OCTOBER 16
521 BCE (10th of Tishrei): Darius, the Persian monarch under whose rule the Second Temple was completed, and six companions killed another claimant to throne and cemented his position as ruling monarch.
912: Abd-ar-Rahman III began his reign as Emir of Cordoba. The Emir appointed Hasdai ibn Shaprut to serve as his physician. Their relationship developed to the extent that the Jewish physician became the confidant and advisor to the Muslim ruler.
976: Sixty-one year old Al-Hakam II the second Caliph of Córdoba, whose subjects included Enoch Ben Moses, who followed his father as Rabbi of Cordoba and whose students included Samuel ha-Nagid.
1384: Jadwiga, the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary is crowned King of Poland. In 1385, she married Wladislaus II which meant that Lithuania was united with the kingdom of Poland. Now the rights enjoyed by Polish Jews would be extended to Lithuanian Jews.
1529:Suleiman the Magnificent gives up on the siege of Vienna which means that a large section of central Europe and all of Western Europe will remain under Christian domination as opposed to becoming part of Muslim Empire.
1649: The American colony of Maine passed legislation granting religious freedom to all its citizens, on condition that those of contrary religious persuasions behave acceptably. This early evidence of religious tolerance demonstrates why Jews would flourish in the land that would become the United States.
1655(Tishrei, 5416): Joseph Solomon Delmedigo a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist passed away. Born in Candia, Crete in 1591 he moved to Padua, Italy, throughout most Europe and north Africa, and finally died in Prague. Yet in his lifetime wherever he sojourned he earned his living as a physician and or teacher. His only known works are Elim (Palms), dealing with mathematics, astronomy, the natural sciences, and metaphysics, as well as some letters and essays. He followed the lectures by Galileo Galilei, during the academic year 1609-1610. Elim (1629, published by Menasseh ben Israel, Amsterdam) is written in Hebrew, in response to 12 general and 70 specific religious and scientific questions sent to Delmedigo by a Karaite Jew, Zerach ben Natan from Troki (Lithuania). The format of the book is taken from the number of fountains and palm trees at Elim in the Sinai Peninsula, as given in Numbers, xxxiii, 9: since there are 12 fountains and 70 palm trees at Elim, Delmedigo divided his book into twelve major problems and seventy minor problems. The subjects discussed include astronomy, physics, mathematics, medicine, and music theory. In the area of music, Delmedigo discusses the physics of music including string resonance, intervals and their proportions, consonance and dissonance.
1655(15thof Tishrei, 5416): Sukkoth
1655(15thof Tishrei, 5416): Sixty-four year old Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, passed away. A native of Crete, he was known for his work as a philosopher, mathematician, physician and the author of Elim (Palms) a wide ranging tome on numerous scientific subjects.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05064.html
1656: Thomas Burton, who recorded Oliver Cromwell’s assurance to Antonio Fernandez Carvajal that Jews could return to England in his famous diary appeared before parliament where he successfully defended himself against “a charge of disaffection towards the existing government.
1773: In Braunschweig, Rabbi Meyer Hall and his wife Hale gave birth to their third son Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg the directo of the Jewish Samson School in Wolfenbuttel.
1753: Birthdate of Johann G. Eichhorn, the German Old Testament scholar who was a pioneer in "higher criticism," which evaluated Scripture through literary analysis and historical evidence, rather than by the unquestioned authority of systematized religious tradition as can be seen in his seminal work Introduction to the Old Testament.
1777(15thof Tishrei, 5538): Sukkoth
1783: Birthdate of Jeanette Wohl, the native of Frankurt am Main who “was a longtime friend and correspondent of Ludwig Börne.”
1794(22ndof Tishrei, 5555): Shemini Atzeret
1805(23rdof Tishrei, 5566): Simchat Torah
1810(18th of Tishrei, 5571): Fourth Day of Sukkoth
1810: (18th Tishrei), 5571 Nachman of Breslov also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Nachman from Uman, or simply as Rebbe Nachman (in local Yiddish reb Nokhmen Broslever) passed away. “Born in 1772, he was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty.Born at a time when the influence of his great-grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, was waning, Rebbe Nachman breathed new life into the Chasidic movement by combining the esoteric secrets of Judaism (the Kabbalah) with in-depth Torah scholarship. He attracted thousands of followers during his lifetime, and after his death, his followers continued to regard him as their Rebbe and did not appoint any successor. Rebbe Nachman's teachings continue to attract and inspire Jews the world over.” Some of his most famous quotes are:
For more information about Rebbe Nachman see the attached or go to http://www.breslov.org/
1812: Birthdate of Lazarus W. Powell, the Kentucky Senator who sought to have Congress condemn General Grant for issuing General Order No.11. Powell was animated more by his anti-war views than he was by affection for the Jews.
1826(15thof Tishrei, 5587): Sukkoth
1835(23rdof Tishrei, 5596): Four-month old Ada Isaacs Menken, celebrated her first Simchat Torah
1841: Founding of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Today Queen’s University offers“Jewish Studies courses that may be taken as electives by any student, or as part of a Minor in Jewish Studies. The Minor can be the main focus of a three-year BA or a secondary focus in a 4-year Honours BA.” The University is also home to Queen's University Hillel, the Jewish Student Union.
1841(1st of Cheshvan, 5602): Rosh Chodesh
1841: In Germany, on a Shabbat that was also Rosh Chodesh Chesvan, Issac Bernays, the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg condemned the newly issued Prayerbook for the Israelites and the rabbis who had authored it. This was part of dispute that had been taking place at The Hamburg Temple among the orthodox members and the reformers who were led by Gabriel Riessler. It was part of larger dispute that was rocking German Jewry as it dealt with issues of Reform, Orthodoxy, and coping with modernity. (If this sounds familiar, it is since we continue to deal with these issues in the 21st century. Considering the rancor and ill will that was created, some would say that the German experience in the 19th century is primer for how not to deal with these issues.)
1843(22nd of Tishrei, 5604): Jews observe Shemini Atzeret on the same day that Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard was published.
1845(15th of Tishrei, 5606): Jews in Texas observe Sukkoth for the first time as citizens of the United States since the citizens of what had been the Lone Star Republic approved the new constitution and the statute of annexation three days before. Today, Houston, Dallas and Austin are home to three of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the United States.
1847:District Rabbi Jonas Wiesner and Estra (Therese) Wiesner Schur gave birth to their daughter Fanny Abeles Wiesner.
1851: “The News by the Mails” column published today reported that “The New York correspondent of The Republic replies to the animadversions of certain parties here, in relation to his former statement that there were no Jews on Wall Street. The letter-writer substantiates his assertion by citing names, etc; and states that the fact was mentioned in order to prove that the Jewish people have no natural aptitude for the brokerage business, and are only driven into the money-dealing business by the disabilitities which shut them out of other honorable employment.
1854: Birthdate of Oscar Wilde, the Anglo-Irish author who is remembered as much for his sexual orientation as for his literary works. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde presents us with a Jewish theatre manager named Isaacs. The depiction of the character can only be described as anti-Semitic. One critic attributes Wilde’s creation of the character to a dispute he was having with the author George Eliot. Since Eliot had created a sympathetic Jewish figure in one of her works, Wilde felt compelled to do just the opposite.
1855(4th of Cheshvan, 5616): Seventy-seven year old Jeremiah Heinemann, the son of Rabbi Joachim Heinemann and the brother of Moses Heinemann who had published a translation of “Kohelet” passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08690.html
1859: Abolitionist John Brown, whose followers included August Bondi, Jacob Benjamin and Theodore Weiner, leads the raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
1860:“Rarely has the ‘opening lecture of the season’ been attended by so large and fashionable an audience as that which assembled at Clinton Hall this evening to greet R.J. De Cordova the popular humorist, and to listen to his new poem entitled a ‘Photograph of Broadway.’ The poem was one of Mr. De Cordova’s best efforts, and can hardly fail of having what the theatrical men term a successful run. All the salient points of the great New-York thoroughfare, -- its crowd of vehicles, and pedestrians, its churches, its theatres, its hotels, its mock-auction shops, its marble stores, its policemen, its dandies, its gamblers and its beggars, -- were hit off in a style at once humorous and sarcastic, that kept the audience in a constant roar of laughter.” Mr. De Cordova was a well-known Sephardic humorist, speaker and sometime investor who was quite popular with New York audiences – Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): Shmini Atzeret
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): As Jews observe Shemini Atzeret, Major General Ulysses S. Grant is given command of the Department of Tennessee
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): Seventy-eight year old Alexander Gove Village a physician who championed Jewish emancipation and co-founded the Westphalian Art Association in 1831 passed away today.
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Sukkoth Chol Hamoed
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport passed away. Born in 1790, at Lemberg, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria, “he was a Galician rabbi and Jewish scholar.” “After various experiences in business, Rapoport became successively rabbi of Tarnopol (1837) and of Prague (1840). He was one of the founders of the new Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. His chief work was the first part of an (unfinished) encyclopaedia (Ereklz Millin, 1852). Equally notable were his biographies of Saadia Gaon, Nathan (author of the Arukh), Hai Gaon, Eleazar Kalir and others.Thrown upon his own resources about 1817, Rapoport became cashier of the meat-tax farmers. He had already given evidence of marked critical ability, though his writings previously published were of a light character—poems and translations. His critical talent, however, soon revealed itself. In 1824 he wrote an article for Bikkure ha-'Ittim on the independent Jewish tribes of Arabia and Abyssinia. Though this article gained him some recognition, a more permanent impression was made by his work on Saadia Gaon and his times (published in the same journal in 1829), the first of a series of biographical works on the medieval Jewish sages. Because of this work he received recognition in the scholarly world and gained many enthusiastic friends, especially S. D. Luzzatto. After the fashion in rabbinic circles, Rapoport was known by an acronym "Shir", formed by the initial letters of his Hebrew name Shelomo Yehuda Rapoport. Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport notes that according to the Masoretes there are ten vowel sounds. He suggests that the passage in the Sefer Yetzirah, which discusses the manipulation of letters in the creation of the world, can be better understood if the Sefirot refer to vowel sounds. He posits that the word sefirah in this case is related to the Hebrew word sippur ("to retell"). His position is based on his belief that most Kabbalistic works written after Sefer Yetzirah (including the Zohar) are forgeries.”
1869: Solomon Bibo arrived in New York from his native Prussia. This was the first leg of a journey that would take him to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he would join his brothers Nathan and Simon. Yes, Jews played an active role in life of what we now call “the Old West.”
