December 24
1166: Birthdate of King John of England Bristol England
1294: Pope Boniface VIII is elected Pope.In 1298, four years after Boniface came to power, 628 Jews are killed after a priest Nuremberg, Germany, spreads a story that Jews drove nails through communion hosts, "thereby crucifying Christ again". There are those who hold Boniface accountable for this murderous act, if for no other reason that it took place during his “undistinguished” papal rule.
1354: The Jews of Speyer, Germany were given permission to open a school and synagogue.
1491: Birthdate Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish founder of the Jesuit order. Loyola was born one year before the Jewish expulsion from Spain. He lived during a period dominated by the Inquistion and Church sanctioned anti-Semitism. “It is accordingly much to their credit that the Jesuits were firmly opposed (particularly under Ignatius and his first three successors as Superior General of the Jesuits) to ecclesiastical anti-Semitism and to the Inquisition's persecution of suspected Jews. When Ignatius was accused of having partly Jewish ancestry, he replied, ‘If only I did! What could be more glorious than to be of the same blood as the Apostles, the Blessed Virgin, and our Lord Himself?’”
1529: According to various sources date on which Kabbalist, poet and author Shlomo Alkabetz (שלמה אלקבץ) married the daughter of one Yitzchak Cohen, a wealthy householder living in Salonica. His most famous work was 'Lecha Dodi', the hymn that marks the start of the Shabbat.
1610:Spain and the Dutch Republic signed a treaty recognizing free commerce between the Netherlands and Morocco, and allowing the sultan to purchase ships, arms and munitions from the Dutch. This was one of the first official treaties between a European country and a non-Christian nation, after the 16th-Century treaties of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. Samuel Pallache, a Jewish-Moroccan merchant, was the lead negotiator during the negotiations. He had been appointed as the Ottoman envoy to the Dutch Republic by sultan Zidan Abu Maali in 1608.
1696: On Christmas Eve, at Evora , Portugal Portugal
1789: During the French Revolution, the National Assembly approved a law granting Protestants equal rights with Catholics. The Assembly refused to extend the same rights to the Jews of France.
1798: Birthdate of Adam Bernard Mickiewicz, poet, author and Polish nationalist who sought to organize a military force to fight against the Russians during the Crimean War. To that end, he worked with Armand Levy to organize a military unit made up of Russian and Palestinian Jews called the Hussars of Israel to fight against the forces of the Czar – the same Czar who was the impediment to Polish independence.
1814: The Treaty of Ghent is signed ending the War of 1812 which is also referred to as the Second War for American Independence. As has been the case in all other conflicts, Jews played an active role in the military. The most famous of them was Uriah P. Levy whose naval career would see him rise to the rank of Commodore despite having to deal with anti-Semitism. Captain John Ordronaux gained famed as a privateer. Several grandsons of Mordechai Sheftal, the Georgian who gained fame during the Revolutionary War fought the British as did one of the sons of Haym Solomon. Thirty Jews were part of the force that defended Fort McHenry. Captain Mordecai Myers distinguished himself on the water of Lake Ontario and Major Abraham Massaias helped to “foil British attempts to invade Georgia from the sea.” Last but not least is Judah Touro who would fight with Andrew Jackson’s forces at the Battle of New Orleans. As we all know, this most famous battle of the War of 1812 was fought on January 8, 1815, more than two weeks after the war had officially come to an end.
1820: Siegmund Leopold Beyfus and his wife “Babette” Rothschild, the daughter of Mayer Amschel Rothschild gave birth to Charlotte Beyfus the future wife of Abraham Oppenheim.
1834: A letter of this date written from Jerusalem stated “It should be known to you that from other lands, worthy people are actually streaming to the Four Holy Cities (Hebron, Jerusalem, Tiberias and Safed)” which is part of the proof offered by Arei Morgenstern in his book” Hastening Redemption: Messianism and the Resettlement of the Land of Israel” that there a significant number of Haredim had made Aliyah prior to the birth of the modern Zionist movement at the end of the 19th century.
1841: As the conflict between traditionalist and reformers in the Anglo-Jewish community becomes increasingly strident, The Voice of Jacob published an article with a relatively conciliatory tone under the heading ““The attempt to establish a secession synagogue in London.” The article’s author clung to the notion that “that reform group was unlikely to wield any influence.” Considering the names of the people tied to the Reform movement, this seemed like “a vain hope.”
1841: Birthdate of Flaminio Ephraim Servi, the native of Pitigliano, Tuscany who served as rabbi in several communities including Casael-Moneferrato where he was the Chief Rabbi.
1845(25th of Kislev, 5606): Jews in Texas observe Chanukah as members of an independent republic for the last time.
