December 8
1522:David Reubeni left Khaibar today “and went to Nubia in northern Sudan, where he claimed to be a descendant of Muhammad. When he spoke to audiences of Jews, he told of large Jewish kingdoms in the east, possibly referring to the Jewish community at Cochin. The Portuguese had just conquered Goa.”
1596( Kislev, 5357):In Mexico, Luis de Carvajal el Mozo, his mother, and three sisters were burned at the stake together with five other Crypto-Jews who were all accused of Judaizing.
1596( Kislev, 5357):In Mexico, Luis de Carvajal el Mozo, his mother, and three sisters were burned at the stake together with five other Crypto-Jews who were all accused of Judaizing.
1609: “Biblioteca Ambrosiana” opens its reading room, the second public library of Europe. Located in Milan, this library has been cited as a valuable repository for documents about the Jews of Italy including the Ashkenazic Ambrosian Bible which contains a graphic depiction of Ezekiel’s heavenly chariot.
1783(13thof Kislev, 5544): Isaac Touro, the native of Amsterdam who served as “hazzan” for Jesuath Israel, the Sephardic synagogue in Newport, RI. Unlike most American Jews, Touro was a loyalist. After the war he moved to Kingston where he passed away. For some his biggest claim to fame is that he was the father of Judah Touro.
1784(25thof Kislev, 5545): Chanukah
1813: Birthdate of August Belmont, the German born financier who “immigrated to New York City in 1837 after becoming the American representative of the Rothschild family's banking house in Frankfurt.” Belmont carved a niche in American finance and became a leading member of the Democrat Party. Prominent socially, he gave his name to the famed New York racetrack, Belmont Park as well as the third leg of the Triple Crown, “The Belmont Stakes.”
1816: Birthdate of Austro-Hungarian write and political leader Adolf Fischhof.
1822(24thof Kislev, 5583): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light
1822(24thof Kislev, 5583): Fifty-five year old German author, published and bookseller Saul Ascher, passed away in Berlin.
1841(25thof Kislev, 5602): Chanukah
1850: Seventy year old anti-Semite Georg Svedrup, the Norwegian political leader who “felt that it would be incompatible with Judaism to deal honestly with Christians, writing that ‘no person of the Jewish faith may come within Norway's borders, far less reside there’” passed away
1851: “Religious Freedom” published today reported that the U.S. Department of State has replied to a letter from Rabbi Lilienthal who is the spiritual leader for three congregations in New York concerning a proposed treaty with the Swiss Confederacy. The State Department assured Dr. Lilienthal that the United States would ratify any treaty with the Swiss Confederacy that discriminated against citizens of the United States who were Jewish.
1851: In New York City, Rabbi Raphall delivered a lecture tonight on the history of Hungary and the Hungarian people. The talk would cover that nation’s whole history and would not be a recap of its recent efforts to gain its independence.
1854: Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin. This is the same Pope Pius IX who was responsible for the 1858 abduction of a six-year old Jewish child in what became known as the infamous Edgardo Mortara Affair.
1856: Count Pawel Strzelecki sent a message from Istanbul to London that the Ottoman government “was not willing to provide the land for the construction of” a railroad between Jaffa and Jerusalem which would delay construction for years to come.
1859(12thof Kislev, 5620): Eighty year old Markus Bär Friedenthal a German banker who devoted his “free time” to Jewish studies passed away today at Breslau.
1865: Birthdate of Jacques-Salmon Hadamard developer of the Prime Number Theorem.
1869: In Rennes, France, Emile Worms and his wife gave birth to Rene Worms the academic who was a member of the “Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques of the Institut de France” and who “was a devoted adherent of Judaism.”
1869: In New York, Rabbi Moses Mielziner and Rosette Mielziner gave birth to portrait artist Leo Mielziner.
1871(25thof Kislev, 5632): First Day of Chanukah; light the second candle in the evening.
1871(25thof Kislev, 5632): Seventy-three year old Jacob Ettlinger, the Orthodox Rabbi “referred to as the Aruch la-Ner” and who “headed the protest of the one hundred and seventy-three rabbis against the Brunswick Conference of 1844” passed away today.
1871: On Friday evening, a Shabbat Chanukah party was held at Concordia Hall on Avenue A in New York City.
1875: Several thousand people came to the Hebrew Fair at Gilmore’s Garden today. The fair is a fundraiser for Mount Sinai Hospital and so far has been quite successful in reaching its goal.
1876: Funeral services were held today for William Meyer, Aaron Dietz and his brother Abram Dietz at Temple Israel on Greene Avenue in Brooklyn. The three were among the victims of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire that claimed almost three hundred lives. Following the service, the young men were buried at Cypress Hills Cemetery.