1869: Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women.Gertrude Himmelfarb, the wife of Irving Kristol and mother of Bill Kristol, may have been one of the most famous Jews to have studied Girton College which she attended on a fellowship after World War II. Today, Griton is home to one of the UK’s Judaica collections and its Theology and Religious Studies program includes course work on the Old Testament; World Religions including a separate paper on Judaism (separate papers on Indian religions, Islam and Judaism) and Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust.
1870:”The New Jewish Ritual” published today described the changes being instituted by Raphael Lewin, the rabbi at Temple Israel in Brooklyn.
1871(1st of Cheshvan, 5632): Six days after the Great Chicago Fire came to an end Jews in the Windy City observed Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1872(15th of Tishrei, 5633): Sukkoth
1872: “Succoth- The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles” published today reported that “last evening witnessed the commencement of the Jewish feast of Succoth, or Tabernacles, which continues for eight days.” The article goes on to report that the first two and last two days are full holidays while the intermediate days are called Chol Hamoed and “are of no special import. The article continues with a description of the Thanksgiving aspect of the festival as well as the “extemporized booth” in which “the pious Israelite, surrounded by his family, takes his meals” in this “season of joy and thankfulness…”
1874: It was reported from Vienna today that the Italian Consul at Bucharest has refused to open negotiations for commercial treaty between Italy and Romania as long as the Jews of that country are not fully emancipated.
1874(5th of Cheshvan, 5635): Seventy-nine year old German rabbi and early supporter of Zionism Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, passed away.
http://zionism-israel.com/bio/kalischer_biography.htm
1874: It was reported today that Mr. Peixotto, the American Consul at Bucharest has refused to enter into negotiations with the government of Romania as long as the Jews of that country are denied their civil rights.
1874 (5th of Cheshvan, 5605): Rabbi Zevi Hersh Kalisher passed away. Born in 1795 in the Polish town of Lissa that had just become part of Germany, Kalisher was unique because he was an Orthodox Rabbi who believed that Jews develop a practical program for returning to Eretz Israel instead of just waiting for the coming of the Messiah. In 1860, he published Derishat Tziyyon , his blueprint for the return to the Holy Land. Almost forty years before the advent of Herzl and Zionism he called for a systematic purchase of land, the development of agriculture, the development of a self-defense force and the need to develop viable businesses to replace the charitable institutions that traditionally supported the Jews in Palestine. The Reform opposed Kalisher because of the nationalist content of the proposal. The Orthodox saw it as a form of blasphemy. One of the practical results of his work was the establishment of Mikveh Israel, a school located near Jaffa, designed to teach the new generation of pioneers the scientific agricultural skills that would enable them to reclaim the land.
1881(23rd of Tishrei, 5642): Three days after Eliezer Ben-Yehuda had what is believed to be the first modern conversation in Hebrew, Jews observed Simchat Torah\
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883(15th of Tishrei, 5644): Four month old Franz Kafka joined the rest of Jewry in observing Sukkoth
1886(17thof Tishrei, 5647): Shabbat Cho HaMoed Sukkoth
1886(17thof Tishrei, 5647): Sixty-year old German banker Mayer Carl von Rothschild, the nephew Amschel Mayer Rothschild passed away today
1886: Birthdate of David Ben-Gurion. To describe him as one of the earliest Zionist leaders, founding father of Israel, and its first Prime Minister would not even begin to do justice to this gigantic figure. Ben-Gurion was no saint and it is easy to criticize him. But he was a committed socialist. He truly believed in the brotherhood of man. At the same time, he was committed to the Zionist movement and worked to create a “new” Jew in a Jewish homeland. Ben-Gurion was a realist and a gambler. Despite a great deal of criticism, he was willing to accept the 1947 Partition Plan even though it an Jewish state without Jerusalem. At the same time, he was bold enough to declare the independence of the Jewish state in May of 1948 when most of the “smart” leaders of the world told him to wait. The modern state of Israel might have come into existence without Ben-Gurion, but it is hard to imagine how it would have happened. I urge you to read more about the truly remarkable, complex leader. He passed away on December 1, 1973.
1887: “Where Has The American Merchant Gone” published today bemoans the passing of the country’s mercantile activities into the hands of recent immigrants including Jews who usually “own the largest and best stocked store in town.” “The American importer of dry goods” have been replaced by “firms composed of well dressed and highly intelligent Jews,” Germans or even Scandinavians. Americans shrug their shoulders, say “it could not be helped “and then curse the foreigners as they drink a cocktail to their speedy downfall.”
1887: It was reported today that the property belonging to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York City is valued at $75,000 for tax purposes. But the building is tax exempt because it owned by a non-profit religious organization.
1888: The decision was made tonight “to depose” Professor Horowitz as manager of the fund raising theatrical productions being sponsored by the Jewish Order of the Harp of David appearing at Poole’s Theatre because “he has been running things in a high-handed manner.”
1888: Sixty-year old Horatio Gates Spafford, one of the founders of the “American Colony,” whose members “engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives” lost his battle with malaria and passed away today following which he was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.
1890: Joseph Jacobs, a Jewish glazier who was attacked by a gang in Jersey City is lying unconscious in City Hospital after having had his skull fractured by a paving stone.
1890: “City and Suburban News” published today described the upcoming social events which will be sponsored the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1892: “A Jewish Historical Society” published today described the organization of the American Jewish Historical Society under the presidency of Oscar S. Straus which has already gained the interest of European historians who are sending materials about “the Jews who first crossed the Atlantic with Columbus
1892: Saul Solomon passed away in Cape Town. A native of St. Helena, he settled in South Africa where he became a leader of the Liberal Party. He was known as the “Cape Disraeli” because, like his English predecessor, he converted but retained a public affection for his former co-religionists.
1892: Missouri Republican Party leader Isaac Isaacs said that unless Major Warner, the party’s nominee for governor fired his campaigner manager after he made anti-Semitic remarks, he would not even get 8 of the 1,200 Jewish votes in Kansas City and would lose most, if not all, of the 25,000 Jewish voters in the state.
1892(25thof Tishrei, 5653): Seventy-four year old Saul Isaac Kaempf a native of Posen and a disciple of Akiba Eger who became an assistant professor of Oriental languages at the University of Prague passed away today.
1892: “Did Harris Get Files from the Hallman” published today described the escape of Henry Harris from the Hudson County, NJ, Jail despite the fact the a Jewish prisoner, Benjamin Greyer, had warned authorities that prisoner Paul Zimmerman who was serving as a “hallman” had supplied Harris with two files for sawing through the bars.
1894: “They Will Not Deal With Strikers” published today described the organization of the Cloak and Suit Manufacturers’ Association whose officers included Frank and Louis Rothschild and which is the manufacturer’s to the strike of cloakmakers. (Editor’s Note: There are Jews on both sides of this fight)
1894: “Business Men and Tammany” published today provides a cross section of responses to the nomination of Nathan Strauss for Mayor. Most of its was negative as the respondents were “reformers” supporting William L. Strong and would have opposed any Tammany candidate. (None of the responses made any references to Strauss’ ethnicity)
1895: The will of Babet Karl which was prepared by her nephew Abraham Stern, “a wealthy real estate lawyer” “is on the Surrogate’s calendar for probate today even though a second will which was written after this name Rabbi Wise and his son as primary beneficiary has just been found.
1898: Birthdate of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas who in 1949 “revealed that he was ‘converted to Zionism’ by the late Justice Louis D. Brandeis” and pledged to continue his sympathies for Israel and to do whatever” he could do “for its welfare.” (As reported by JTA)
1899: Israel Zangwill's play "Children of the Ghetto," premiers at the Herald Square Theatre in New York. The play was based on a novel of the same name published in 1892 that describes the life of a Jewish family living in London in the last decade of the 19th century.
1900(23rdof Tishrei, 5661): Simchat Torah celebrated for the first time in the 20thcentury.
1902(15thof Tishrei, 5663): On the same day that the first “Youthful Offenders Institution” opened in Borstal, Kent, UK, Jews observed Sukkoth
1906: Birthdate of León Klimovsky the Argentine dentist who gained fame as a film director.
1910: Birthdate of Sir MIsha Black, Russian-born British architect and designer.
1913(15thof Tishrei, 5674): Sukkoth
1913: In New York, Governor William Sulzer, who had been defended by William Marshall, was convicted on three articles of impeachment. Sulzer was replaced by his Lieutenant Governor, Martin Glynn, the author of the 1919 article “The Crucifixion of the Jews Must Stop!”
1917: President Woodrow Wilson sends word to Lloyd George that he approves of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration.
1918: Birthdate of Abraham Nemeth, who developed the Nemeth Code, a form of Braille that greatly improved the ability of visually impaired people to study complex mathematics (As reported by William Yardley)
1923: Birthdate of “Walter Zacharius, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corporation into a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1923: Tonight at the Hotel Commodore the American Jewish Congress adopted a resolution prepared by the Committee On Palestine, assisted by Israel Zangwill, carrying out Mr. Zangwill's suggestion for a resolution insisting that the British Government fulfill its mandate under the League of Nations for the “upbuilding “of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
1924: In New York City Jennie (née Friedman) and Jacob J. Scherick gave birth to Edgar J. Scherick the ABC television producer who helped create “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”
1927(20thof Tishrei, 5688): Sukkoth Chol HaMoed
1927(20thof Tishrei, 5688): Thirty-four year old bootlegger and labor racketeer Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen died after having been shot by rivals while walking on the Lower East Side.
1930: Birthdate of Dan Pagis, Holocaust survivor and poet whose most famous work may be:
written in pencil in the sealed railway car
Here in this carload
I, Eve,
with my son Abel.
if you see my older boy,
Cain, the son of man
tell him that I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belzec_oboz_zaglady_pomnik_ewa_abel.JPG
1933: The Associated Press reported that the German citizen who had assaulted a New Yorker named Dr. Daniel Mulvhill “because he had failed to ‘salute a Nazi detachment’” was being held at an unnamed concentration camp. (This seemingly harsh punishment may have been an attempt to ingratiate the new Nazi regime with the West while it went about its various nefarious activities including re-armament in violation of the Versailles Treaty)
1935: When the Belgian steamship Leopold II was unloading 97 tons of cement at Jaffa, “a tin case of cartridges concealed in a barrel” was discovered. According to “unconfirmed reports from Arab sources…800 rifles and 400,000 cartridges” were also found among the 537 barrels of cement. Officials have not been able to determine who was supposed to be getting the weaponry.
1937:Hans Achim Litten, a lawyer whose father had converted to Christianity before and who represented several of the opponents of the Nazis in court, arrived at Dachau where he was placed in the same barracks as the Jewish prisoners.
