November 20
331 BCE (21st of Kislev, 3431): According to the Talmud, Simeon the Just destroyed the Samaritan Temple at Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans had undermined the efforts during the post-exilic period and this move was as much about establishing political sovereignty as it was about wiping out a “high place” intended to compete with Jerusalem. The victory was marked by a minor festival called Mt. Gerizim Day.
284: Diocletian was chosen as Roman Emperor. Diocletian began a policy of subdividing the various provinces of the Roman Empire into increasingly smaller administrative units. Palestine, the name the Romans gave to Eretz Israel, was divided into three territories: Palaestina Prima including Judea, Samaria, and the coastal plain, Iduemea and Peraea with Caesarea (the one on the Mediterranean that had played such a key role in the Great Revolt against Rome) as its capital; Palaestina Secunda, consisting of the Galilee and the Golan with Beth-shean (the city to which the ancient Philistines had taken King Saul’s decapitated body) as its capital; Palaestina Terita consisting primarily of the Negev with Petra as its capital. In a further division of powers, each of these new subdivisions had a military and a civilian head. All of the new bureaucrats who came with these new subdivisions took on aura of divinity connected in keeping with their role as representatives of the Divine Emperor. What it meant for the people of the empire was further subjugation and impoverishment. Diocletian was also the last of the Roman Emperors took actively persecute the Christians. His ultimate successor would adopt a policy that represented a 180 degree and would mark even worse times for the Jewish people.
1194: Palermo, Sicily, is conquered by Emperor Henry VI. By the time of Henry’s conquest, Jews had been living on the island of Sicily for over a thousand years. Jews had been living in Palermo since the sixth century because we have evidence that in 590 “Pope Gregory the Great ordered the ecclesiastical authorities to reimburse the Jews of Palermo for the damage suffered by the expropriation of their synagogue.” Furthermore, just prior to the conquest, the famous traveler Benjamin of Tudela mentioned the Jewish community of Palermo in his writings.
1272:Edward I proclaimed King of England. Edward is remembered as the English king, who, after stripping the Jews of their wealth, expelled them from his realm in 1290.
1316: King John I of France died. His father, Louis X had issued a decree in 1315 allowing the Jews to return. We do not know how John felt about the Jews (or anything else for that matter) since he only lived for five days. We do know that the Jews were allowed to remain in France until the end of the 14th century when they were again expelled.
1451: Pope Nicholas V issued an edict empower the bishop of Osma and the vicar of Salamana to appoint new inquisitors to examine the cases of "new-Christians suspected of Judaizing. The inquisitors were authorized to punish the convict, imprison them, confiscate their goods and disgrace them, to degrade even priests and hand them over to the secular arm - a church euphemism for condemning them to the heretic's stake
1521: All Jewish wine was dumped by Arabs and heavy fines imposed on the Jewish community of Jerusalem. The Arabs blamed the Jewish use of wine for a severe water shortage.
1616: Bishop Richelieu becomes French minister of Foreign affairs/War. Richelieu was the power behind the throne during the reign of King Louis XIII. Any decree issued over the signature of Louis was probably written by Richelieu. While Jews had long been banished from France, exceptions were made. For example, when the French captured the city of Metz, a special letter was posted allowing the Jews to remain because their presence was a necessity for the good of the Kingdom. Furthermore, the ban against Jews was not enforced during Louis XIII’s reign in his overseas possessions. Once again, thanks to economic needs, in places such as Martinique, the Jews were allowed to settle while engaged in trade and practicing their faith.
1657: Manasseh Ben Israel passed away. Manasseh Ben Israel will always be remembered as the Jewish leader who negotiated with Oliver Cromwell to gain the right for Jews to settle in England.
1785: “The earliest known Yiddish letter from the United States was written by Barnard Gratz of Philadelphia to his brother Michael in London today.
1789: New Jersey became the first state to ratify the amendments to the U.S. Constitution known as the Bill of Rights with its guarantee of Freedom of Religion. It would take another two years for the Bill of Rights to become part of the Constitution. Virginia would put it over the top in December of 1791.
1790: Governor of Georgia Edward Telfair authorized a charter for the "Parnas and Adjuntas of Mickve Israel at Savannah" under which the congregation still operates.
1827(1st of Kislev, 5588): Rosh Chodesh
1829: The Jews were expelled from the Russian cities of Nikolayev and Sevastopol.
