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This Day, October 27, In Jewish History by Mitchell A. Levin

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OCTOBER 27

312:  Constantine the Great is said to have received his famous Vision of the Cross which will join the Sword of Constantine to the Cross of Christ in the governing of the Roman Empire, much to the detriment of the Jews for centuries to come.

710: Islamic forces, variously described as Saracens, Berbers or Moors, raided Sardinia which is under the nominal control of the Byzantine (Christian) Empire. This is just one more in a series of raids that began in the first decade of the eighth century.  Jews had been living on the island from the days of the Emperor Tiberius when 4,000 of them were banished from Rome.  While information about the Jews living on Sardinia during this period is sketchy there were numerous Jewish communities including one at Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia. Toward the end of the sixth century, a converted Jew named Peter placed images of saints in the synagogue in Cagliari on Easter Monday. The Jews lodged a complaint with Pope Gregory the Great, who ordered Bishop Januarius of Cagliari to have the images at once removed. We also know that the Jews must have survived whatever damage was done to the island by marauding Moors because there is a record of the synagogue in Cagliari having been destroyed by a fire at the end of the 8thcentury.

1156:Birthdate of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse and Marquis of Provence.  He was considered to be so sympathetic to the Jews that Pope Innocent III caused him to take an oath "that he would deprive the Jews of their offices and that he would never appoint any Jews or in any way favor them. 

1275: Founding of the modern city of Amsterdam.  While there are reports of Jews living in the Low Countries an area that would have included the Netherlands, going back to Roman times, the Jewish community of Amsterdam dates from the 16th century when Marranos and Sephardim found there way to the Protestant city.

1430: Vytautas the Great, Grand Prince of Lithuania, passed away. According to some Jewish historians, the reign of Vytautas the Great was the golden age for Jews of Lithuania-Poland.

1466:  Birthdate of Dutch humanist and theologian Desiderius Erasmus.  While Erasmus may be revered by the world at large, he gets mixed notices from Jewish sources.  On the one hand he spoke up for Jews when he said, “If it is Christian to hate the Jews, all of us are only too good Christians.” At the same time he was above a little Jew-bashing when wrote, “Jews are very numerous in Italy; in Spainthere are hardly Christians.  I am aft raid that when the occasion arise, that pest formerly suppressed, will raise its head again.”

1495: Coronation of Manuel I, the king of Portugal who had ascended to throne two days earlier and who in 1496 exiled “thousands of Jews to São Tomé, Príncipe, and Cape Verde.”

1682: Founding of the city of Philadelphiaby William Penn.  The city’s name means “brotherly love.” Twenty-six years before William Penn, the Quaker leader who founded Philadelphiaset foot in the New World in 1682, a few Jews were trading with the Native Americans along the South River, later known as the Delaware River. After the British took New York, merchants from the former Dutch city, included Jewish merchants, saw opportunity in Philadelphia.  One of them was the New York-born son of Moses Levy, established merchant, active in the Jewish community of New York. In 1737, Nathan Levy settled permanently in Philadelphiawhere he built a business of his own. He and his cousin, David Franks, formed the first important Jewish company there, Levy and Franks, importers and merchants. In the 1740’s Levy would be the leader of the group that formed MikvehIsraelCemetery.  MikvehIsraelCemeterywould lead to the formation of the first Jewish congregation in Philadelphia, Mikveh Israel. 

1708: The community of Metz entered into contract with Abraham ben Saul Broda for him to serve as the community’s rabbi.

1765: The last public Auto da Fe was held in Portugal.

1779: During the American Revolution, Solomon Bush, whose father Matthias had been one of the signers of the non-importation agreement in 1765, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel today.

1786: Birthdate of Frédéric Cerfberr, the native of Strasburg , the French diplomat who served as consul in New York, New Orleans and Haiti where his daughter was killed in an earthquake and he suffered what would prove to be fatal injuries.

1827: Birthdate of Levi Goldenberger, the native of Germany who came to the United States where he became a successful lace importer.

1844: Ferdinand Eberstadt of Worms/Mannheim and his wife Sara Seligmann gave birth to Elizabeth Eberstadt, the sister of architect Rudolph Eberstadat and the second wife of Sir George Henry Lewis.