1939: Kraków, one of the most important Jewish communities since the 1300s, is designated the capital of the Generalgouvernement.
1939: “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” a three act comedy created by those Jewish stalwarts of the Broadway Theatre , George S. Kaufman, premiered at the Music Box in New York
1940: Warsaw Ghetto established. (In note of historic irony, six years later to the day, those convicted at the first Nuremberg Trial were hung)
1941: The Germans murdered 4,500 Jews outside of Lubny, Urkaine (USSR). Unknown Nazi photographers left a photo of a mother and her children just before the atrocity and a photo of a group of Jews awaiting their fate.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/october/06.asp
1941: In response to Hitler's plea that all Jews must leave Germany, the first of twenty trains left Germany for the East. Jews from Luxemburg and Vienna were part of the deportation. Within the next month 19,827 Jews from the Reich would be sent to Lodz.
1941: The German Army advanced to within 60 miles (96 K) of Moscow. One not need romanticize life in Stalin’s Russia to recognize the courage of the Soviet Army. Stalin decided to remain in Moscow and take personal command of the battle. As bad as the Holocaust was, it would have been even worse if the Soviets had not held on. At the same time many revered the Soviet Army because it liberated so many of the camps as it later moved west towards Berlin.
1941(25th of Tishrei, 5702): Three days after the German murder of 15,000 Jewish residents of Dnepropetrtovsk, Ukraine, an additional 5000 Jews are executed in the town.
1941: The first SS deportation train of Western Jews travels to ghettos at Lódz, Lublin, and Warsaw, Poland.
1941(25th of Tishrei, 5702): Twenty trains carrying nearly 20,000 Jews travel from Germany, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Austria to the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto. The shipments will come to an end in the first week of November.
1942: Final liquidation of the Ghetto at Zamosc, Poland
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/08.asp
1942: The Nazis arrest more than 1000 Jews in Rome and deport them to Auschwitz.
1943: German Ambassador to the Vatican Ernst von Weizsäcker compliments the Holy See for its "perfect even-handedness" in treating Germany and the Allies. When Weizsäcker asks what Pope Pius XII will do if the German government persists in its present Jewish policy in Italy, Vatican Secretary of State Maglione replies that "the Holy See would not want to be put in the position of having to utter a word of disapproval." The Pope is being "cautious so as not to give the German people the impression that [he] has done or has wished to do even the smallest thing against Germany during this terrible time.”
1943: Germans looking for Jews in Rome conduct house-to-house searches. About 1000 Jews are briefly held at Rome's Collegio Militare and then deported to Auschwitz. 477 Jews are sheltered in the Vatican, and another 4238 find sanctuary in convents and monasteries throughout Rome. Nevertheless, by this date more than 8300 Italian Jews have been deported to Auschwitz.
1943: In Rome, Germans searched through streets and homes for Jews. Of the 1,015 Jews taken on that morning only 16 would survive the war. Within two months, another 7,345 Jews would be found and deported from Northern Italy
1943: Two days after a violent Jewish revolt at the Sobibór death camp, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the camp destroyed.
1944: Birthdate of Joseph Sitruk the native of Tunisia who as Joseph Haim Sitruk served as Chief Rabbi of France from June, 1987 to June, 2008.
1944: Following the coup led by the Arrow Cross, the Germans and their Hungarian allies resume resumed their attacks on the Jews of Budapest. Jews were again dragged from their homes and into the streets. Then for the next 10 days, all Jews are forbidden to leave their homes.
1944: Germans and members of the Fascist Nyilas group prohibit Jews in Budapest, Hungary, from leaving their homes. Many Jewish slave laborers are killed by Nyilas members on a bridge linking Buda with Pest.
1944: In Rome, the roundup of the Jewish population began. “SS troops surrounded the Lungotevere, the former ghetto area, where some 4,000 of the city’s 12,000 Jews still lived.” The SS selected 1,000 men, women and children for immediate shipment to Auschwitz. This was only the beginning of a march to the Death Camps that took place in the city of the Pope.
1944:Composer, conductor, pianist and music critic Viktor Ullmann was sent to Auschwitz today.
1945: David Lubin’s dream for the creation of an “international organization for food and agriculture” came to fruition today with the founding of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
1945: During the presentation of the Army-Navy “E” Award (a commendation for outstanding production during WW II) at Los Alamos, NM, Robert Oppenheimer delivered his “farewell speech” as director of the project that led to the development of the Atomic Bomb.
1945(9th of Cheshvan, 5706): Eighty-year old Berta Zuckerland, the daughter of Mortiz Szeps and the wife of Dr. Emil Zuckerkandl who was famous for her Salon in Vienna passed away today in Paris after having spent much of the war in Algeria.
1946: Ten Nazi leaders were hanged as war criminals after the Nuremberg trials. This chart shows the fate of those tried at Nuremberg.
1948: During Operation Yoav, Israeli forces were repulsed after heavy fighting as they tried to open the road to Jewish settlements in the Negev and Beersheba.
1948: “Arab Legion forces at the Arab-held Zion Gate attacked the Jewish positions on Mount Zion, but were driven off after fierce fighting.”
1948(13th of Tishrei, 5709): Twenty-seven year old Mordechai “Modi” Alon died today when his plane crashed after returning from an attack on Egyptian forces. A native of Safed, Alon trained with the RAF during World War II and flew in the first combat mission undertaken by the Israeli Air Force in May of 1948. He scored infant air forces’ first kills when he shoot down to Royal Egyptian Air Force C-47’s over Tel Aviv. These air victories were more than just numbers. They gave heart to the beleaguered Yishuv who had had no protection from the air forces of their Arab attackers.
1948: Leonard Bernstein, who had come to Israel specifically to do this, conducted a concert of the newly created Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Jerusalem’s Edison Theatre. “He did so amid the persistent background noise of rifle and machine-gun fire from the direction of the Old City. The climax of the evening was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” According to eye witness Tom Tugend, “’Towards the end of the first movement machine-gun fire burst out in the Old City, held by Jordanian forces. The gunfire continued unabated throughout the performance. Lenny and the orchestra never missed a beat.’”
1948: Birthdate of Bruce Fleisher, the Union City, TN native who became a successful professional golfer.
1949(23rd of Tishrei, 5710): On the same day that the Greek Civil War came to an end marking a victory for the West in what was called the “Cold War,” Jews observed Simchat Torah
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that hundreds of Jewish congregations throughout the US joined in a unique nationwide effort on behalf of the Israel Independence Bonds sales drive, to mark the recent holiday period. Tens of thousands of bonds were sold in scores of cities in which leading American personalities visited synagogues to present the facts about the importance of such action. In New York the actor Edward G. Robinson canceled his important personal plans to substitute for his colleague, Eddie Cantor, who became ill, and to participate in a series of special, festive Bond dinners.
1955: Esther Lederer, writing as Ann Landers, had her first advice column published in the Chicago Sun Times. By the end of Lederer's life, Ann Landers had become the world's most widely syndicated column, published in more than 1,200 publications and with more than 90 million readers around the world.When Esther Lederer and her husband moved to Chicago in the 1950s, she contacted a family friend at the Chicago Sun Times to see whether the columnist Ann Landers needed any help in writing her column. The Sun Times was in the process of finding a replacement writer for the column, and Lederer took over as the new Landers, a name that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Because Lederer had been involved in politics and had volunteered extensively, she was very well connected, and her column reflected these connections. Lederer was able to solicit advice from experts in many different fields. From her column, Landers openly opposed racism and anti-Semitism, and devoted much space to fighting injustice. Lederer continued to write as Ann Landers for 46 years, until her death in 2002.
1957: The German Pharmacological Society is scheduled to present a medal at 4 o’clock this afternoon to Dr. Otto Lowei, Research Professor of Pharmacology at the College of Medicine of NYU and the winner of the 1936 Noble Prize in Medicine.
1960: “Israel Gives Aid to New Nations,” an article published today described the visit to the United States of Dr. Benjamin Mazar, the noted archaeologist and President of Hebrew University. During his visit, Dr. Mazar described the aid that Israel is providing to the newly emerging nations of Africa and Asia including the enrollment of 100 students from nations in these two continents in courses at Hebrew University and the sponsorship by the government of Ethiopia of several medical students at the university’s medical school. The university has also sent teams to various developing countries to aid in the development of educational and health programs.
1961: Birthdate of French-Jewish novelist Marc Levy.
1966:”Eh?” by Henry Livings, which premiered at the Circle in the Square Downtown, featuring Dustin Hoffman in “his first critical success.”
1969: A revival of “3 Men on a Horse” co-starring Jack Gilford and Hal Linden opened at the Lyceum Theatre.
1970: Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt, succeeding Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sadat was responsible for the Yom Kippur War. But his claim to fame was the courage to risk all with his famous trip to Jerusalem and the peace treaty with Israel. His motives are of less importance than the deeds he performed.
1970: Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison, was designated as a National Historic Site. Among those who were imprisoned in the camp was George Geiger who would go on to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
1973: Just after mid-night, a small force of Israeli tanks crossed to the western bank of the Suez Canal. This daring success was a closely held secret. The first task of this force was to find and destroy theSAM -6 Missiles that were negating Israel’s air superiority. The Israelis were dismayed to find that the French were supplying weapons to the Arabs. Israeli pilots shot down a French Mirage that belonged to the Libyans. On the diplomatic front, President Sadat asked Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin who was in Cairo to get the UN to call for an immediate cease fire. The Israeli Foreign Ministry exploded with indignation when Kosygin complied. The Israelis recounted the massive buildup of Soviet military equipment that had been sent to the Arabs. The war could not have started it the Russians had not provided the weapons. To the Israelis, it was lie the man who supplied an arsonist with gasoline calling on the fire department to protect the arsonist.
1973: Events on the northern front dispelled any doubt as to how broad support was in the Arab world for this war aimed at destroying Israel. Israeli forces were forced to fight two major tank battles on the Syrian front and neither of them was with the Syrians. In the first battle a Jordanian brigade including twenty-eight tanks was beaten back. In the second fight, the Israelis faced a larger number of Iraqi tanks. Exactly how many Iraqi tanks were involved is unknown; all the Israelis know is that the Iraqis left the hulks of sixty tanks behind when they retreated.
1973: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho jointlywere awarded Nobel peace prize. Kissinger is Jewish. Le Duc Tho is not Jewish. Kissinger was a refugee from Nazi Germany. In the 1950”s when others in academia were converting to advance their careers, Kissinger did not choose to follow that path.
1973: American Sephardi Federation and the Sephardic community at large collected $4,000,000 for Israel by week two of the Yom Kippur war.