1857:In Westphalia, German Solomon Spiegel and Rosalie Herzberg gave birth to Cincinnati trained lawyer Frederick S. Spiegel, the husband of Minnie Steinberg who became a Judge of Court of Common Pleas in the 1stJudicial District of Ohio.
1858: The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York addressed a letter to President James Buchanan concerning the Mortara Case. The letter included reference to the letter sent by London Committee of Deputies of British Jews “to their brethren in the United States” seeking their support in having the boy who was kidnapped in Bologna returned to his family. The letter informed the President of the support being offered by several European nations and of plans to hold a public meeting to enlist public support in the United States. The committee reminded President Buchanan of the prompt action taken by President Van Buren in 1840 when he was asked to intervene to aid the persecuted Jews of Damascus and expressed the hope that he would do the same.
1870: It was reported today that Robert C. De Large, a mulatto with a Jewish father has defeated Mr. C.C. Bowen in the race for the Second Congressional District in South Carolina. A Republican, Mr. De Large “combines the shrewdness of the Jew with the intuitive cleverness of the negro…”
1880: It was reported today that the Purim Association will be hosting a ball in March at the Academy of Music “for the benefit of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum.”
1880: In Germany, the members of the government are expected to face questioning from deputies about anti-Semitic “agitation” that has been taken place.
1880: According to a referee’s reported filed today described the sham by Henry Cone, Abraham Altman, Emanuel Levi and the Third National that enabled them to gain control of the Buffalo clothing firm Friedman & Co owned by Jacob and Burnet Friedman.
1881: It was reported today that “the King of Denmark has knighted four Jews in Jutland.”
1881: A resolution was adopted by a group at the Hebrew Orphan Asylum to hold a meeting on November 27 to discuss ways to deal with the unprecedented demand on resources being created by the arrival of the wave of immigrants from Russia.
1883: The Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum held its second annual charity ball tonight.
1884: Birthdate of Norman Thomas social reformer and frequent Socialist candidate for President of the United States. Thomas was not Jewish but he was active in numerous causes that affected the Jewish People. He was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. As a member of the America First Committee he opposed America’s entry into World War II until Pearl Harbor changed his mind. At the same time, he worked to change American policy during the 1930’s to make it possible for Jewish victims of the Nazis to enter the United States.
1885: It was reported today that while the Reform movement has approved substituting Sunday services for Saturday services, such will not be the case in Cincinnati, Ohio. Rabbi Wise, who spoke approvingly of the change said that it was not necessary to make the change in the Queen City.
1886: Birthdate of Alexandre Stavisky, the Ukrainian born French financer whose elaborate swindle gave rise to the infamous Stavisky Affair, a scandal that rocked France in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s.
1886: It was reported today that the recent decision of the Supreme Court that “affirmed the illegality of keeping open a shop on Sunday “for the purpose of doing business’” will work an extra hardship on Jewish merchants. The police had allowed them keep their shops open on Sunday “on the supposition” that because they observed the Sabbath on Saturday they were not covered by the law. Rabbi Solomon Schindler has already chaired a packed meeting at the Columbus Avenue Synagogue on this subject. The Jews will comply with the law but will work to have the legislature change it in the next session.
1887: “Miss Adams, The Writer” published today traces the life and career of Hannah Adams, the first American woman to earn her living as an author. Her works included The History of the Jewswhich was published in 1812. The full title was The History of the Jews from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Present Time and it may be the first book on this topic published in the United States.
1887: “Reading From Right to Left” published today relied on information that first appeared in the Hebrew Journal to speculate as to way Hebrew is read from right to left. “The most pertinent reason lies in the fact that our vision from right to left is much clearer and stronger than it is from left to right.”
1887: “Emma Lazarus” published today provided a laudatory obituary of the Jewish poet who passed away yesterday.
http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9505E2DD1639E731A25753C2A9679D94669FD7CF
1887: Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler delivered a lecture to the congregants at Temple Beth-El entitled “Prejudice.”
1888: A concert was given tonight at the Metropolitan Opera House to raise money for the Aguilar Free Library, an institution supported by the leading Jews of New York City.
1888(16th of Kislev, 5649): Simon Lederer, a prominent New York merchant passed away today. Born in Austria in 1823, he came to the United States in 1857 where he pursued a 17 year career in the tobacco business first with Gustav Resiman and then as a partner in Bondy & Lederer. A life-long bachelor, he was a generous but modest supporter of Jewish charities.