1876: A deck hand named Dixon murdered a Jewish peddler named Bachman on board the Fair Play, a steamboat that was entering the mouth of the Old River as it traveled between Faisonia and Vicksburg, MS. The packs belonging to the 45 year-old Bachman had been rifled two nights earlier and Bachman had accused Dixon of the theft.
1878: It was reported today that New York City is home to 375 houses of worship, 25 of which are Jewish.
1880: According to “Nervous and Mental Pathology,” Dr. Edward Sptizka’s pamphlet that studies “the comparative pathology of insanity as illustrated by the different races in the New York City Asylum for the Insane” only 10.29% of the Jews suffer from paralytic insanity as compared to 13.29% for Anglo-Saxons. Jews, who “values intellectual culture…enjoys a comparative immunity from paralysis.”
1881: It was reported today that discussion at Constantinople concerning plans for Jews to settle in Syria has brought forth a counter-proposal from the Spanish Ambassador. He offered a plan that would allow Jews to settle on “Crown lands in Castille” and a promise that “any Jew who goes to Spain will be treated with the utmost liberality.” (Considering the history of the Jews of Spain, this is peculiar entry to say the least)
1882: The Hebrew Leader a theologically conservative New York weekly newspaper edited by Jonas Bondy published its last edition today. The paper which first appeared in May, 1850, was unique in offering a department dedicated to Masonic News.
1884: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil officiated at the marriage of Belle Glazier, the daughter of Mr. S.W. Glazier to Jacob S. Bernheimer at the bride’s home on East 67thStreet in Manhattan.
1884: Adolph Cohn wrote a letter from Harvard University at Cambridge, Massachusetts, challenging the contention of the New York Times that Ludvoic Halevy is the first Jew elected to the French Academy. “Although of Jewish descent of his father’s side” (Leon Halevy and Uncle Fromental Halevy composer of La Juive) he is no more Jewish than his half –brother Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol who was also the son of Leon Halevy.
1885: Birthdate of Joseph Sprinzak who served as Chairman of the Knesset for the first ten years of its existence (1949-1959)
1886: The American Federation of Labor was founded at a convention of union leaders in Columbus, Ohio. The driving force behind the AFL was Samuel Gompers who would serve as the group’s long time President.
1887: Perl Cajesky and another woman to whom her husband is allegedly married are being held as witnesses at Ward’s Island in an alleged Jewish love triangle.
1888: It was reported today that Ernistine Nolfen wants to be paid five thousand dollars by Noach Soenfield because, after paying for her passage from Poland and proposing marriage, he has changed his mind and does not want her for a wife.
1889: “In Russia’s Holiest City” published today, recounted the traditional myth of how the ancient ruler of Kiev chose Orthodox Christianity. He heard representatives from all four major faith groups before making his decision. Judaism was rejected because their representatives “were forced to confess” that “that they had been…from their country and were outcasts and wanders on the face of the earth” because of their sins.
1890: “Literary Notes” published today described plans to commemorate “the thousandth anniversary of Saadia” in 1892 by publishing a collection of his works under the direction of Professor Joseph Derenbourg of the French Academy which will included a biography of Sasdia by Dr. Abraham Eliyahu Harkavi of St. Petersburg, Russia.
1890: The Directors of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn purchased property at Ralph and Howard Avenues for $32,000 which will be the future home of a facility that will replace the current building on Stuyvesant Avenue which is too small to meet the society’s needs.
1890: It was reported today that the American Committee planning the millennial anniversary of the birth of Saadia Gaon include Cyrus Adler of Johns Hopkins, Richard J.H. Gottheil of Columbia, Morris Jastrow, Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania and Jacob Schiff who will serve as treasurer.
1892: The trial of Hermann Ahlwardt who is charged with slandering the Jews weapons manufacturer Ludwig Loewe was adjourned for the day when the anti-Semite’s doctor provided a certificate saying he was suffering from an attack of catarrh and could not appear in court.
1892: The delegates at the convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations who have met with President Harrison were reported today to have decided to hold their next meeting in New Orleans, LA.
1895: In New York, Temple Emanu-El was filled this morning “by those who went to hear an address on “The Debt Humanity Owes to Heinrich Heine,” by Assistant Rabbi Joseph Silverman.
1895: “The Great Hebrew Fair” published today described plans for the upcoming city-wide fund raiser under the leadership of Isidor Straus, President and Vice Presidents James Hoffman and Joseph B. Bloomingdale.