1977: Birthdate of John Meyers, creator of Blues for Peace which was set up in Israel to honor the roots of blues music and promote peace and the understanding thatALL peoples have had their share of the blues. Blues for Peace is dedicated to the unsung heroes, local blues musicians that love the blues and pass it on to the next generation
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that three people were slightly injured, two of them tourists, by two bombs thrown at them by Arab terrorists in the Old City of Jerusalem. There was no security barrier, no trip to the Temple Mount by Sharon, etc. In other words, each of these current excuses for terror are just that excuses for continuing behavior of longstanding.
1978(15th of Tishrei, 5739): Sukkoth
1981 (8th of Tishrei, 5742): Moshe Dayan passed away. The much acclaimed Israeli general with the eye-patch was born in 1915. He was one of the first children born at Deganya Alef, “the mother of all kibbutzim.” Dayan joined the Haganah at the age of 14, learning military tactics from the fabled British Captain, Orde Wingate. He lost his left eye fighting the Vichy French in Lebanon during World War II. Dayan held a variety of important positions during Israel’s fight for independence. During the 1950’s he helped mold the IDF and led it to a lightening victory over Egypt in 1956. Dayan left the Army to purse a role in politics, but returned to serve as Minister for Defense during both the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars. In a an unexpected switch, Dayan joined the right wing government Begin government and served as the Foreign Minister who negotiated the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Dayan died at the age of 66, a victim of colon cancer.
1981(8thof Tishrei, 5742): Sixty five year old Haim Landau who made Aliyah in 1935, joined both Betar and Irgun before serving as an MK and government minister passed away today.
1981:”Writer of Central Europe Wins Nobel Prize” published today provides John Vincour’s description of the triumph scored by Sephardic Jew Elias Canetti.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/16/books/81nobel-cane.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A13%22%7D
1982: GeorgeShultz warns that the United States will withdraw from the UN if they vote to exclude Israel.
1983 (9th of Cheshvan, 5744): Dr. Leonardo De Benedetti, friend and companion of Primo Levi, passed away at the age of 85 in the Jewish Rest Home where he had lived for years.
1986: Ron Arad, Israeli Weapons System Officer, is captured by Lebanese Shi'ite militia Amal.
1986:Armand Hammer returns to the United States with Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb.
1993: Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters approaching the British National Party headquarters.
1995(22ndof Tishrei, 5756): Shemini Atzeret
1997(15thof Tishrei, 5758): Sukkoth
1997: Prolific American Author James Michener passed away at the age of 90 in Austin, Texas. . A non-Jew, Michener’s specialty was historic fiction in the tradition of the grand saga. One of Michener’s most famous books was The Source. In it he traced the history of the Jews from earliest times to modern days using the artifacts discovered at an fictional archeological dig as the literary springboard. It is one of the easiest ways to enter into the world of Jewish history.
2005: “My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Jury Room,” published today provided Judith Miller’s account of her time spent before the federal grand jury.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A13%22%7D
2007: At the Jewish Museum of Florida an exhibition styled “Zap Pow Bam - Super Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics” opens. “Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane! It’s Zap Pow Bam, a colorful dynamic exhibit that immerses visitors in an interactive world of Super Heroes, highlighting the Jewish creators of comic books from 1938 – 1950. These are America’s timeless icons like Superman, Batman, Captain America and Wonder Woman – including the phone booth where Superman changed his clothes and a Batmobile. Zap Pow Bam features 1940s serials, video interviews, a drawing studio and costumes. The exhibit offers a unique perspective on the way pop culture portrays issues and how identity and culture can shape popular opinion.”
2008: Proposed date on which Italy’s Holocaust Museum will open in Rome on the 65thanniversary of the German capture of more than 1,000 Jews from Rome’s ghetto, a major Holocaust episode in Italy.
2008: At SUNY New Paltz as part of the Israel @ 60 celebration the Resnick Institute for the Study of Modern Jewish Life hosts a lecture by Dr. Len Lyons, author and member of the Ethiopian Jewry Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, entitled"The Ethiopian Jews of Israel."
2008: One thousand Jews traveled in and out of Nablus on buses from midnight to 5 a.m. in a brief pilgrimage to the burned-out shell of the building that covers Joseph's Tomb.
2009: Scottish actress Ronni Ancona appeared for the second time this year on “The One Show.”
2009: The joint Israeli-US Navy military exercise code named “Juniper Cobra” comes to an end.
521 BCE (10th of Tishrei): Darius, the Persian monarch under whose rule the Second Temple was completed, and six companions killed another claimant to throne and cemented his position as ruling monarch.
912: Abd-ar-Rahman III began his reign as Emir of Cordoba. The Emir appointed Hasdai ibn Shaprut to serve as his physician. Their relationship developed to the extent that the Jewish physician became the confidant and advisor to the Muslim ruler.
976: Sixty-one year old Al-Hakam II the second Caliph of Córdoba, whose subjects included Enoch Ben Moses, who followed his father as Rabbi of Cordoba and whose students included Samuel ha-Nagid.
1384: Jadwiga, the youngest daughter of Louis I of Hungary is crowned King of Poland. In 1385, she married Wladislaus II which meant that Lithuania was united with the kingdom of Poland. Now the rights enjoyed by Polish Jews would be extended to Lithuanian Jews.
1529:Suleiman the Magnificent gives up on the siege of Vienna which means that a large section of central Europe and all of Western Europe will remain under Christian domination as opposed to becoming part of Muslim Empire.
1649: The American colony of Maine passed legislation granting religious freedom to all its citizens, on condition that those of contrary religious persuasions behave acceptably. This early evidence of religious tolerance demonstrates why Jews would flourish in the land that would become the United States.
1655(Tishrei, 5416): Joseph Solomon Delmedigo a rabbi, author, physician, mathematician, and music theorist passed away. Born in Candia, Crete in 1591 he moved to Padua, Italy, throughout most Europe and north Africa, and finally died in Prague. Yet in his lifetime wherever he sojourned he earned his living as a physician and or teacher. His only known works are Elim (Palms), dealing with mathematics, astronomy, the natural sciences, and metaphysics, as well as some letters and essays. He followed the lectures by Galileo Galilei, during the academic year 1609-1610. Elim (1629, published by Menasseh ben Israel, Amsterdam) is written in Hebrew, in response to 12 general and 70 specific religious and scientific questions sent to Delmedigo by a Karaite Jew, Zerach ben Natan from Troki (Lithuania). The format of the book is taken from the number of fountains and palm trees at Elim in the Sinai Peninsula, as given in Numbers, xxxiii, 9: since there are 12 fountains and 70 palm trees at Elim, Delmedigo divided his book into twelve major problems and seventy minor problems. The subjects discussed include astronomy, physics, mathematics, medicine, and music theory. In the area of music, Delmedigo discusses the physics of music including string resonance, intervals and their proportions, consonance and dissonance.
1655(15thof Tishrei, 5416): Sukkoth
1655(15thof Tishrei, 5416): Sixty-four year old Joseph Solomon Delmedigo, passed away. A native of Crete, he was known for his work as a philosopher, mathematician, physician and the author of Elim (Palms) a wide ranging tome on numerous scientific subjects.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0005_0_05064.html
1656: Thomas Burton, who recorded Oliver Cromwell’s assurance to Antonio Fernandez Carvajal that Jews could return to England in his famous diary appeared before parliament where he successfully defended himself against “a charge of disaffection towards the existing government.
1773: In Braunschweig, Rabbi Meyer Hall and his wife Hale gave birth to their third son Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg the directo of the Jewish Samson School in Wolfenbuttel.
1753: Birthdate of Johann G. Eichhorn, the German Old Testament scholar who was a pioneer in "higher criticism," which evaluated Scripture through literary analysis and historical evidence, rather than by the unquestioned authority of systematized religious tradition as can be seen in his seminal work Introduction to the Old Testament.
1777(15thof Tishrei, 5538): Sukkoth
1783: Birthdate of Jeanette Wohl, the native of Frankurt am Main who “was a longtime friend and correspondent of Ludwig Börne.”
1794(22ndof Tishrei, 5555): Shemini Atzeret
1805(23rdof Tishrei, 5566): Simchat Torah
1810(18th of Tishrei, 5571): Fourth Day of Sukkoth
1810: (18th Tishrei), 5571 Nachman of Breslov also known as Reb Nachman of Bratslav, Nachman from Uman, or simply as Rebbe Nachman (in local Yiddish reb Nokhmen Broslever) passed away. “Born in 1772, he was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty.Born at a time when the influence of his great-grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, was waning, Rebbe Nachman breathed new life into the Chasidic movement by combining the esoteric secrets of Judaism (the Kabbalah) with in-depth Torah scholarship. He attracted thousands of followers during his lifetime, and after his death, his followers continued to regard him as their Rebbe and did not appoint any successor. Rebbe Nachman's teachings continue to attract and inspire Jews the world over.” Some of his most famous quotes are:
· "It is a great mitzvah to be happy always."
· "If you believe that it is possible to break, believe it is also possible to fix."
· "And know that a person needs to traverse a very, very narrow bridge, but the fundamental and most important principle is to have no hesitation or fear at all…" (This saying has been set to music in Hebrew as the song Kol Ha-Olam Kulo
For more information about Rebbe Nachman see the attached or go to http://www.breslov.org/
1812: Birthdate of Lazarus W. Powell, the Kentucky Senator who sought to have Congress condemn General Grant for issuing General Order No.11. Powell was animated more by his anti-war views than he was by affection for the Jews.
1826(15thof Tishrei, 5587): Sukkoth
1835(23rdof Tishrei, 5596): Four-month old Ada Isaacs Menken, celebrated her first Simchat Torah
1841: Founding of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Today Queen’s University offers“Jewish Studies courses that may be taken as electives by any student, or as part of a Minor in Jewish Studies. The Minor can be the main focus of a three-year BA or a secondary focus in a 4-year Honours BA.” The University is also home to Queen's University Hillel, the Jewish Student Union.
1841(1st of Cheshvan, 5602): Rosh Chodesh
1841: In Germany, on a Shabbat that was also Rosh Chodesh Chesvan, Issac Bernays, the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg condemned the newly issued Prayerbook for the Israelites and the rabbis who had authored it. This was part of dispute that had been taking place at The Hamburg Temple among the orthodox members and the reformers who were led by Gabriel Riessler. It was part of larger dispute that was rocking German Jewry as it dealt with issues of Reform, Orthodoxy, and coping with modernity. (If this sounds familiar, it is since we continue to deal with these issues in the 21st century. Considering the rancor and ill will that was created, some would say that the German experience in the 19th century is primer for how not to deal with these issues.)