1858 RH Macy & Co opened its first store on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Gross receipts for the day totaled $1106.  The Straus family, which had been leasing space in Macy's to operate a chinaware department, the store's most profitable section, acquired the Macy’s in 1896 and turned it into one of the country’s leading department stores.  One sign of the change came in when they relocated the store to its Herald square location at 34th Street and Broadway in

1858: Birthdate of Theodore Roosevelt 26th President of the United States.  In 1903, Rooseveltmoved boldly to confront the Czar over the massacre of the Jews at Kishinev.  Roosevelt’s intervention on behalf the Jews was unusual and won him and the Republican Party a great deal of support in years to come. Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt donated some of his prize money to the National Jewish Welfare Board.

1859: Sir Saul Samuel begins serving the first of two terms as Treasurer of New South Wales.

1862: In a report published today the New York Times special correspondent covering the Army of the Potomac described troop movements in and around Culpepper and Warrenton, VA as well as the disposition of Rebel troops in Richmond.  The report is based on an interview that he had with a man whom he described as “a Jew” who has resided in the South for several years, “so that his statement are not considered the most reliable.”  This Jew claimed that the reason he had taken refuge within the lines of the Union Army was to escape the rebellion.

1866: Sir George Jessel, Solicitor-General and Master of the Rolls and Amelia Moses gave birth to Herbert Jessel, British soldier and Member of Parliament.

1872:  “A Startling Novelty” published today traces the history of embalming.  Based on Genesis, “And Joseph commanded his servants, the physicians to embalms his father; and the physicians embalmed Israel” and “So Joseph died, and being an hundred and ten years old; and they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.”  While the Israelites learned about embalming from the Egyptians, the latter used a much more elaborate process and “the embalmers were regarded as…sacred persons.”

 
1875: “Hebrews of New York” published today praised the record “which Jacob Hess has made for himself in one session of the Assembly” as “one of which any patriot may be proud.”

1878: It was reported today that the Hebrew Benevolent Society is among those organizations in New Orleans that is continuing to provide aid to those suffering during the region’s Yellow Fever Epidemic.

1878: Birthdate of Murray Seasongood, future Mayor of Cincinnati and Harvard law school professor.

1879: “Bull-Dozing In Mississippi” published today described a political meeting held at Bolivar Landing, in Bolivar Country, MS, where a resolution was allegedly passed denouncing Edward Storm as “a dishonest Jew, the servile tool of the slave-owner before the war, and the convenient and abandoned ally of the corrupt carpet bagger” since the end of the Civil War. (Since no record can be found of a Jew by this name, one has to wonder if labeling him as a “Jew” was an attempt to smear him by his political opponents who had already identified him with the aristocracy, carpetbaggers and Republicans)


1880: Henry Abbey and Louis de Bebian were among those who greeted the famous Jewish actress Sara Bernhardt when she arrived off the coast of the United States aboard the SS Amerique.

1880:“Jewish Longevity” published today reported that the Jews “have become the admired and beloved of the life insurance companies…The reason is that the Christians, after paying one or two premiums, has an unpleasant way of dying…The insured Jew…pays his premium year after year and thus becomes a constant source of income.”  There is a great deal of speculation as to why this is true. According to the author, it may be tied to the business practices of Jews which tend to be less speculative than those of Christians.  This enables the Jew to sleep soundly at night while his Christian counterpart tosses and turns. Diet is another reason.  Jews eat and drink in moderation as compared to their Christian counterparts and do not eat pork. Finally, Jews marry other Jews which preserves “the purity of their blood.”

1881: A woman who claimed to be  Mrs. Amelia Goldberg, an English Jew and her 11 year old child were found wandering the streets of New York dressed in rags today which led to them being taken into custody and “being committed to the care of the Commissioners of Charities and Correction.

1882: “Mordecai Lyons” published today reviewed Edward Harrigan’s new play which features “a Jew who, when he finds that his daughter has been betrayed” tries to avenge her. While the reviewer found the play disappointing he felt that Mr. Harrigan “was artistically effective as the Jew, Mordecai, though rather uncertain at the important situations.


1884: “A service was held at Ramsgate to-day in honor of Sir Moses Montifore. Chief Rabbi Adler read a special prayer. Sir Moses insisted upon standing through the entire service, at the conclusion of which he said in a very strong voice: "I cannot tell a thousandth or a ten thousandth part of what I feel when by the blessing of the almighty I have arrived at so full an age.” A reception followed the service.  On this day alone, Montifore received more than 800 letters and 600 telegrams from a whole host of well-wishers, Jew and Gentile alike.

