January 19
1912: Birthdate of Russian economist Leonid Kantorovich. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1975 and passed away in 1986.
2011:Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham and Rabbi Elliot L. Stevens of Temple Beth Or in Montgomery met with Alabama Governor Robert Bentley two days after his inauguration. Bentley met with the two Rabbis to try and heal the damage done by his statement that"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother " made whilespeaking at a service honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at King's first church, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. One of the Jewish leaders who met with Bentley, Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, called the new governor's remarks "a difficult misstep" at the beginning of his administration. But he said he was pleased with the governor's apology and said "I hope and pray we can come together in the next four years." Another rabbi, Elliot L. Stevens of Temple Beth Or in Montgomery, called the meeting with Bentley a positive step. "We are all gathered here at the table in the first days of his administration and we are talking about inter-religious dialogue," Stevens said.
2011(14th of Shevat, 5771):Nathan Batt, owner of a Jewish restaurant located in Al Capone’s home in Chicago which counted celebrities and politicians among its clientele for decades, died today at 93. "He had a great restaurant, but he was a great man," said James "Jimmy" Lemons, a cook for Batt who now owns Lem’s, a legendary barbecue restaurant on Chicago’s South Side. "Me being black, and him being Jewish and white, made no difference. He hired me for my skills - for what I could do and how I could cook. Got to the point he'd say I cooked Jewish food better than most Jewish people!" According to the Chicago Tribune the menu at Mama Batt's restaurant, which closed in the late 1970s, included classic foods such as matzo balls, blintzes, fried kreplach and kasha. Celebrities - including Jerry Lewis, Perry Como, and Danny Thomas – reportedly stopped by, and the late Mayor Richard J. Daley was a regular as well. "If the mayor got a cold, we'd send a big bowl of chicken soup to his office - the Jewish penicillin," said Batt’s son, Harry. Batt was born in Omaha, Neb., and his family opened a diner following a move to Chicago. After graduating from high school in 1935, Batt worked at his father's restaurant. Two years later, he married his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca, who died in 2005 after 68 years of marriage. The location of Batt’s was itself a part of the restaurant’s appeal. It was located in a crumbling hotel that Capone had used as a headquarters, and in its later years was the subject of many attempts at renovation, which eventually failed. Sports Illustrated featured Batt’s in a 1969 feature article on the popularity of tabletop sports games such as Strat-O-Matic Baseball in the era before video and computer games. (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2011(14th of Shevat, 5771): Joseph W. Samuels, publisher of Houston’s Jewish newspaper, the Herald-Voice, and a major supporter of the city’s Holocaust museum, died today at 95. Samuels bought the Jewish Herald-Voice in 1973, when he was 57, fulfilling his father’s dream, his wife, Jeanne, said. "It's a very cohesive community, and we like to contribute to that fact," she said. Samuels was “the epitome of what is good and honorable about journalism." Indeed, the newspaper’s website was full of tributes from past and former journalistic colleagues, as well as friends and family members: “Joe and Jeanne, and now their children and grandchildren, have been the community’s partners in conveying the news and interests of our organizations and institutions,” said Lee Wunsch, president & CEO of Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Samuels was born in Dallas, and was raised in the Jewish Children's Home in New Orleans, after his father died. He attended Isidore Newman School, which had been established to educate children in the home, and which continues today as a college prep school. He worked several jobs as he pursued a degree in communications at the University of Houston, where he met his wife, Jeanne Franklin, whom he married in 1943. Samuels served in Italy and Southwest Africa with the Army Air Corps during World War II. (As reported by Eulogizer)
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced at the start of today's cabinet meeting at the Knesset that a new Homeland Security Ministry would be created to be headed by Independence faction MK Matan Vilna'i. Netanyahu said that such ministries are prevalent around the world, including in the United States
2011: The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Anthony Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled The House of Silk.
2011: As violence continues to erupt across Tunisia it was reported today that Roger Bismuth and Khlifa Atoun, the leaders of the Tunisian Jewish community have left the country
2012: In “He Made Blood and Guts Familiar and Fabulous” published today Roberta Smith described the exhibition of the works and the impact of Arthur Fellig, the photographer known as Wegee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/arts/design/weegee-at-international-center-of-photography-review.html?_r=0
2012:Israeli hackers operating under the name of 'IDF Team' brought down the website of the Arab Bank of Palestine this morning in retaliation for a web attack on Israel's Anti-Drug Authority website.
2012: A dialogue between Dr. David Ellenson and Dr. Daniel Gordis on the subject of “The Jewish Core: What does it mean to be a Jew after modernity?” is scheduled to take place at the Skirball Center for Adult Jewish Learning at Temple Emanu-El
2012: “Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Ner Tamid of South Bay in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
2012: The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to hold the Goldring-Woldenberg Major Donor Dinner. 2013
570: Birthdate of Mohammed. Mohammed thought the Jews of Arabia would join his new religion. When they did not, he turned on them in much the same way Luther would when the Jews rejected his overtures.
639:Dagobert I, the first of the French kings to be buried in the royal tombs at Saint Denis Basilica passed away. During his reign, he proposed driving all Jews who would not accept Christianity from his domain.
1180: In France, Phillip August seized all of the Jews living on his estates and imprisoned them. He freed them in exchange for a ransom of fifteen hundred silver marks.