1889: Gustav Mahler’s 1st Symphony premiered. Mahler was born Jewish and was still nominally Jewish when he wrote the First Symphony. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1897 so that he could become Director of the State Opera.
1890: As the “run” on Citizens’ Saving Bank, located on the Lower East Side with a large number of poor, Jewish depositors, it was suggested “that Chief Rabbi Joseph be invited to examine the thousands of dollars in the bank’s vault and then tell his people what he had seen” – a move that the Bank President hoped would reassure the depositors and end the run.
1892 (1st of Kislev, 5653): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1892: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum Military Band is scheduled to play at a fundraiser at Central Turn Hall which will be addressed by Ferdinand Levy, Judge Henry M. Goldfogle and Dr. Herman Baar, the Superintendent of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum
1892: A service is scheduled to take place this morning at Temple Emanu-El to honor the memory of the recently deceased Seligman Adler.
1892: “Russia and Her Jews” published today provided a detailed review of The New Exodus” a Study of Israel in Russia by Harold Frederic a Presbyterian journalist and novelist who had just visited Russia last summer.
1893: As of today the tenants at 59, 61, 63, and 65 Moore Street, all of whom are Russian Jews are to have vacated the premises as ordered the Civil Justice in Brooklyn.
1894(21st of Cheshvan, 5655): Russian born pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein passed away.
1894: Birthdate of English film composer and music director, Louis Levy.
1896: “Rachel Frank of California, the only woman rabbi who is famous as the ‘inspired prophet’ of the Jews on the Pacific Coat” was “conspicuous among” the delegates at the just completed first convention of the National Council of Jewish Women
1896: Professor H. L Sabsovich, the General Agent of the Baron De Hirsch Fund officiated at the service dedicating the new synagogue in Woodbine, NJ, a colony settled by Russian-Jews. The service included a sermon in English by Rabbi Sabato Morris and a sermon in German by Dr. Morris Jastrow.
1896: Birthdate of Russian author Yevgenia Ginzburg.
1898: A summary of the United Hebrew Charities report for October revealed that the society had processed 2,243 applications that would provide assistance to 7,477 people.
1898(6th of Kislev, 5659): Fifty-five year old Emanuel Wachenheim passed away tonight at Bellevue after he had brought to the hospital from the Victor Hotel where he had registered under an assumed name and may have tried to take his own life.
1898: Vice President Maruice Untermyer gave the opening address at the formal dedication of “the new home of the Hebrew Infant Asylum” which included a performance by the Hebrew Orphan Asylum Band.
1901: At the opening meeting of the Second New York State Conference of Charities and Correction, Rabbi Adolph Radin of the People’s Synagogue and Chaplain of the House of Refuge arose from his chair and said, “I wish to register…my protest in the name of justice and humanity against the action of the Juvenile Asylum” to which “Jewish children are sent…and after a brief period are sent to Christian families.” He compared this form of proselytism to the practices of Czar Nicholas II.
1901: A devastating fire broke out a four story brick factory building in Brooklyn, the top floor of which was occupied by Isadore Gerber’s sweatshop.
1902: “The Jewish Theological Seminary held its first public gathering this evening in the hall of the Young Men's Hebrew Association at Lexington Avenue ad Ninety-Second Street. Prof. Solomon Schechter, the professor at Cambridge University, England, who is known for his archaeological work in the Genizah of Cairo, made his inaugural address as President of the Faculty of the new seminary.” Dr. Cyrus Adler, President of the Board of Trustees, followed with a speech that outlined the development of Jewish educational institutions in the United States.
1903: Birthdate of journalist and co-editor of the Menorah, Herbert Solow who began as a Bolshevik and ended up working for Henry Luch.
1908: The Grand Vizir of Morocco sent a letter to President of the Alliance Israelite Universelle approving educational work and stating that the new Sultan is resolved to protect Jews.
1909: The One-hundredth anniversary of the death of Moses Mendes Seixas was observed at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. Gershom Mendes Seixas was the first native-born rabbi in the United States. He was one of seven children of Rachel and Isaac Seixas. He was born in New York City on January 15, 1746. He was the first rabbi in America to give his sermons in English. He gave sermons which dealt with Jewish participation in the life of the state and made appeals for support of the American Revolution and against the British-Indian raids in the Northwest Territory. When the council members of Philadelphia made eligibility for an assembly seat dependent on professing the divine origin of the New Testament, he and other Jews fought against this unconstitutional religious test.