1884: “A Life Spent In Charity” published today described the various services held to honor Sir Moses Montefiore on his 100th birthday. Henry Ward Beecher, the leading Protestant minister of his time, described him as being “the distinguished citizen of the world” who “by his long life and by his splendid services in the way of humanity, has become himself a text that involves in it the truths both of the Old and the New Testament.”

1885: It was reported today “Miss Rebecca Rosenthal, a Baxter Street Blond” joined hands with Patrick Divver, the candidate for Ward 6 Alderman, to lead the opening march at the Patrick Divver Hebrew Association’s annual ball.  Jewish political leader Coroner Levy addressed the attendees and urged them to vote for Divver.

 
1886: Reports published today described the view of S.S. (Samuel Sullivan) Cox, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, on the condition of Jewish communities overseas including the fact that “he had been as favorably impressed by the Hebrews of Turkey as by those of Western Europe and America.”

 
1889: “A Patriarchal Scribe” published today described the work of an aged Hebrew working in the corner of a grocery store on Division Street in New York’s lower east side who for a small fee, wrote letters in Hebrew to be sent back to families in Europe while demonstrating the skill to complete the information on the envelope so that the epistle would arrive at its proper destination.


1889: It was reported today that while on their way back from raiding the offices of the Louisiana Lotter, police in Boston had arrested “Barnett Gompertz, the little English Jew eyeglass peddler who has had a stand at the head of Williams Court, otherwise known as Pie Alley, for over twenty years.”

1889: “Christians Made Jewess” published today described the process by which a young English woman converted to Judaism before she was married at the West London Synagogue on Upper Berkeley Street.

 
1891: Birthdate of Paul Grüninger the police commander in Canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland who saved 3,601 from the Nazis following the Anschluss in 1938.

1891: It was reported today that the  government of Turkey has prohibited the immigration of Jewish families of any nationality meaning that they cannot settle in Palestine. But individual Jews are allowed to pass through the empire.

1894: At Temple Emanu-El in New York, Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a sermon related to the upcoming election in which he used the life of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes to deliver an apolitical lesson on civic responsibility.

1895:Austrian Prime Minister Badeni revives the "Presse", forerunner and now out-lived rival of the "Neue Freie Press." Herzl is offered the editorship of the "Presse". After some days of negotiations with Moritz Benedikt, Herzl refuses the offer.

1896(20thof Cheshvan, 5657): Less than a month before his 62nd birthday, Isaac Bamberger, the rabbi at the reform congregation in Königsberg passed away today.

1902:Herzl arrives in Vienna having finished his trip to London.

1903: Herzl travels to Edlach, Austria.

1906: Mutilated bodies of Jewish women were found in the streets of Arzila, Tangier.

1908: Birthdate of abstract expressionist painter Lee Krasner who died in 1984.

1911: An article datelined Yuzivka, Russia, entitled “More Jews to be Expelled: Will Cuase Much Hardship,” reports that the Governor has signed a proclamation stating that  all Jews in the Province of Ekaterinoslaff are subject to expulsion, with some limited exceptions.

1912: Erna Reiss and Alfred Döblin, the German born physician and author gave birth to their first son Peter

1913: During the first Balkan war, practically the entire Jewish community of Itchip numbering 710 people fled to Salonica to avoid having to face the conquering Bulgarian army. Only 6 men and 2 youths stayed behind. Two of the old men were killed; all the Jewish homes were plundered and demolished. Synagogues were desecrated and burned, as were 24 Jewish stores and homes. 

1914: Twenty-four year old Louis Weinstein “a British subject from Cape Town, described the events that took him from the coast of South Africa to Brazil and eventually to New York where he “is in the care of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society.”

1914: As Americans respond to the needs for funds to relieve the suffering of war torn Europe, Jacob Schiff, the Treasurer of the New York branch of the American Red Cross “announced additional subscriptions amounting to $2, 841.”

1922(5thof Cheshvan, 5683): Civil War Congressional Medal of Honor winner who received the commendation at the Battle of Franklin (TN) passed away today.