1419: During the Hundred Years' War, Rouen surrenders to Henry V of England completing his reconquest of Normandy.This entry would appear to be loaded with irony from both a secular and Jewish point of view. The successful re-conquest of Normandy brought both the English Kings and the Jewish people back to a common point of departure that had begun in 1066. From the secular point of view, this is called a re-conquest because Henry traced his right to the throne of England on the conquest of William the Conqueror who ruled Normandy in 1066.From the Jewish point of view there is a whole lot more. While reportedly Jews had lived in the British Isles since the time of the Romans, the first written records of Jewish settlement in Englanddate from the time of the Norman Conquest, mentioning Jews who arrived with William the Conqueror in 1066. Jews lived in England from the Norman Conquest until they were expelled in 1290 by King Edward. Many of these Jews found refuge in what is modern day France which would have included Normandy. At this period in history Normandy was a separate kingdom. While we can only speculate as to when the first Jew arrived in Normandy, we know Jews were living there in the 11th century there are written records concerning the persecution of Jews in Normandy in 1007. “At that time a Jewish notable from Rouen, Jacob bar Jeqouthiel, who had initially been imprisoned by Duke Richard II, received authorization to visit the Pope, leaving behind one of his sons as a hostage in the hands of Richard. Pope John XVIII listened to his complaint and sent a message to France requiring that the persecution should be ended. Jacob was not to return to Normandy however. Instead he went to join his family in Lorraine, and died a few years later in Arras. The reign of (Wiiliam) the Conqueror was a period in which the Normandy Jews flourished; they were treated with respect by the Duke, and after 1066, they were encouraged to settle in England and especially in London. But the preparations for the 1st Crusade (1096) in Rouen, as in many regions of Western Europe, were accompanied by veritable pogroms which were violent, but also brief. William Rufus, who reigned in England from 1087 and administered Normandy in the absence of his elder brother Robert Curthose, did not approve of the excesses involved, and was able, fairly quickly, to put a stop to them. The members of the Jewish community of Rouen and their property had, however, suffered cruelly. The construction of the house in Rouen identified as a yeshiva (Talmudic academy) was, without doubt, part of the programme of restoration of this community and its buildings in the year 1100. Under the Plantagenets, the status of Jews in Normandy and in England was on many occasions defined in favorable terms by Henry II, and subsequently by King John. From before the end of the 12th century, written sources of Hebrew origin give the names of many Doctors of Law who taught in Rouen. The importance of Rouen as a centre of Jewish culture is also attested by the fact that a doctor as eminent as Abraham ibn Ezra, at the height of his career, went there to work from 1149 onwards and this is where he wrote, amongst other things, his great commentary of Exodus, the very important text known by its name of Anciennes Règles, (Ancient Rules) which pronounces on the teaching of the Torah. It could have been composed, in its original version, on the occasion of a regional synod that met in Rouen in the 11th century. At the beginning of the 13th century, economic prosperity and cultural activity in the Jewish community had reached a high level; this is the explanation for the effectiveness with which the Jews of Rouen were able to stand up to the trials that were to beset them during this century.” For more on this subject including how the Jews of Normandy fared under rulers who had expelled the Jews from England, see The Jews in Medieval Normandy: A Social and Intellectual History by Norman Golb
1567: Pope Pius V issued “Cum nos nuper,” a bull that forbids Jews from owning real estate. This would not be the last of the anti-Semitic Bulls issued by Pius V.
1616: In Worms , under orders of the Bishop of Speyer and with the backing of Frederick 's troops, the Jews were readmitted to the city.1616: The Jews were readmitted by order of the elector palatine and bishop of Speyer.
1795: The Batavian Republic was proclaimed in the Netherlands bringing to an end the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands. The Batavian Republic was a genuine expression of Dutch nationalism but it was also a product of the French Revolution. Following in the path of that revolution, the creation of the Batavian Republic brought total emancipation for the Jews of the Netherlands.
1798: Birthdate of Auguste Comte, the man who “coined the term sociology” a field that Jews have populated from “A” (Raymond Aron) to “Z” (Eviatar Zerubavel)
1803(25th of Tevet, 5563): Marcus (Markus) Herz a Jewish German physician and lecturer on philosophy, passed away.
1805: Wolf Breidenbach succeeded in having the “Leibzoll” abolished in Raisbon and Darmstadt. The Liebzoll was a “toll which Jews had to pay on entering towns where they did not dwell or had no special privileges.”
1808: Birthdate of Moritz Rappaport, the native of Lemberg, a leading physician and poet who wrote an epic lyric poem, “Moses” in 1842.
1829: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faustpremieres. According to one critic, Goethe may have disparaged Jews in “Faust,” but he also had no problem ridiculing his fellow Christians. Goethe attributed his anti-Semitism to the prevailing beliefs in the society in which he was raised. His view of Jews changed for the better when he actually may and got to know some. From that time forward he found it difficult to view the creators of the Bibleand the Song of Songs as some sort of sub-human race.
1839: The British East India Company captures Aden. Jews had been living in Aden since the third century. By the time the British arrived, the Jewish population must have numbered in the thousand since 20 years later, they completed the Grand Synagogue of Aden (the Shield of Avraham) which seated 2,000 and was one of seven synagogues in the colony.
1839: Birthdate of French post-impressionist painter Paul Cezanne. Relax; Cezanne was not Jewish. But he did enjoy a connection to the Jewish people which is illustrative of the state of French society in Pre-World War I France. Cezanne grew up in Aix-en-Provence ,where he was a childhood friend of Emile Zola, the novelist who wrote “J’Accuse,” the widely read expose on the framing of Alfred Dreyfus, the French Jewish army officer falsely convicted of espionage. Cezanne was an ardent Dreyfusard and exulted, along with other intellectuals and the French Jewish community, when Dreyfus was finally exonerated.Later in life Cezanne Judaism developed a relationship with Camille Pissarro, a Sephardic Jew and fellow Impressionist with whom he painted side by side in Paris and in Aix-en-Provence .