1895: It was reported today that “the upcoming “ball of the Young Ladies and Gentlemen’s League of the Montefiore Home promises to eclipse all former events of the kind given by this organization”
1895: In New York, “an advertisement published today read ‘Wanted – Enlightened men who deprecate the attempt to raise race prejudice by Hermann Ahlwardt, to welcome the fanatic with ancient eggs”
1895: “The anti-Semitic group in the Reichstag has laid upon the table of the chamber a proposal to forbid the free immigration of Jews and for the adoption of regulations under which their expulsion may be accomplished.”
1900: Herzl met with Arminius Vámbéry in Budapest where discussed the Turkish loan.
1900: Birthdate of outfielder Mose Hirsch Solomon who was nicknamed the “Rabbi of Swat.”
1900(16thof Kislev, 5661): Eighty-seven year old singer, composer and pianist Henry Russell who was a great-nephew of the British Chief Rabbi Solomon Hirschel and whose sons were “conductor Sir Landon Ronald Russell and impresario Henry Russell, passed away today.
1901: Birthdate of Doris Caroline Abrahams who gained fame as Caryl Brahms “an English critic, novelist, and journalist” who specialized in the theatre and ballet and who also wrote film, radio and television scripts.”
1905(10th of Kislev, 5666): Zadoc Kahn, the Alsatian born Chief Rabbi of France passed away. A noted scholar, he was active in Jewish communal affairs including leading the Alliance Israélite Universelle and serving as President of the Société des Études Juives, an organization that he had helped to found.
1910: “Salome” an opera based on Jewish author Hedwig Lachman’s German translation of the French play “Salomé” by Oscar Wilde was performed for the first time in London.
1911: In New York, Kate (Neilecht) and Benjamin (Benzion) Jacob, a compositor for a foreign-language newspaper, gave birth to Leo Jacob who gained fame as actor Lee J. Cobb whose many screen triumphs included roles in ”On The Waterfront,” “Three Faces of Eve” and “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.” He passed away in 1976.
1911: Jews in Palestine organize the Red Magen David society with the purpose of sending doctors and nurses to Tripoli. Earlier in the week the Anglo-Palestine Company in Jaffa donated 1,000 Francs for a fund for injured Turkish soldiers in Tripoli.
1912: “Over 1,000 people gathered at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York to hear Boston writer Mary Antin” author of the recently published The Promised Land, “a memoir of her emigration from Russia to Boston's South End” “make a plea for more aid to support Jewish immigrant girls arriving alone in the United States.”
1913: Birthdate of poet Delmore Schwartz. The prolific poet won the Bollingen Prize in 1960 and was the inspiration of the title figure in Saul Bellow’s Humboldt’s Gift.
1913: In France,Louis-Lucien Klotz completed his service as Minister of the Interior.
1914: Irving Berlin's musical "Watch your Step" premiered in New York.
1915: Birthdate of American screenwriter Ernest Lehman. His credits include the scripts for “The King and I,” “North by Northwest,” “The Sound of Music,” and “Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf?” He passed away in 2005. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1916: In Brooklyn Essie (née Goldstein) and animator/producer Max Fleischer gave birth to director Richard Fleisher whose films include the Oscar winning documentary “Design for Death” as well as the “Boston Strangler” and “Tora! Tora!”
1917: British troops began to bombard Turkish positions west of Jerusalem marking the start of the final assault to seize the City of David from the Ottomans.
1917: Contributions to the $5,000,000 fund for the Jewish war relief and welfare work in the army and navy reached a total of $2,400,000 today. The largest individual contributions received today were $15,000 from Mr. and Mrs. S.R.. Travis, $10,000 from the Altman Foundation and $5,00 from Michael Friedsam, President of B. Altman & Co.
1918: Felix M. Warburg, Chairman of the Joint Distribution Committee of the American Funds for Jewish War Sufferers, announced that organization's decision to hold its New York City campaign designed to raise $5,000,000 to aid Jewish war sufferers during the week starting on December 8 and ending on December 15.
1919: Yitak Jacov Liss who had been 16 years old when he enlisted completed his service as a member of the British Jewish Legion 38th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. (The diary he kept provided an eyewitness account of the service of the Jewish soldiers serving in Palestine during World War I)
1919: Birthdate of Mieczysław Weinberg, a native of Warsaw who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and who became a major Soviet composer after he moved there in 1939.
1919: Birthdate of Sidney H. Radner an amateur magician who became the unlikely steward of a trove of Harry Houdini artifacts, which he built into one of the world’s largest Houdini collections,
1922: In Berlin, Lucie Brasch and Ernst L. Freud gave birth to Lucian Freud, the German-born British realist painter who was the grandson of Sigmund Freud. (As reported by William Grimes)
1922: Birthdate of historian and self-styled left-wing activist Howard Zinn. Zinn wrote A People’s History of United States.
1925: Birthdate of the multi-talented entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.