1849: Birthdate of Charles Ephrussi, scion of prominent Jewish banking family from Odessa who gained fame as an art critic and collector
1851: The President of the Hebrew Benevolent Associations attended tonight’s Anniversary Dinner commemorating the first landing of the Pilgrims hosted by the Sons of New England at the Astor House.
1855: Today’s “Parisian Gossip Column” reported a claim by French publicist and editor Taxila Delord that Mlle. Rachel, the famous Jewish actress is planning on returning to France from the United States without completing all of the performances to which she had agreed.
1857: Uriah P. Levy was restored to active duty. Naval officials had tried to end his career prematurely, due in part, to the fact that he was Jewish. Levy played a key role in putting an end to flogging as a punishment for common sea men. He also was responsible for saving the library that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson.
1864(25th of Kislev, 5625): Chanukah is observed as the Union basks in the successful end of Sherman's March to the Sea
1865: A group of Confederate veterans met in Tennessee Nathan Bedford Forest Indiana Washington , D.C.
1868(10thof Tevet, 5629): Asara B’Tevet
1868: Birthdate of Emanuel Lasker. Lasker was a mathematician who gained fame as a chess player. He was “World Champion” from 1894 through 1921. In one of those on-going ironies of the way history is recorded, Lasker is identified as a “German chess champion” even though he was the kind of German who was forced to flee for his life in the 1930’s. Lasker finally found refuge in the United States
1870(30thof Kislev, 5631): Rosh Chodesh Kislev
1871(19 Tevet 5631): Abraham Samuel Benjamin (The Ktav Sofer) passed away. Born in 1815, he was a Rabbi, educator and Orthodox leader of Hungarian Jewry. He was the son of Moses Sofer and took his father’s place upon his death in 1839. His Responsa and clarification on the Torah were published under the title Ktav Sofer.
1873: Birthdate of C.G. (Charles Gabriel) Seligman. He was a pioneer in British anthropology who conducted significant field research in Melanesia , Ceylon Sri Lanka New Guinea
1879: The Pauline Markham troupe which included Sadie Marcus, the Jewess who would marry Wyatt Earp performed “H.M.S Pinafore” for the first time In Tombstone the town made famous by the Gunfight at the OK Corral.
1881: It was reported today that Baron Gustav Rothschild has purchased a “woodland tract around Chantilly for which he paid the state” approximately a million dollars.
1881: It was reported today that a near riot had broken out in Odessa, Russia, as people sought to buys tickets for the upcoming performances of Sarah Bernhardt.
1882: It was reported today that Judge Arnoux has lifted the temporary injunctions that restrained the police from arresting Jewish merchants who kept their stores open on Sunday. In his ruling, Arnoux said that the state legislature has designated the “first day of the week” as the day on which numerous commercial activities are prohibited and that it would be a violation of that stance to allow those who observe a different day of the week as a day of rest to remain open on Sunday. In other words, Jews who do business on Sunday are subject to arrest. The ruling did not prohibit Jewish merchants from contesting the constitutionality of the law if they face trial on such a violation.
1882: It was reported today that Annie Littlestein, the 19 year old Jewish immigrant from Poland who had been saved after she jumped into the East River had fled her home after a violent altercation with her jealous husband. The couple has one child whom the police gave back to its mother after the husband disappeared from the home. (Life in the new world was not always an easy walk on Streets Paved With Gold)
1883(25thof Kislev, 5644): Chanukah
1886: Birthdate of Hungarian born film director Michael Curtiz. He directed everybody from Errol Flynn to Elvis Presley. Like so many other Jewish immigrants he helped develop American Middle American culture with films like Yankee Doodle Dandyand White Christmas. But his most famous effort is the all time classic “Casablanca
1887: It was reported today that Bishop Potter, New York’s leading Presbyterian minister, publicly praised the contributions of the Jews of New York to the Sunday Hospital Fund and said that their generosity should serve as an example to Christians who have not been nearly as generous.
1887: It was reported today that among those contributing to the non-denominational Sunday Hospital Fund were Mrs. J.H. Lazarus ($10.00) and Congregation B’nai Jeshurun ($50.00)
1890: Rabbi Pereira Mendes and Cantor A.H. Nieto officiated at the wedding of his daughter Rebecca Nieto to Albert Lucas of London this afternoon at Shearith Israel on West 19th Street.
1891: The American Hebrew reminded its readers to “let your children know that it is Chanukah this week and give them a good time. You have eight days’ time in which to celebrate the Feast, the first night being the 24” of Kislev which is December 25.
