December 13
1813: Birthdate of David Spangler Kaufman. Kaufman was the first Jewish Congressman from Texas. He died in 1851. Kaufman County, Texas and the city of Kaufman, Texas are named for him.
1815: Birthdate of Arthur Stanley, the Dean of Westminster who wrote “Lectures On The History of the Jewish Church”.
https://archive.org/stream/lecturesonhistor02stan#page/n7/mode/2up
http://archive.org/details/lecturesonhistor02stan
1819(25thof Kislev, 5580): As the Unites States endures its first peacetime major economic and financial crisis, known as the Panic of 1819, Chanukah is observed.
1847: The Portuguese congregation of New Orleans held its first annual meeting.
1855: During the thirty-fourth session of the United States Congress, a special act was passed, which provided that “all the rights, privileges, and immunities heretofore granted by the law to the Christian churches in the city of Washington be and the same hereby are extended to the Hebrew Congregation of said city.”
1856: Birthdate of Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who served as President of Harvard from 1909 to 1933. Thanks to reforms Lowell made in the admission policies where merit was the driving factor, Jewish enrollment rose from 6% in 1908 to 22% in 1922. Lowell had not intended for his reforms to bring this many Jews to his university and he worked vigorously and successfully to institutionalize other criteria that drove down the Jews representation to the point that when he left in 1933 Jews made up less than 10% of the undergraduate student body. Lowell also was an outspoken critic of Wilson’s decision to nominate Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Like so many of his ilk, Lowell did not limit his bigotry to Jews – he had no use for African-Americans or homosexuals either.
1860: The New York Times reported that “A private letter from Jerusalem states that an American Jew at New Orleans has bequeathed £10,000 for the building and endowment of almshouses for infirm and destitute Israelites in the Holy City. An agent had already arrived to carry out the bequest, and the houses intended to be used for the purpose mentioned are expected to be ready for occupation before the expiration of the coming Winter.”
1862: During the Civil War, Army of the Potomac suffered one of its worst defeats at the Battle of Fredericksburg where they were commanded Ambrose Burnside. Company C of the 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment which had been formed by a group of Jewish volunteer soldiers under the name of the Concordia Guards was one of the units engaged in the battle. The regiment would be commanded by Colonel Edward S. Salomon, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, who may have been Chicago’s first Jewish lawyer and was the alderman for the Sixth Ward when the war broke out. Among other Jews serving during the battle was Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, who was a solider with the Union Army and was wounded at Fredericksburg.
1873: It was reported today that most of the Jews of Paris attended the funeral of French banker and philanthropist Louis Raphael Bischoffsheim which was held last month. The large filled the synagogue and then followed the coffin to the cemetery. A native of Germany, this highly successful financier founded schools for Jewish children, established hospitals and asylums for the general population and supported soup kitchens every winter.
1874: Birthdate of Joseph Arkadievich Levin, the Russian pianist who gained fame as Josef Lhévinne, a name given to him by his manager.
1877: Birthdate of Abraham I. Shiplacoff, a native of Chernigov (Russia) who moved to the United States where he became a labor leader and the first Socialist to be elected to the New York State Assembly.
1880: A charter was granted today marking formally incorporation of Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville, MS. Twenty-five to thirty families had been acting as a congregation since 1870 going so far as to hire a Charles Rawitzer of Memphis as their Rabbi. HUC built their first temple in 1881 and hired Joseph Bogen as their Rabbi. In 1962 H.U.C. was the largest Jewish congregation in the state of Mississippi with almost 200 families. At last report, the Temple is home to about 50 Jewish families in the area.
1881: A Pogrom begins in Warsaw that leaves approximately 1,500 Jewish homes, shops and synagogues in ruins.
1882: Jacques Damala left for North Africa today after his wife, Sarah Bernhardt told him she would no longer support his dissolute life-style. He left her to pay off his debts that arose from, among other things, gambling and drugs.
1885: It was reported today that the funeral of Wolfgang Strassmann, a member of a prominent Jewish family who was the President of the Municipal Council in Berlin “was made the occasion of a demonstration against Jew-baiters.” Thirty thousand people attended the funeral and the Emperor sent two wreaths. (The Emperor would seem to be somewhat conflicted since one of his court chaplains was a leader of the anti-Semitic forces)
1885: The New York Times published a review of The Rabbi’s Spell: A Russo-Jewish Romance by Stuart C. Cumberland
http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2011/11/rabbis-spell-russo-jewish-romance.html
1886: As police are arresting merchants selling goods on Sunday in violation of the Sunday Closing Laws, the question is asked how can a Jewish peddler “arrested on the Sabbath” who pleads that he has kept the previous day holy, be punished under a law that allows a businessman “to select the one day out seven on which to abstain from business.”
1888:Telemachus (Telemaque) Thomas Timayenis, the author of The Original Mr. Jacobs: A Startling Exposé, was charged with grand larceny by Mrs. Emma Dickson his partner in the Minerva Publishing Company. (Timayenis denied reports that he was Jewish and his books were decidedly anti-Semitic in nature.
1889: It was reported today that the B’nai B’rith has taken a leading role in the education fair currently taking place at the American Institute Building in New York City.
1889: Moritz Ellinger, editor of the Hebrew Standard delivered a lecture entitled “A New Departure” in New York City
1890: The “juvenile orchestra” of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum is scheduled to perform at the Teachers’ Fair, today.
1890: Rabbi Jacob Joseph delivered a sermon at the Beth Hamedrasch Hagol, an Orthodox synagogue on Norfolk, in which he addressed “the persecution of the Russian Jews and said that necessary steps should be taken to urge the United States Government to use its influence with the Czar for the cessation of the persecution.
1890: Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, a leading Reform rabbi, delivered a sermon at Temple Beth EL, in which he said “that Jews had proved that they were the equals of the highest races of the age in all countries except Russia where they had been subjected to the greatest hardships.”
1891: Jacob Rubino, a New York Life Insurance policy holder filed suit again a trustee of New York Life who is also a member of the Finance Committee seeking the return of “exorbitant commissions.”
1892: Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Straus and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lauterbach and their daughter were among those who attended a meeting of the Nineteenth Century Club where they listened to a lecture on “The Significance of the New-England Transformation.
1893: Justice Ryan of the Essex Market Police court committed “three destitute little children” ranging in age from 7 to 2 to the Hebrew Children’s Guardian Society because their mother Sarah Polskie could not care for them.
1894: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn won a competition among all the orphanages in Brooklyn and New York sponsored by the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany of Brooklyn by 700 votes which means it will receive “100 dressed dolls and other toys.”
1894: This evening members of the University Settlement Society heard the report of Helen Moore, the librarian at Guild House in which she noted that the young Jewish readers show “discrimination” “always wanted the best literature. They always have the library’s 83 histories of the United States checked out but they “show a passion for stories about…patriotism and fairy tales. (The purpose of the society is “to being men and women of education into closer relation with the laboring classes so that they might meet on a common ground for education purpose.”)
1895: In Chicago, “three drunken poles” attacked Abraham Mar, a Jewish vegetable peddler, and hung him three times with a clothes line, threatening him each time with death unless “he prayed according to the Christian fashion.”
1895: Today’s session of the Educational Fair sponsored by the Jewish community opened at 2:30 this afternoon and closed at 5 p.m. because this evening is the start of the Sabbath. Although it was only open for 2 and one-half hours, the fair was so well attended that the total receipts for the fair has now risen to over one hundred thousand dollars.
1899: Birthdate of publisher Harold Guinzburgfounder of Literary Guild and head of Viking Press.
1903(24thof Kislev, 5664): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah
1903: At today’s meeting of the United Zionists of Greater New York a resolution was adopted that expressed opposition to trying to establish a Zionist colony in Uganda. The 250 delegates expressed their dissatisfaction with Israel Zangwill and expressed their support that the Zionist dream could only be fulfilled in Palestine
1903: Isidor Strauss read the eleventh annual report at tonight’s meeting of the Educational Alliance. Andrew Carnegie attended the meeting and engaged in light-hearted banter with Strauss, who is the President of Alliance.
