loving father and doting grandfather is celebrated his 85th birthday.
2011(10thof Shevat, 5771): Ninety-four year old “Eleanor Galenson, a psychoanalyst and researcher whose work showed that children are aware of their sexuality at very early ages, died today in Manhattan (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
2011(10th of Sh'vat, 5771): Members and friends of Chabad Lubavitch celebrate Yud Sh’vat – The Tenth of Shevat. Yud Shevat or The Tenth of Shevat marks the Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok (Joseph Isaac) Schneerson, the Sixth Rebbe as Known as the “the Frierdiker Rebbe” (Previous Rebbe) or the “RaYYatz” and the day on which Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok’s legendary son in law, Rabbi Menachem Mendel, the sevenths Lubavitcher Rebbe, assumed the leadership of the Chabad movement.
2011:In one of the largest left-wing protests in recent years, some 10,000 people gathered in Tel Aviv today to demonstrate against what organizers called a growing attack on democracy in Israel. Chanting “[Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman go home” and “Human rights for everyone,” among other slogans, demonstrators marched from the city’s Meir Park to the Tel Aviv Museum, where a rally was held.
2011: Harvard graduate Loren Galler-Rabinowitz competed as Miss Massachusetts in tonight’s Miss America Pageant. Her failure to win leaves Bess Myerson as the only Jewish of this long-running beauty pageant.
2012: The friends and family of Herman Ginzberg are over-joyed to celebrate his 86th birthday.
2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Hope: A Tragedy” by Shalom Auslander and the recently released paperback edition of “The Crisis of Capitalist Democracy” by Richard Posner
2012: “Shoah: The Unseen Interviews” and “Restoration” are scheduled to have their New York premieres at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” is scheduled to shown at the Glen Rock Jewish Center in Glen Rock, NJ.
2012:Israeli and Palestinian envoys met for the third time in Amman overnight today since Jordan began mediating a series of direct talks earlier this month.
2012:This morning, the Tel Aviv municipality dismantled the tent encampment in the city's Hatikva neighborhood, where 36 homeless people have been camping since the summer. .
2012:Hundreds of ultra-Orthodox protesters tried today to block roads around Jerusalem’s Kikar Hashabbat (Sabbath Square) in Mea She’arim neighborhood, after six prominent members of the community were arrested earlier in the day in suspicion of financial-related crimes.
2012: “Remember the landmark Woman’s Building published today looks back at the history of the Los Angeles building co-founded by Judy Chicago and Arlene Raven.
2013: Deadline for submitting entries for the Dora and Alexander Raynes Poetry Prize.
2013: “The Gatekeepers” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: The LA Jewish Chamber of Commerce is scheduled to host its Strategic Business Alliance Luncheon
2013:"Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow: Jewish Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges," is scheduled to open today Tuesday at the National Museum of American Jewish History. It tells the little-known story of Jewish scholars, barred from academic positions by Nazi decrees beginning in 1933, who eventually made their way to the United States, where a small but significant number of them eventually found welcoming homes at historically black colleges.
2013: Family and friends celebrate the birthday of Herman Ginsberg, the patriarch of multi-generational Cedar Rapids family and pillar of the Jewish community who is proves that one can be a successful businessman and a great person.
2013: Funeral services were held today at Central Avenue Synagogue in Highland Park for computer programmer Aaron Swartz.
2013: “Morsi’s Slurs Against Jews Stir Concern” published today provides a snapshot of the new Egyptian leaders views including “a speech urging Egyptians to ‘nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred’ for Jews and Zionists.
2013:Key Jewish lawmakers back Hagel, clearing path to defense post
2013: The Times of Israel has learned that Israel has taken steps that appear to be aimed at restoring its relationship with the United Nations Human Rights Council, 10 months after Jerusalem cut ties with the body over a planned fact-finding mission into the West Bank settlement enterprise.
2013(4thof Shevat, 5773): Ninety-two year old “Daniel J. Edelman, who founded an agency that would go on to become the PR industry's biggest,” passed away today.
2014: A bill that would forbid the use of Nazi symbols and labels is scheduled to presented to the Knesset today.
2014: “For a Woman” is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.