1911: In Warsaw, “Regina and Benjamin Szymin, a respected publisher of Yiddish and Hebrew Books” gave birth to David Syzmin who gained fame as David Seymour famed photographer and co-founder of Magnum Photos.
http://davidseymour.com/
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/01/16/a-second-look-chims-children-of-war/#1
http://merrill.umd.edu/events/visible-scars-children-and-war-photography-david-chim-seymour
http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/bio_chim.html
1913: Birthdate of Charles Bettelheim, a French economist and historian and founder of the Center for the Study of Modes of Industrialization (CEMI).
1913: Birthdate of Leo Hanin, the native of Vilna who found refuge in China and Japan before finally making Aliyah in 1948
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/idcard.php?ModuleId=10006693
1913: Birthdate of Professor Henry A. Fischel, the noted linguist who played a key role in the founding of the Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University.
1917: As the Empire of Russia collapses, the Ukraine declares itself an independent republic. In the ensuing civil war, as many as 100,000 Jews may have been killed in organized pogroms or by forces competing for control who had one thing in common --- anti-Semitism.
1918: Rabbi Joseph Silverman will officiate at the funeral of Civil War veteran and successful Peoria (Illinois) businessman Captain Joseph B. Greenhut this morning at 10 o’clock at Temple Emanuel with burial at Salem Field Cemetery.
1922: The Conference of Lausanne, one of the many peace conferences held to windup World War I which was covered by Albert Karasu opened today. Born in 1885 in Ottoman Salonika, he went to school in Switzerland before returning to Istanbul where he founded Le Journal d’Orient which survived until 1971, 11 years before Karasu passed away.
1923: Birthdate of Nadine Gordimer. Gordimer is a South African Jewish novelist and writer, winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize in literature and 1974 Booker Prize. She was born in Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand mining town outside Johannesburg, the daughter of Isidore and Nan Gordimer. She lives in Johannesburg. Gordimer was educated at an Anglican convent school. Thereafter she studied for a year at Witwatersrand University, but did not complete her degree. During the 1960s and 1970s she taught at several universities in the United States. She drew praise for her demand that South Africa re-examine and replace its long held policy of apartheid. As such, most of her works deal with the moral and psychological tensions of her racially divided home country. Her first novel, The Lying Days, was published in 1953. A founding member of the Congress of South African Writers, Gordimer has been awarded numerous honorary degrees, as well as France's Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
1924: Birthdate of mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot. Mandelbrot is a leading proponent of fractal geometry. He is Sterling Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Emeritus at Yale University and
1925: Birthdate of Robert F. Kennedy. In 1968, Kennedy was assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan. Supposedly he was upset because Kennedy was a supporter of the state of Israel.
1929: Birthdate of Joyce Beber (née Sacks) the yeshiva student turned advertising executive who co-founded Beber Silverstein & Partners and created numerous memorable campaigns for the Helmsley group of hotels, which successfully promoted Leona Helmsley and her hotel chain, but led to her being hired and fired four times by Helmsley.
1929: Rabbi Judah P. Magnes declares that Palestine must be a place for Christians, Moslems and Jews. He sees Palestine as an international home for people of all three faiths and calls for “the renunciation of all ideas of Jewish political domination” along with the development of “cultural Zionism.”
1929: Today, Gertrude Berg's popular radio program, The Goldbergs, about an upwardly mobile American Jewish family debuted on NBC radio. Berg developed the kernel of the show as a series of live sketches to entertain guests at her family's Catskills hotel. It was produced in recurrent runs as a daily 15-minute program on NBC and other networks for nearly two decades before shifting to television in January, 1949. On both radio and TV, Berg served as the sole writer, producer, and star of one the nation's most popular programs. Throughout its 30 years on radio and television, as well as in presentations on Broadway and on film, The Goldbergs dealt explicitly with Jewish life in the United States, joking about the cultural differences between "old world" immigrants and their American-born offspring. Berg's Molly became a cultural touchstone, a figure combining old world wisdom, new world common sense, and a mother's humanity in confronting the perplexities of American life. Over the show's three decades, the Goldberg family moved from a New York City tenement to the Bronx and later to suburban Connecticut, mirroring the upward progression of many Jews into the American mainstream. Although Berg continued to produce The Goldbergs into the 1950s, the show's popularity declined. The demise of The Goldbergs reflects the homogenizing trend in postwar American society. As millions of ethnic Americans fled their traditional urban enclaves in search of an un-hyphenated, simply "American" identity in the suburbs, programming explicitly grounded in ethnic cultures gave way to more all-American shows like Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best. The Goldbergs went off the air in 1955.