1848(14thof Shevat, 5608): Eighty-one year old Isaac D’Israeli passed away in Buckinghamshire. A leading literary figure of his time, D’Israeli’s real claim to fame is that he was the father of Benjamin Disraeli. As a result of a dispute with Bevis Marks Synagogue, the elder D’Israeli took the advice of a friend and had his children baptized. Thanks to this, “Dizzy” ultimately became Prime Minister.
1859: The “Personal” column published described the presentation by “the Hebrew Benevolent Society of Charleston a handsome testimonial to Mrs. Elizabeth Bonnell, for unobtrusive, but signally useful charity bestowed upon a poor Jewish family heavily visited with the fever last summer. The Society also remembered the action of John Drummond, Esq., the father of Mrs. Bonnell, who was intimately associated with her in alleviating the sufferings of the afflicted family.”
1865: In St. Petersburg, Russia, Alexander Serov and Valentina Bergman gave birth to Valentin Alexandrovich Serov one of the leading portrait artists of the last half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.
1867:Achille Fould, the son of a successful Jewish banker, was replaced by Émile Ollivier as the chief advisor to Emperor Napoleon III.
1874(1st of Shevat, 5634): Rosh Chodesh Sh'vat
1878(15thof Shevat, 5638): Tu B’Shevat
1888: Birthdate of Irving Wexler, who became known as the gangster Waxey Gordon
1890: It was reported today that of the 360 youths admitted to the House of Refuge on Randall’s House this year, eleven of them were Jewish.
1890: It was reported today that the Hebrew Orphan Asylum was one of the organizations that received a yellow silk banner for its participation in the Washington Centennial Parade last spring.
1890: The Trustees of the Hebrew Technical Institute are scheduled to meet at 11 A.M. at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association to elect officers to serve for the rest of the year.
1890: “New Publications” published today includes a review of The Unknown God: Or Inspiration Among Pre-Christian Races by C. Loring Brace in which the author expresses admiration for the fact “that so few evidences of Egyptian influence are found in the Hebrew faith. The thinks and teachers of the Jews ‘were visted by those higher and purer inspirations which made them the greatest benefactors of mankind in ancient history.’” Even though they lived among tribes “of far greater wealth and refinement…the Hebrew leaders preserved themselves from the contamination of polytheism and handed down the faith in a pure religion.’ “The Jews of modern days ought to be forever honored for such progenitors; a race which could produce such men deserves the lasting respect of mankind.” (Brace was a 19th Protestant minister whose work with downtrodden included the famous “Orphan Train” that relocated parentless children from urban slums to the Midwest)
1892: Augustus Meyer, a Jew from St. Paul, MN, tried to kill himself this morning in New York City.
1892: Birthdate of Benjamin Percival Schulberg the pioneer film producer and movies studio executive. B.P. Schulberg, as he was known, was the father of Bud and Stuart Schulberg.
1892: Birthdate of Isaac Don Levine, the Russian born American newspaper man who provided testimony to the House Un-American Activities Committee in the case against Alger Hiss.
1893(2ndof Shevat, 5653): Mrs. Charles Harris, a member of prominent Jewish family from Cleveland, apparently took her own life at the Marlborough Hotel in New York City.
1894: It was reported today that the United Hebrew Societies is one of three charities that will benefit from an upcoming band competition at the Madison Square Garden.
1894: It was reported today that in Macon, GA, Rabbi Farher has created “the greatest sensation. By forging documents, he has stolen between from one and two thousand dollars from several prominent people including Sam Waxelbaum and Simon Josephson. A recent widower, he is now engaged to four women, two of whom have acquired trousseaus in anticipation of marrying this father of two children.
1895: Of the Four hundred thousand “notices containing instructions to householders about disposing ashes and garbage” that have been printed and are being distributed in New York City, 10,000 are in Hebrew and none are in Yiddish.
1895: It was reported today that representatives of the Hebrew Benevolent and Orphan Asylum Society, the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society and the Sanitarium for Hebrew Children were among the charitable organizations who met to discuss ways to obtain public funds under the new rules adopted in New York.
1895: It was reported today that Robert Olyphant is President of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society which is currently caring for 800 children referred to the organization by the state.
1896: Dr. Joseph Silverman delivered a lecture entitled “Social Ostracism” at Temple Emanu-El in New York City.
1896: The Russian American Hebrew Association held its regular meeting today at the Hebrew Institute.
1897: N.S. Rosenau, a manager of the United Hebrew Charities, was among those attending the second monthly conference of charity organizations being held today at the United Charities Building.
1898: It was reported today that in Nantes, the shops belonging to the Jews have been stoned as violence sparked by the Dreyfus Affair and anti-Semitism sweep the country.
1898: Extra policemen were guarding the homes of Emile Zola and Mathieu Dreyfus tonight as anti-Semitic mobs ranged through Paris. Zola was the editor who had come to Alfred Dreyfus’ defense and Mathieu was the French officer’s brother who worked to free him.
1898: Copies of Aurore, the newspaper published by Georges Clemenceau, a non-Jewish supporter of Dreyfus and a critic of the military, were burned by the mob in Bordeaux.
1898: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Society sponsored its 15th annual charity ball at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1898: A series of violent anti-Jewish demonstrations took place this evening in Algiers.