1923: On the upper West Side of Manhattan realtor Milton Lichtenstein and Beatrice Werner Lichtenstein gave birth to Roy Lichtenstein who “did cartoon inspired paintings that helped launch the Pop Art movement. “

 
1924: Grigorii Zinoviev, the Jewish born head of the Comintern issued a denial that he authored the so called Zinoviev Letter that stated in part "The letter of 15th September, 1924, which has been attributed to me, is from the first to the last word, a forgery. Let us take the heading. The organization of which I am the president never describes itself officially as the "Executive Committee of the Third Communist International"; the official name is "Executive Committee of the Communist International." Equally incorrect is the signature, "The Chairman of the Presidium." The forger has shown himself to be very stupid in his choice of the date. On the 15th of September, 1924, I was taking a holiday in Kislovodsk, and, therefore, could not have signed any official letter...”  The denial was finally published in the December 1924 issue of The Communist Review, the monthly theoretical magazine of the CPGB, well after the MacDonald government had fallen. Decades later, independent academic research proved that the letter was a forgery.

1924: Premiere of “The Story Without A Name,” a silent film melodrama produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky

1929(23rd of Tishrei, 5690): Simchat Torah

1933: Arabs protesting Jewish immigration to Palestine clashed with police today resulting in at least twenty deaths and injuries to another 130 of the demonstrators.  Among the dead and wounded were Arabs who had attacked a police station in Haifa where a policeman was stabbed in the back.

1935: One hundred and fifty Zionists honored Morris Rothenberg President of the Zionist Organization of America with a banquet at New York’s Hotel Astor.  After being introduced by Louis P. Rocker, Rothberg described the progress he had seen on his recent visit to the Palestine but said that “a concerted drive to unite all American Jews in support of the” development of Palestine was necessary for ultimate success.

1937: As the Arab violence against the Jews continued The Palestine Post reported that a Jew and an Arab constable were killed when some 15 Arab terrorists ambushed a six-truck convoy carrying 21 Jewish laborers from the Palestine Potash concession on the Dead Sea back to Jerusalem. A number of policemen were injured in various shooting incidents, reported throughout the country, and in particular in Safed where the Jewish community was almost under siege.

1937: The Palestine Postreported that in Danzig Jewish shops and houses were pillaged and windows smashed. This outbreak of violence against the Jews took place almost two years before the outbreak of World War II.  The Nazis did not invent anti-Semitism.  They exploited it and made it as efficient as an assembly line for automobiles.

1938(2nd of Cheshvan, 5699): Fifty four year old Soprano Alma Gluck passed away today in New York

1938: German authorities began arresting Jews of Polish citizenship living in the Reich and transporting them to the Polish border. Responding to a Polish decree that all passports of Polish residents abroad would be rescinded by the end of October unless a special permit for reentry to Poland was received, the Germans preempted the Polish government by forcibly deporting thousands of Jews across the border into Poland.

1938: Hitler expelled 18,000 Jews from Germany who were born in the former Polish provinces. The Jews were abused and tortured as they made their way to the border.  The Poles did not want to admit the Jews and for a while many were left to languish on the border.  This was a prelude to the statelessness that would help ensure the death of millions of Jews.

1938: The Germans began arresting Jews with Polish citizenship who had been living in Germany and began deporting them to Poland. The Polish authorities placed the Jews in the border town of Zbaszyn and forbade them from leaving in the hope that the large number of Jews near the border would pressure the Germans into beginning negotiations to allow them back into Germany. The negotiations ended in January 1939- some Jews had already been taken in by friends and family in Poland, while other deportees were permitted to return to Germany to wind up their affairs, and then return to Poland.  For a photographic record see:

1938: Sendel Grynszpan described the deportation of the Jews to Poland,"Then they took us in police trucks, in prisoners’ lorries, about 20 men in each truck, and they took us to the railway station. The streets were full of people shouting: "Juden raus! Aus nach Palästina!" ("Out with the Jews! Off to Palestine!")  The Grynszpans and thousands of other Jews were stranded at the border because the Poles refused to admit them.

1940:  Ritual slaughter is banned in Belgium.  Were the conquering Germans animal lovers or did they realize the importance of the dietary laws in maintaining Jewish identity.

1941: Jews of Sluzk, 60 miles south of Minsk, Belorussia, are annihilated by Einsatzkommando troops, half of whom are German, half Lithuanian.

1941: In the Polish town of Kalisz a large black truck drove up and took on a passenger load of Jews. Escorted by two Gestapo cars, the truck drove away. Its passengers were never heard from again. This was the first of the gas-wagons.  This method of extermination was not efficient and would give way to that ultimate in German efficiency – the gas chamber.