1891: In Vienna, Rosa Korngut and Nathan Birnbaum gave birth to “Yiddish linguist and Hebrew paleographer,” Solomon Birnbaum
1892(5thof Tevet, 5653): Thirty-three year old Herman Stern, a German Jew “who was employed as foreign exchange clerk in the Wall Street banking house of Landenburg, Thalman & Co committed suicide today by hanging himself in his bedroom at the house of Samuel M. Marks.”
1893: The American Hebrew was founded byF. de Sola Mendes and Philip Cowen, the publisher of the paper.
1893: “History of the Jews In America” published today provided details about the second annual meeting of the American Jewish Historical Society which will be held at Columbia College later this month.
1894: In New York the United Hebrew Charities received $1,163.62 when the Mayor decided to distribute the remainder of the funds donated by city employees last winter to help the poor and the unemployed.
1894: In Paris, “General Mercier, Minister of War, introduced…a bill in the Chamber of Deputies providing the death penalty for such military traitors as Captain Dreyfus.”
1894: In the Chamber of Deputies, Socialist Jean Jaurès who has been “delegated by his party to demand the abolition of the death penalty in the Army…said that Captain Dreyfus escaped the death sentence because the Government feared the consequences of executing him.”
1894: “Christmas In Germany” published today provides a snapshot of events and feelings in the Kaiser’s Kingdom including the anger being felt by Germans over “the spy mania in France” including the Dreyfus Affair which try to make Germany a villain responsible for espionage
1906: Birthdate of German-born American composer Franz Waxman. His film scores netted him 12 Oscar nominations and two back to back Academy Awards for “Sunset Place” and “A Place
1901: In Hungary, a carpenter named Samuel Rosenfeld and his wife Sarah Gluck gave birth to Ruth Rosenfeld who came to the United States where she worked as a seamstress.
1907: Birthdate of I.F. (Isidore Feinstein) Stone. Stone was a left-wing journalistic gadfly who published “IF Stone’s Weekly.”
1910: Birthdate of author Fritz Leiber. The Phi Beta Kappa graduate won three Hugo awards for his science fiction writing including Ship of Shadows.
1912:Marguerite Thompson married William Zorach, the Lithuanian born American Jewish sculptor, painter, printmaker, and writer who won the Logan Medal of the arts.
1913(25thof Kislev, 5674): Jews observe Chanukah for the last time in a world that is not at war.
1913: Birthdate of Bernard Manischewitz, the native of Cincinnati, Ohio who was the last member of his family to preside over the worldwide kosher food empire that began when his grandfather opened a small matzo bakery in Cincinnati. Mr. Manischewitz was president of the B. Manischewitz Company for 26 years, until he supervised its sale to a group led by Kohlberg & Company in 1990. At the time, it had $1.5 billion in annual sales and exported its products, from gefilte fish to borscht, around the world. It then controlled 80 percent of the United States market for matzo, the unleavened bread eaten year-round but especially at Passover. Mr. Manischewitz's father, Jacob, gave him his first job with the company when he assigned him to inspect the production line to make sure the flat, cracker-like matzos did not break. He eventually became one of the three first cousins who ran the company in its third generation, continuing alone after the others died. The cousins followed the five sons of Rabbi Dov Behr Manischewitz, who began the bakery in 1888. In the company's early stages, the rabbi installed certain innovations that were challenged by rabbinical authorities as violating Jewish dietary laws. Rabbi Manischewitz, however, argued strongly that his methods were more sanitary and led to standardized quality. Rabbi Manischewitz also began insisting in advertisements that customers ask for his matzos by the name Manischewitz in order to counter imitators who copied his original name, Cincinnati matzos. In 1932, the company built a second factory, in Jersey City, which quickly became the center of operations. By 1949, Bernard Manischewitz's generation had taken over. He was president, D. Beryl Manischewitz was chairman and William Manischewitz was treasurer. An article in The New York Times in 1951 told how Bernard Manischewitz was leading the company into preparing more than 70 different kosher foods, in addition to matzo, including frozen fish and poultry, canned borscht and chicken soup, and the Tam Tam cracker. Wines with the name Manischewitz were sold throughout the country under a licensing arrangement. In an interview with The Times in 1956, Mr. Manischewitz suggested that those products signified the biggest change in Jewish domestic life since biblical times. He said all but the most strictly Orthodox homemakers had been released from "the compulsory obsession with the problems of cooking." He also noted that American processed kosher foods were selling well in Europe and even in Israel. All this expansion called for snappy — or at least memorable — advertising. One tongue-in-cheek radio ad advised listeners not to eat Manischewitz matzos in bed because they were crispier and so might cause "a crummy night's sleep." Bernard Manischewitz attended Syracuse University for a year and graduated from New York University with a business degree. He later took night courses in factory management. One of the last battles of his career came in 1990, when the company faced charges of conspiring to fix the price of Passover matzos. It ended in 1991 with the company pleading no contest to a single criminal indictment and paying a $1 million fine. Mr. Manischewitz was an intensely private man who avoided using his own name to register in hotels and make restaurant reservations, Dr. Hoffman said. He also believed that not dropping his name made good business sense. When he was in Alaska bargaining over the price of whitefish for making gefilte fish, Dr. Hoffman said, he feared that if people knew he was Mr. Manischewitz, they might expect a higher price. He passed away in 2003 at the age of 89. (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1913: Melech Epstein, the Russian born “Jewish American journalist and historian” arrived at Ellis Island. He was the author of Jewish Labor in U.S.A. and The Jew and Communism.