1903: Four hundred guests attended the Carmel Chanukah dinner tonight which sponsored by the Carmel Wine Company. The sponsors of the dinner were trying to develop support for the Jews who are working to establish agricultural settlements in Palestine. Professor Richard Gottheil and Cyrus L Sulzberger were among the speakers at the event.
1910: Birthdate of Sol Saks, who is most famous for writing the first episode of the highly popular sitcom “Bewitched.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1910: In Boston, Katie Silverman and Arthur Rutstein gave birth to Lillian Rutstein who gained fame as the actress and singer Lillian Roth, who would convert to Catholicism in 1948 although “she later said she could really forget her Jewish heritage.
1913(14th of Kislev, 5674): Abraham J. Laredo a prominent Gibraltar merchant passed away.
1914: Birthdate of Larry Park, the native of Joliet, Illinois who starred in the film biography of Al Jolson before falling victim to the Hollywood Black list.
1921: An order was issued by King George V for Sir Edgar Speyer to be struck off the list of the Privy Council.
1923: This evening, an anti-Jewish open air meeting was held by Royalist students in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Copies of "L' Action Francaise", the Royalist Organ, were on sale. The speakers denounced the Jews as the chief obstacle to the restoration of the Monarchy in France. The Jews, they declared, were Communists; the Jews were the counselors of President Wilson and were responsible for his Fourteen Points, which had brought about the isolation of France. The first step towards the destruction of the Republic must be the annihilation of the Jews. (As reported by JTA)
1923: Birthdate of William Bernard Kannel a cardiovascular epidemiologist whose work helped to identify and sought to rout the culprits behind heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1924(16th of Kislev, 5685): Samuel Gompers, the famed American labor leader, passed away.
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Samuel-Gompers-1850-1924
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1747.html
1928: George Gershwin's musical work ''An American in Paris'' had its premiere, at Carnegie Hall in New York.
1936: It was reported today that Rabbi Harry Halpern of the East Midwood Jewish Center will deliver a talk entitled “The Significance of Chanukah” at the upcoming meeting of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America.
1936: Andy Devine appears on the Jack Benny where he scores the longest laughter pause in the history of the program.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that n Paris the Council of German Jews, headed by Viscount Samuel, announced that during the first half of 1937, 3,641 Jews left Germany, including 1,363 for Palestine. Four hundred of them made their aliya on the strength of the "capitalist" category immigration certificates, obtained by the committee.
1938: One hundred deportees from Sachsenhausen build the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg.
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): In the evening, kindle the 8th Chanukah light
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): In New York, Joseph Josephs passed away.
1939: Hans Frank issued order of the establishment of Jewish councils in Polish Jewish communities over 10,000. Jews referred to these councils as the “Judenrat.”
1941: For two days 14,300 Jews were killed in the Crimean city of Simferopol by the Einsatzkommando. The killing started on December 13 and ended on the 15th.
1941: The last six Jews living in Warendorf, Germany, are deported to Riga, Latvia, and killed.
1941: Jews living in Muenster, Germany were deported to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia today. [A photo of this is part of the Yad Vashem archives]
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/december/05.asp
1942: Borough President Edgar J Nathan Jr., Jacob O. Zabronsky, J. David Delman, and Rabbi Leo Jung spoke at the annual Chanukah celebration of the National Council of Young Israel at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
1942: German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels complains in his diary about Italy's halfhearted persecution of Jews.
1943: As the SS began its extermination of the local population of Vladimir-Volynski, Poland, they were attacked by 30 armed Jews. A number of the SS officers were killed as well as half of the attacking force. The remainder fled to the forests to join the partisans.
1943: In Greece, Nazis murder all males over age 14 in the village of Kalávrita.
1946: Jewish political leader Léon Blum was chosen French premier.
1946:Moshe Sneh, the reputed head of Haganah, repudiates activities of Irgun and Stern Group. He calls for a responsible resistance. He urges Zionists to stay away from London conference.
1947: The Jewish Agency, representing a majority of Palestinian Jewry denounced the rising tide of Irgun reprisals, calling them spectacular acts to gratify popular feeling.
1947: Several Irgun members driving in two cars near the Damascus Gate bus station hurled two bombs into the crowd and opened fire with automatic weapons killing five Arabs including a fourteen year old boy.
1947: The Arab League tells U.S. and Britain that partition would be considered a hostile act toward Moslems.
1947: The Zionist Organization of America urges that the U.S. provide ships for Jews going to Palestine and help arm Jewish Agency defense forces.
1948: The Transjordan Parliament authorizes King Abdullah to accept sovereignty over Arab Palestine and Transjordan defying a warning by council of Ulemas (a group of scholars and highest spiritual authority in Moslem
1949: Knesset votes to transfer Israel's capitol to Jerusalem.
1950: James Grover McDonald, the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel, left his post today.
1952(25thof Kislev, 5713): First Day of Chanukah
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the government announced an ambitious settlement program the establishment of some 100 new villages within one year.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that ten infiltrators from Jordan crossed the border, wounded the guard of a defense post and stole arms and ammunition. Elsewhere, on the same border, two marauders were killed and 26 arrested within one week. Israel demanded an emergency meeting of the Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.
1953: Birthdate of economist Ben Shalom Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board
1961: Beatles sign a formal agreement to be managed by Brian Epstein. Yes, there is a Jewish connection to Ringo, Paul, John, et al.
1961: In Jerusalem, prosecuting attorney Gideon Hausner demands death penalty for Adolf Eichmann
1970: Neil Simon's "Gingerbread Lady" premieres in New York NY
1971(25thof Kislev, 5732): Chanukah
1971:Milton Glick, 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno, became a father for the second time when his wife Peggy gave birth to his son Sandy.
1976: Release date for “Victory at Entebbe” a made for television movie based on the raid that had taken place in July of 1976.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that a top-level Israeli team, leaving for Cairo, was told by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan that President Anwar Sadat of Egypt expected, and had to gain, an early success in the forthcoming negotiations. An 82-man Arab delegation left the Gaza Strip for Cairo while their mayor, Rashid Shawwa, said that Sadat ought to be praised for strengthening moderate Arabs. However, US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance failed to persuade King Hussein of Jordan to join the planned Israeli-Egyptian conference in Cairo
1979: Roger and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!" opens at the Palace Theater in New York City for the first of 301 performances.
1984: In a seemingly never ending fight to nibble away at the doctrine of the separation of church and state which is critical to the Jewish community in the United States, Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department filed a friend of the court brief in support the state of Alabama in Wallace v Jaffree, a case that would decide the mandated moment of silence at the start of each school day. The Supreme Court would declare the Alabama statute unconstitutional because it violated the “first prong of the Lemon Test i.e., that the statute was invalid as being entirely motivated by a purpose of advancing religion.
1988: Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, is to be the main speaker today when the U.N. General Assembly holds its first meeting in Geneva.
1991: Birthdate of Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg composer of “Overture to 9-11.”
1992: In a daring challenge to Israel's authority in the occupied territories, Islamic militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier today and threatened to kill him unless the army quickly released the imprisoned founder of a dominant Muslim group in the Gaza Strip. The abductors' deadline passed tonight with their demand unmet, but there was no sign that they had carried out their threatened slaying.
1992: The New York Times published the following letter from Rabbi Harold M. Kamsler of Phoenixville, Pa. entitled “It May Help to Be Jewish to Love Turkey” which claimed that the word “Turkey,” the fowl of Thanksgiving fame was rooted in Hebrew.