1898: Isaac Greenblatt, the owner of a shoemaker’s shop who is president of an Orthodox congregation on East Broadway said that the matter concerning the expulsion of Isaac Rabinowitz for being a gambler in violation of the organizations seventy laws of governance has been referred to their lawyer after papers were served by Louis A. Jaffter the attorney for Rabinowitz who is seeking $2,000 in damages.
1898(25th of Tevet, 5658):Seventy-five year old Abraham Schlesinger passed away today. A native of Cassel, he came to the United States in 1848. “Three years later he began” manufacturing “uniforms for the Police Department and has been supplying the members of the force ever since as head of …A. Schlesinger & Sons. He supported numerous Jewish organizations including Mt Sinai Hospital, the Hebrew Orphan Asylum and the Montefiore Home. A widower, he leaves behind six sons to recite kaddish.
1899: Based on reports published today on the number of tickets sold, approximately 1,500 attended the Hebrew Orphan Asylum’s annual charity ball.
1899: Simon Wolf, the former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey now living in Washington, DC, gave a speech to the Jewish Alliance in New York on the future of the Jews in America.
1912: Birthdate of Russian economist Leonid Kantorovich. He won the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1975 and passed away in 1986.
1914: Francis de Pressensé a leading French journalist and politician who came from a prominent Protestant family passed away. During the Dreyfus Affair, he sided with the Jewish officer, supporting General Picquart and losing his position on the roll of the “Legion of Honour” because he sided with Emile Zola.
1917: German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States. This ill-considered electronic missive helped pave the road for the U.S. to enter World War I on the side of the Allies. The Zimmermann Telegram by Jewish historian Barbara Tuchman provides a very readable account of this little known piece history where the policies of Germany, Mexico, Great Britain and the United States came together on the world stage.
1920: The US Senate voted against membership in League of Nations . With the rejection of the Versailles Treaty and membership in the League of Nations , America withdrew from the affairs of Europe . This withdrawal is seen by many historians as one of the causes of World War II, with all the destruction and tragedy that that meant for the Jewish people.
1920:In Providence, RI, Walter Irving Sundlun and Jennette "Jan" Zelda (Colitz) Sundlun gave birth to Bruce Sundlun, the decorated war hero and attorney who served as the 71st governor of Rhode Island, making him the second Jew to hold this position.
1924: While visiting New York, Dr. Osias Thon, chief rabbi of Cracow and a member of the World Zionist Organization, said today that “I am most hopeful for Jews in Poland and for Poland as a nation.” Despite the continued manifestation of long standing national friction and “internal discords” Thon expressed the hope “that the time is not too far distant when the leading Polish statesmen will recognize the justice of our demands and there will be a Polish-Jewish peace founded on the basis of full rights for the Jews of Poland.
1930: The Palestine Court of Appeals continues to be inundated by cases stemming from the riots that took place in August, 1929. Appellants are seeking to have their convictions over turned and/or have their sentences commuted.
1936: Birthdate of composer Elliot Schwartz creator of "Tapestry," for violin, cello and piano, emotionally charged piece of music. The work commemorates the courageous efforts of Danes in saving Danish Jews from the Nazis during World War II. Here, Schwartz works with melodic fragments paraphrased or borrowed from Jewish composers who were imprisoned at Theresienstadt, and also draws on a well-known Danish folk song that speaks of innocence and serenity.
1938: Dr. Bernard Joseph, legal adviser to the Jewish Agency for Palestine iarrived today in New York today aboard the Cunard White Star liner Berengaria. He has come from Jeruslame to attend the upcoming National Conference for Palestine to be held in Washington, D.C.
1938: The Palestine Post reported that Jewish truck drivers repelled an Arab attack on the Palestine Potash convoy, which was on its way to the Dead Sea , 10 km. east of Jerusalem . One driver was severely wounded, but the convoy finally reached its destination. The Iraq Petroleum Company pipeline was again set on fire.
1940: “You Natzy Spy,” a film starring the Three Stooges premiered. Nine months before the appearance of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” Moe (the Stooge whose name was Moses Howard), portrayed a “Hitler –like dictator” in the fictional country of Moronica.
1941 (20th of Tevet, 5701): Six thousand Jews were killed in Bucharest riots.
1942: Soviet forces recapture Mozhaisk, the closest that German troops had come to Moscow. With this, the Soviet capital is saved from occupation.
1942: Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite priest was arrested by German occupiers in Holland for speaking out against Nazism as a "lie" and "pagan." Brandsma had been speaking out against the Nazis since the mid 1930’s. After his arrest, he was shipped to Dachau in where he was the subject of medical experiments. He died of a lethal injection in July, 1942. Brandsma was declared “Blessed” by Pope John Paul, II in 1985. Since then, the promotion of his cause for sainthood has been in progress.
1943: As Nazis raid the Warsaw Ghetto for the second consecutive day, a crying child is accidentally suffocated by his terrified mother.
1943: Over the next three day six thousand Jews from Warsaw are murdered at the Treblinka death camp.
1945: The Death Marches began for the surviving Jews and Poles who were evacuated from Labor Camps and Concentration Camps. Those who were too weak to march were shot by the thousands. As they marched through the severity of winter to new locations, tens of thousands more were shot for any infraction.
1945: Soviet forces liberate ghetto of Łódź. Out of 230,000 inhabitants in 1940, less than 900 had survived Nazi occupation.
1948: A company of the 1st Battalion commanded by Assaf Simchoni unsuccessfully attacked a building used by Arab gang in Shefaram.