1942: The Nazis sent 3,000 Jews from Opoczno, Polandto Treblinka.  At the start of the war almost half the town of Opocznowas Jewish.  Jews had lived there since the 14th century.  The Jews had lived there continually since the start of the 18th century.At the time of the mass deportation in October 1942, scores of Jews fled to the forests and organized partisan units there. The best known unit, "Lions", under the command of Julian Ajzenman- Kaniewski, conducted a number of successful guerilla actions against Nazi forces and the Opoczno-Konskie railway line. After the war, the Jewish Community of Opoczno was not reconstituted.

1942: Seven thousand Kraków, Poland, Jews are deported to Belzec while another 600 are killed in Kraków.

1943: Germany announced that any Pole helping Jews to escape should be dealt with “without the necessary delay of court hearings.” The penalty for assisting Jews was death.

1944: In the parts of Warsawstill under German control the Nazis still search for hidden Jews. Seven would be found and shot.  For those who doubt that the War Against the Jews was of primary consideration for the Germans, remember that they were busy tracking down Jews while the Soviet Army was breathing down their necks. 

1944: Thirty-nine year old Judith Auer, a genuine resistance fighter was hanged at Plötzensee Prison in Berlin for her role in the fight against Hitler.

1946: Birthdate of Slovakian born Canadian producer-director Ivan Reitman.  Reitman’s most famous cinematic effort was the hit comedy “Animal House.”

1947: At Petah Tikva a house belonging to a member of Haganah was blown up, reportedly by members of the Irgun.  Haganah leaders said they will not back down despite warnings by Irgun of a looming civil war between the two Jewish organizations. 

1947: The quiz show "You Bet Your Life", with Groucho Marx, premiered on ABC radio.  The show would later move to television where a whole new generation would discover the rapier wit, the bushy eyebrows and the smoldering cigar of what some consider a comic genius.

1948: During Operation Yoav, Israeli forces capture the Egyptian held fort at Bet Guvrin.  The Egyptians had taken the fort when the invaded Israelin May of 1948.

1948 Israelrecaptured Nizzanim in the Negev. Nizzanim is in southern Israel on the,Mediterranean.  In 1990, the same people who high jacked the Achille Loro planned a terrorist attack on the beaches of Nizzanim.  The attack was foiled.

1948(24th of Tishrei, 5709): Seventy one year old Rabbi Judah Leon Magnes passed away.



1950:  Birthdate of author Fran Lebowitz.

1952: The Jerusalem Postcommented in an editorial that a number of ugly incidents in Nazareth and the arrest of an Arab underground group, undergoing military training in the Majdal Krum area, drew less public attention than it deserved. There were obvious severe shortcomings in the management of the affairs of Arabs living in Israel. The government undertook to build 50,000 concrete dwellings within the next three years in order to accommodate the almost 80,000 families still living in ma’abarot.

1954:Associate Justice of the Supreme Court William O. Douglas and Congressman Emanuel Celler spoke to 500 people attending a dinner sponsored by the American Mogen Dovid for Israel where “Morris Morgenstern and S. Ralph Lazrus were honored at the dinner for donating an ambulance to the Red Mogen David, the equivalent of the Red Cross in Israel.” (As reported by JTA)

1955: A paratroop regiment which “is on a mission to capture the Kuntila Fortress in Sinai, deep in Egyptian territory…kills ten Egyptian soldiers and captures twenty nine” while suffering casualties that included two dead and two wounded.”

1957: Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers put her boxing trivia to the test and came away with $64,000.  Dr. Brothers, who was appearing on the game show The $64,000 Challenge, took the top prize, competing against a team of seven boxers on boxing lore. This was her second time winning the program's top prize — two years earlier she had claimed her first victory (when the show was called The $64,000 Question), also on the subject of boxing. Brothers' appearance on The $64,000 Question not only garnered her a substantial prize, but also sparked her career as a talk-show psychologist. After her appearance on Challenge, Brothers was picked to co-host WATV's show, Sports Showcase. In 1958, NBC offered Brothers her own talk show, The Dr. Joyce Brothers Show. The show, which counseled viewers on childrearing, marriage, and sex, was an instant success and soon became syndicated nationally. In 1963, Brothers began writing a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, which remains a feature of the magazine today. She also writes a daily column that is published in more than 350 newspapers, and has written several books, including What Every Woman Should know About Men(1982) and How to Get Whatever You Want Out of Life (1978). Her most personal and popular work was Widow (1990), which described Brothers' emotional journey after the death of her husband in 1989 after thirty-nine years of marriage.