“May I add another linguistic note to the colorful "One Strange Bird" by Margaret Visser (Op-Ed, Nov. 26)? The concurrence of the voyages of Columbus and the expulsion from Spain of its Jewish population after centuries of mutually advantageous co-existence has been widely aired in this 500th year of commemoration of both events. One of the key personnel making the first voyage was Luis de Torres, employed by Columbus as an interpreter since he had wide knowledge of Chaldean and Arabic, the languages of the areas they expected to reach. A "Converso," one of the Jews who had converted to Catholicism under the pressure of the Inquisition but remained a secret adherent of his own faith, de Torres also knew Hebrew well. It was natural that de Torres was in the first boats sent to shore on Oct. 12, 1492. In a letter written to a friend in Spain, he described the strange bird seen in this new land. As Ms. Visser notes, during the courting season the bird gobbles, struts and puffs, and his tail feathers display in the manner of a peacock. De Torres gave it the name that appears in the biblical book of I Kings, 10:22, the Hebrew word for peacock: tuki. Surely there is a much more direct line to "turkey" than the various other speculations at hand.”
1995(20th of Kislev, 5756): Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, a scholar on religious and governmental issues who was a Marine Corps chaplain during the battle of Iwo Jima, died at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was 85. He was the first Jewish chaplain the Marine Corps ever appointed. Rabbi Gittelsohn was rabbi emeritus at Temple Israel in Boston, where he served from 1953 to 1977. From 1936 to 1953, he served the Central Synagogue of Nassau County in Rockville Centre, L.I. He was awarded three combat ribbons for his service with the Fifth Marine Division on Iwo Jima. His sermon at the dedication of the division's cemetery, titled "The Purest Democracy," attracted wide attention and was read by many radio and television announcers during and after the war. In February, Rabbi Gittelsohn gave the benediction at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Va., at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the landing. Rabbi Gittelsohn was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to a committee studying civil rights issues. Later, he studied and lectured on United States involvement in Vietnam, and on euthanasia, Israeli politics and family relationships. He wrote numerous articles and books on civic and religious issues. He was president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis from 1958 to 1960; president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1969 to 1971, and president of the Association of Reform Zionists of America from 1977 to 1984. A native of Cleveland, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1931. He studied at Columbia University and Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and was ordained in 1936.
1996: The president of Reform Judaism's synagogue organization has called for expanding the movement's small presence in Israel, to develop a liberal religious alternative within a nation overwhelmingly dominated by secular and Orthodox Jews. In a prepared speech he gave in Los Angeles today to trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, its president, said, ''We intend nothing less than to bring into being a new Israeli Judaism, which will draw Israelis with irresistible force to a renewal of practice and belief.'' Rabbi Yoffie said that the 1.5 million-member Reform movement had not done enough in Israel and promised to raise money to build the movement there. Rabbi Yoffie's statements reflected the difficulties facing the small minority of religious Jews who are not Orthodox in Israel.
1998: The New York Times book section included a review of Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmudsby Donald Harman Akenson.
1998(24th of Kislev, 5759): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah.
2005: Israel's consul-general in Los Angeles criticized Steven Spielberg's "Munich," saying that the new film drew an incorrect picture of the Mossad's hunt for the PLO terrorists who carried out the 1972 Olympic massacre, and taking the legendary director to task for morally equating the Israeli agents and their Palestinian terrorist targets. Ehud Danoch, Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, said Spielberg had addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with "certain pretentiousness" and "quite superficial statements." The film claims to be a depiction of the activities of a Mossad hit team sent out to kill those responsible for kidnapping and murdering the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
2006: Sotheby’s annual sale of Judaica in New York includes a collection of the 18thcentury ritual silver objects from the Jewish community of Amsterdam and an 18thcentury decorated manuscript honoring physician and poet Dr. Isaac Luzzato.
2006: Prime Minister Ehud Omert met with Pope Benedict XVI during the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Europe.
2007: In Jerusalem, a screening of The Jews in the Warsaw Uprising. This 57 minute long documentary explores the subject of the Jewish involvement in the struggle and includes Interviews with witnesses that are enriched by the archive materials and the historian reports.
2007: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y hosts cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Kirill Gerstein as part of the Distinguished Artist Series.
2007: Greek historian Costas Plevris was sentenced to 14 months in prison for inciting racial hatred with the publication of The Jews: The Whole Truth, a book that denies the Holocaust took place.
2008: Jeff Marx “premiered a new song he wrote, ‘White Kwanzaa,’ on the CNN show D.L. Hughley Breaks the News”
2008:Itzhak Perlman plays chamber music at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2008: The 10th Annual Jerusalem Film Festival opens. Highlights of this year's festival include:
Daniel Burman's new film, “The Empty Nest,” a premiere screening of the acclaimed PBS series, “The Jewish Americans,” and a tribute to Meyer Levin, the American-Jewish journalist and filmmaker who made “The Illegals” and “My Father's House.”.
522 BCE: Darius I, the Persian monarch who allowed the Jewish people to re-build the Temple at Jerusalem strengthened his hold on his kingdom when he defeated Nebuchadnezzar III in a battle at the Tigris and that at the Euphrates.
519 BCE: According to some sources this is the day that, the foundations for the Second Temple were laid during the second year of the reign the Persian ruler, Darius with the support of Haggai and Zachariah. It would take four years to complete the project.
1124: End of the papacy of Callixtus II who issued an updated version of Sicut Judaeis, the papal bull that reiterated the need for protecting the Jews of Europe “in the wake of the persecutions of the First Crusade”
1250: Frederick II passed away. During his reign as Holy Roman Emperor Frederick created a secular government in Palermo, feat without parallel in the middle ages, with a written constitution that guaranteed the rights of his subjects, be they Christian, Arab, or Jew, and the religious freedom that went along with it.” When he founded the University of Naples in 1224, “he took care that its faculty included Christians, Muslims and Jews, and that all of these languages were taught, together with the laws and literature of these cultures. Equally remarkable considering the times was Frederick's edict ordering religious toleration for Christians, Muslims and Jews throughout his realm.” During the Sixth Crusade, he dealt with the issues through negotiations and not military action. His rule of Jerusalem was marked by a period of “religious toleration for Muslims, Christians and Jews.”
1521: King John III succeeded his father as King of Portugal. Like his predecessors, John III maintained the ban on Jews living in his kingdom and persecuted conversos and marranos alike. The only time he wavered in this policy came in 1525 when he was negotiating with David Reubeni, the Jewish adventurer who was seeking a fleet and an army from the monarch so he could fight Selim I.
1521: Manuel I, the Portuguese monarch who “decreed that all Jews had to convert to Christianity or leave the country without their children passed away. In 1496, he “exiled thousands of Jews to São Tomé, Príncipe, and Cape Verde.”
1521: Birthdate of Sixtus VI, who from the point of the Jews, was one of the better Popes. He issued a bull that lifted the restrictions his predecessors had placed on the Jews. He gave them permission to live in all of the cities in the Papal States. He ordered the Knights of Malta to stop enslaving Jews traveling by sea to and from the Middle East. He allowed Jews physicians to treat Christian patents and made provision for new printing of the Talmud.