1948(8th of Shevat, 5708):Morris Eisenman, president and one of the founders of the Metropolitan News Company and a leader in Jewish philanthropic and cultural organizations passed away at the age of 74. A native of Bialystock, Poland, Eisenman was brought to the United States in 1888 where he would go to work as a newsboy on the Lower East Side. “In the 1890’s, he was co-found of the Abendblatt, a Yiddish newspapers and in 1897 assisted in organizing the Jewish Daily Forward.” He was an active Zionist and a close personal friend of Chaim Weizmann. “He helped organize and finance the Dvir Publishing Company in Eretz Israel which was headed by Chaim Nachman Bilak and Dr. Schmarya Levin and was formed to publish original and translated works in Hebrew.”
1949: Cuba recognized Israel.
1953: The Jerusalem Post reported that the East German police searched Jewish homes and offices, looking for "spies and saboteurs" in a move that placed 2,800 Jews in danger of an immediate arrest. Many East German Jews were trekking to West Berlin fearing the oncoming persecution. In New York the American Jewish Committee charged that in the Soviet Union some half a million Jews, out of the community of two million, faced arrests, deportations and Gulag concentration camps.
1954(15th of Shevat, 5714): Tu B'Shevat
1954: Birthdate of actress Katey Sagal, daughter of Boris Sagal, the Russian-Jewish immigrant whose directorial credits included episodes of “The Twilight Zone.” Sagal is best known for her role as Peg Bundy.
1960: As the crisis on the Golan heightens, President Nasser of Egypt sends troops across the Suez Canal , into the Sinai Peninsula in direct violation of the agreements reached at the end of fighting in 1956.
1963: Birthdate of John Simon Bercow, the first Jew to serve as Speaker of the House of Commons
1965: In Chicago Sue (née Sandel) and Donald Pritzker gave birth to billionaire businessman Jay Robert (J.B.) Pritzker.
1966: The Neil Simon, Coleman & Fields' musical "Sweet Charity" premiered
1972 (3rd of Shevat, 5732): American violinist Michael Rabin passes away.
1977: Jack Albertson is scheduled to co-host Inauguration eve entertainment gala at the Kennedy Center which will include performances by Beverly Sills and Paul Simon.
1978: The Jerusalem Post reported that Egypt had broken off the Jerusalem talks and that President Anwar Sadat threatened to recall his delegation. He was, however, persuaded by US President Jimmy Carter to keep the door open. In Jerusalem , Prime Minister Menachem Begin, at an emergency cabinet meeting, announced at midnight that "As the proposal that the negotiations of the joint military committee continue in Cairo , despite the suspension of the negotiations in Jerusalem , the government will consider this proposal."
1980 (1st of Shevat, 5740): Rosh Chodesh
1980 (1st of Shevat, 5740): Composer and band leader Richard Franko Goldman composer passed away at the age of 69. Goldman had succeeded his father Edwin Franko Goldman as conductor of the Goldman Band of New York City. He took a break from his musical career during World War II when he served as a member of the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA.
1980: Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who ‘wrote that the nomination of Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court had “frightened the Establishment” because he was a “militant crusader for social justice” passed away
1982 (24th of Tevet, 5742): Leopold Trepper, famed World War II spy, passed away in Israel at the age of 77. Born in Poland in 1904, Trepper supported the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. A committed Communist, Trepper moved to Palestine after World War I, where he worked against British occupation until he was expelled in 1928. With the outbreak of World War II, Trepper organized the Red Orchestra, one of the of most storied and successful spy networks in occupied Europe . The Red Orchestra operated in Germany , France , Holland , Belgium Switzerland . One of its greatest accomplishments was tapping the phone lines of the German military intelligence units in occupied France . The Nazis broke the Red Orchestra in 1942 and Trepper hid in Paris until liberation in 1944. Trepper made his way to Moscow where Stalin had him arrested. He was finally freed from a Russian prison in 1955. Trepper worked with the Jewish community in Poland before finally getting permission to move to Israel . You can read more about this Jewish James Bond in his autobiography, The Great Game.
1983: Acclaimed author Cynthia Ozick received the Mildred and Harold Strauss Living Award of the American Academy Institute of Arts
1983: Klaus Barbie, SS chief of Lyon in Nazi-France, was arrested in Bolivia.
1984(15th of Shevat, 5744): Tu B'Shevat
1986: Birthdate of Loren Galler-Rabinowitz, the Harvard graduate who won a Bronze Medal for Ice Dancing in 2004 and competed for the title of Miss America in 2011 as Miss Massachusetts.
1986: Israeli premier Simon Peres visits Netherlands .
1986: Spain recognizes Israel .
1987:The police said four Israeli gunboats rocketed Palestinian guerrilla positions in hills overlooking the southern Lebanese port of Sidon today, wounding at least four guerrillas. The police said the gunboat attack on guerrilla positions around Maghdusheh was believed to be in retaliation for the stabbings of two Israeli Jews in the Arab sector of Jerusalem Saturday. The Israelis were hospitalized. In Tel Aviv, an Israeli military spokeswoman said, ''In response to several questions regarding these reports from Lebanon, we deny any shelling took place today.''
1987 (18th of Tevet, 5747): Dr. Benjamin G. Levich, an internationally prominent physical chemist who won a six-year effort to emigrate from the Soviet Union, died of cardiac arrest today at Englewood (N.J.) Hospital at the age of 69. (As reported by Thomas W. Ennis)
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/01/21/obituaries/dr-benjamin-g-levich-dies-scientist-and-soviet-emigre.html?pagewanted=print&src=pm1988:The Soviet Union said today that it had agreed to allow an official Israeli delegation to visit Moscow. Western diplomats said the visit, for which no date has been set, would be the first since the Soviet Union broke off diplomatic relations with Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
1988: An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ehud Gol, said in response to the Soviet announcement, ''Israel welcomes the statement of the Government of the Soviet Union by which it will permit an Israeli diplomatic delegation to visit Moscow.''