1926: In Berlin, “Johannes Fest, a conservative Roman Catholic and staunch anti-Nazi schoolteacher who was dismissed from his post when the Nazis came to power in 1933” and his wife gave birth to Joachim Fest the German author“best known for his writings and public commentary on Nazi Germany, including an important biography of Adolf Hitler and books about Albert Speer and the German Resistance to Nazism.”
1930: Birthdate of Shepsel Ber Nudelman, the Bronx native who gained fame as Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland.http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/us/sherwin-b-nuland-author-who-challenged-concept-of-dignified-death-dies-at-83.html?hpw&rref=obituaries
1932: Political activist and social reformer Belle Moskowitz broke several bones when she fell down the steps in front of her home in New York today. This accident would lead to a fatal embolism which would bring about her premature death in January of 1933 at the age of 55.
1933:In an article entitled “John Barrymore in a Pictorial Conception of Elmer Rice's Play 'Counsellor-at-Law'” Mordaunt Hall provides a description of the successful efforts to move this drama from Broadway to Hollywood.
1936(24thof Kislev, 5697): Thirty-eight year old David Freedman – “The King of the Gagwriters” passed away today.
1939: Six Jews and 25 non-Jewish Poles, accused of committing acts of sabotage, are shot in Occupied Warsaw.
1940: Jewish immigrants who had entered Eretz Israel illegally aboard the Atlantic were told that those aboard the Patria would stay in the country but they would be deported.
1941: The Nazis brought 700 Jews to Chelmo for final experiment of the new method of killing. In groups of 80, the Jews were driven around the woods in a special van, gassed to death by the fumes of the exhaust. A thousand Jews a day for the next four days go through the same test. While this was seen as in improvement over the other forms of murder used by the Nazis, it was not efficient enough. These mobile vans would give way to the gas chambers.
1941: Four thousand Jews of Novogrudok, Belorussia, are killed.
1941(18th of Kislev, 5702): Eighty-one year old Jewish historian Simon Dubnow was murdered in Riga because he was too old and sick to travel to Rumbula where he would have been massacred with other Jews. There is no way this blog can do justice to this Jewish Intellectual Giant. The tragedy is that a mind like this lost its life in the mud of Nazi murder spree.
1941(18th of Kislev, 5702): As the Riga Ghetto was being liquidated 81 year old Jewish historian Simon Dubnow was murdered in Riga because he was too old and sick to travel to Rumbula where he would have been massacred with other Jews. There is no way this blog can do justice to this Jewish Intellectual Giant. The tragedy is that a mind like this lost its life in the mud of Nazi murder spree. Even as he faced death he expressed his faith in the value of history when he told the Jews of Riga, "Yidn, shreibt un fershreibt"("Jews, write and record").
1941(18th of Kislev, 5702): Second day of the Rumbula Massacre during which 25,000 Jews were murdered
1941: FDR called for a declaration of war against Japan on the same day Germany was entering into the most horrific stage of the Final Solution.
1941: The Screen Writers Guild responded to yesterday’s attack on Pearl Harbor by forming the Hollywood Writers Mobilization Against the War, a body to organize writers for the war effort chaired by Robert Rossen.
1941: Williams College undergraduate Bruce Sundlun who would become the second Jewish Governor of Rhode Island volunteer to serve in the U.S. Army Air Forces Aviation Cadet Program.
1941: Robert “Rosie” Rosenthal enlisted in the United States. His request for combat training led to him becoming a much decorated B-17 pilot who flew more than twice the required missions over German.
1942: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, met with other Jewish leaders and U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt to discuss the recently revealed plight of European Jews. “In the Abandonment of the Jews author David S. Wyman points out that this gathering the Oval Office was ‘the only one concerning the Holocaust that FDR ever granted to a group of Jewish leaders’ Estimates of two million Jewish dead were given to him. Roosevelt responded by saying that official U.S. sources …’have given us proof that confirms the horrors discussed by you.’” Based on this meeting, FDR knew but did nothing except allow his previous made comments about ‘doing all in our power to be of service to your people in this tragic moment.’”
1942: The German SS organise the last deportation of Ternopil Jews to death camp in Belzec, when 1,400 Jews were sent there. The chief of the Gestapo, SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Müller, bore overall responsibility for the mass murder of the Jews of Ternopil and Berezhany which were located in the western Ukraine.
1945: Birthdate of Russian volleyball player Valdimir Patkin, who competed for the Soviet Union in the 1972 Summer Olympics and 1976 Summer Olympics” before becoming "the Secretary General of the Russian Volleyball Federation."
Birthdate of actor and composer of John Rubinstein, the son of Arthur Rubinstein
1946: Dan Keinan photographed “a typical ship carrying illegal immigrants to Mandatory Palestine.”