1532(Tevet, 5293):Solomon Molcho, ("Solomon His Angel"), originally Diogo Pires, passed away. He was a "New Christian" who converted back to Judaism, declared himself the Messiah, and was burned at the stake for apostasy. Molcho was born a Christian to Marrano parents in Portugal about 1500. His baptismal name probably was Diogo Pires. He held the post of secretary in one of the higher courts of his native country. When the Jewish adventurer David Reubeni came ostensibly on a political mission from Khaibar (Peshawar) to Portugal, Molcho wished to join him, but was rejected. He then circumcised himself, though without thereby gaining Reubeni's favor, and emigrated to Turkey. Intellectually talented, a visionary and believer in dreams, he studied the Kabbalah with Joseph Taytazak and became acquainted with Joseph Caro. He then wandered, as a preacher, through the Land of Israel (then a province of the Ottoman empire), where he achieved a great reputation and announced that the Messianic kingdom would come in 1540. In 1529 Molcho published a portion of his sermons under the title Derashot, or Sefer ha-Mefo'ar. Going to Italy, he was opposed by prominent Jews including Jacob Mantino ben Samuel who feared that he might mislead their co-religionists, but he succeeded in gaining the favor of Pope Clement VII and of some Judeophile cardinals at Rome. He is said to have predicted to the pope a certain flood which inundated Rome and various other places. After his many cabalistic and other strange experiments, Molcho felt justified in proclaiming himself the Messiah, or his precursor. In company with David Reubeni, whom he came across in Italy, he went in 1532 to Ratisbon, where the emperor Charles V was holding a diet. On this occasion, Molcho carried a flag with the Hebrew word Maccabi, the four letters מכבי which also signify an abbreviation for Exodus 15:11 "Who among the mighty is like unto God?". The emperor imprisoned both Molcho and Reubeni, and took them with him to Italy. In Mantua an ecclesiastical court sentenced Molcho to death by fire. At the stake the emperor offered to pardon him on condition that he return to the Catholic Church, but Molcho refused, asking for a martyr's death.
1545: The Council of Trent which produced The Tirdentine Mass begins. The Tridentine Mass, a Latin ritual the rubrics of which were set by the Council of Trent in the 16th century. The mass reflected the traditional Christian goal of converting Jews to Jesus including “praying on Good Friday that God "lift the veil" from "Jewish blindness.” This changed at the time of Vatican II, with the declaration "Nostra Aetate," which condemned the idea that Jews could be blamed for the murder of Jesus, and affirmed the permanence of God's Covenant with Israel. The "replacement" theology by which the church was understood as "superseding" Judaism was no more. Corollary to this was a rejection of the traditional this version of the Mass would be discontinued as the Catholic Church affirmed a more positive view of Judaism and the Jewish people. The Vatican would reintroduce the Tridentine Mass in 2008 with Catholics praying that God "enlighten" the hearts of Jews "so that they recognize Jesus Christ, Savior of all mankind."
1619:“Under the rule of Prince Maurice of Orange, it was decided that each city could decide for itself whether or not to admit Jews. In consequence, the position of Jews differed greatly between cities In those towns where they were admitted, they would not be required to wear a badge of any sort identifying them as Jews.” (As reported by The History of the Jewish People)
1642: A Dutch explored named Abel Janszoon Tasman reached New Zealand. Jews would not reach New Zealand until the 1830’s when it was under British control.
1663: Mattahthias Calahora, “a renowned physician” was “accused by Friar Servatius of ‘blaspheming the virgin.’ Although there was no testimony aside from the Friars, he was tortured and burned at the stake. His ashes were dispersed to prevent him from having a proper Jewish burial. Despite this, enough of his remains were found for a burial to take place” (As reported by The History of The Jewish People
1754; Mahmud I, Ottoman Sultan passed away. During his reign, two Jewish doctors, Isaac Tchelebi and Hekim Joseph were appointed to serve at his palace. In 1739, Mahmud signed the Treaty of Belgrade that gave citizenship rights to the Ottoman Jews. Austrian Jews were so impressed with the grant of rights that many of them applied for citizenship in Mahmud’s empire.
1769: Dartmouth College founded by the Rev. Eleazar Wheelock. Today Dartmouth has approximately 450 Jewish students out of an undergrad population of over four thousand students. There are approximately 100 Jewish students among its 1,300 grad students. Dartmouth offers ten courses in Jewish studies. Dartmouth also has a special Hebrew Studies semester transfer credit arrangement with the Hebrew University and with Oxford University.
1797: Birthdate of author and poet Heinrich Heine. The German author converted in 1825. Heine said, “The baptismal certificate is an admission ticket to European culture.” Unfortunately for Heine, things did not work. Christians saw him as an opportunist. Jews saw him as a turncoat and in the end, he supposedly regretted his decision. “It is extremely difficult for a Jew to be converted, for how can he bring himself to believe in the divinity of another Jew?” “Experience is a good school, but the fees are high.” “The Jews trudged around with the Bible all through the Middle Ages, as with a portable fatherland.” And in words that almost seem to foretell the coming of the Nazis he wrote, “Where men burn books, they will also burn people.”
1797: In the first attempt to remove the qualification that office holder’s in Maryland had to be Christians, a petition signed by Solomon Etting, Bernard Gratz, and others was presented to the General Assembly at Annapolis; the petitioners averred "that they are a sect of people called Jews, and thereby deprived of many of the valuable rights of citizenship, and pray to be placed upon the same footing with other good citizens." The petition was read and referred to a committee of three persons, who upon the same day reported that they "have taken the same into consideration and conceive the prayer of the petition is reasonable, but as it involves a constitutional question of considerable importance they submit to the House the propriety of taking the same into consideration at this advanced stage of the session." This summary disposition of the petition put a quietus upon further agitation for the next five years. (As reported by Cyrus Adler and J. H. Hollander)
1807: Thirty-four year old Joseph Philipson, opened his general merchandising store and permanently settled in St. Louis. Joseph was reportedly the first Jew to settle in St. Louis, He was the first Jewish merchant to settle in St. Louis and the first American merchant to establish a permanent store in St. Louis. In 1808, Joseph's brother Jacob arrived in St. Louis and established his own store. Their remaining brother Simon remained in Philadelphia, traveling occasionally to St. Louis. Until 1816 the Philipsons were the only Jews known to live in St. Louis. Jacob died about 1858, buried in the City Cemetery
1813: Birthdate of David Spangler Kaufman. Kaufman was the first Jewish Congressman from Texas. He died in 1851. Kaufman County, Texas and the city of Kaufman, Texas are named for him.
1815: Birthdate of Arthur Stanley, the Dean of Westminster who wrote “Lectures On The History of the Jewish Church”.
https://archive.org/stream/lecturesonhistor02stan#page/n7/mode/2up
http://archive.org/details/lecturesonhistor02stan
1819(25thof Kislev, 5580): As the Unites States endures its first peacetime major economic and financial crisis, known as the Panic of 1819, Chanukah is observed.
1847: The Portuguese congregation of New Orleans held its first annual meeting.
1855: During the thirty-fourth session of the United States Congress, a special act was passed, which provided that “all the rights, privileges, and immunities heretofore granted by the law to the Christian churches in the city of Washington be and the same hereby are extended to the Hebrew Congregation of said city.”
1856: Birthdate of Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who served as President of Harvard from 1909 to 1933. Thanks to reforms Lowell made in the admission policies where merit was the driving factor, Jewish enrollment rose from 6% in 1908 to 22% in 1922. Lowell had not intended for his reforms to bring this many Jews to his university and he worked vigorously and successfully to institutionalize other criteria that drove down the Jews representation to the point that when he left in 1933 Jews made up less than 10% of the undergraduate student body. Lowell also was an outspoken critic of Wilson’s decision to nominate Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Like so many of his ilk, Lowell did not limit his bigotry to Jews – he had no use for African-Americans or homosexuals either.
1860: The New York Times reported that “A private letter from Jerusalem states that an American Jew at New Orleans has bequeathed £10,000 for the building and endowment of almshouses for infirm and destitute Israelites in the Holy City. An agent had already arrived to carry out the bequest, and the houses intended to be used for the purpose mentioned are expected to be ready for occupation before the expiration of the coming Winter.”
1862: During the Civil War, Army of the Potomac suffered one of its worst defeats at the Battle of Fredericksburg where they were commanded Ambrose Burnside. Company C of the 82nd Illinois Volunteer Infantry Regiment which had been formed by a group of Jewish volunteer soldiers under the name of the Concordia Guards was one of the units engaged in the battle. The regiment would be commanded by Colonel Edward S. Salomon, a Jewish immigrant from Germany, who may have been Chicago’s first Jewish lawyer and was the alderman for the Sixth Ward when the war broke out. Among other Jews serving during the battle was Jacob Ezekiel Hyneman, a native of Richmond, who was a solider with the Union Army and was wounded at Fredericksburg.