1933(2nd of Kislev): Rabbi Moses Mordecai Epstein, author of Levush Mordecai, passed away today.
1934: Lillian Hellmann’s "Children's Hour," premieres in New York City.
1935: King Levinsky, who had recently been knocked out by a youthful Joe Louis, “fought professional wrestler Ray Steele in a bout that attracted national interest.”
1938: Father Coughlin made the first of his many anti-Semitic attacks on his radio show. Using Nazi documents, American radio commentator Father Charles Coughlin contends that Jews are responsible for Russian communism and for Germany's problems. All of Coughlin's radio programs are approved by his archdiocese as not contradicting Catholic faith or morals. Some Catholics protest Coughlin's broadcasts, including Chicago's Cardinal George Mundelein, but most of the American Church is silent.
1939: In what had been Poland, the Nazi Generalgouvernement blocked all bank accounts held by Jews. Withdrawals were limited to thirty dollars per month.
1940: Britain announced a more stringent policy aimed at Jews trying to enter Palestine illegally. Jews found on ships running the British blockade will not be allowed to enter Palestine. They will be taken to an undetermined colonial destination where they will be imprisoned until the end of the war. At that time, there final destination, which will not be Palestine or the site of the imprisonment will be determined.
1940: The Jewish Agency informed Prime Minister Churchill of the inhumane conditions under which Jewish detainees are being held on the island of Mauritius.
1940: Hungary becomes a signatory of the Tripartite Pact, officially joining the Axis Powers. This is the first step on the long road which will belatedly bring the Holocaust to the Jews of Hungary including Nobel Prize Winner Elie Weisel.
1941(30th of Cheshvan, 5702): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1941(30th of Cheshvan, 5702): Approximately 7000 Jews from Minsk, Belorussia, are killed at nearby Tuchinka.
1942 (11th of Kislev, 5703): Rechaviah Lewin-Epstein, who was in charge of the economic work of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs died in Cairo today at the age of 49 while on his way to Palestine to continue his work. Mr. Lewin-Epstein, the son of author and Zionist leader Elias W. Lewin-Epstein, established The Bureau of American Economic Committee for Palestine an organization he headed until 1938. He returned to New York in 1939 after he had “facilitated the settlement of thousands of refugees in agriculture, industry and trade” in Palestine.
1942: Birthdate of folk singer Norman Greenbaum.
1943: Facing withering fire from Japanese artillery and machine guns, U.S. Marines land on Tarawa. This bloody battle provides part of the backdrop for “Battle Cry,” the World War II novel by Leon Uris.
1943: This afternoon several hundred residents of Tel Aviv protested the search that had been carried out at Ramat Hakovesh. The protesters also demanded the release of men who had been arrested during the search.
1943: Madeline Dreyfus who had chosen to remain in France as part of the Resistance instead of joining most of her family in the United States was sent to Auschwitz. Her grandmother Lucie Eugénie Hadamard, Colonel Dreyfus’ widow stayed with her. She would be hidden in a convent, survive the war and not pass away until 1945.
1943: The Nazis auction off the furniture and household possessions of the family of Isak Plesansky in an example of how the property of Norwegian Jews “mysteriously” disappeared.
1944(4th of Kislev, 5705): Havivah Reik and Rafael Reiss, together with a group of captured Jews, were murdered in the Kremnica forest by the Germans and their Slovakian fascist collaborators. They dumped the bodies into a large ditch that served as a mass, unmarked grave.
1944(4th of Kislev, 5705):Haviva Reik was captured and executed by the Nazis and members of the Ukrainian Waffen SS. Born in 1914, she was one of four volunteers from the Yishuv in Eretz Israel who parachuted into Slovakia to help the uprising against the Nazis. In September 1944 she succeeded in helping the Jews who were left in Banska Bystresis. When it fell they moved into the mountains with other Jewish partisans. Kibbutz Lahavot Haviva and the Givat Haviva center are dedicated to her memory.