1947(25th of Kislev, 5708): First Day of Chanukah; in the evening, kindle the second light.
1947: Birthdate of Chava Alberstein
1947: As the Arabs tighten the noose around the Jewish community in Jerusalem, trucks arrived carrying 60,000 eggs.
1947(25th of Kislev, 5708): Tragedy struck when Yehoshua GLoberman, a senior Haganah official was gunned down when his car was stopped at Latrun. This is the same Latrun that was the fortress held by the Jordanian Arab Legion cutting off the city of David from Tel Aviv.
1947: Egypt and Lebanon asked to be heard during the UN debates.
1947: The UN rejects the request by the Jewish Agency to address the Security Council since the organization did not want to set a precedent that allowed an entity other than a country to participate in UN debates.
1948: During the War for Independence, Uri Avnery, age 25, who would describe his view of the war sixty years later in 1948: A Soldier's Tale, the Bloody Road to Jerusalem is wounded while serving as a private soldier
1948:Jordan annexes “Arabic Palestine.” The Kingdom of Trans-Jordan (Across the Jordan) will drop the “Trans” prefix in recognition of its holdings on both sides of the Jordan River. Obviously, there was no thought to creating a state of Palestine on the part of the Arabs since the only thing that changed this illegal land holding was the war in 1967.
1948:Britain demands that the Security Council’s Negev subcommittee implement sanctions against Israel because Israel continues to surround an Egyptian force in the Negev. The British did not seem to bothered by the fact that the Egyptian force was part of an act of aggression taken to contravene a resolution of the United Nations.
1948: At kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, Israeli diplomat, historian, and poet Ya’akov Morris and journalist Sadie Morris, Jewish immigrants from Great Britain gave birth to historian Benny Morris.
1948:King Abdullah denounces Arab League-sponsored Palestine Army regime in Gaza.
1948:Egypt announces dissolution of Moslem Brotherhood, a fanatical national religious organization. [I guess they didn’t do such a good job since the Brotherhood came out on top in the elections of 2011.]
1949: Birthdate of Raymond “Ray” Shulman, “a British musician and the youngest of three brothers that were in the innovative British progressive rock band, Gentle Giant.”
1949:Birthdate of Nancy Jane Meyers “an American film director, producer and screenwriter” who “is the writer, producer and director of several big-screen successes, including The Parent Trap (1998), Something's Gotta Give (2003), The Holiday (2006), and It's Complicated (2009). Her second solo venture, What Women Want (2000), was at one point the most successful film ever directed by a woman, taking in $183 million in the United States.
1949: Burma recognizes the state of Israel.
1949: Red Buttons (Aaron Chwatt) married Helayne McNorton
1949: In a ground-breaking precedent, the United Nations established UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees with a budget of $54,900,000. Thus the UN played a key role in creating Palestine Refugee Problem. No comparable UN organization was established when Jews were forced to flee from a variety of Moslem and/or Arab nations.
1949: U.S. premiere of “On the Town” a cinematic adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein Broadway musical of the same named with a screenplay by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, co-directed by Stanley Donen, co-produced by Arthur Freed co-starring Jules Munshin as “Ossie” and featuring Hans Conried as ”Francois, the head waiter.”
1950: In Nevada, Gus Greenbaum “lobbied the Clark County Commission to create the unincoported township of Paradise” today
1952: Yitzchak ben Zvi was elected the second President of Israel succeeding Chaim Weitzman, who had died in office.
1953: Birthdate of Dr. Norman Finkelstein.
1958: “Everybody’s Broker” published today described the powerful role played by 67 year old Sidney J. Weinberg the partner at Goldman, Sachs & Co who is modern day version of Bernard Baruch.
1960: U.S. premiere of “The Sundowners” directed by Fred Zinnemann, with a score by Dimitri Tiomkin.
1960: A special television version of “Peter Pan” with music by Jule Styne, Mark Chartap and Trude Rittman and lyrics by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Carolyn Leigh was broadcast today.
1965: Abe Burrows'"Cactus Flower" premiered in New York. (Would there be theatre in America without the Jews?)
1966(25thof Kislev, 5727): Chanukah
1974: Anti-Zionist trials begin in Moscow today.
1976: U.S. premiere of “A Star is Born” starring Barbra Streisand who also co-produced the film.
1977: Sir Zelman Cowen was sworn in as Governor-General of Australia.