1873: It was reported today that most of the Jews of Paris attended the funeral of French banker and philanthropist Louis Raphael Bischoffsheim which was held last month. The large filled the synagogue and then followed the coffin to the cemetery. A native of Germany, this highly successful financier founded schools for Jewish children, established hospitals and asylums for the general population and supported soup kitchens every winter.
1874: Birthdate of Joseph Arkadievich Levin, the Russian pianist who gained fame as Josef Lhévinne, a name given to him by his manager.
1877: Birthdate of Abraham I. Shiplacoff, a native of Chernigov (Russia) who moved to the United States where he became a labor leader and the first Socialist to be elected to the New York State Assembly.
1880: A charter was granted today marking formally incorporation of Hebrew Union Congregation in Greenville, MS. Twenty-five to thirty families had been acting as a congregation since 1870 going so far as to hire a Charles Rawitzer of Memphis as their Rabbi. HUC built their first temple in 1881 and hired Joseph Bogen as their Rabbi. In 1962 H.U.C. was the largest Jewish congregation in the state of Mississippi with almost 200 families. At last report, the Temple is home to about 50 Jewish families in the area.
1881: A Pogrom begins in Warsaw that leaves approximately 1,500 Jewish homes, shops and synagogues in ruins.
1882: Jacques Damala left for North Africa today after his wife, Sarah Bernhardt told him she would no longer support his dissolute life-style. He left her to pay off his debts that arose from, among other things, gambling and drugs.
1885: It was reported today that the funeral of Wolfgang Strassmann, a member of a prominent Jewish family who was the President of the Municipal Council in Berlin “was made the occasion of a demonstration against Jew-baiters.” Thirty thousand people attended the funeral and the Emperor sent two wreaths. (The Emperor would seem to be somewhat conflicted since one of his court chaplains was a leader of the anti-Semitic forces)
1885: The New York Times published a review of The Rabbi’s Spell: A Russo-Jewish Romance by Stuart C. Cumberland
http://tomruffles.blogspot.com/2011/11/rabbis-spell-russo-jewish-romance.html
1886: As police are arresting merchants selling goods on Sunday in violation of the Sunday Closing Laws, the question is asked how can a Jewish peddler “arrested on the Sabbath” who pleads that he has kept the previous day holy, be punished under a law that allows a businessman “to select the one day out seven on which to abstain from business.”
1888:Telemachus (Telemaque) Thomas Timayenis, the author of The Original Mr. Jacobs: A Startling Exposé, was charged with grand larceny by Mrs. Emma Dickson his partner in the Minerva Publishing Company. (Timayenis denied reports that he was Jewish and his books were decidedly anti-Semitic in nature.
1889: It was reported today that the B’nai B’rith has taken a leading role in the education fair currently taking place at the American Institute Building in New York City.
1889: Moritz Ellinger, editor of the Hebrew Standard delivered a lecture entitled “A New Departure” in New York City
1890: The “juvenile orchestra” of the Hebrew Orphan Asylum is scheduled to perform at the Teachers’ Fair, today.
1890: Rabbi Jacob Joseph delivered a sermon at the Beth Hamedrasch Hagol, an Orthodox synagogue on Norfolk, in which he addressed “the persecution of the Russian Jews and said that necessary steps should be taken to urge the United States Government to use its influence with the Czar for the cessation of the persecution.
1890: Rabbi Kaufman Kohler, a leading Reform rabbi, delivered a sermon at Temple Beth EL, in which he said “that Jews had proved that they were the equals of the highest races of the age in all countries except Russia where they had been subjected to the greatest hardships.”
1891: Jacob Rubino, a New York Life Insurance policy holder filed suit again a trustee of New York Life who is also a member of the Finance Committee seeking the return of “exorbitant commissions.”
1892: Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Straus and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Lauterbach and their daughter were among those who attended a meeting of the Nineteenth Century Club where they listened to a lecture on “The Significance of the New-England Transformation.
1893: Justice Ryan of the Essex Market Police court committed “three destitute little children” ranging in age from 7 to 2 to the Hebrew Children’s Guardian Society because their mother Sarah Polskie could not care for them.
1894: The Hebrew Orphan Asylum of Brooklyn won a competition among all the orphanages in Brooklyn and New York sponsored by the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany of Brooklyn by 700 votes which means it will receive “100 dressed dolls and other toys.”
1894: This evening members of the University Settlement Society heard the report of Helen Moore, the librarian at Guild House in which she noted that the young Jewish readers show “discrimination” “always wanted the best literature. They always have the library’s 83 histories of the United States checked out but they “show a passion for stories about…patriotism and fairy tales. (The purpose of the society is “to being men and women of education into closer relation with the laboring classes so that they might meet on a common ground for education purpose.”)
1895: In Chicago, “three drunken poles” attacked Abraham Mar, a Jewish vegetable peddler, and hung him three times with a clothes line, threatening him each time with death unless “he prayed according to the Christian fashion.”
1895: Today’s session of the Educational Fair sponsored by the Jewish community opened at 2:30 this afternoon and closed at 5 p.m. because this evening is the start of the Sabbath. Although it was only open for 2 and one-half hours, the fair was so well attended that the total receipts for the fair has now risen to over one hundred thousand dollars.
1899: Birthdate of publisher Harold Guinzburgfounder of Literary Guild and head of Viking Press.
1903(24thof Kislev, 5664): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah
1903: At today’s meeting of the United Zionists of Greater New York a resolution was adopted that expressed opposition to trying to establish a Zionist colony in Uganda. The 250 delegates expressed their dissatisfaction with Israel Zangwill and expressed their support that the Zionist dream could only be fulfilled in Palestine
1903: Isidor Strauss read the eleventh annual report at tonight’s meeting of the Educational Alliance. Andrew Carnegie attended the meeting and engaged in light-hearted banter with Strauss, who is the President of Alliance.
1903: Four hundred guests attended the Carmel Chanukah dinner tonight which sponsored by the Carmel Wine Company. The sponsors of the dinner were trying to develop support for the Jews who are working to establish agricultural settlements in Palestine. Professor Richard Gottheil and Cyrus L Sulzberger were among the speakers at the event.
1910: Birthdate of Sol Saks, who is most famous for writing the first episode of the highly popular sitcom “Bewitched.” (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1910: In Boston, Katie Silverman and Arthur Rutstein gave birth to Lillian Rutstein who gained fame as the actress and singer Lillian Roth, who would convert to Catholicism in 1948 although “she later said she could really forget her Jewish heritage.
1913(14th of Kislev, 5674): Abraham J. Laredo a prominent Gibraltar merchant passed away.
1914: Birthdate of Larry Park, the native of Joliet, Illinois who starred in the film biography of Al Jolson before falling victim to the Hollywood Black list.
1921: An order was issued by King George V for Sir Edgar Speyer to be struck off the list of the Privy Council.
1923: This evening, an anti-Jewish open air meeting was held by Royalist students in the Latin Quarter of Paris. Copies of "L' Action Francaise", the Royalist Organ, were on sale. The speakers denounced the Jews as the chief obstacle to the restoration of the Monarchy in France. The Jews, they declared, were Communists; the Jews were the counselors of President Wilson and were responsible for his Fourteen Points, which had brought about the isolation of France. The first step towards the destruction of the Republic must be the annihilation of the Jews. (As reported by JTA)
1923: Birthdate of William Bernard Kannel a cardiovascular epidemiologist whose work helped to identify and sought to rout the culprits behind heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases. (As reported by Margalit Fox)
1924(16th of Kislev, 5685): Samuel Gompers, the famed American labor leader, passed away.
http://www.aflcio.org/About/Our-History/Key-People-in-Labor-History/Samuel-Gompers-1850-1924
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1747.html
1928: George Gershwin's musical work ''An American in Paris'' had its premiere, at Carnegie Hall in New York.