1843(22nd of Tishrei, 5604): Jews observe Shemini Atzeret on the same day that Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard was published.
1845(15th of Tishrei, 5606): Jews in Texas observe Sukkoth for the first time as citizens of the United States since the citizens of what had been the Lone Star Republic approved the new constitution and the statute of annexation three days before. Today, Houston, Dallas and Austin are home to three of the most vibrant Jewish communities in the United States.
1847:District Rabbi Jonas Wiesner and Estra (Therese) Wiesner Schur gave birth to their daughter Fanny Abeles Wiesner.
1851: “The News by the Mails” column published today reported that “The New York correspondent of The Republic replies to the animadversions of certain parties here, in relation to his former statement that there were no Jews on Wall Street. The letter-writer substantiates his assertion by citing names, etc; and states that the fact was mentioned in order to prove that the Jewish people have no natural aptitude for the brokerage business, and are only driven into the money-dealing business by the disabilitities which shut them out of other honorable employment.
1854: Birthdate of Oscar Wilde, the Anglo-Irish author who is remembered as much for his sexual orientation as for his literary works. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, Wilde presents us with a Jewish theatre manager named Isaacs. The depiction of the character can only be described as anti-Semitic. One critic attributes Wilde’s creation of the character to a dispute he was having with the author George Eliot. Since Eliot had created a sympathetic Jewish figure in one of her works, Wilde felt compelled to do just the opposite.
1855(4th of Cheshvan, 5616): Seventy-seven year old Jeremiah Heinemann, the son of Rabbi Joachim Heinemann and the brother of Moses Heinemann who had published a translation of “Kohelet” passed away today.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0008_0_08690.html
1859: Abolitionist John Brown, whose followers included August Bondi, Jacob Benjamin and Theodore Weiner, leads the raid on the arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
1860:“Rarely has the ‘opening lecture of the season’ been attended by so large and fashionable an audience as that which assembled at Clinton Hall this evening to greet R.J. De Cordova the popular humorist, and to listen to his new poem entitled a ‘Photograph of Broadway.’ The poem was one of Mr. De Cordova’s best efforts, and can hardly fail of having what the theatrical men term a successful run. All the salient points of the great New-York thoroughfare, -- its crowd of vehicles, and pedestrians, its churches, its theatres, its hotels, its mock-auction shops, its marble stores, its policemen, its dandies, its gamblers and its beggars, -- were hit off in a style at once humorous and sarcastic, that kept the audience in a constant roar of laughter.” Mr. De Cordova was a well-known Sephardic humorist, speaker and sometime investor who was quite popular with New York audiences – Jewish and non-Jewish alike.
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): Shmini Atzeret
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): As Jews observe Shemini Atzeret, Major General Ulysses S. Grant is given command of the Department of Tennessee
1862(22nd of Tishrei, 5623): Seventy-eight year old Alexander Gove Village a physician who championed Jewish emancipation and co-founded the Westphalian Art Association in 1831 passed away today.
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Sukkoth Chol Hamoed
1867(17th of Tishrei, 5628): Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport passed away. Born in 1790, at Lemberg, Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, Austria, “he was a Galician rabbi and Jewish scholar.” “After various experiences in business, Rapoport became successively rabbi of Tarnopol (1837) and of Prague (1840). He was one of the founders of the new Wissenschaft des Judentums movement. His chief work was the first part of an (unfinished) encyclopaedia (Ereklz Millin, 1852). Equally notable were his biographies of Saadia Gaon, Nathan (author of the Arukh), Hai Gaon, Eleazar Kalir and others.Thrown upon his own resources about 1817, Rapoport became cashier of the meat-tax farmers. He had already given evidence of marked critical ability, though his writings previously published were of a light character—poems and translations. His critical talent, however, soon revealed itself. In 1824 he wrote an article for Bikkure ha-'Ittim on the independent Jewish tribes of Arabia and Abyssinia. Though this article gained him some recognition, a more permanent impression was made by his work on Saadia Gaon and his times (published in the same journal in 1829), the first of a series of biographical works on the medieval Jewish sages. Because of this work he received recognition in the scholarly world and gained many enthusiastic friends, especially S. D. Luzzatto. After the fashion in rabbinic circles, Rapoport was known by an acronym "Shir", formed by the initial letters of his Hebrew name Shelomo Yehuda Rapoport. Solomon Judah Löb Rapoport notes that according to the Masoretes there are ten vowel sounds. He suggests that the passage in the Sefer Yetzirah, which discusses the manipulation of letters in the creation of the world, can be better understood if the Sefirot refer to vowel sounds. He posits that the word sefirah in this case is related to the Hebrew word sippur ("to retell"). His position is based on his belief that most Kabbalistic works written after Sefer Yetzirah (including the Zohar) are forgeries.”
1869: Solomon Bibo arrived in New York from his native Prussia. This was the first leg of a journey that would take him to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he would join his brothers Nathan and Simon. Yes, Jews played an active role in life of what we now call “the Old West.”
1869: Girton College, Cambridge is founded, becoming England's first residential college for women.Gertrude Himmelfarb, the wife of Irving Kristol and mother of Bill Kristol, may have been one of the most famous Jews to have studied Girton College which she attended on a fellowship after World War II. Today, Griton is home to one of the UK’s Judaica collections and its Theology and Religious Studies program includes course work on the Old Testament; World Religions including a separate paper on Judaism (separate papers on Indian religions, Islam and Judaism) and Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust.
1869: The President of Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco, CA, sent a letter to Israel J. Benjamin, also known as “Benjamin the Traveler" who was spending time in the city that informing him that the congregation had voted to give him $250 to help defray the costs of his travels.
1870:”The New Jewish Ritual” published today described the changes being instituted by Raphael Lewin, the rabbi at Temple Israel in Brooklyn.
1871(1st of Cheshvan, 5632): Six days after the Great Chicago Fire came to an end Jews in the Windy City observed Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1872(15th of Tishrei, 5633): Sukkoth
1872: “Succoth- The Jewish Feast of Tabernacles” published today reported that “last evening witnessed the commencement of the Jewish feast of Succoth, or Tabernacles, which continues for eight days.” The article goes on to report that the first two and last two days are full holidays while the intermediate days are called Chol Hamoed and “are of no special import. The article continues with a description of the Thanksgiving aspect of the festival as well as the “extemporized booth” in which “the pious Israelite, surrounded by his family, takes his meals” in this “season of joy and thankfulness…”
1874: It was reported from Vienna today that the Italian Consul at Bucharest has refused to open negotiations for commercial treaty between Italy and Romania as long as the Jews of that country are not fully emancipated.
1874(5th of Cheshvan, 5635): Seventy-nine year old German rabbi and early supporter of Zionism Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, passed away.
http://zionism-israel.com/bio/kalischer_biography.htm
1874: It was reported today that Mr. Peixotto, the American Consul at Bucharest has refused to enter into negotiations with the government of Romania as long as the Jews of that country are denied their civil rights.
1874 (5th of Cheshvan, 5605): Rabbi Zevi Hersh Kalisher passed away. Born in 1795 in the Polish town of Lissa that had just become part of Germany, Kalisher was unique because he was an Orthodox Rabbi who believed that Jews develop a practical program for returning to Eretz Israel instead of just waiting for the coming of the Messiah. In 1860, he published Derishat Tziyyon , his blueprint for the return to the Holy Land. Almost forty years before the advent of Herzl and Zionism he called for a systematic purchase of land, the development of agriculture, the development of a self-defense force and the need to develop viable businesses to replace the charitable institutions that traditionally supported the Jews in Palestine. The Reform opposed Kalisher because of the nationalist content of the proposal. The Orthodox saw it as a form of blasphemy. One of the practical results of his work was the establishment of Mikveh Israel, a school located near Jaffa, designed to teach the new generation of pioneers the scientific agricultural skills that would enable them to reclaim the land.
1881(23rd of Tishrei, 5642): Three days after Eliezer Ben-Yehuda had what is believed to be the first modern conversation in Hebrew, Jews observed Simchat Torah\
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883(15th of Tishrei, 5644): Four month old Franz Kafka joined the rest of Jewry in observing Sukkoth
1886(17thof Tishrei, 5647): Shabbat Cho HaMoed Sukkoth
1886(17thof Tishrei, 5647): Sixty-year old German banker Mayer Carl von Rothschild, the nephew Amschel Mayer Rothschild passed away today
1886: Birthdate of David Ben-Gurion. To describe him as one of the earliest Zionist leaders, founding father of Israel, and its first Prime Minister would not even begin to do justice to this gigantic figure. Ben-Gurion was no saint and it is easy to criticize him. But he was a committed socialist. He truly believed in the brotherhood of man. At the same time, he was committed to the Zionist movement and worked to create a “new” Jew in a Jewish homeland. Ben-Gurion was a realist and a gambler. Despite a great deal of criticism, he was willing to accept the 1947 Partition Plan even though it an Jewish state without Jerusalem. At the same time, he was bold enough to declare the independence of the Jewish state in May of 1948 when most of the “smart” leaders of the world told him to wait. The modern state of Israel might have come into existence without Ben-Gurion, but it is hard to imagine how it would have happened. I urge you to read more about the truly remarkable, complex leader. He passed away on December 1, 1973.
1887: “Where Has The American Merchant Gone” published today bemoans the passing of the country’s mercantile activities into the hands of recent immigrants including Jews who usually “own the largest and best stocked store in town.” “The American importer of dry goods” have been replaced by “firms composed of well dressed and highly intelligent Jews,” Germans or even Scandinavians. Americans shrug their shoulders, say “it could not be helped “and then curse the foreigners as they drink a cocktail to their speedy downfall.”
1887: It was reported today that the property belonging to the Home for Aged and Infirm Hebrews in New York City is valued at $75,000 for tax purposes. But the building is tax exempt because it owned by a non-profit religious organization.
1888: The decision was made tonight “to depose” Professor Horowitz as manager of the fund raising theatrical productions being sponsored by the Jewish Order of the Harp of David appearing at Poole’s Theatre because “he has been running things in a high-handed manner.”
1888: Sixty-year old Horatio Gates Spafford, one of the founders of the “American Colony,” whose members “engaged in philanthropic work amongst the people of Jerusalem regardless of their religious affiliation and without proselytizing motives” lost his battle with malaria and passed away today following which he was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery.
1890: Joseph Jacobs, a Jewish glazier who was attacked by a gang in Jersey City is lying unconscious in City Hospital after having had his skull fractured by a paving stone.