1914: “To-Night’s the Night,” a musical comedy composed by Paul Rubens the son of English stockbroker Victor Rubens and Jenny Wallach, opened tonight at the Schubert Theatre in New York City.
1914; During World War I The "Christmas truce" begins on the Western Front. For more about this amazing tale read Silent Night: The Story of The World War I Christmas Truce by the Jewish author, Stanley Weintraub's and you will see how a Christmas book can be considered a “Jewish Book.”
1916: The New York Times featured a review of Isaac Mayer Wise: The Founder of American Judaism, a biography of the founder of Reform Judaism, written by Max B. May
1918: Birthdate of Anwar El Sadat. Sadat served as President of Egypt from 1970 until his murder in 1981. Sadat’s trip to Jerusalem
1920: Enrico Caruso gave his last public performance, singing in Jacques Halevy's ''La Juive'' (The Jewess) at the Metropolitan Opera in New York
1923: Birthdate of David Frank Friedman a film producer from Birmingham, Alabama, who cheerfully and cheesily exploited an audience’s hunger for bare-breasted women and blood-dripping corpses in lucrative low-budget films like “Blood Feast” and “Ilsa: She-Wolf of the S.S.” (As reported by Bruce Weber)
1924: Albania becomes a republic. Jews had lived in parts of what is now Albania Albania Ottoman Empire . After the war, there were probably 200 Jews living in the country.
1924: Birthdate of Nissim Ezekiel, the native Bombay (as it was called during British rule) “an Indian Jewish poet, playwright, editor and art-critic” whose works include The Bad Day and The Deadly Man.
1925: In the Bronx, NY, Hetty and Max Schmertz gave birth to Eric Joseph Schmertz “who as one of the nation’s most relied-upon labor peacemakers helped resolve thousands of labor disputes, getting both the Rockettes and New York City cab drivers to end strikes in the 1960s.” (As reported by Dennis Hevesi)
1928: Erwin Rommel and his wife gave birth to Manfred Rommel who as mayor of Stuttgart “strengthened the city’s Jewish population.” (As reported by Douglas Martin)
1931: Birthdate of Argentinean born composer and director Maricio Kagel.
1932: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus.
1936(10th of Tevet, 5697): Asara B'Tevet
1937: The Palestine Postreported that 11 Arabs were killed, scores wounded, and one captured, in a battle fought by a strong police and military force against a large Arab band northeast of Nazareth
1937: In a leading article the Post sadly reflected that at Christmas-time the world picture hardly presented a flattering reflection of a Christian ideal. The situation in Europe was painfully familiar and needed no elaboration, while in Palestine
1937: Pope Pius XI delivered his annual Christmas message to the College of Cardinal during which he “condemns…the persecution of the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany.” "In Germany there is real, actual religious persecution despite efforts to present a contrary impression. For some time people have been saying and trying to make other people believe there is no persecution, but we know there is — and very grave persecution. Indeed, rarely has there been persecution so grave, so terrible, so painful, so sad in its deep effects.” (As reported by Austin Cline)
1938: Several members of the American Catholic hierarchy and leading Protestants sign a Christmas resolution expressing "horror and shame" in response to the Kristallnacht pogrom.
1940: Birthdate of Shaul Amor, the native of Morocco who made Aliyah in 1956 and was elected to the Knesset for the first time in 1988.
1940: In advising the Mandate Government as to how to deal with Jewish immigration to Palestine after the Patria incident Churchill sent a memo urging the government to consider their promises to the Zionists and to be guided by general considerations of humanity towards those fleeing from the cruelest forms of persecution. The Permanent Under-Secretary of State ignored Churchill’s request and successfully convinced his colleagues not let Churchill know of their decision to suspend Jewish legal immigration until September, 1941.