1936: It was reported today that Rabbi Harry Halpern of the East Midwood Jewish Center will deliver a talk entitled “The Significance of Chanukah” at the upcoming meeting of the Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America.
1936: Andy Devine appears on the Jack Benny where he scores the longest laughter pause in the history of the program.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that Solomon Baum, 23, a student at the Hebrew Teachers' Seminary, was seriously wounded by an Arab assailant in the Beit Hakerem quarter of Jerusalem. British troops and police fought a gang of 50 Arab terrorists in Galilee. The same gang was reported to have murdered and robbed an Arab villager of Kafr Kara who refused to hand over the requested sum of money.
1937: The Palestine Post reported that n Paris the Council of German Jews, headed by Viscount Samuel, announced that during the first half of 1937, 3,641 Jews left Germany, including 1,363 for Palestine. Four hundred of them made their aliya on the strength of the "capitalist" category immigration certificates, obtained by the committee.
1938: One hundred deportees from Sachsenhausen build the Neuengamme concentration camp near Hamburg.
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): In the evening, kindle the 8th Chanukah light
1939(1stof Tevet, 5700): In New York, Joseph Josephs passed away.
1939: Hans Frank issued order of the establishment of Jewish councils in Polish Jewish communities over 10,000. Jews referred to these councils as the “Judenrat.”
1941: For two days 14,300 Jews were killed in the Crimean city of Simferopol by the Einsatzkommando. The killing started on December 13 and ended on the 15th.
1941: The last six Jews living in Warendorf, Germany, are deported to Riga, Latvia, and killed.
1941: Jews living in Muenster, Germany were deported to the Riga Ghetto in Latvia today. [A photo of this is part of the Yad Vashem archives]
http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/this_month/december/05.asp
1942: Borough President Edgar J Nathan Jr., Jacob O. Zabronsky, J. David Delman, and Rabbi Leo Jung spoke at the annual Chanukah celebration of the National Council of Young Israel at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
1942: German Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels complains in his diary about Italy's halfhearted persecution of Jews.
1943: As the SS began its extermination of the local population of Vladimir-Volynski, Poland, they were attacked by 30 armed Jews. A number of the SS officers were killed as well as half of the attacking force. The remainder fled to the forests to join the partisans.
1943: In Greece, Nazis murder all males over age 14 in the village of Kalávrita.
1943: Birthdate of Victor G. Kac, a Soviet and American mathematician at MIT, known for his work in representation theory. Kac received a Sloan Fellowship in 1981 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1986.
1946: Jewish political leader Léon Blum was chosen French premier.
1946:Moshe Sneh, the reputed head of Haganah, repudiates activities of Irgun and Stern Group. He calls for a responsible resistance. He urges Zionists to stay away from London conference.
1947: The Jewish Agency, representing a majority of Palestinian Jewry denounced the rising tide of Irgun reprisals, calling them spectacular acts to gratify popular feeling.
1947: Several Irgun members driving in two cars near the Damascus Gate bus station hurled two bombs into the crowd and opened fire with automatic weapons killing five Arabs including a fourteen year old boy.
1947: The Arab League tells U.S. and Britain that partition would be considered a hostile act toward Moslems.
1947: The Zionist Organization of America urges that the U.S. provide ships for Jews going to Palestine and help arm Jewish Agency defense forces.
1948: The Transjordan Parliament authorizes King Abdullah to accept sovereignty over Arab Palestine and Transjordan defying a warning by council of Ulemas (a group of scholars and highest spiritual authority in Moslem
1949: Knesset votes to transfer Israel's capitol to Jerusalem.
1950: James Grover McDonald, the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel, left his post today.
1952(25thof Kislev, 5713): First Day of Chanukah
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the government announced an ambitious settlement program the establishment of some 100 new villages within one year.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that ten infiltrators from Jordan crossed the border, wounded the guard of a defense post and stole arms and ammunition. Elsewhere, on the same border, two marauders were killed and 26 arrested within one week. Israel demanded an emergency meeting of the Israeli-Jordanian Mixed Armistice Commission.
1953: Birthdate of economist Ben Shalom Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board
1961: Beatles sign a formal agreement to be managed by Brian Epstein. Yes, there is a Jewish connection to Ringo, Paul, John, et al.
1961: In Jerusalem, prosecuting attorney Gideon Hausner demands death penalty for Adolf Eichmann
1970: Neil Simon's "Gingerbread Lady" premieres in New York NY
1971(25thof Kislev, 5732): Chanukah
1971:Milton Glick, 15th president of the University of Nevada, Reno, became a father for the second time when his wife Peggy gave birth to his son Sandy.
1976: Release date for “Victory at Entebbe” a made for television movie based on the raid that had taken place in July of 1976.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that a top-level Israeli team, leaving for Cairo, was told by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan that President Anwar Sadat of Egypt expected, and had to gain, an early success in the forthcoming negotiations. An 82-man Arab delegation left the Gaza Strip for Cairo while their mayor, Rashid Shawwa, said that Sadat ought to be praised for strengthening moderate Arabs. However, US Secretary of State Cyrus Vance failed to persuade King Hussein of Jordan to join the planned Israeli-Egyptian conference in Cairo
1979: Roger and Hammerstein’s “Oklahoma!" opens at the Palace Theater in New York City for the first of 301 performances.
1984: In a seemingly never ending fight to nibble away at the doctrine of the separation of church and state which is critical to the Jewish community in the United States, Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department filed a friend of the court brief in support the state of Alabama in Wallace v Jaffree, a case that would decide the mandated moment of silence at the start of each school day. The Supreme Court would declare the Alabama statute unconstitutional because it violated the “first prong of the Lemon Test i.e., that the statute was invalid as being entirely motivated by a purpose of advancing religion.
1988: Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, is to be the main speaker today when the U.N. General Assembly holds its first meeting in Geneva.
1991: Birthdate of Jay "Bluejay" Greenberg composer of “Overture to 9-11.”
1992: In a daring challenge to Israel's authority in the occupied territories, Islamic militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier today and threatened to kill him unless the army quickly released the imprisoned founder of a dominant Muslim group in the Gaza Strip. The abductors' deadline passed tonight with their demand unmet, but there was no sign that they had carried out their threatened slaying.
1992: The New York Times published the following letter from Rabbi Harold M. Kamsler of Phoenixville, Pa. entitled “It May Help to Be Jewish to Love Turkey” which claimed that the word “Turkey,” the fowl of Thanksgiving fame was rooted in Hebrew.
“May I add another linguistic note to the colorful "One Strange Bird" by Margaret Visser (Op-Ed, Nov. 26)? The concurrence of the voyages of Columbus and the expulsion from Spain of its Jewish population after centuries of mutually advantageous co-existence has been widely aired in this 500th year of commemoration of both events. One of the key personnel making the first voyage was Luis de Torres, employed by Columbus as an interpreter since he had wide knowledge of Chaldean and Arabic, the languages of the areas they expected to reach. A "Converso," one of the Jews who had converted to Catholicism under the pressure of the Inquisition but remained a secret adherent of his own faith, de Torres also knew Hebrew well. It was natural that de Torres was in the first boats sent to shore on Oct. 12, 1492. In a letter written to a friend in Spain, he described the strange bird seen in this new land. As Ms. Visser notes, during the courting season the bird gobbles, struts and puffs, and his tail feathers display in the manner of a peacock. De Torres gave it the name that appears in the biblical book of I Kings, 10:22, the Hebrew word for peacock: tuki. Surely there is a much more direct line to "turkey" than the various other speculations at hand.”