1977:Rosalyn Yalow became the first American-born and American-trained woman to receive a Nobel Prize in science when she accepted the Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her work in the development of radioimmunoassay, a technique that allows scientists to measure minute amounts of hormones and other substances in human blood.(As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archives)
1978(8th of Kislev, 5739): Eighty-year old Golda Meir, passed away. A Russian immigrant to the United States, this former Milwaukee school teacher would make aliyah in the 1920’s. She would become one of the most influential leaders of the Zionist movement whose career included raising the funds that made it possible for Israel to purchase arms at the time of its creation, clandestine negotiations with the King of Jordan designed to avert war in 1948 to serving as Israel’s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister. One of her most memorable quotes came when Sadat made his visit to Jerusalem. In this one statement she showed a depth of understanding rare in world leaders. “Long after we have forgiven you for killing our children, we will still be trying to forgive you for turning our children into killers.” As a socialist and an idealist she believed in and sought peace. As a pragmatist, she understood the necessity of self-defense even if it meant war.
1979: Aaron Jean-Marie Lustiger, the Parisian born Jew who converted to Catholicism in 1940 at the age of 13 “received episcopal consecration …from Cardinal François Marty”
1982(22nd of Kislev, 5743): Eighty-seven year old General Haim Laskov, former Chief of Staff of the IDF, passed away.
1983(2ndof Tevet, 5744): 8th Day of Chanukah
1983(2ndof Tevet, 5744): Sixty-three year old General Haim Laskov, a former chief of staff of the Israeli passed away today in Tel Aviv.
1984: “Biloxi Blues, a semi-autobiographical play by Neil Simon premiered at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles.”
1984(14th of Kislev, 5745): Eighty-four year Luther Adler, a stage and screen actor who starred in ''Fiddler on the Roof'' on Broadway, died today at his home in Kutztown, Pa., after a long illness (As reported by Wolfgang Saxon)
1985(25th of Kislev, 5746): Chanukah
1985:The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 by David S. Wyman and The Periodic Table by Primo Levi; translated by Raymond Rosenthal are among the twelve books chosen by the New York Times Book Review as the best books published in the country during the preceding year
1987: Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories began an intifada, or uprising.
1987: Sir Joshua Abraham Hassan completed his second term as Chief Minister of Gibraltar
1988: “Yasir Arafat said today that the Palestine Liberation Organization accepted the existence of the state of Israel. His statement, which he presented as a milestone, was immediately dismissed in Israel and greeted coldly by the United States.
1990(21st of Kislev, 5751): Director and playwright Martin Ritt passed away.
1991: “Nick & Nora” a musical written by Arthur Laurents with music by Charles Strouse based on character from The Thin Man opened on Broadway.
1992(13th of Kislev, 5753): Journalist William Shawn passed away. Born William Chon in 1907, the Chicago native was the editor of the New Yorker Magazine from 1952 to 1987.
1993: Upon being named today as budget director by New York’s incoming Mayor, Abraham Lackman said “he hoped to bring some new approaches to budget balancing…so the city can avoid tax increases.”
1994(5th of Tevet, 5755): Israel Aaron Maisels, popularly known as “Isie” Maisels, passed away at the age of 89. He was fondly remembered as a leading member of the bar and a respected leader of the Jewish Community in South Africa.
1994: Secretary of State Warren Christopher met with Yasser Arafat to express the Clinton Administration’s displeasure with the failure of the Palestinian Authority to provide the level of security that will make possible the transfer of territory to PA control.
1996: Michael and Susan Dell attend the groundbreaking for the Dell Jewish Community Campus.
1996: In “Symbol on a Hill” Serge Schmemann reviews a series of recent books about Jerusalem including “City of Stone:The Hidden History of Jerusalem”by Meron Benvenisti, “Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths” by Karen Armstrong, “ City of the Great King: Jerusalem From David to the Present” edited by Nitza Rosovsky, “Jerusalem In 3000 Years” by Nachum Tim Gidal and “Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century” by Martin Gilbert
1997(9th of Kislev, 5758):Eighty-seven year old Leon Poliakov, a historian of anti-Semitism who testified at major war crimes trials, died today in France.
2002: The New York Timeslist of the Best Books of 2002 contains the following works about Jewish related subjects or by Jewish authors including White Christmas': Irving Berlin's Dream by Barry Gwen.
2002: Final performance of Jewish playwright Clifford Odets’ masterpiece Awake and Sing at the Timleline Theatre in Chicago, Ill.
2003: A special two day lighting tribute began marking the 110th anniversary of the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) with illumination of the Empire State Building with the organization's colors of blue and green. The illumination marked the founding of the Council at the Jewish Women's Congress held at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. (As reported by the Jewish Women’s Archives)
2004(25th of Kislev, 5765): First Day of Chanukah; kindle the second light in the evening.
2004(25th of Kislev, 5765): David Brudnoy, Boston radio talk show host, passed away. Born in Minnesota, Brudony was living proof that one could be a popular radio personality, discussing controversial subjects while maintaining a basic level of civility.