1940: Release date of the Czech film “Ecstacy” starring Hedy Lamar, who was the daughter of two assimilated Viennese Jews – Gertrude and Emil Kiesler.
1941: Viktor Alter, the Polish born Bundist who to organize the International Jewish Ant-Fascist Committee was sentenced to death by the NKVD after having fallen afoul of Stalin’s paranoia and anti-Semitism.
1942: Following a successful attack on Nazi troops at the Cyganeria, a coffee house in Cracow, Poland, the German authorities launched a massive retaliatory campaign aimed at destroying the Jewish Fighting Organization.
1942: Hundreds of Jews were captured after another German manhunt in the woods of Parczew.
1942:On Christmas Eve before Barney Ross and his Marines were to go to battle the famous Father Frederic Gehring, a war-time chaplain who wrote regular correspondences for Reader's Digest magazine asked Ross to take part in what would become one of the most poignant such events of the war. During his time in Guadalcanal, Ross had begun what would be a life-long friendship with Gehring who considered Ross a national treasure who defied logic when it came to bravery and the defense of principle. Ross was the only one capable of playing a temperamental organ on the tropical island, so Gehring asked him to learn Silent Night and other Christmas songs for the troops. Barney played these songs and sang with the homesick young men, after which Gehring implored Ross to play a Jewish song. Ross played a melancholy song called "My Yiddishe Momma" about a child's love for his self-sacrificing mother. Many of the Marines knew the melody of the song because Ross always had it played when he entered the ring. But when the Marines heard the heart-rending lyrics, newspaper reports say they were all in tears. After Ross's single-handed victory in the battle at Guadalcanal, he was viewed as almost superhuman, particularly based on all he had to overcome in his troubled life.
1942: During his Christmas Eve address, Pope Pius mentioned “the hundreds of thousands who without any fault of their own sometimes only by reasons of their nationality or race are marked for death or gradual extinction.” Despite having been told about the fate of the Jews of Europe, the Pope chooses not to condemn those who are engaged in the slaughter known as “The Final Solution.”
1943: As the Soviet Army began advancing toward Berlin Jerusalem
1943: At Borki , Poland
1943(27thof Kislev, 5704): New York’s Rabbi Louis Werfel a 27 year old chaplain sweving with the Twelfth Air Force Service Command in North Africa was killed in a plane crash in Algeria as he was flying back from conducting Chanukah services in Casablanca. Rabbi Werfel was the fourth Jewish chaplain to lost his life in the line of duty as of this date. He was known as “the flying rabbi” because of his propensity for using aircraft to travel to distant outposts to serve the unique needs of Jewish servicemen. After graduating from Yeshiva University he served as the rabbi for the Mount Kisco (NY) Hebrew Congregation and Knesseth Israel in Birmingham, Alabama, his last pulpit before joining the Army Air Force. In Birmingham he was on the board of the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and the National Jewish Welfare Board’s Army and Navy Committee The wide range of Werfel’s activities could be seen from his request to the Jewish for 10,000 French-Hebrew prayerbooks for the Jews fighting with the Free French forces.
1944: As proof that for many British policy-makers keeping Jews out of Palestine was more important than saving them from the Holocaust, Lord Gort, the High Commissioner for Palestine telegraphed the Foreign Office from Jerusalem asking that the Soviet Government – whose troops had entered the Balkans – be asked to close both the Rumanian and Bulgarian frontiers on the grounds that Jewish immigration from South East Europe to Palestine was getting out of hand.
1945: Twenty-one year old Arnold Weiss who was serving as an officer in the United States Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corps, began working on a project that would lead to the discovery of Hitler’s last will and political testament.
1946: Birthdate of Uri Geller, the Israeli who specializes in the para-normal.
1946(1st of Tevet, 5707): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1946(1st of Tevet, 5707): Israel Levin is murdered in Tel Aviv, Palestine, for betraying Stern Group leader.
1946: TheWorld Zionist Congress ended with the Zionists calling for an end of terrorism. The Congress expressed its opposition to a UN trusteeship and want independence with no partition. The delegates also adopt resolution to boycott conference in London, England.
1947: Heavy sniping amounting almost to guerrilla warfare killed four Arabs and two Jews and wounded at least twenty-six other persons in Haifa
1948: The Canadian Minister for External Affairs, Lester Pearson, informed Israel’s Foreign Minister, Moshe Sharett that “ the state of Israel, in the opinion of the Canadian governments has given satisfactory proof that it complies with the essential conditions of statehood” including “external independence and effective internal government within a reasonably well-defined territory.” In plain English, the government of Canada Israel
1948: On Christmas Eve, pilgrims are allowed to enter Bethlehem, but they have to pass through both Jewish and Arab checkpoints.