1992:Islamic militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier today and threatened to kill him unless the army quickly released the imprisoned founder of a dominant Muslim group in the Gaza Strip.Today’s pre-dawn kidnapping of Sgt. Maj. Nissim Toledano in Lod, southeast of Tel Aviv, was likely to increase the sense among Israelis that they are under siege. His abduction as a means to obtain a prisoner release is an echo of hijackings and hostage-takings that for the most part have been unknown here since the 1970's.
Sergeant Toledano -- 29 years old, married and the father of two children -- belongs to the border police, who patrol the territories and Arab quarters of East Jerusalem. He was on his way to work when he was seized, a disappearance that was confirmed as a kidnapping when a West Bank office of the International Committee of the Red Cross received a copy of his identity card along with the abductors' terms. Their chief demand was that Israel free Sheik Ahmed Yassin, a Gazan who founded the Islamic Resistance Movement, known as Hamas, five years ago today. Sheik Yassin, who is 57 and has long used a wheelchair, has been in prison since 1989, and was sentenced last year to life for ordering the killings of Palestinians accused of working with the Israeli authorities. His group is militantly opposed to the peace talks.The kidnappers, who identified themselves as members of an armed wing of Hamas, said they would kill the Israeli tonight unless their demands were met, including an insistence that Sheik's release be televised in the presence of several foreign ambassadors. The same group has claimed responsibility for killing the four Israeli soldiers slain in the last week. Israeli officials said they would not even consider negotiating with the kidnappers until they had evidence Sergeant Toledano was alive. But the deadline came and went with no word on his fate.
1994(10th of Tevet, 5755): Asara B'Tevet
1995(20th of Kislev, 5756): Rabbi Roland B. Gittelsohn, a scholar on religious and governmental issues who was a Marine Corps chaplain during the battle of Iwo Jima, died at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was 85. He was the first Jewish chaplain the Marine Corps ever appointed. Rabbi Gittelsohn was rabbi emeritus at Temple Israel in Boston, where he served from 1953 to 1977. From 1936 to 1953, he served the Central Synagogue of Nassau County in Rockville Centre, L.I. He was awarded three combat ribbons for his service with the Fifth Marine Division on Iwo Jima. His sermon at the dedication of the division's cemetery, titled "The Purest Democracy," attracted wide attention and was read by many radio and television announcers during and after the war. In February, Rabbi Gittelsohn gave the benediction at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington, Va., at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the landing. Rabbi Gittelsohn was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to a committee studying civil rights issues. Later, he studied and lectured on United States involvement in Vietnam, and on euthanasia, Israeli politics and family relationships. He wrote numerous articles and books on civic and religious issues. He was president of the Massachusetts Board of Rabbis from 1958 to 1960; president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis from 1969 to 1971, and president of the Association of Reform Zionists of America from 1977 to 1984. A native of Cleveland, he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1931. He studied at Columbia University and Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati and was ordained in 1936.
1996: The president of Reform Judaism's synagogue organization has called for expanding the movement's small presence in Israel, to develop a liberal religious alternative within a nation overwhelmingly dominated by secular and Orthodox Jews. In a prepared speech he gave in Los Angeles today to trustees of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Rabbi Eric H. Yoffie, its president, said, ''We intend nothing less than to bring into being a new Israeli Judaism, which will draw Israelis with irresistible force to a renewal of practice and belief.'' Rabbi Yoffie said that the 1.5 million-member Reform movement had not done enough in Israel and promised to raise money to build the movement there. Rabbi Yoffie's statements reflected the difficulties facing the small minority of religious Jews who are not Orthodox in Israel.
1998: The New York Times book section included a review of Surpassing Wonder: The Invention of the Bible and the Talmudsby Donald Harman Akenson.
1998(24th of Kislev, 5759): In the evening, kindle the first light of Chanukah.
1998: An historic and emotion-filled event took place in Jerusalem on the eve of the first day of Hanukkah. The restored synagogue of Shimon Hatzadik (Simon the Righteous) in the Jewish neighborhood of Shimon Hatzadik in eastern Jerusalem was rededicated in the presence of former residents of this and surrounding neighborhoods. According to tradition, the high priest, who was among the last members of the Great Assembly, was buried in a cave built into these sloping Sheikh Jarrah hills, where dozens of Hassidim can be found praying and learning throughout the day. The land surrounding the burial caves had lain barren of inhabitants for almost two millennia. The graves, however, were continuously visited by Jewish pilgrims. In modern times, Jews started this neighborhood in 1895 and lived there until they were evicted by the British army during the Arab riots in 1947, says a source in Lomdei Shalem, an organization responsible for the renewed Jewish presence in the area. In the interim, the Jordanian government took over the land and permitted Arab families to move into the Jewish homes, where many still remain. After acquiring power of attorney from the Sephardic Community Council, the original owner of the property, MK Benny Elon shepherded a group of young yeshiva students to the old synagogue. They cleaned it up and began to study there regularly. The rededicated synagogue has also become a kollel, where men study Torah on a daily basis. 2000: In a seemingly never ending fight to nibble away at the doctrine of the separation of church and state which is critical to the Jewish community in the United States, the city of Elkhart, Indiana in Elkhart v Brooks was told today by the U.S. Court of Appeals said that the city had acted unconstitutionally when it accepted a Ten Commandments Monument from the Elks. 2001(28th of Kislev, 5762): Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner singer, songwriter, rhythm and lead guitarist of the band Death passed away as a result of a rare form of cancer.2005: Israel's consul-general in Los Angeles criticized Steven Spielberg's "Munich," saying that the new film drew an incorrect picture of the Mossad's hunt for the PLO terrorists who carried out the 1972 Olympic massacre, and taking the legendary director to task for morally equating the Israeli agents and their Palestinian terrorist targets. Ehud Danoch, Israeli consul general in Los Angeles, said Spielberg had addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with "certain pretentiousness" and "quite superficial statements." The film claims to be a depiction of the activities of a Mossad hit team sent out to kill those responsible for kidnapping and murdering the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
2006: Sotheby’s annual sale of Judaica in New York includes a collection of the 18thcentury ritual silver objects from the Jewish community of Amsterdam and an 18thcentury decorated manuscript honoring physician and poet Dr. Isaac Luzzato.
2006: Prime Minister Ehud Omert met with Pope Benedict XVI during the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit to Europe.
2007: In Jerusalem, a screening of The Jews in the Warsaw Uprising. This 57 minute long documentary explores the subject of the Jewish involvement in the struggle and includes Interviews with witnesses that are enriched by the archive materials and the historian reports.
2007: In New York City, the 92nd Street Y hosts cellist Steven Isserlis and pianist Kirill Gerstein as part of the Distinguished Artist Series.
2007: Greek historian Costas Plevris was sentenced to 14 months in prison for inciting racial hatred with the publication of The Jews: The Whole Truth, a book that denies the Holocaust took place.
2008: Jeff Marx “premiered a new song he wrote, ‘White Kwanzaa,’ on the CNN show D.L. Hughley Breaks the News”
2008:Itzhak Perlman plays chamber music at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
2008: The 10th Annual Jerusalem Film Festival opens. Highlights of this year's festival include:
Daniel Burman's new film, “The Empty Nest,” a premiere screening of the acclaimed PBS series, “The Jewish Americans,” and a tribute to Meyer Levin, the American-Jewish journalist and filmmaker who made “The Illegals” and “My Father's House.”.
2008: In Washington, D.C. the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue (formerly the home of Adas Israel), hosts Shalshelet's 3rd International Festival of New Jewish Liturgy. Shalshelet, based in Chevy Chase, MD, brings unique settings of Jewish prayers that build bridges within the Jewish community and to a broader audience. The two day festival starts today with "No Rock Like You: Songs for the Jewish Soul", a major concert where the works of 30 composers from four countries and ten U.S. states will be performed by an ensemble of talented soloists, instrumentalists and full choir. "New melodies have the power to breathe new wonder into familiar prayers and speak to what is best in ourselves, in our communities, and in our common bond with God," said Shalshelet president, Hazzan Ramon Tasat who also directs the cantorial program at the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York and serves as the cantor of a new Montgomery County congregation, Shirat HaNefesh.