1991: Iraq launched a second missile attack against Tel Aviv this morning, military officials said. The Israeli authorities said the missiles carried conventional explosives, like the missiles that hit Tel Aviv and Haifa early yesterday. The Mayor of Tel Aviv was reported on radio and television to have said that two missiles landed in the city in the latest attack and that a few people were slightly wounded.
1991: As Iraqi missiles land in Israel, Topol, who stars as Tevye the milkman in the Broadway revival of "Fiddler on the Roof," left today for his home in Tel Aviv.
1991: Western European governments have strongly condemned Iraq for attacking Israel with missiles. But fearful that retaliation by Israel could weaken the anti-Iraqi alliance, they also urged its Government to show restraint in its response. Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd of Britain called the initial Iraqi attack yesterday "a reckless ploy" to widen the conflict. "Israel has a right to self-defense and no one can take that decision from them," he said. "But we believe restraint at this time would be interpreted as strength, not weakness." France also condemned yesterday's attack, but suggested that Israel would be playing into Iraq's hands if it responded to the provocation. Underlining the "overall goal" of driving Iraq from Kuwait, a Government spokesman said Israeli reprisals would "not necessarily be opportune" at this stage. The foreign spokesmen made their comments before a second round of Iraqi missiles struck Israel about 7:30 this morning. Israeli spokesmen said that at least two landed in Tel Aviv.
1992:"Israel: The Next Generation," a festival of performing arts opens tonight at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with a "Salute to Freedom" concert.
1992: “Three bulky goons” came to the home of Richard Penzer allegedly to collect a debt owed to Morris Talansky for the loss he suffered in a real estate deal.
1993: Israel recognized PLO as no longer criminal.
1996: Mark Twain’s granddaughter Nine, the daughter of Clara Clemens and Ossip Gabrilowitsch, the Jewish pianist and conductor, passed away. She was the last known lineal descendant of the great American humorist.
1997: Yasser Arafat returned to Hebron after more than 30 years and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli controlled West Bank city.
1997:The New York Times includes a review of Love Invents Us by Jewish author Amy Bloom and The Culture of the Copy: Striking Likenesses, Unreasonable Facsimilesby Hillel Schwartz.
2000(12th of Shevat, 5760): Hedy Lamarr, the raven-haired Jewish-Viennese beauty who became one of the reigning temptresses in Hollywood films in the 1930's and 40's, especially as Delilah vamping Victor Mature's Samson, was found dead in her home in Orlando, Fla., today. She was 86.
2001: Jack Lew completed his service as Director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position to which he had been appointed by President Bill Clinton.
2003: In an article in The Observer, columnist Jay Rayner reported that the quintessential British dish, Fish and Chips, was a Jewish creation. In 1860, Joseph Malin opened the first business in London ’s East End selling fried fish alongside chipped potatoes. The National Federation of Fish Fryers presented a commemorative plaque to Malin’s of Bow in 1968 which attests to the accuracy of this story.
2003(16th of Shevat, 5763): Françoise Giroud, the Swiss born French journalist who co-founded the political weekly L’Express passed away today at the age of 86. . She served as France's first minister of women's affairs. (As reported by Alan Riding)
2004: Today, Israel's prison chief said today that he would not permit Yigal Amir’s request to get married. Amir, who is serving a life sentence for the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, is seeking to marry a divorced mother of four, Reports of the wedding plans prompted outrage among Israeli politicians. Mr. Rabin's daughter, Dalia Rabin-Pelosoff, was admitted to a Tel Aviv hospital with an irregular heartbeat after hearing the news, but was expected to be released soon, Israeli news organizations reported. Mr. Amir wants to marry Larisa Trimbobler, described as an immigrant from the former Soviet Union who was divorced last year. Mr. Amir and Ms. Trimbobler, who the news reports say has a doctorate in philosophy, exchanged letters initially, and she was allowed to visit him.
2005 (9th of Shevat, 5765): Jacob L. Trobe, who directed the care and resettlement of thousands of Holocaust survivors left adrift after World War II, at his home in Haverford , Pa.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/30/obituaries/30trobe.html2006: A bomber blew himself up near the old central bus station in southern Tel Aviv at around 3:45 P.M. this afternoon. Thirty-one people were injured or wounded. The bomber came from the town of Nablus. Islamic Jihad took credit for the terrorist attack. Some Israeli leaders said there was evidence that Iran had been involved in planning or financing the attack.
2007: JTA reported that The Anti-Defamation League had honored an Albanian Muslim family that saved 26 Jews from the Nazis. The ADL posthumously awarded its Courage to Care award to Mefail and Njazi Bicaku, who sheltered Jews in the mountains of central Albania while the Nazis searched the area. The Bicakus already have been recognized by Israel and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem , which awarded them its highest honor, the Righteous Among the Nations Award. “In the moral void that engulfed the world in those nightmare days when the cruelty of the Nazis ran rampant, the Bicaku family was among those few shining stars,” said Michael Salberg, the ADL’s director of international affairs. Also on hand for the ceremony was the Albanian ambassador to the United Nations and the president of the Albanian American Women’s Organization.The Anti-Defamation League honored an Albanian Muslim family that saved 26 Jews from the Nazis.
2007: Dr. Bob and Laurie Silber, pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community, celebrate the birth of their first grandchild - Lewis Isaac Silber.
2007: “In Private,” the first major solo exhibition in the United States of photographer J-F Levy opens at Gallery 339 in Philadelphia , PA.