1948: Egyptian planes attack Nazareth, Haifa and Tel Aviv.
1950(15th of Tevet, 5711): Lev Simonovich Berg passed away. Born in 1876, Berg was the geographer and zoologist who established the foundations of limnology in Russia Russia
1951(25th of Kislev, 5712): As the Korean War drags on for a second year, the Jews observe Chanukah
1951: Idris I is proclaimed King as Libya gains its independence from Italy. Jews had lived in what was now Libya since the time of the Greeks and Romans. Jewish fortunes in Libya were already in decline before independence. The anti-Jewish policies of the fascists coupled with outbreaks against Jews following the creation of Israel had begun to take its toll on the Jewish population. The Six Days War in 1967 led to further attacks on the Jews. Idris realized that he could not protect his Jewish subjects and he allowed the Jewish community to leave the country. The Jews went to Rome with some of them moving on to Israel or the United States
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the new Mapai-General Zionists-Progressive government coalition won a 63-to-24 vote of confidence. The religious parties still hesitated, but were expected to join the coalition.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that 80 dunams of land and a house in the Zeita village in the Little Triangle were detached from Israel Jordan Rhodes armistice negotiations. Arab residents of this area surrendered their Israeli identity cards and became Jordanians.
1952: As the third Israeli government ends and the fourth Israeli government takes power today, Moshe Sharett retained his position as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
1952: Yosef Burg replaced Mordecahi Nurock as Minister of Postal Services, making him the second person to hold this position. Nurock was the first person to hold the position now known as the Communications Minister
1952:Israel Rokach replaced Haim-Moshe Shapira as Interior Minister in Israel.
1955(9th of Tevet, 5716):Hugo Chaim Adler a Belgian composer, cantor, and choir conductor passed away. “Born in Antwerp to Jewish parents, Adler studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln from 1912-1915. In 1915 he was drafted into the German Army during the First World War; serving for three years in the infantry until he was wounded at Argonne. In 1918 he was appointed cantor and teacher at St. Wendel in the Saarland. He left there in September 1921 to become second cantor at the synagogue in Mannheim, rising to head cantor there in 1933. While in Mannheim he studied music composition at the Mannheim Conservatory with Ernst Toch. In 1939 he fled Germany for the United States after having been imprisoned due to his Jewish ancestry by the Nazi regime. From September 1939 until his death of cancer in December 1955 he was cantor of Temple Emanuel in Worcester, Massachusetts. He remained active as a choir conductor and composer of sacred music during these years. Several of his works were published by Sacred Music Press and Transcontinental Music Publishers in New York City. He is the father of composer and conductor Samuel Adler.”
1955: Release date in Japan for “The Court Jester” a musical comedy starring Danny Kaye
1957: Norma Talmadge, the former wife of Joseph Schenck with whom she created one of Hollywood’s earliest and most successful production companies passed away. He was Jewish. She was not, although she apparently had a penchant for Jewish husbands since she married George Jessel 9 days after she divorced Schenck.
1959: The desecration of a new synagogue in Cologne , Germany Western Europe , the Americas Australia Africa .
1969: On Christmas eve, five small boats showing almost no lights slipped out of Cherbourg harbor into the teeth of a Force 9 gale which kept even large freighters from venturing out. Built for the Israel Navy, the vessels had been embargoed at the beginning of the year by French president Charles de Gaulle.
1971: Birthdate of Tamir Bloom. A champion fencer, Bloom was a member of the 1996 U.S.
1970: Nine Jews were convicted in Leningrad Israel
1970: The New York Times reports that Jews and Arabs are living harmoniously on the plain near Meggido--believed to be the Biblical Armageddon--where St. John said in Revelations that the forces of good and evil would fight the last great battle at the end of time.
1975(20th of Tevet, 5736): Composer Bernard Herrmann passed away. Born in 1911, Herrmann gained fame for writing musical scores for a wide variety of films including Citizen Kane, Vertigo and Psycho. In fact he died the day after he completed the score for the film Taxi Driver
1982:”Bombs in Australia Hit Jewish and Israeli Sites’ published today described attacks on the Israeli Consulate and a Jewish social club in Sydney.
1984(30th of Kislev, 5745): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1984: Yitzhak Peretz replaced Shimon Peres as Internal Affairs of Minister.
1984: In “A Panel Explores Gambling Among Jews” Nadine Brozan describes the ways in which the Jewish community is finally coming to grips with this social problem.
1985:A small bomb concealed in a loaf of bread was found at a bus stop near Tel Aviv University today, the police said. A passer-by discovered the suspicious-looking loaf and informed explosives experts, a police spokesman said. The device was safely dismantled. No arrests were reported.