2008 (16 Kislev 5769) Ann Gilbert (Chana Zylberstajn), 84, of Cedar Rapids and Los Angeles passed away in Cedar Rapids at the age of 84. Ann is survived by her husband of 62 years, Fred; a son, Jack Gilbert of Albany, Calif.; and two daughters, Doris (Gary) Gilbert-Stieger of San Francisco and Lena Gilbert of Springville. She was preceded in death by her parents; and brothers and sisters, who all perished during World War II. Ann was born in Szydlowiec, Poland, to Josek and Laja Zylberstajn. Ann was a Holocaust survivor. She spent over four years in concentration camps and was liberated in April 1945. She married Fred Gilbert (Felek Gebotszrajber) on Jan. 2, 1946, in Scwabisch Hall, Germany. Ann was a consummate homemaker, an accomplished seamstress, and devoted to her family. She and Fred lived in Cedar Rapids from 1949 to 1986, where she was an active member of Temple Judah and in the community. She was a lifetime member of Hadassah. From 1986 to 2003, Ann and Fred lived in Los Angeles, where she was a much sought after seamstress to film and motion picture stars. Ann and Fred were also very active in the survivor community. They were regular speakers at the Simon Wiesenthal Center-Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. She and Fred lectured frequently about their experiences. In 2003, she and Fred returned to Cedar Rapids to be near to Lena. Ann remained a constant source of inspiration and will be greatly missed.
2009: In Iowa City, the Agudas Achim Players present ”Zayda Was A Cowboy” which, along with a catered Latkes dinner adds to the enjoyment of the third night of Chanukah.
2009:Adele Steiner read from her work as part of the Iota Poetry Series held at the Iota Club & Café in Arlington, Virginia.
2009: Closing night of the 20th Annual Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a showing of “The Gift of Stalin” and a Chanukah Party.
2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival comes to a close with the screening of several cinematic offers including “Jaffa,” the featured closing night film.
2009: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Why The Dreyfus Affair Mattersby Louis Begley and Emancipation:How Liberating Europe’s Jews From the Ghetto Led to Revolution and Renaissance by Michael Goldfarb.
2009: Wonderland Express Hanukkah Dinner and Concert featuring the local Jewish band Spirit Orchestra takes place at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois
2009: In Philadelphia Chana Rothman, Naomi Less and Sarah Aroeste are the featured musicians in Lights Ignite Change at the World Café.
2009: At the Sephardic Musical Festival it is Ladino Night featuring Rivka Amado & Elie Massias at the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue.
2010:Damon Linker is scheduled to present a program entitled “The Religious Test: Why We Must Question the Beliefs of Our Leaders” at the Historic 6th& I Synagogue in Washington, DC.
2010: Mollie Berch is scheduled to deliver a talk entitled “American Jews and the Great Depression” in Silver Spring, MD.
2010: In a story entitled “Faith in The Game,” Sports Illustrated reviews Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, “a new film that illuminates the Jewish to the national pastime.” Written by Ira Berkow, narrated by Dustin Hoffman the film includes a rare interview with Dodger great Sandy Koufax and Al Rosen, the Cleveland all-star third basemen who spoke frankly about dealing with anti-Semitism.
2011: “Grace Paley: Collect Shorts” is scheduled to be shown at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA.
2011: “Tea and Talmud” sponsored by the Touro Synagogue Sisterhood is scheduled to take place in New Orleans, LA.
2011: Anat Hoffman, Director of the Union for Reform Judaism’s Religious Action Center in Jerusalem for the past ten years, is scheduled to deliver a talk on the struggle for equality and women’s rights in Israel at the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation in Reston, VA.
2011: Jerry Abramson “took office as the 55th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky.”
2011: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency discussion with Israeli defense officials today, following an attack by right-wing activists on an IDF base in the West Bank. "The situation is intolerable," Netanyahu said at the opening of the discussion. "We must take care of these rioters with a firm hand. We will not tolerate a situation in which IDF officers and soldiers are attacked and distracted from protecting Israeli citizens." Early this morning, some 50 settlers and right-wing activists entered a West Bank military base and threw rocks, burned tires, and vandalized military vehicles. An IDF officer was lightly wounded as a result of the rock-throwing. In addition to the attack on the IDF base, right-wing activists blocked a main West Bank road and threw stones at passing Palestinian vehicles and IDF soldiers in the area. Around 100 right-wing activists and settlers came to the area of the base before 50 of them entered the base, according to the IDF spokesman. The youths were repelled by security forces. No arrests were made. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak harshly condemned the attack, with Barak saying the actions carried "an air of self-made terrorism." Netanyahu instructed Israeli security forces to act decisively against right-wing activists and Barak said he is determined to put a stop to such actions and instructed IDF forces to use all means necessary to find the perpetrators. Moreover, prominent settler leaders as well as right-wing lawmakers also denounced the attack. Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan said the attack was an "inappropriate, shameful, and ungrateful" act and called on the perpetrators to turn themselves in. Rightist group Im Tirtzu also condemned the attack and called to punish those responsible. "We call for the investigation and severe punishment of those people who adopted the ways of Arab terrorists and activists from the extreme left," a statement said. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon described tonight’s events as “terrorism.” “The violent acts last night in Judea and Samaria are acts of terror,” he said. Meanwhile, MK Yaakov Katz, chairman of the National Union, also condemned the attack, saying “anyone who harms the IDF, its soldiers and officers, is not related to settlers, but in fact wants to harm them.”
2012: “Susan Sontag – The Glamour of Seriousness” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival today.
2012: Under the leadership of Lena Gilbert, a Chanukah Menorah Lighting Ceremony is scheduled to take place in Springville, Iowa.
2012: In what is the third and final public menorah lighting in North Dakota, this ceremony is scheduled to take place tonight at Bismarck, the state capital.
2012:Violinist Pinchas Zukerman, cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Angela Cheng are scheduled to perform in Palm Beach, FL at a benefit sponsored by the American Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
2012(29thof Kislev, 5773): Fifth Day of Chanukah
2012(29thof Kislev, 5773): Ninety-three year old French mountain climber Maurice Herzog passed away today. (As reported by Bruce Weber)
2012: Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman denied that he was guilty of charges brought by Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein that he was gulty of fraud and breach of the public trust.
2012: The border policewoman who fatally shot a Palestinian teen in Hebron today is content with how she performed her duty, even as it emerged that Muhammad al- Salaymeh was armed only with a toy pistol.has explained why he was carrying a toy pistol, let alone why he would point it at the Border Police.
2012: President Obama is scheduled to host a Chanukah party in the White House. Per the request of the President, “a 90-year-old menorah from a temple on Long Island that was ravaged by Hurricane Sandy will be displayed at a Hanukkah party…as a symbol of perseverance and hope for the holidays.” (As reported by Michael Schwirtz)
2013: In Iowa City, Penfield Books is schedule to host a reception for several local authors including three members of Agudas Achim : Arthur Canter for his World War II memoir, Flap Dog: A World War II Odyssey of a Communications Interceptor, Miriam Canter for her newly revised cookbook Dazzling Desserts and ,and Vida Brenner author of the book for children The Magic Music Shop.
2013 The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band is scheduled to perform at the UIHC.
2013: In keeping with its annual tradition, Keren Kayemet LeIsrael-Jewish National
Fund (KKL-JNF) is scheduled to start distributing Christmas trees at Ras El E'ain next to Kfar Rama (Wadi Salama)
2013: “Copying Beethoven” and “Bethlehem” are scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2013(10thof Tevet): Asarah B'Tevet,
2013(10thof Tevet): Yarhrzeit Judith “Judy” Rosenstein (nee Levin) a woman of valor – gone too soon but always remembered