1964: U.S. premiere of “The Americanization of Emily” with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky

1964: Linda and Malcolm Glazer gave birth to Bryan Glazer, a graduate of American University and Whittier Law School became an executive vice president of the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

1967(23rdof Tishrei, 5728): Jews celebrate Simchat Torah in a united Jerusalem

1967: In London, Susan Davis and David Wolfson, Baron Wolfson of Sunningdale, gave birth to Simon Adam Wolfson, Guise the chief executive of the clothing retailer Next and a Conservative life peer who is the founder of the £250,000 Wolfson Economics Prize.

1968(5th of Cheshvan, 5729): Lise Meitner, a physicist who played a key role in the discovery of Nuclear Fission passed away at the age of 89.

1969(15th of Cheshvan, 5730): Sixty-eight year old British entertainer and broadcaster Albert Eric Maschwitz passed away today.

1973: The first season of “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” with Lou Scheimer doing the voice of “Dumb Donald” came to an end.

1973: Cable service which provided telex and telecommunication between Syria and the outside world including Egypt was restored after having been knocked by Israeli frogman on October 18.

1978: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were named winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

1981: “SOS Children's Village Arad (known as Kfar Neradim) which was built in the southern outskirts of Arad was inaugurated” today.

1983:Four days after the attack on the Marine Barracks the White House team that visited Beirut, led by Vice President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, asked Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff to write a report on the attack and its aftermath

1986: In an article published today Time magazine  provides background on the life of Elie Wiesel as describes the Nobel Laureate’s work on behalf of mankind and the Jewish people including his efforts on behalf of Cambodian refugees, the Miskito Indians in Nicaragua and starving children in Africa. “Last week he exhorted Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to allow five Soviet Jews, as well as Dissident Physicist Andrei Sakharov, to emigrate, and this week he is traveling to Moscow to help organize a conference on non-Jewish victims of Nazism.”



1987: Actor Dustin Hoffman and Lisa Gottsegen Hoffman give birth to Alexandra Lydia.

1988(16th of Cheshvan, 5749) Just days before her 93rd birthday, Hadassah and ZOA leader Judith G. Epstein passed away. (As reported by Susan Fox)

1992(30th of Tishrei, 5753): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan

1992(30th of Tishrei, 5753): David Bohm, American-born physicist, philosopher, and neuropsychologist passed away.

1994: Judith R. Shapiro, a widely respected cultural anthropologist who has done pioneering research on gender differences, was inaugurated as president of BarnardCollege.

1995: Prime Minister Rabin took the courageous step of agreeing “that when the time came for Palestinian elections, election posters could be placed anywhere in East Jerusalem and that the voting in the city would be supervised by the Palestinian Central Elcetion Commission.

1996(15th of Cheshvan, 5757): Seventy-four year old comedian Morey Amsterdam passed away (As reported by David Stout)

2000: U.S. premiere of “Requiem for a Dream” directed by Darren Aronofsky.

2002:The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Genius: A Mosaic of One Hundred Exemplary Creative Minds by Harold Bloom.

2002(3rd of Cheshvan, 5775): Three  Israelis  – 41 year old Tamir Masad, 22 year old Lieutenant Matan Zagron and 32 year old Sgt.Maj. Amihud Hasid -- were killed, and 20 bystanders were wounded in a suicide bombing at a gas station near the settlement of Ariel in the West Bank. The two officers and soldier were killed while trying to prevent the terrorist from detonating the bomb. Hamas and the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack.

2004:  The Jerusalem Postreported that Israel's Knesset approved a plan for disengagement from Gaza.  Those citing the Bible for opposing this decision should re-read the text.  From David to David - from King David to David Ben Gurion- Jewish leaders have avoided taking control of Gaza.  Furthermore, the wise King Solomon is reported in the Book of Kings to have given up 23 towns in Israelto Hiram.  And I do not remember any Rabbi threatening to assassinate King Solomon over the issue.

2004:  Under the executive leadership of Theo Epstein, the Red Sox win the World Championship for the first time since 1918.

2006: The Anti-Defamation League posthumously presented to Hiram "Harry" Bingham IV its "Courage to Care" award at the ADL’s national conference in Atlanta. As Vice Consul in Marseille, he helped to save 2,500 Jews from the Nazis as they swept through France at the start of WW II.