2004: U.S. premiere of “Blade: Trinity” directed and written by David S. Goyer based on a character created by Marv Wolfman.
2005: Delegates to an international conference have accepted a new Red Cross emblem, paving the way for Israel to join the humanitarian movement after nearly six decades of exclusion, officials said today. The 192 signatories of the Geneva Conventions approved the new "red crystal" emblem. A number of Muslim countries again tried to block Israel's path into the Red Cross movement by voting against the proposal after three days of negotiations in Geneva. "The most important thing is the result," said Noam Yifrach, head of the Magen David Adom, after receiving a congratulatory call from Bonnie McElveen-Hunter, chairman of the board of governors of the American Red Cross.
2005: Avi Saig a member of the IDF who died when his APC rolled over during a training exercise was laid to rest in Holon’s Military Cemetery.
2005(7th of Kislev, 5766): Sixty-nine year old Kalman Ruttenstein,”the fashion director for Bloomingdale’s” passed away today. (As reported by Eric Wilson)
2005: Israeli mathematician Robert Auman shared the Nobel Prize in Economics with Thomas Schelling. Auman was recognized for his research into game theory.
2005: “Leonard Woolf’s Quiet Complexity” published today provides a review Victoria Glenddinning’s biography of the man some know only as the Jewish husband of Virginia Woolf.
2006: Macmillan Reference USA and Israel’s Keter Publishing unveil the new edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica with 22 volumes containing more than 21,000 entires about Jewish life.
2007(28th of Kislev, 5768): Amy Elizabeth Rosenblatt Solomon, the wife of Dr. Harrison Solomon, mother of Jessica, Sammy and James, and daughter of Ginny and Roger Rosenblatt passed away.
2007: In Jerusalem, a screening of “Children of the Sun” a documentary about the first generation of sabras born on kibbutzim to the parents of parents who immigrated to Eretz Israel with the hope of creating a new society.
2007: In the Chicago Tribunea Jewish literary double-header: E.L. Doctorow reviews a memoir by Studs Terkel entitled Touch and Go.
2008: Amy Goodman was named as a recipient of the 2008 Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize"— the first journalist to be so honored. The Right Livelihood Award Foundation cited her work in "developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media."
2008:Prof. Aliza Lavie of Bar-Ilan University discusses her compilation of traditional prayers for women, A Jewish Woman's Prayer Book at the Ivry Lounge in the Schottenstein Cultural Center in New York City.
2008: At the 92nd Street Y Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and Hillel president Wayne Firestone discuss the complications facing Jewish life on campus today, from anti-Israel activity and Holocaust denial to outright anti-Semitism in a presentation moderated by Thane Rosenbaum, professor of law at Columbia University.
2008: “Rabbi Professor Daniel Hershkovitz, a mathematician from the Technion, was chosen to head” the newly formed Jewish Home Party.
2008: Time magazine includes reviews of "Defiance," a film based on Defiance: The Bielski Partisans which chronicles the exploits of the largest of all Jewish partisans fighting against the Nazis and Milk,“a biopic” that chronicles the exploits of Harvey Milk as he “organized gay society…into a politcally effective community as well as a laudatory obtiurary of Irving Brecher which like so many articles about the famed comedy writer, fails to mention the fact that he is Jewish and was part of a whole generation of Jewish comedy writers who fueled the funnybones of America during the 20th century.
2009: A public memorial service is held in honor of Abe Pollin at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C.
2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “In Search of the Bene Israel” which documents “the filmmaker travels to India to reconnect with her grandmother's Bene Israel community” and “From Swastika to Jim Crow,”a film that includes “the lost stories of the ‘refugee scholars,’ Jewish academics who fled Nazism to the United States and found employment at historically Black colleges.”
2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival includes a screening of “Israeli Cinema, Part 2.”
2009(21st of Kislev, 5770):Yosef Haim Yerushalmi, a groundbreaking and wide-ranging scholar of Jewish history whose meditation on the tension between collective memory of a people and the more prosaic factual record of the past influenced a generation of thinkers, passed away today at the age of 77. (As reported by Joseph Berger)
2009:Mr Matthew Gould MBE has been appointed Her Majesty's Ambassador to the State of Israel in succession to Mr Tom Phillips CMG. He is the first Jewish person to hold this post
2010: “Celebrating the First Lights of Women Rabbis” by Elizabeth Imber published today.
http://jwa.org/blog/celebrating-the-first-lights-of-women-rabbis2010: Yael Perlov is scheduled to present a program entitled David Perlov: Pioneer of Israeli Cinema at the 21st Washington Jewish Film Festival. The scheduled presentation will include the U.S. premier of “In Jerusalem” and “Diary: Chapter 1 (1973-1977)”
2010: Keshet Eilon students and teachers are scheduled to perform works by Schumann on WQXR’s Young Artists Showcase at 9 pm in New York City.