1945: Twenty-four Nazi leaders went on trial before an international war crimes tribunal in Nuremberg. Colonel Benjamin Kaplan, ”who later became a Harvard law professor and served nine years on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court” played a key role in crafting the indictment.
1945: Birthdate of Deborah Eisenberg, an American short-story writer, actor and teacher
1946: As tensions rise in Palestine, a bomb explodes in Jerusalem.
1947: The New York Times includes a review of The Victim, Saul Bellow’s novel about Asa Leventhal, “a frightened and lonely, man.”
1947:"Meet the Press" makes network TV debut on NBC. The popular television news show began as a radio program in 1945, produced by Lawrence Spivak. A panel of four news people interviewed a prominent leader of the day. When the show shifted to television, Spivak was the permanent panel member and some time served as moderator.
1947: Lillian Hellman's "Another Part of the Forest," premieres in New York City.
1947: It was reported today that Lessing J. Rosenwald, the President of the American Council of Judaism, has expressed his strong opposition to “plans to establish the American Jewish Conference on a permanent basis to coordinate all Jewish activities in this country.” The American Council of Judaism was a leading anti-Zionist Jewish organization in the United State.
1947: British diplomat Sir Alexander Cadogan delivered his country’s response to United Nations General Assembly’s Committee on the Palestine
1948: “An unarmed RAF photo-reconnaissance De Havilland Mosquito of No. 13 Squadron RAF was shot down by an Israeli Air Force P-51 Mustang flown by American volunteer Wayne Peake as it flew over the Galilee towards Hatzor Airbase. Peake opened fire with his cannons, causing a fire to break out in the port engine. The aircraft turned to sea and lowered its altitude, then exploded and crashed off Ashdod.” Both members of the crew were killed. (So much for the myth of British neutrality in the Middle East.
1948: The first preliminary armistice talks begin when William E. Riley, chief UN truce observer, meets separately with Israel Foreign Office officials and Egyptian commander Fouad Sadeh Bey.
1948: Dr. Philip C. Jessup announces U.S. policy regarding peace talks in the Palestine including a proviso that any changes in Israel’s boundaries must be agreed to by the Jewish state and a willingness to examine some parts of Count Bernadotte’s plan including the internationalization of Jerusalem.
1949: The Jewish population of Israel reached one million.
1951: Lewis L. Strauss addressed the second annual convocation of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. Dr. James Conant, President of Harvard, Dr. A. Whitney Griswold, President of Yale and Arthur Hays Sulzberger, president and publisher of The New York Times, received honorary degrees of Doctor of Letters. (Sulzberger was the Jewish member of the trio).
1951: Dr. Simon Greenberg, vice chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary conferred the degree of Doctor of Hebrew Literature on Rabbi Shraga Abramson, a visiting lecturer on the Talmud.
1952: The Slánský trials- a series of Stalinist and anti-Semitic show trials - began in Czechoslovakia. The Slansky trials take their name from Rudolf Slansky. “A veteran of revolutionary of Jewish origin, he had served as Secretary of the Czech Communitys Party. Slansky was accused of spying for American imperialism, for the State of Israel and for the Zionist movement; allegedly he was a link in a chain of treachery” designed to undermine the authority of the Socialist Revolution i.e. Stalin and the Soviets. “Fifteen years later this affair was officially declared to have bee a despicable slander, the whole affair having been fabricated by Soviet security agents working in Czechoslovakia.”
1955: Dr. Cari Alpert, special assistant to Yaakov Dori, president of the Technion (Israel’s answer to MIT) “said a permanent peace between Israel and the Arab states would result in the opening of Technion’s doors to Arab students.
1957:Morton Wishengrad's "Rope Dancers," premieres in New York City. Wishengrad was raised on New York’s Lower East Side by his Orthodox Jewish father. Wishengrad was not particularly interested in maintaining his Jewish identity which was rather ironic because, in 1944, he became the first script writer for the radio show, “The Eternal Light” produced by the Jewish Theological Seminary.
1959:
1960(1st of Kislev): Seventy-nine year old author and poet Ya’Kov (Jacob Cohen) passed away
1964: The Second Vatican Council, under Pope Paul VI, condemned anti-Semitism, declaring that the Jewish people as a whole are not to be blamed for Jesus' death.
1968: Birthdate of David Einhorn, an American hedge fund manager and the founder of Greenlight Capital.