1890: “City and Suburban News” published today described the upcoming social events which will be sponsored the Young Men’s Hebrew Association.
1892: “A Jewish Historical Society” published today described the organization of the American Jewish Historical Society under the presidency of Oscar S. Straus which has already gained the interest of European historians who are sending materials about “the Jews who first crossed the Atlantic with Columbus
1892: Saul Solomon passed away in Cape Town. A native of St. Helena, he settled in South Africa where he became a leader of the Liberal Party. He was known as the “Cape Disraeli” because, like his English predecessor, he converted but retained a public affection for his former co-religionists.
1892: Missouri Republican Party leader Isaac Isaacs said that unless Major Warner, the party’s nominee for governor fired his campaigner manager after he made anti-Semitic remarks, he would not even get 8 of the 1,200 Jewish votes in Kansas City and would lose most, if not all, of the 25,000 Jewish voters in the state.
1892(25thof Tishrei, 5653): Seventy-four year old Saul Isaac Kaempf a native of Posen and a disciple of Akiba Eger who became an assistant professor of Oriental languages at the University of Prague passed away today.
1892: “Did Harris Get Files from the Hallman” published today described the escape of Henry Harris from the Hudson County, NJ, Jail despite the fact the a Jewish prisoner, Benjamin Greyer, had warned authorities that prisoner Paul Zimmerman who was serving as a “hallman” had supplied Harris with two files for sawing through the bars.
1894: “They Will Not Deal With Strikers” published today described the organization of the Cloak and Suit Manufacturers’ Association whose officers included Frank and Louis Rothschild and which is the manufacturer’s to the strike of cloakmakers. (Editor’s Note: There are Jews on both sides of this fight)
1894: “Business Men and Tammany” published today provides a cross section of responses to the nomination of Nathan Strauss for Mayor. Most of its was negative as the respondents were “reformers” supporting William L. Strong and would have opposed any Tammany candidate. (None of the responses made any references to Strauss’ ethnicity)
1895: The will of Babet Karl which was prepared by her nephew Abraham Stern, “a wealthy real estate lawyer” “is on the Surrogate’s calendar for probate today even though a second will which was written after this name Rabbi Wise and his son as primary beneficiary has just been found.
1900(23rdof Tishrei, 5661): Simchat Torah celebrated for the first time in the 20thcentury.
1902(15thof Tishrei, 5663): On the same day that the first “Youthful Offenders Institution” opened in Borstal, Kent, UK, Jews observed Sukkoth
1906: Birthdate of León Klimovsky the Argentine dentist who gained fame as a film director.
1910: Birthdate of Sir MIsha Black, Russian-born British architect and designer.
1913(15thof Tishrei, 5674): Sukkoth
1913: In New York, Governor William Sulzer, who had been defended by William Marshall, was convicted on three articles of impeachment. Sulzer was replaced by his Lieutenant Governor, Martin Glynn, the author of the 1919 article “The Crucifixion of the Jews Must Stop!”
1917: President Woodrow Wilson sends word to Lloyd George that he approves of the issuance of the Balfour Declaration.
1918: Birthdate of Abraham Nemeth, who developed the Nemeth Code, a form of Braille that greatly improved the ability of visually impaired people to study complex mathematics (As reported by William Yardley)
1923: Birthdate of “Walter Zacharius, who rode the passion-swollen wave of romance fiction in the early 1980s to build the Kensington Publishing Corporation into a leading purveyor of bodice-rippers and other romance genres.” (As reported by William Grimes)
1923: Tonight at the Hotel Commodore the American Jewish Congress adopted a resolution prepared by the Committee On Palestine, assisted by Israel Zangwill, carrying out Mr. Zangwill's suggestion for a resolution insisting that the British Government fulfill its mandate under the League of Nations for the “upbuilding “of a Jewish national home in Palestine.
1924: In New York City Jennie (née Friedman) and Jacob J. Scherick gave birth to Edgar J. Scherick the ABC television producer who helped create “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”
1927(20thof Tishrei, 5688): Sukkoth Chol HaMoed
1927(20thof Tishrei, 5688): Thirty-four year old bootlegger and labor racketeer Jacob “Little Augie” Orgen died after having been shot by rivals while walking on the Lower East Side.
1930: Birthdate of Dan Pagis, Holocaust survivor and poet whose most famous work may be:
written in pencil in the sealed railway car
Here in this carload
I, Eve,
with my son Abel.
if you see my older boy,
Cain, the son of man
tell him that I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Belzec_oboz_zaglady_pomnik_ewa_abel.JPG
1933: The Associated Press reported that the German citizen who had assaulted a New Yorker named Dr. Daniel Mulvhill “because he had failed to ‘salute a Nazi detachment’” was being held at an unnamed concentration camp. (This seemingly harsh punishment may have been an attempt to ingratiate the new Nazi regime with the West while it went about its various nefarious activities including re-armament in violation of the Versailles Treaty)
1935: When the Belgian steamship Leopold II was unloading 97 tons of cement at Jaffa, “a tin case of cartridges concealed in a barrel” was discovered. According to “unconfirmed reports from Arab sources…800 rifles and 400,000 cartridges” were also found among the 537 barrels of cement. Officials have not been able to determine who was supposed to be getting the weaponry.
1937:Hans Achim Litten, a lawyer whose father had converted to Christianity before and who represented several of the opponents of the Nazis in court, arrived at Dachau where he was placed in the same barracks as the Jewish prisoners.
1939: Kraków, one of the most important Jewish communities since the 1300s, is designated the capital of the Generalgouvernement.
1939: “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” a three act comedy created by those Jewish stalwarts of the Broadway Theatre , George S. Kaufman, premiered at the Music Box in New York
1940: Warsaw Ghetto established. (In note of historic irony, six years later to the day, those convicted at the first Nuremberg Trial were hung)
1941: The Germans murdered 4,500 Jews outside of Lubny, Urkaine (USSR). Unknown Nazi photographers left a photo of a mother and her children just before the atrocity and a photo of a group of Jews awaiting their fate.
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/october/06.asp
1941: In response to Hitler's plea that all Jews must leave Germany, the first of twenty trains left Germany for the East. Jews from Luxemburg and Vienna were part of the deportation. Within the next month 19,827 Jews from the Reich would be sent to Lodz.
1941: The German Army advanced to within 60 miles (96 K) of Moscow. One not need romanticize life in Stalin’s Russia to recognize the courage of the Soviet Army. Stalin decided to remain in Moscow and take personal command of the battle. As bad as the Holocaust was, it would have been even worse if the Soviets had not held on. At the same time many revered the Soviet Army because it liberated so many of the camps as it later moved west towards Berlin.
1941(25th of Tishrei, 5702): Three days after the German murder of 15,000 Jewish residents of Dnepropetrtovsk, Ukraine, an additional 5000 Jews are executed in the town.
1941: The first SS deportation train of Western Jews travels to ghettos at Lódz, Lublin, and Warsaw, Poland.
1941(25th of Tishrei, 5702): Twenty trains carrying nearly 20,000 Jews travel from Germany, Luxembourg, Czechoslovakia, and Austria to the Lódz (Poland) Ghetto. The shipments will come to an end in the first week of November.
1942: Final liquidation of the Ghetto at Zamosc, Poland
http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/april/08.asp
1942: The Nazis arrest more than 1000 Jews in Rome and deport them to Auschwitz.
1943: German Ambassador to the Vatican Ernst von Weizsäcker compliments the Holy See for its "perfect even-handedness" in treating Germany and the Allies. When Weizsäcker asks what Pope Pius XII will do if the German government persists in its present Jewish policy in Italy, Vatican Secretary of State Maglione replies that "the Holy See would not want to be put in the position of having to utter a word of disapproval." The Pope is being "cautious so as not to give the German people the impression that [he] has done or has wished to do even the smallest thing against Germany during this terrible time.”
1943: Germans looking for Jews in Rome conduct house-to-house searches. About 1000 Jews are briefly held at Rome's Collegio Militare and then deported to Auschwitz. 477 Jews are sheltered in the Vatican, and another 4238 find sanctuary in convents and monasteries throughout Rome. Nevertheless, by this date more than 8300 Italian Jews have been deported to Auschwitz.
1943: In Rome, Germans searched through streets and homes for Jews. Of the 1,015 Jews taken on that morning only 16 would survive the war. Within two months, another 7,345 Jews would be found and deported from Northern Italy
1943: Two days after a violent Jewish revolt at the Sobibór death camp, SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders the camp destroyed.
1944: Birthdate of Joseph Sitruk the native of Tunisia who as Joseph Haim Sitruk served as Chief Rabbi of France from June, 1987 to June, 2008.
1944: Following the coup led by the Arrow Cross, the Germans and their Hungarian allies resume resumed their attacks on the Jews of Budapest. Jews were again dragged from their homes and into the streets. Then for the next 10 days, all Jews are forbidden to leave their homes.
1944: Germans and members of the Fascist Nyilas group prohibit Jews in Budapest, Hungary, from leaving their homes. Many Jewish slave laborers are killed by Nyilas members on a bridge linking Buda with Pest.
1944: In Rome, the roundup of the Jewish population began. “SS troops surrounded the Lungotevere, the former ghetto area, where some 4,000 of the city’s 12,000 Jews still lived.” The SS selected 1,000 men, women and children for immediate shipment to Auschwitz. This was only the beginning of a march to the Death Camps that took place in the city of the Pope.
1944:Composer, conductor, pianist and music critic Viktor Ullmann was sent to Auschwitz today.
1945: David Lubin’s dream for the creation of an “international organization for food and agriculture” came to fruition today with the founding of The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
1945: During the presentation of the Army-Navy “E” Award (a commendation for outstanding production during WW II) at Los Alamos, NM, Robert Oppenheimer delivered his “farewell speech” as director of the project that led to the development of the Atomic Bomb.
1945(9th of Cheshvan, 5706): Eighty-year old Berta Zuckerland, the daughter of Mortiz Szeps and the wife of Dr. Emil Zuckerkandl who was famous for her Salon in Vienna passed away today in Paris after having spent much of the war in Algeria.
1946: Ten Nazi leaders were hanged as war criminals after the Nuremberg trials. This chart shows the fate of those tried at Nuremberg.