2006: The Jewish Daily Forward reported “that in a startling move, Primo Levi’s 1975 book The Periodic Table, was named ‘best science book ever written’ by the Royal Institution of Great Britain. The book — which unfolds in 21 autobiographical stories, each tied to an element of the periodic table — edged out works by DNA pioneer James Watson and even The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin. Tim Radford, onetime science editor of the Guardian newspaper, served as the book’s champion in the contest. ‘The science book is the ultimate in nonfiction,” he said. “This book pinions my awareness to the solidity of the world around me.’” A chemist by training, Levi survived the death camps and fought as a partisan.  He passed away in 1987.

2006: “The Last Virgin”, “a bluntly satirical comedy about Jews and Muslims in the Middle East” is performed for the last time in Frankfurt, Germany.  The play was written by Tuvia Tenenbom and Maria Lowry.  Tenenbom is an Israeli and founder the Jewish Theatre in New York.

2007:New York’s Erez Safar celebrates the launch of his new website called Shemspeed (www.shemspeed.com) with a gala event in London.

2007: The Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra performs Broadway show music from Evita, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, Chicago, Cats, Cabaret and more at the Performing Arts Center in Jerusalem

2007: An exhibition entitled “The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend” opens at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

2007: The lawyers representing Mariane Pearl, the widow of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, dropped “the lawsuit seeking damages against al-Qaida, a dozen reputed terrorists, and Pakistan's largest bank” citing personal reasons that “should have no bearing on the merits of the lawsuit.”

2008: In Washington, D.C., opening of the Ethics and War Reading and Discussion Series, an interfaith reading series co-sponsored by Theatre J that deals with questions concerning “ethical behavior” when a nation is at war.

2008: The winter session of the Knesset opens with President Shimon Peres calling for early elections since Kadima leader Livini cannot form a government.

2008: Time magazine includes a review of “All My Sons” by Jewish playwright Arthur Miller which is “now getting a  revival on Broadway.”

2009: At The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival Dara Horn reads from and discusses her novel "All Other Nights" (Jewish spies in the Civil War)

 
2009: At Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, a screening of "Paper Clips" in the Rathskeller. Paper Clips is the moving and inspiring documentary that captures how students from Whitwell, Tenn. responded to lessons about the Holocaust—with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting one paper clip for each individual exterminated by the Nazis. The amazing result: a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips.

 
2009:Iran-backed Hezbollah based in southern Lebanon fired a Katyusha rocket into Israel today.  

2009:Today, a right-wing comedian was fined 10,000 euros by a French court for "public anti-Semitic insults" after he invited Robert Faurisson, an academic and Holocaust denier, on stage during a comedy show to receive an "award" from an actor dressed as a Jewish deportee. The Paris court told Dieudonne M'bala M'bala, a 43-year-old French stand-up comic, to pay a further 10,000 in damages and legal fees to organizations that sued him, French news agency AFP reported.

2010:Award winning authorRebecca Newberger Goldstein, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, is scheduled to deliver  The Gerald L. Bernstein Memorial Lecture  entitled “36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction” on the closing night of the Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival 

 
2010:Comedian Jon Stewart is the most influential man of 2010, according to a poll released today by AskMen.com, an American online magazine. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, was in  third places.

2010:The Israel Forum for International Humanitarian Aid (IsraAID) announced on today that it will send a team to Haiti, despite the current cholera outbreak.

2011: Robert Lipsyte and John Bloom are scheduled to take part in “Telling It Like It Is; Jews, Sports and Writing,” a panel discussion that is part of The Hyman S. & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.

2011:Dr. Hasia Diner the Paul and Sylvia Steinberg Professor of American Jewish History at New York University, and founder and Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History is scheduled to deliver a lecture entitled “Between History and Memory: Rethinking the American Jewish Past” in Washington, D.C.

2011:Ilan Grapel, an American-Israeli citizen jailed in Cairo on suspicion of espionage for over four months, met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel today after he was released. (As reported by Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya)

 
2011 The Israel Air Force targeted three centers of terrorist activity in the Gaza Strip and a weapons storage site in the South early this morning, IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement. The attacks hit their precise targets and all planes returned safely to base.  The activity came

 
2011:As the death toll in the deadly earthquake in eastern Turkey rose today, an Israeli cargo plane landed in Ankara, carrying humanitarian aid that Turkish officials at first had declined to accept. The Israeli plane carried seven prefabricated houses and other supplies.