1973(25th of Cheshvan, 5734): Forty-eight year old author and songwriter Allan Sherman who wrote the popular musical satire Camp Granada passed away.
http://jangle04.home.mindspring.com/sherman3.html
http://users.bestweb.net/~foosie/sherman.htm 1975: Spanish dictator Francisco Franco passed away. A fascist who aligned himself with the Hitler and Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War which would be seen as a “dress rehearsal for WW II” Franco refused to join the Axis and remained neutral during the war. “According to the recent discovery of a World War II document, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers.] Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain, for the Nazis'"Final Solution". However, Franco built no Jewish concentration camps on Spanish territory, nor did he voluntarily hand Jews over to Germany. Furthermore, Spanish diplomats extended their diplomatic protection over Jews in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and the Balkans
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jun/20/franco-gave-list-spanish-jews-nazis
1977: Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to address the Knesset, Israel's parliament.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/sadat_speech.html
http://www.historycentral.com/Israel/1977SadatComesToIsrael.html
1978: The funeral of Judge Leo F. Rayfel is scheduled to take place today at 2 pm in Farmingdale, Long Island.
1979: About 200 Sunni Muslims revolt in Saudi Arabia at the site of the Kaaba in Mecca during the pilgrimage and take about 6000 hostages. The Saudi government receives help from French special forces to put down the uprising. Anybody who was paying attention would have noted that 1)violence in the Middle East has many causes that have nothing to do with Israel and 2) the conflict between Sunnis and Shiites should be a real matter of concern
1982: Andy Kaufman was forever voted off of Saturday Night Live by a live phone poll.
1991: Nadine Brozan described one of those strange coincidences in life where Richard Dreyfus and Michael Burns who lived near each other as children both became involved in projected related to Alrde Dreyfus. Burns authored Dreyfus: A Family Affair, 1789-1945 while Dreyfus produced and starred in a film about the French Captain entitled “Prisoner of Honor” that focuses on one of those sought to free Dreyfus, Georges Picquart.
1995: In a front page article, The Austin American Statesman reported that a group of
1998(1st of Kislev, 5759): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
2003: Car bombings in Istanbul continue. The initial bombing targeted two synagogues resulting in the death of 25 people and the wounding of 300 more.
2005: A symposium is held at the American Schools of Oriental Studies entitled “The Tel Zayit Stone: A New Tenth-Century Inscription from the Judean Shephelah.” A dramatic discovery punctuated this year's excavation season at Tel Zayit, Israel, where The Zeitah Excavations recovered a large stone bearing an incised, two-line inscription. The special importance of the stone derives not only from its archaic alphabetic text, which hints at formal scribal training at the site, but also from its well-defined archaeological context in a structure dating securely to the tenth century
2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including the paperback edition of Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books byAaron Lanksy which recounts the adventures of Lansky, who won a MacArthur award in 1989, as president and founder of the National Yiddish Book Center, traveling the world to salvage and catalog a literature once on the verge of oblivion.
2006: “A rally organized by Anglo students to raise Israeli awareness about the genocide in Dafur is held at Zion Square in downtown Jerusalem. The rally is sponsored by Hatzilu et Amei Dafur (Save the Nation of Dafur) a group composed of Yeshiva and seminary students.
2006: Birthdate of Noah Pozner who would be the youngest victim at the Sandy Hook Mass Shooting
2007: In Jerusalem, as part of the International Oud Festival, Imad Dalal who heads the Arabic music department at Safed College presents a program of traditional and contemporary song.
2007: Prime Minister Olmert is reported to be going to Cairo for a surprise meeting with Egyptian leaders.
2008: At the conclusion of his three-day trip to Great Britain President Shimon Peres is scheduled to meet Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace where he will be awarded a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG), the sixth-most senior award in the British system, used to honor individuals who have rendered important services in relation to foreign nations.
2008: After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997. This is part of the long descent into what has been termed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression that will have a devastating on all Americans, Jew and gentile alike. Many Jewish organizations will be forced to down-size as funding sources dry up.
2008: As part of the Live From Lincoln Center series, Jewish, Violinist Gil Shaham, the son of two Israelis, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and pianist Jonathan Feldman perform this intimate concert at the Stanley Kaplan Penthouse featuring the music of composer Pablo de Sarasate in a panoramic survey of the music of his music on the occasion of the 100 anniversary of his death.