Name | --Count-- | Sentence | Notes | ||||
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||||
Martin Bormann | I | º | G | G | Death | In absentia | |
Karl Dönitz | I | G | G | º | 10 years | ||
Hans Frank | I | º | G | G | Death | Expressed repentance | |
Wilhelm Frick | I | G | G | G | Death | ||
Hans Fritzsche | I | I | I | º | Acquitted | ||
Walter Funk | I | G | G | G | Life Imprisonment | ||
Hermann Göring | G | G | G | G | Death | ||
Rudolf Hess | G | G | I | I | Life Imprisonment | Hitler's deputy, flew to England in 1941 | |
Alfred Jodl | G | G | G | G | Death | ||
Ernst Kaltenbrunner | I | º | G | G | Death | Highest surviving SS-leader | |
Wilhelm Keitel | G | G | G | G | Death | ||
Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach | I | I | I | I | ---- | Medically unfit for trial | |
Robert Ley | I | I | I | I | ---- | ||
Konstantin von Neurath | G | G | G | G | 15 years | ||
Franz von Papen | I | I | º | º | Acquitted | ||
Erich Raeder | I | G | I | º | Life Imprisonment | ||
Joachim von Ribbentrop | G | G | G | G | Death | Nazi Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
Alfred Rosenberg | G | G | G | G | Death | Racial theory ideologist | |
Fritz Sauckel | I | I | G | G | Death | ||
Hjalmar Schacht | I | I | º | º | Acquitted | ||
Baldur von Schirach | G | º | º | G | 20 years | ||
Arthur Seyss-Inquart | I | G | G | G | Death | ||
Albert Speer | º | º | G | G | 20 Years | Responsible for several aspects of industry and a central figure in leadership, expressed repentance. | |
Julius Streicher | I | º | º | G | Death | ||
1948: During Operation Yoav, Israeli forces were repulsed after heavy fighting as they tried to open the road to Jewish settlements in the Negev and Beersheba.
1948: “Arab Legion forces at the Arab-held Zion Gate attacked the Jewish positions on Mount Zion, but were driven off after fierce fighting.”
1948(13th of Tishrei, 5709): Twenty-seven year old Mordechai “Modi” Alon died today when his plane crashed after returning from an attack on Egyptian forces. A native of Safed, Alon trained with the RAF during World War II and flew in the first combat mission undertaken by the Israeli Air Force in May of 1948. He scored infant air forces’ first kills when he shoot down to Royal Egyptian Air Force C-47’s over Tel Aviv. These air victories were more than just numbers. They gave heart to the beleaguered Yishuv who had had no protection from the air forces of their Arab attackers.
1948: Leonard Bernstein, who had come to Israel specifically to do this, conducted a concert of the newly created Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at Jerusalem’s Edison Theatre. “He did so amid the persistent background noise of rifle and machine-gun fire from the direction of the Old City. The climax of the evening was Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” According to eye witness Tom Tugend, “’Towards the end of the first movement machine-gun fire burst out in the Old City, held by Jordanian forces. The gunfire continued unabated throughout the performance. Lenny and the orchestra never missed a beat.’”
1948: Birthdate of Bruce Fleisher, the Union City, TN native who became a successful professional golfer.
1949(23rd of Tishrei, 5710): On the same day that the Greek Civil War came to an end marking a victory for the West in what was called the “Cold War,” Jews observed Simchat Torah
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported from New York that hundreds of Jewish congregations throughout the US joined in a unique nationwide effort on behalf of the Israel Independence Bonds sales drive, to mark the recent holiday period. Tens of thousands of bonds were sold in scores of cities in which leading American personalities visited synagogues to present the facts about the importance of such action. In New York the actor Edward G. Robinson canceled his important personal plans to substitute for his colleague, Eddie Cantor, who became ill, and to participate in a series of special, festive Bond dinners.
1955: Esther Lederer, writing as Ann Landers, had her first advice column published in the Chicago Sun Times. By the end of Lederer's life, Ann Landers had become the world's most widely syndicated column, published in more than 1,200 publications and with more than 90 million readers around the world.When Esther Lederer and her husband moved to Chicago in the 1950s, she contacted a family friend at the Chicago Sun Times to see whether the columnist Ann Landers needed any help in writing her column. The Sun Times was in the process of finding a replacement writer for the column, and Lederer took over as the new Landers, a name that would remain with her for the rest of her life. Because Lederer had been involved in politics and had volunteered extensively, she was very well connected, and her column reflected these connections. Lederer was able to solicit advice from experts in many different fields. From her column, Landers openly opposed racism and anti-Semitism, and devoted much space to fighting injustice. Lederer continued to write as Ann Landers for 46 years, until her death in 2002.
1957: The German Pharmacological Society is scheduled to present a medal at 4 o’clock this afternoon to Dr. Otto Lowei, Research Professor of Pharmacology at the College of Medicine of NYU and the winner of the 1936 Noble Prize in Medicine.
1960: “Israel Gives Aid to New Nations,” an article published today described the visit to the United States of Dr. Benjamin Mazar, the noted archaeologist and President of Hebrew University. During his visit, Dr. Mazar described the aid that Israel is providing to the newly emerging nations of Africa and Asia including the enrollment of 100 students from nations in these two continents in courses at Hebrew University and the sponsorship by the government of Ethiopia of several medical students at the university’s medical school. The university has also sent teams to various developing countries to aid in the development of educational and health programs.
1961: Birthdate of French-Jewish novelist Marc Levy.
1966:”Eh?” by Henry Livings, which premiered at the Circle in the Square Downtown, featuring Dustin Hoffman in “his first critical success.”
1969: A revival of “3 Men on a Horse” co-starring Jack Gilford and Hal Linden opened at the Lyceum Theatre.
1970: Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt, succeeding Gamal Abdel Nasser. Sadat was responsible for the Yom Kippur War. But his claim to fame was the courage to risk all with his famous trip to Jerusalem and the peace treaty with Israel. His motives are of less importance than the deeds he performed.
1970: Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison, was designated as a National Historic Site. Among those who were imprisoned in the camp was George Geiger who would go on to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his bravery at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
1973: Just after mid-night, a small force of Israeli tanks crossed to the western bank of the Suez Canal. This daring success was a closely held secret. The first task of this force was to find and destroy the
1973: Events on the northern front dispelled any doubt as to how broad support was in the Arab world for this war aimed at destroying Israel. Israeli forces were forced to fight two major tank battles on the Syrian front and neither of them was with the Syrians. In the first battle a Jordanian brigade including twenty-eight tanks was beaten back. In the second fight, the Israelis faced a larger number of Iraqi tanks. Exactly how many Iraqi tanks were involved is unknown; all the Israelis know is that the Iraqis left the hulks of sixty tanks behind when they retreated.
1973: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho jointlywere awarded Nobel peace prize. Kissinger is Jewish. Le Duc Tho is not Jewish. Kissinger was a refugee from Nazi Germany. In the 1950”s when others in academia were converting to advance their careers, Kissinger did not choose to follow that path.
1973: American Sephardi Federation and the Sephardic community at large collected $4,000,000 for Israel by week two of the Yom Kippur war.
1977: Birthdate of John Meyers, creator of Blues for Peace which was set up in Israel to honor the roots of blues music and promote peace and the understanding that
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that three people were slightly injured, two of them tourists, by two bombs thrown at them by Arab terrorists in the Old City of Jerusalem. There was no security barrier, no trip to the Temple Mount by Sharon, etc. In other words, each of these current excuses for terror are just that excuses for continuing behavior of longstanding.
1978(15th of Tishrei, 5739): Sukkoth
1981 (8th of Tishrei, 5742): Moshe Dayan passed away. The much acclaimed Israeli general with the eye-patch was born in 1915. He was one of the first children born at Deganya Alef, “the mother of all kibbutzim.” Dayan joined the Haganah at the age of 14, learning military tactics from the fabled British Captain, Orde Wingate. He lost his left eye fighting the Vichy French in Lebanon during World War II. Dayan held a variety of important positions during Israel’s fight for independence. During the 1950’s he helped mold the IDF and led it to a lightening victory over Egypt in 1956. Dayan left the Army to purse a role in politics, but returned to serve as Minister for Defense during both the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars. In a an unexpected switch, Dayan joined the right wing government Begin government and served as the Foreign Minister who negotiated the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. Dayan died at the age of 66, a victim of colon cancer.
1981(8thof Tishrei, 5742): Sixty five year old Haim Landau who made Aliyah in 1935, joined both Betar and Irgun before serving as an MK and government minister passed away today.
1981:”Writer of Central Europe Wins Nobel Prize” published today provides John Vincour’s description of the triumph scored by Sephardic Jew Elias Canetti.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/16/books/81nobel-cane.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A13%22%7D
1982: GeorgeShultz warns that the United States will withdraw from the UN if they vote to exclude Israel.
1983 (9th of Cheshvan, 5744): Dr. Leonardo De Benedetti, friend and companion of Primo Levi, passed away at the age of 85 in the Jewish Rest Home where he had lived for years.
1986: Ron Arad, Israeli Weapons System Officer, is captured by Lebanese Shi'ite militia Amal.
1986:Armand Hammer returns to the United States with Jewish refusenik David Goldfarb.
1986: The Jonathan Netanyahu Memorial by Buky Schwartz, was dedicated outside the entrance to the National Museum of American Jewish History, along the walkway between 4th and 5th Streets north of Market Street today.The sculpture, donated by Muriel and Philip Berman, consists of four white marble monolithic vertical blocks, roughly 7' high by 2' deep and wide, standing in a square formation. The four blocks originated from one block of stone.Yonatan "Yoni" Netanyahu or Jonathan Netanyahu was a member of the Israel Defense Forces elite Sayeret Matkal unit. Yoni was awarded the Medal of Distinguished Service for his conduct in the Yom Kippur War. He was killed in action during Operation Entebbe at Entebbe airport in 1976, by Ugandan soldiers, when the Israeli military rescued hostages after an aircraft hijacking. He was the leader of the assault, and the only Israeli military casualty of the raid. His younger brother Benjamin Netanyahu was Prime Minister of Israel from 1996-1999. The National Museum of American Jewish History, founded in 1976, contains a large collection on the role and the everyday life of Jews in America. In 2010 the museum will open the doors to a new state-of-art facility
1993: Anti-Nazi riot breaks out in Welling in Kent, after police stop protesters approaching the British National Party headquarters.
1995(22ndof Tishrei, 5756): Shemini Atzeret
1997(15thof Tishrei, 5758): Sukkoth
1997: Prolific American Author James Michener passed away at the age of 90 in Austin, Texas. . A non-Jew, Michener’s specialty was historic fiction in the tradition of the grand saga. One of Michener’s most famous books was The Source. In it he traced the history of the Jews from earliest times to modern days using the artifacts discovered at an fictional archeological dig as the literary springboard. It is one of the easiest ways to enter into the world of Jewish history.