2007: The Washington Post published “Goodbye, My Friends” the last column of Art Buchwald who passed away yesterday.
2008: In Washington , D.C.
2008: In Nevada , Republicans and Democrat hold caucuses to choose presidential delegates for their respective national conventions. Since the caucuses are held on Saturday, observant Jews and others who observe the Sabbath on Saturday such as Seven Day Adventists are excluded from the process. There are somewhere between 65,000 and 80,000 Jews living in Nevada, most in the Las Vegas area. South Carolina holds its presidential primary but observant Jews do not have to worry about being excluded since they can vote by absentee ballot.
2009: An exhibition of the works of Afula native Yael Bartana on display at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center New York comes to an end.
2009: In Alexandria, VA, this is the second day of the Beth El Hebrew Congregation annual book sale which also features a wide array of CDs, DVDs and tapes
2009: Lewis Silber, the brilliant grandson of Dr. Bob & Laurie Silber who are pillars of the Cedar Rapids Jewish Community, is now only 11 years from his bar mitzvah as he celebrates his second birthday.
2009: “Why Israel Can’t Win” is the cover story for Time magazine.
2010: The 19th annual New York Jewish Film Festival is scheduled to present the United States Premiere of “Leon Blum: For All Mankind,” the powerful documentary that tells the story of a prominent French leader—a Jew who at different times was prime minister of France and a prisoner in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Blum devoted his life to improving the well-being of French workers and was an early champion of women’s rights. In 1936, he became prime minister; during his time in office, he led the Popular Front. In 1940, his socialist views and Jewish heritage placed him in jeopardy. The Vichy government sentenced him to five years in Buchenwald. After the war, Blum was welcomed home by the French people and was reelected prime minister.”
2010: The 10th annual Atlanta Jewish Festival is scheduled to present a screening of ”Zrubavel,” the first feature-length film ever created by Ethiopian Israelis” that tells the story of a family of Ethiopian émigrés is torn between love for homeland and assimilation with Israel.”
2010:In Herndon, VA, Rabbi Steven Glazer is scheduled to discuss business ethics at a meeting of The Hazak Active Retirees Chapter of Congregation Beth Emeth.
2010:Ernst Cramer, a German Jewish journalist and chairman of the Axel Springer Foundation who explored his country's relations to Israel and the US, died today in Berlin, 10 days before his 97th birthday. Shortly before his death from a heart attack, he established a German-Israeli journalism scholarship program. A week before his death Cramer informed the Jerusalem Foundation that Axel Springer was sponsoring a 10-year scholarship program for German and Israeli journalists. "Such an exchange helps carry forward the German-Israeli friendship into the next generation. That is first and foremost of importance," Cramer wrote in his letter to the Jerusalem Foundation. Cramer, a prolific journalist, played a decisive role in the journalistic history of post-Nazi Germany. In 1938, the Nazis deported him to the Buchenwald concentration camp. While his brother and parents were murdered in the camps, Cramer was able to seek refuge in the United States. In 1944, he returned as an American soldier and helped to rebuild a democratic press in West Germany.
2010:Israeli Ambassador Amos Radian told The Jerusalem Post how Reuven Shalom Bigio and Daniel Kedar - Jews who have lived in Haiti for years - are working behind the scenes to support Israel's earthquake relief mission in the Caribbean nation.
2011: “8 Stories That Haven’t Changed the World” a documentary on the childhood memories of eight Polish Jews born before WWII, is scheduled to have its U.S. Premiere at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2011: “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” a film that follows one year in the life of legendary actress/comedienne/ writer, Joan Rivers is scheduled to be shown at the 2011 Minneapolis Jewish Humor Festival
2011: Gabe’s in Iowa City is scheduled to show “Nice Jewish Girls Gone Bad,” a “refreshing mix of comedy, music, spoken-word and show-stopping burlesque, featuring the gals who learned to smoke at Hebrew School, got drunk at their Bat-Mitzvahs and would rather have more schtuppa than the chupah”
2011:Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham and Rabbi Elliot L. Stevens of Temple Beth Or in Montgomery met with Alabama Governor Robert Bentley two days after his inauguration. Bentley met with the two Rabbis to try and heal the damage done by his statement that"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother " made whilespeaking at a service honoring Martin Luther King Jr. at King's first church, Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. One of the Jewish leaders who met with Bentley, Rabbi Jonathan Miller of Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, called the new governor's remarks "a difficult misstep" at the beginning of his administration. But he said he was pleased with the governor's apology and said "I hope and pray we can come together in the next four years." Another rabbi, Elliot L. Stevens of Temple Beth Or in Montgomery, called the meeting with Bentley a positive step. "We are all gathered here at the table in the first days of his administration and we are talking about inter-religious dialogue," Stevens said.
2011:In Massachusetts, Steven Grossman was sworn in today as the state’s 59th treasurer. He recommitted himself to promises made on the campaign trail last fall as he pledged to put the state’s “checkbook” online and move state money out of large banks into smaller local and community banks willing to loan to small businesses.