2010(1st of Tevet, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
2010: Funeral services were held today for Rose Becker, of blessed memory, in Cedar Rapids, IA.
2010: Four to five mortar shells were fired from the Gaza Strip into the Eshkol regional council tonight night hitting an area resident. He suffered light wounds to his upper body.
2011: The Booklover’s Luncheon, a part of Jewish Cultural Arts Month, is scheduled to be held at the Upton JCC in New Orleans, LA.
2011: The second weekend of Hamshoushalayim is scheduled to begin today.
2011: “Eichmann’s End: Love, Betrayal, Death” is scheduled to be shown at the 22ndJewish Film Festival in Washington, D.C.
2011: An Israeli air strike in central Gaza killed a Palestinian militant planning a terrorist attack on the Egypt border, the IDF Spokesperson said today.
2011(12thof Kislev, 5772): Ninety-two year Sir Zelmann Cowen who was the 19thGovernor-General of Australia passed away.
2011: David Stern asserted his power as Commissioner of the NBA by vetoing a three-team trade that he thought would have undermined the integrity of the game.
2012: An outdoor menorah lighting ceremony is scheduled to take place the Virginia Gateway Town Center in Gainsville, VA.
2012: Parshat Vayeshev – this is the same Torah portion that was read on December 13, 1941, the first Saturday after Pearl Harbor. You have to wonder how the Rabbis of the day tied the story of Joseph to the events of the day. Maybe they related the darkness of Joseph’s pit to the darkness that America was facing at the start of WW II.
2012(24thof Kislev, 5773): In the evening, Kindle the first light of Chanukah.
2012: The Sephardic Music Festival is scheduled to open with performances by Copal, Cannibal Animal Machine and The Sway Machinery at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn
2012: Tonight, President Obama “congratulated Jews around the world on the first night Chanukah.” (As reported by the Times of Israel)
2012: In Westport, CT, the Jews are scheduled to find two uses for potatoes at “Vodkas and Latkes.”
2012: Yesterday, the United Nations on Friday approved an Israel-initiated resolution in which the international body affirmed for the first time that entrepreneurship was a critical development tool.
2012:Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, making his first ever visit to the Gaza Strip, vowed today never to recognize Israel and said his Islamist group would never abandon its claim to all Israeli territory.
2013: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football by Nicholas Dawidoff, The Most of Nora Ephron by Nora Ephron and Wonders of Wonders: A Cultural History of “Fiddler on the Roof”by Alisa Solomon
2013: Out-of-town tryouts for “If/Then” starring Idina Menzel came to an end at the National Theatre in Washington, DC.
2013: The Yiddish film “American Matchmaker” is scheduled to be shown at the Westside Neighborhood School.
2013: In Springfield, VA, Congregation Adat Reyim is scheduled to host a service rededicating its 200 year old Holocaust Torah that had belong to a congregation in Sedlacany, Czechoslovakia that was destroyed by the Nazis.
2013: “Voices of the Vigil,” an exhibition that “tells the story of the Washington Jewish Community’s “role in the struggle for Soviet Jewry” is scheduled to open at Washington Hebrew Congregation.
2013: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education is scheduled to host a screening of “Mrs. Miniver” followed by a discussion of this Oscar winning account of English bravery during the Battle of Britain that buttressed the cause of those believing America should enter the war to fight the Nazis.
2013:Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the attack on Greek Orthodx Priest Garbriel Nadaf’s son at today’s cabinet meeting, saying that Israel will not tolerate threats of physical attacks against Christians, Muslims and Druse who “want to link their fate even more to the State of Israel and want to serve in the IDF (As reported by Ariel Ben Solomon and Herb Keinon)
2013 A right-wing political group accused former Knesset speaker and Jewish Agency head Avrum Burg of treason today in a letter to law enforcement officials for statements Burg made last week that appeared to confirm that Israel possessed nuclear and chemical weapons. (As reported by Gavriel Fiske)
2013: The American Zionist Movement, the World Zionist Organization and Consulate General of Israel in New York City is scheduled to host a conference on Anti-Zionism and Ant-Semitism
2013: “The London Review of Books published an online article by Seymour Hersh alleging that President Obama had "omitted important intelligence, and in others he presented assumptions as facts" in his assertion during his televised speech of 10 September that Bashar Al-Assad regime had been responsible for the use of sarin in the Ghouta chemical attack of 21 August 2013 against a rebel-held district of Damascus. In
2014: Willa Schneberg is scheduled “to read from her recent collection Rending the Garment at the Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education.
2014: The second and final episode of “The Red Tent” is scheduled to be broadcast on Lifetime.