2008:Poland's capital marked the completion of a massive restoration project that marks the borders of the former Jewish Ghetto that was walled in by Nazis occupiers during World War II. The mayor of Warsaw, along with the minister of culture, inaugurated the project that included 21 new information points along the boundaries of the former Jewish Ghetto. The project also placed a beige line, labeled "Ghetto Wall," along the city streets that outlined the furthest reaches of the Ghetto's borders.
2009: The 92nd St Y in New York, hosts the Shababa Bakery where you are invited to prepare for Shabbat by squishing, rolling and braiding your very own challah which you can take home and bake.
2009: At Columbus, Ohio, at Tifereth Israel, Rabbi Unger leads The Mitzvah Initiative which features an unconventional approach to learning that is a series of open and honest workshops and discussion by participants which examine some of the most critical elements of Jewish life.
2009: The U.S. State Department issued a statement noting “a growing trend of anti-Semitic hate crimes and discrimination around the world.” The statement coincided with the appointment of Hannah Rosenthal to serve as the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. “The position has been vacant since Gregg Rickman left at the end of the Bush administration.”
2010: Sarah Michelle Levin and Melissa Ellen Levin are called to the Torah as B’not Mitzvah at North Suburban Synagogue Beth El. They are the twin daughters of Gigi Cohen and Michael Levin and the sisters of Dana Levin who celebrated her Bat Mitzvah in the same congregation in November of 2008. They are the granddaughters of Zena and David Cohen of blessed memory Mrs. Betty Levin, an ayash chayil par excellence and Dr. Jacob Levin, of blessed memory.
2010:JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to hold its 30th Fall Fundraiser honoring Tanya and Stephen Bodzin.
2011: The New York Timesfeatures reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest of Jewish readers including “Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945” by Max Hasting, “Eva Bruan: Life with Hitler” by Heike B Gortemaker, “The Unmaking of Israel” by Gershom Gorenberg and Umberto Eco’s novel, “The Prague Cemetery,” that explores the history of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
2011: “Winston Churchill: Walking With Destiny,” a film Narrated by Sir Ben Kingsley, that recounts Churchill's years in the political wilderness, his early opposition to Adolf Hitler and Nazism, his support for Jews, his return to government by the demand of the British people and his rise to the Prime Minister's office in 1940, is scheduled to be shown at The Jewish Eye World Jewish Film Festival.
2011: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is scheduled to speak at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. Emanuel is Jewish. Jefferson and Jackson were not!
2011:Fears of a fuel crisis this morning followed last night's discovery of a water problem in Ben Gurion International Airport's jet fuel. According to tests conducted by Paz Nachsei Teufah, the company responsible for maintaining the quality of airport fuel at Ben-Gurion, water levels in airport jet fuel exceeded the state limit. It appeared that water might have seeped into the fuel tanks, which apparently does not contaminate the fuel, but does dilute it.
2011: Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu today called for medical residents to return immediately to their hospitals as their representatives informed the High Court of Justice that they were willing to return to the negotiating table and to accept the court's proposal to appoint a mediator. Netanyahu expressed empathy with medical residents, but took a harsh tone in calling on them to get back to the wards since more than 300 have walked out of their hospitals.
2012: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginias is scheduled to present the final part of the series “The Evolving Views on the Afterlife in Judaism.”
2012: Four rockets fired by Gaza-based terrorists exploded near a community in the Eshkol Regional Council.
2012: As of midnight, Operation Pillar of Defense enters its seventh day with the Israeli government holding off on a ground offensive in the hope that talks in Cairo will lead to an end to massive Hamas assault on its citizens.
2012: Those living in southern Israel organize demonstrations against plans for a cease-fire one of which is to take place in Kiryat Malachi where three Israelis had been murdered by terrorist rockets and one at Ashdod.
2012(6thof Kislev, 5773): Eighteen year old Corporal Yosef Partuk and an Arab-Israeli civilian identified as Alayaan Salem al-Nabari were this morning during a mortar attack
2013: Today Noah Pozner would be turning 7 if had not been gunned down last year at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
2013: Yosef Mendeolovich is scheduled to discuss his memoir, Unbroken Sprit: A Heroic Story of Faith, Courage and Survival at the Center for Jewish History
2013: Temple Judah is scheduled to host the Hadassah Book Club which will discuss Breakfast at Stephanie’s by Nancy Margolis.
2013: “Inheritance” is scheduled to be shown at the Other Jewish Film Festival.