1997: Sir Isaiah Berlin, who had been gravely ill since late July, made what turned out to be a final statement on the subject of the Israeli–Palestinian situation. "Since both sides begin with a claim of total possession of Palestine as their historical right; and since neither claim can be accepted within the realms of realism or without grave injustice: it is plain that compromise, i.e. partition, is the only correct solution, along Oslo lines – for supporting which Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish bigot. Ideally, what we are calling for is a relationship of good neighbors, but given the number of bigoted, terrorist chauvinists on both sides, this is impracticable. The solution must lie somewhat along the lines of reluctant toleration, for fear of far worse – i.e. a savage war which could inflict irreparable damage on both sides. As for Jerusalem, it must remain the capital of Israel, with the Muslim holy places being extra-territorial to a Muslim authority, and an Arab quarter, with a guarantee from the United Nations of preserving that position, by force if necessary." To make a statement of this kind was unusual for him, since he rarely if ever made public statements on political topics, though, in the case of Israel, he was ready to be known as a supporter of Peace Now. On this occasion, however, he decided to take what might be his last opportunity to set out his strongly held views, which he sent in the form of a brief statement (dictated to his secretary) entitled ‘Israel and the Palestinians’ to his close friend Professor Avishai Margalit in Jerusalem.
2002: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance posthumously awarded the Museum’s Medal of Resistance to Heshek Bauminger and Aharon Liebeskind, founders of the Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) in the Cracow Ghetto. Hela Schupper-Raufaizen, who fought with the JFO in Cracow, accepted the medal during the summer on their behalf.
2005:The New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 by Tony Judt, In Case We’re Separated: Connected Storiesby Alice Mattison, The Other Shulman by Alan Zweibel and The Tiger In the Attic: Memories of the Kindertransport and Growing Up Englishby Edith Milton
2005(24th of Tishrei, 5767): Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis and wounded as least 5 others in two separate drive-by shootings in the West Bank. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for both attacks.
2005: Even in disaster, hope can be found. In a move that would have been unthinkable only months ago, Pakistan has expressed a willingness to accept aide from Israel as the Moslem nation deals with the aftermath of a major earthquake. 2005: “My Four Hours Testifying in the Federal Jury Room,” published today provided Judith Miller’s account of her time spent before the federal grand jury.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html?pagewanted=all&module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A13%22%7D
2007: At the Jewish Museum of Florida an exhibition styled “Zap Pow Bam - Super Heroes of the Golden Age of Comics” opens. “Look! Up in the Sky! It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane! It’s Zap Pow Bam, a colorful dynamic exhibit that immerses visitors in an interactive world of Super Heroes, highlighting the Jewish creators of comic books from 1938 – 1950. These are America’s timeless icons like Superman, Batman, Captain America and Wonder Woman – including the phone booth where Superman changed his clothes and a Batmobile. Zap Pow Bam features 1940s serials, video interviews, a drawing studio and costumes. The exhibit offers a unique perspective on the way pop culture portrays issues and how identity and culture can shape popular opinion.”
2008: Proposed date on which Italy’s Holocaust Museum will open in Rome on the 65thanniversary of the German capture of more than 1,000 Jews from Rome’s ghetto, a major Holocaust episode in Italy.
2008: At SUNY New Paltz as part of the Israel @ 60 celebration the Resnick Institute for the Study of Modern Jewish Life hosts a lecture by Dr. Len Lyons, author and member of the Ethiopian Jewry Committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Boston, entitled"The Ethiopian Jews of Israel."
2008: One thousand Jews traveled in and out of Nablus on buses from midnight to 5 a.m. in a brief pilgrimage to the burned-out shell of the building that covers Joseph's Tomb.
2009: Scottish actress Ronni Ancona appeared for the second time this year on “The One Show.”
2009: The joint Israeli-US Navy military exercise code named “Juniper Cobra” comes to an end.
2009: Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett’s “The Diary of Anne Frank” is performed at Kimmel Theatre on the campus of Cornell College in Mt. Vernon Iowa. The production is based on Wendy Kesselman’s acclaimed new adaptation of the play that makes thoughtful use of recently recovered segments of Anne’s diary to deepen our understanding both of the cultural context of the events and to present a much more complex (and less sentimental) Anne.
2009: Acclaimed Israeli choreographer Hofesh Shechter makes his West Coast debut at UCLA Live with his UK-based company performing “Uprising,” inspired by the Paris protests of 2006 and “In Your Rooms,” which traces Shechter’s traumatic time in the Israeli military. The 33-year-old is one of Britain’s most sought-after choreographers.
2009: In an article entitled “Book on March Rich Detials His Iran Oil Deals,” Jad Mouawad examines the life this rogue businessman who profited from the oil industry while working with a host of governmental agencies including the U.S. State Department and Mossad as he reviews The King of Oil by Daniel Ammann.
2009: The Irish tenor Ronan Tynan, a fixture at Yankee Stadium for years with his stirring rendition of “God Bless America,” was scheduled to belt out the song again during Game 1 of the American League Championship Series today. Instead, he was disinvited by the Yankees after he admitted making an anti-Semitic remark at his Manhattan apartment building a day earlier. Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Yankees, said the team took action as soon as Tynan acknowledged making the comment. “He acknowledged that he used the slur and the Yankees stepped right in,” Rubenstein said tonight. The Yankees indicated today that Tynan would not be invited to sing at Yankee Stadium for the rest of the 2009 postseason but might be invited back in the future. Rubenstein said the Yankees were notified about 5 p.m. Thursday by a New York University physician, Gabrielle Gold-Von Simson, who was present when Tynan made the remark. Rubenstein said the incident occurred when a real estate agent was showing an apartment in Tynan’s building to Gold-Von Simson and jokingly said to Tynan, “Don’t worry, they’re not Red Sox fans.” Tynan reportedly replied, “I don’t care about that, as long as they are not Jewish.” Rubenstein said that after admitting his remarks to the Yankees, Tynan, 49, called Ms. Gold-Von Simson to apologize. “She said that if he gave a sincere apology she would forgive him,” Rubenstein said. “He did that to her satisfaction. He was very apologetic.” Tynan has been singing “God Bless America” at Yankee Stadium for years. A former member of the Irish Tenors, he did not embark on his music career until he was 33 and had already earned a medical degree. Tynan had both legs amputated below the knees after a car accident at age 20. But within a year he had entered the Paralympics, and in the 1984 and 1988 games won gold medals in the discus, the shot put and the long jump. Ronan sang at the Sept. 28, 2001, memorial for victims of Sept. 11. He first sang at the old Yankee Stadium in the 2000 season. When he will sing again at the new one is now unclear.
2010: Avishai Cohen, singing in in Hebrew, English, Spanish and Ladino, is scheduled to perform at the Winter Garden in New York City.
2010: The new Natalie G. Heineman Smart Love Preschool was dedicated to the memory of her life and her love and understanding of children.
2011: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is among the partners supporting Ford’s Theatre scheduled matinee and evening productions of “Parade,” a Tony-award winning musical drama about the story of Leo Frank, who was lynched by a Georgia mob after having been wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Christian girl working in his factory.
2011: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Puppy Diaries: Raising a Dog Named Scout” by Jill Abramson and “Until The Dawn’s Light” by Aharon Appelfeld; translated by Jeffery Green.
2011: The Los Angeles Times features a review of “MetaMaus” by Art Spiegelman which is “a lavish deconstruction of his magnum opus” known to one and all as “Maus.”
2011:The Shalit family requested today to be present at a High Court of Justice hearing, scheduled to discuss petitions issued geared at thwarting a prisoner exchange deal that would secure the release of their son, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, warning that any delay in the agreement's execution could lead to its failure.
2011:Palestinian terrorists due to be deported overseas as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal will no doubt find their way back to Palestinian land, a top Hamas official said in an interview today
2011: Two Palestinians who participated in the 2000 lynching of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers in Ramallah will be released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap deal, an official prisoners list indicated today. Israeli reservist Vadim Norzhich and Yosef Avrahami were killed in October 2000, at the start of the intifada, after they mistakenly drove their car into the West Bank city. Both reservists were arrested and then beaten to death by Palestinians who stormed the police station where they were being held.
2012: The Raw Men Empire, “an Israeli indie folk band” formed in 2009, is scheduled to perform at CMJ Music Marathon in New York.
2012: In Herndon, VA, Congregation Beth Emeth’s Hazak Chapter is scheduled to present a lecture by Dr. Mark Lowenthal, President and CEO of the Intelligence & Security Academy.
2012: Delegates to the Hadassah Convention are scheduled to “march, sing, dance and cheer” their way “through the streets in downtown Jerusalem” as they mark the opening of their convention.
2012: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and the Consulate General of Lithuania in NY are scheduled to present “Reclaiming the Jewish Narrative in Lithuania Today,” a lecture by Markas Zingeris, Lithuanian Jewish author and Director of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum.
2012:Israel will weigh military action if it suspects Syria’s chemical weapons might fall into the hands of terrorist organizations, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said today.
2012: Vandals desecrated the grave of former defense minister and IDF chief of staff Moshe Dayan tonight (As reported by Ben Hartman)
2012: A rocket fired from Gaza hit close to a house in the Hof Ashkelon area tonight
2012:The Contemporary Jewish Museum's “California Dreaming: Jewish life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to Present” is scheduled to come to an end. (For more about American Jewry in the American West see Harriet Rochlin Western Jewish History
http://www.rochlin-roots-west.com/ )
http://www.rochlin-roots-west.com/ )
2012(30thof Tishrei, 5773): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
2013:The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is scheduled to present an evening with Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz author of For the Next Generation: A Wake-Up Call to Solving Our Nation's Problems
2013: In New York, The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to present “Transcending Tradition: Jewish Mathematicians in German-Speaking Academic Culture”
2013: The Lawrence Family JCC is scheduled to present “Middle East Updated” with Professor Sandy Lakoff
2013: The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis next week.
2013: The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will be able to reopen following the vote by Congress to approve legislation that will federal agencies to resume operation and raise the debt limit.
2014(22ndof Tishrei, 5775): Shemini Atsert
2014: At noon today, the Eden-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to host a Festive Concert featuring the Philomusica Piano Quartet.
2014: In the evening, Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa led by Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host a Simchat Torah celebration complete with “pizza and treats.”
2014: In the evening, Agudas Achim in Coralville, Iowa led by Rabbi Jeff Portman is scheduled to host a Simchat Torah celebration complete with “pizza and treats.”
2014: In the UK, The Oxford University Jewish Society chaplains are scheduled to host a Simchat Torah dinner this evening.
2014: Lewis Black is scheduled to appear at the Palace Theatre in Albany, NY