1990: In the run-up to what would be Gulf War I, Saddam said Israel will be Iraq's 1st target. A Spanish television station reported today that during a weekend interview, the Iraqi leader had said that Tel Aviv would be Iraq's first target whether or not Israel joins the war effort against Iraq
1993(10thof Tevet, 5754): Asara B’Tevet
1993(10thof Tevet, 5754): Lieut. Col. Meir Mintz, commander of the IDF special forces in the Gaza area, was shot and killed by terrorists in an ambush on his jeep at the T-junction in Gaza. The Hamas Iz a-Din al Kassam squads publicly claimed responsibility for the attack.
1995(1st of Tevet, 5756): Rosh Chodesh Tevet
1995:The night was certainly not silent and it was not always calm as Bethlehem marked its first Christmas under Palestinian control with thunderous fireworks, choirs, bagpipes, dances and laser lights.
1995: On Christmas Eve, at an Israeli checkpoint on the border of the West Bank, Israeli police stopped busloads of Israeli nationalists who had wanted to hold a protest against the transfer of authority to the Palestinians at Rachel's Tomb. The protesters held up posters and chanted, "Land of Israel, Land of Israel" as the police blocked their way to the West Bank."Why can't we go in?" demanded Judy Pearlman, a Jerusalem resident originally from New York. "The Arabs are having their celebration worshiping their God. Why can't we worship ours? All we want to do is light candles at Rachel's Tomb on the last day of Hanukkah. We're second-class citizens in our own country."
1997(25thof Kislev, 5768): First Day of Chanukah
1997: Edward S. Walker, Jr. presented his credentials as the U.S Ambassador to Israel.
1997: For the first time Chanukah candles were officially lit in Vatican City.
1997: "A Singular Passion for Amassing Art, One Way or Another" published today outlined a case involving Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, which was in the MoMA exhibition but was obtained by Rudolph Leopold soon after the Nazi era. The Manhattan DA stepped in to help restore the piece to descendants of its original owner, but ownership of the painting is still in contention, nearly 10 years later. Ron Lauder has been accused of a failure to act on the case, despite being MoMA chairman at the tim
2000: The New York Times book section featured books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including The Wandering Jewsby Joseph Roth and translated by Michael Hofmann, More Stories From My Father’s Courtby Isaac Bashevis Singer; translated by Curt Leviant and a poem entitled Flight to Egypt by Jewish poet Joseph Brodsky.
2004: The Jerusalem Post reported a major archeological discovery. The Israel Antiquities Authority announced that an elaborately paved assembly area and water channel that carried rainwater to the pool of Shiloah (Siloam) during the Second Temple period were uncovered by archeologists digging in Jerusalem's ancient City of David.
2005: The Seventh Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival featured showings of “Dear Enemy,” “Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer” and “The Star Hidden in the Backlands.”
2006: The New York Timesbook section featured books by Jewish authors and/or about subjects of Jewish interest including Isaac B. Singer: A Life by Florence Noiville; translated by Catherine Temerson and Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology by George Prochnik. The book is based on Freud’s only trip to the United States
2006: The Washington Postbook section carried a review entitled “Out of Hungary: How an extraordinary group of refugees helped create Casablanca Noon and the bomb” in which Geoffrey Wheatcroft explores The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World by Kati Marton. “In her very readable new book, Kati Marton tells the story of nine Hungarian Jews who left the country between the world wars and prospered.” The nine include filmmakers Alexander Korda and Michael Curtiz, photographers Andre Kertesz and Robert Capa, physicists Edward Teller, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner and John von Neumann and the author Arthur Koestler.
2007: The International Conference on Contemporary Reform Judaism opens its two day meeting in Jerusalem
2008(27th of Kislev, 5769):Seventy-eight year old Harold Pinter, who was widely esteemed as the most important British playwright of the past half-century and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005, passed away today in London today. (As reported by Mel Gussow and Ben Brantley)
2008: The Maltz Museum,hosts a special Hanukkah candle-lighting service at 5 p.m., followed by a full-buffet Chinese dinner, catered by Pearl
2008: The Moshav Band joins with Soul Farm in an appearance at B.B. King Blues Club in New York City
2008:The American Technion Society (ATS ), one of the Haifa
2008:The second season of the Hebrew-language edition of “Survivor” begins today.
2009: David Broza, one of Israel's most enduring and energizing artists performs at the Kaufmann Concert Hall in New York City.
2009: Jews in the Greater Washington Metropolitan area can choose between an evening that features the perfect blend of the latest, hottest dances from Israel intermingled with recent hits and oldies from the whole gamut of Israeli choreographers at Tikvat Israel Synagogue in Rockville, MD or "Putting the Ha! in Hanukkah" Jewish music for people who don't like Jewish music at Jammin Java in Vienna, VA.