 
2011(29th of Tishrei, 5772): Eighty-five year old Allen Mandelbaum, the award winning translator of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” passed away today. (As reported by William Grimes)

2012: “Youth movements and social NGOs are scheduled to gather in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square  for an alternative ceremony to honor the anniversary of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination” this evening. (As reported by Lahav Harkov)

2012: Israeli cellist Elad Kabilio is scheduled to perform at the Joyce Theatre in NYC.

2012: The Edent-Tamir Music Center is scheduled to present “Musica Antiqua” featuring Zohar Shefi on the harpsichord and Drora Bruck on the recorder.

2012: Andras Schiff is scheduled to to play Book 1 of “Well-Tempered Clavier” at the 92nd Street Y.

2012(11th of Cheshvan): On the Hebrew calendar, the Yahrzeit of Rachel which is normally observed by pilgrimages to her tomb.  Since the event fell on Shabbat, the observant made their pilgrimages on the 25th.

2012: Seventeen year-old Naomi Cohen won gold today at the 2012 RS:X Youth World Windsurfing Championships in Taiwan. Several other Israeli participated in today’s competition, with Shahar Tibi finishing fifth, Ofri Givati 10th, Noga Geller 12th and Adi Cohen in 18th place, according to Ynet. (As reported by Yoel Goldman)

2012: “Israeli immigrant’s joyful art products designed to be worn, used” published today highlights the life and artistic creations of Giora Neta an Israeli living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

2012: An American monitoring group said today that satellite images of the aftermath of the explosion on October 24that a Sudanese weapons factory suggested the site was hit by an airstrike.
 
 
2012: An estimated 20,000 Israelis gathered tonight in Tel Aviv to commemorate the 17th anniversary of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination at the square where he was killed in 1995, and which was subsequently renamed in his honor.

 
2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality by Edward Frenkel.

2013: Dr. Elliot Lefkovitz is scheduled to moderate a panel discussion among several survivors of the Kindertransport at the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center.

2013: Chicago Premiere of “Signs of Life” a musical which is “based on the true story of Terezin” comes to an end.

2013: The Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington is scheduled to host its Guardain-Benefactor Luncheon featuring Rabbi Arnold Resnicoff who will speak on the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut.

2013: In New Orleans, Beth Israel, the Orthodox Synagogue that survived Hurricane Katrina, is scheduled to host its annual fundraiser.

2013: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet today unanimously approved the appointment of Karnit Flug as the first female governor of the Bank of Israel (As reported by Moti Bossok)

2013(23rdof Cheshvan, 5774): Eighty-one year old Dr.Leonard Herzenberg who “created a device that can pick out individual cells from a mass of trillions of them and then capture, sort and count them so they can be analyzed and used to fight disease” passed away today. (As reported by Douglas Martin)

 
2013(23rdof Cheshvan, 5774): Seventy-one year old rock and roll innovator and icon Lou Reed passed away today.

 
2013: Daylight Saving Time will switch to Standard Time in the early hours of Sunday morning marking Israel's transition to the winter clock.

2013: Two mortar shells were fired from Gaza into the Eshkol region in the western Negev.

2014: The American Sephardi Federation and the Center for Jewish History are scheduled to honor the legacy of Daniel Pearl with a special concert “Building Bridges: From Bene Beraq to Baghdad.

2014: At the Gerard Behar Theatre the all-male religious dancers of the Ka’et Ensemble are scheduled to perform at the Heaven and Earth Festival starting today.

2014: “The Garden of Eden” and “Life Sentences” are scheduled to be shown at the Israeli Film Festival hosted by the Tulane University Jewish Studies Department chaired by Dr. Brian Horowitz.

2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host Rabbi Deborah Prinz speaking about “Jews on the Chocolate Trail.”

2014: Mathew Klickstein, author of Slimed: An Oral History of Nickelodeon’s Golden Age is the feature at the Hyman S & Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival.

2014: PuppetCinema which “began in 2009 as an experiment in Israel” is scheduled to open with Zvi Sahar in New York.

2014: Indirect talks between Hamas and Israel which were scheduled to resume today will not take place because Egypt has closed its border to the Hamas delegation following a deadly terror attack in Sinai for which the Egyptians hold Hamas responsible. (As reported by Elhanan Miller)
 

 

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