2011(14th of Shevat, 5771):Nathan Batt, owner of a Jewish restaurant located in Al Capone’s home in Chicago which counted celebrities and politicians among its clientele for decades, died today at 93. "He had a great restaurant, but he was a great man," said James "Jimmy" Lemons, a cook for Batt who now owns Lem’s, a legendary barbecue restaurant on Chicago’s South Side. "Me being black, and him being Jewish and white, made no difference. He hired me for my skills - for what I could do and how I could cook. Got to the point he'd say I cooked Jewish food better than most Jewish people!" According to the Chicago Tribune the menu at Mama Batt's restaurant, which closed in the late 1970s, included classic foods such as matzo balls, blintzes, fried kreplach and kasha. Celebrities - including Jerry Lewis, Perry Como, and Danny Thomas – reportedly stopped by, and the late Mayor Richard J. Daley was a regular as well. "If the mayor got a cold, we'd send a big bowl of chicken soup to his office - the Jewish penicillin," said Batt’s son, Harry. Batt was born in Omaha, Neb., and his family opened a diner following a move to Chicago. After graduating from high school in 1935, Batt worked at his father's restaurant. Two years later, he married his childhood sweetheart, Rebecca, who died in 2005 after 68 years of marriage. The location of Batt’s was itself a part of the restaurant’s appeal. It was located in a crumbling hotel that Capone had used as a headquarters, and in its later years was the subject of many attempts at renovation, which eventually failed. Sports Illustrated featured Batt’s in a 1969 feature article on the popularity of tabletop sports games such as Strat-O-Matic Baseball in the era before video and computer games. (As reported by the Eulogizer)
2011(14th of Shevat, 5771): Joseph W. Samuels, publisher of Houston’s Jewish newspaper, the Herald-Voice, and a major supporter of the city’s Holocaust museum, died today at 95. Samuels bought the Jewish Herald-Voice in 1973, when he was 57, fulfilling his father’s dream, his wife, Jeanne, said. "It's a very cohesive community, and we like to contribute to that fact," she said. Samuels was “the epitome of what is good and honorable about journalism." Indeed, the newspaper’s website was full of tributes from past and former journalistic colleagues, as well as friends and family members: “Joe and Jeanne, and now their children and grandchildren, have been the community’s partners in conveying the news and interests of our organizations and institutions,” said Lee Wunsch, president & CEO of Jewish Federation of Greater Houston. Samuels was born in Dallas, and was raised in the Jewish Children's Home in New Orleans, after his father died. He attended Isidore Newman School, which had been established to educate children in the home, and which continues today as a college prep school. He worked several jobs as he pursued a degree in communications at the University of Houston, where he met his wife, Jeanne Franklin, whom he married in 1943. Samuels served in Italy and Southwest Africa with the Army Air Corps during World War II. (As reported by Eulogizer)
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced at the start of today's cabinet meeting at the Knesset that a new Homeland Security Ministry would be created to be headed by Independence faction MK Matan Vilna'i. Netanyahu said that such ministries are prevalent around the world, including in the United States
2011: The estate of Arthur Conan Doyle announced that Anthony Horowitz was to be the writer of a new Sherlock Holmes novel, the first such effort to receive an official endorsement from them and to be entitled The House of Silk.
2011: As violence continues to erupt across Tunisia it was reported today that Roger Bismuth and Khlifa Atoun, the leaders of the Tunisian Jewish community have left the country
2012: In “He Made Blood and Guts Familiar and Fabulous” published today Roberta Smith described the exhibition of the works and the impact of Arthur Fellig, the photographer known as Wegee.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/arts/design/weegee-at-international-center-of-photography-review.html?_r=0
2012:Israeli hackers operating under the name of 'IDF Team' brought down the website of the Arab Bank of Palestine this morning in retaliation for a web attack on Israel's Anti-Drug Authority website.
2012:Chief Military Rabbi Brigadier-General Rafi Peretz called on religious high school seniors to enlist with the army today, saying that loyalty to the Jewish state must be unconditional.
2012: “Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women” is scheduled to be shown at Congregation Ner Tamid of South Bay in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
2012: The Jewish Federation of Greater New Orleans is scheduled to hold the Goldring-Woldenberg Major Donor Dinner. 2013
2012:”100 Voices: A Journey Home,” a documentary that looks at Jewish culture in Poland, past and present, through a unique focus—100 cantors from around the world who came together for concerts at the Warsaw Opera House and the Nozyk Synagogue is scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2013: The JCCNV Performing Arts series is scheduled to present “Can I Really Date A Guy Who Wears a Yarmulke?”
2013: “Barbara” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013: The third annual winter version of the Red Sea Festival being held at Eilat is scheduled to come to a close.
2013: The Ensemble Millennium is scheduled to perform a string quintet by Mendelssohn and a piano quintet by Schumann at the Eden-Tamir Music Center.
2014: Twelve year old Montrealer Lea Glubochansky is scheduled to perform Fritz Kreisler’s Rondo in Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall as a first-place winner of a Crescendo International Music Competition. (As reported by David Lazarus)
2014: “Exodus” and “For a Woman” are scheduled to be shown at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
2014: “The Afterlives of Edgar G. Ulmer,” a film roundtable featuring Arianné Ulmer Cipes, the director’s daughter, Viennese film critic Stefan Grissemann, and New School Professor and author Noah Isenberg is scheduled to take place at the Center for Jewish History.
2014: In Alexandria, VA, Beth El Hebrew Congregation is scheduled to begin its 12th annual “Gigantic Used Book Sale.”
2014: Zaytoun a “story of survival, reconciliation and friendship between an imprisoned Israeli pilot and a 10-year-old Palestinian” is scheduled to be shown City Playhouse under the auspices of the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.
2014: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “Painting Beyond Belief II” in which David Jselit and Thomas Eggerer will explore “issues in contemporary painting since the death of Marc Chagall in 1985.”
2014: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter From Haiti by Amy Wilenz and Simon Winder’s Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe “where all Habsburg legislation in relation to the Jews was carried out effectively without reference to their needs or any real knowledge of their ideas” as well as a “conversation” with E.L. Doctorow