2009:The gang that ordered the theft of the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' sign from the Auschwitz death camp memorial were planning to sell it to fund attacks against the Swedish prime minister and parliament, the Times reported on today.
2009(7th of Tevet, 5770):After months of quiet, a father of seven was shot dead in a drive-by shooting attack near the northern Samaria settlement of Shavei Shomron today. The victim was identified as Meir Chai, a 45-year-old resident of the settlement and father of seven children ranging in age from two months to 18. Chai was the fourth terror victim in the West Bank in 2009. In March, two policemen were shot dead in the Jordan Valley and in April, 13-year-old Shlomo Nativ was stabbed to death near his home in the Gush Etzion settlement of Bat Ayin. Chai was driving in his minivan on Road 57, between Shavei Shomron and Einav, when a Palestinian car overtook him and opened fire. Chai was hit in the head and drove off the road. Magen David Adom paramedics arrived quickly at the scene and despite their efforts, were forced to pronounce his death. The Al Aksa Martyrs organization announced that its men were responsible for the attack.
2009: The Boston Globe published “Levi Horowitz; guided many as Bostoner Rebbe; at 88,” a comprehensive obituary of the Jewish leader who passed away on December 5.
2010(17th of Tevet, 5771):Roy R. Neuberger, who drew on youthful passions for stock trading and art to build one of Wall Street’s most venerable partnerships and one of the country’s largest private collections of 20th-century masterpieces, died today at his home at the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan” at the age of 107. (As reported by Edward Wyatt)
2010: Hullegeb Fest is scheduled to present “Kudus Kudus ‘The Sacred Songs of Ethiopian Jewry’” at the Confederation House.
2010: Two suspects from Jerusalem and Hadera are set to be indicted today on charges of stealing 30 Torah scrolls from synagogues across the South and the Central region.
2010:A Kassam rocket that was shot into Israeli territory early this evening. The rocket exploded in an open field near Ashkelon. No injuries or damage was reported.
2010: Following a series of attacks from Gaza, IAF planes attacked targets in the northern and southern Gaza Strip late tonight. The IDF Spokesperson Unit said that "a terrorist cell was attacked in the northern Gaza Strip, and a smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza."
2011:The Kinsey Sicks in Oy Vey in a Manger is scheduled to open in Washington, DC.
2011:Israelis from Baton Rouge, Gulfport and other cities nearby are scheduled to join with Israelis from New Orleans and Metairie for a fun Chanukah event of food, music and lots of fun at the Chabad Center in Metairie, LA.
2011:The Godfather of Israeli music, Miki Gavrielov, is scheduled to perform at the 7th Annual Sephardic Music Festival at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC.
2011:Hamshoushalayim is scheduled to come to an end for 2011.
2011(28th of Kislev, 5772): Shabbat Shel Chanukah
2011: Today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch to instruct the police to act firmly against violent attacks targeting women in the public sphere.
2011:Around noon today, shots were fired at an Israeli vehicle near the Ma'ale Shomron settlement in the West Bank.
2012:Dr. Rafael Medoff, director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies and author of 15 books about the Holocaust and Jewish history, is scheduled to unveil The Evian Initiative, a new campaign to solve Israel's African refugee problem at Hebrew University.
2012: The Gefilte Fish Gala, a fund raiser Sharshelet’s Breast Cancer research is scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C.
2012: “Zimzum” a film that centers around solving a spree of robberies at a Moshav, is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.
2012: “Stand Up Rabbis” a night of comedy featuring Rabbi Naftali Cohen and Shmuley Boteach is scheduled to take place in New York City.
2012(11th of Tevet, 5773): Ninety-two year old Alexander Leaf “a versatile physician and research scientist who was an early advocate of diet and exercise to prevent heart disease” passed away today. (As reported by Paul Vitello)
2012: Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel’s civilian population have no lawful justification and are a war crime, Human Rights Watch said in a scathing report published today, assigning Hamas blame for civilian deaths in Israel and Gaza during last month’s Operation Pillar of Defense.
2012(11th of Tevet, 5773): The curtain came down today on the life of ninety year old Jack Klugman. Many people know him only as the funny slob: “Oscar Madison” or the quirky Medical Examiner “Quincy” but he was an accomplished dramatic actor as can be seen from the several episodes of “Twilight Episodes” in which he starred.
2013: The distribution of Christmas Trees by the JNF which began at Nazareth on December 10 is scheduled to come to an end today.
2013: “Gravehopping” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.