OCTOBER 7
3761 BCE: According to some Jewish traditionalists, this corresponds to the date on which God created the World. This marks the start of the epoch of the Modern Hebrew calendar. The attached article should provide an explanation of this entry. For those who have been studying in Cedar Rapids, please note the role of the Babylonian exile in the development of the calendar, which, as we have seen has been one of the most important vehicles for Jewish survival. I have included this rather lengthy article since so many people ask about the Jewish calendar and I know so little about.
"The Hebrew calendar, also known as the Jewish calendar, is the annual calendar used in Judaism. It is based upon both lunar months and a solar cycle (which defines its years) and so is a lunisolar calendar. This is in contrast to the Gregorian calendar, which is based solely upon a solar cycle, or the Islamic calendar, which is purely lunar. Jews use this calendar to determine when the new Hebrew months start; this calendar determines the Jewish holidays, which Torah portions to read, and which set of Psalms should be read each day. Jews have been using a lunisolar calendar since Biblical times, but originally referred to the months by number rather than name. During the Babylonian exile, they adopted Babylonian names for the months. Some sects, such as the Essenes, used a solar calendar. The epoch of the modern Hebrew calendar is Monday, October 7, 3761 BCE, being the tabular date (same daylight period) in the proleptic Julian calendar corresponding to 1 Tishri AM 1 (AM = Anno Mundi = in the year of the world). This date is about one year before the traditional Jewish date of Creation on 25 Elul AM 1! A minority place Creation on 25 Adar AM 1, about six months after the modern epoch. Thus adding 3761 to a Gregorian year number will yield the Hebrew year number beginning in autumn (add 3760 for that ending in autumn). This holds until the Gregorian year 1 BCE. After that (due to the lack of year 0), adding 3760 to the Gregorian year yields the Hebrew year beginning in autumn (3759 for that ending in autumn). Because the Hebrew year drifts relative to the Gregorian year, this actually only works until the year 22,203, but it's a fairly good rule of thumb. The Hebrew month is tied to an estimate of the average time taken by the Moon to cycle from lunar conjunction to lunar conjunction. Twelve lunar months are about 354 days while the solar year is about 365 days so an extra lunar month is added every two or three years in accordance with a 19-year cycle of 235 lunar months (12 regular months every year plus 7 extra or embolismic months every 19 years). The average Hebrew year length is about 365.2468 days, about 7 minutes longer than the average tropical solar year which is about 365.2422 days. Approximately every 216 years, those minutes add up so that the Hebrew year is "slower" than the average solar year by a full day. Because the average Gregorian year is 365.2425 days, the average Hebrew year is slower by a day every 231 Gregorian years. There are exactly 14 different patterns that Hebrew calendar years may take. Each of these patterns is called a "keviyah" (Hebrew for "species"), and is distinguished by the day of the week for Rosh Hashanah of that particular year and by that particular year's length.
- A chaserah year (Hebrew for "deficient" or "incomplete") is 353 or 383 days long because a day is taken away from the month of Kislev. The Hebrew letter ח"het", and the letter for the weekday denotes this pattern.
- A kesidrah year ("regular" or "in-order") is 354 or 384 days long. The Hebrew letter כ"kaf", and the letter for the week-day denotes this pattern.
- A shlemah year ("abundant" or "complete") is 355 or 385 days long because a day is added to the month of Heshvan. The Hebrew letter ש"shin", and the letter for the week-day denotes this pattern.
A variant of this pattern naming includes another letter which specifies the day of the week for the first day of Pesach (Passover) in the year. Every hour is divided into 1080 parts. A part (31/3seconds or 1/18 minute) equals a small Babylonian time period called a barleycorn, itself equal to 1/72of a Babylonian time degree (1° of celestial rotation). The weekdays start with Sunday (day 1) and proceed to Saturday (day 7). Since some calculations use division, a remainder of 0 signifies Saturday. The calendar is based on mean lunar conjunctions called "molads" spaced precisely 29 days, 12 hours, and 793 parts apart. Actual conjunctions vary from the molads by up to 13 hours in each direction due to the nonuniform velocity of the moon. This value for the interval between molads (the mean synodic month) was known to the Babylonians by about 250 BCE and was later used by the Greek astronomer Hipparchus and the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy. Its remarkable accuracy was achieved using records of lunar eclipses over several centuries. Measured using an absolute scale, such as an atomic clock, the mean synodic month is becoming gradually longer, but since the rotation of the earth is slowing even more the mean synodic month is becoming gradually shorter in terms of the day-night cycle. The value 29-12-793 was almost exactly correct in 1 CE and is now about 0.6 s per month too great. The 19 year cycle has 12 non-leap and 7 leap years. There are 235 lunar months in each cycle. This gives a total of 6939 days, 16 hours and 595 parts for each cycle. Due to the vagaries of the Hebrew calendar, 19 Hebrew years can be either 6939, 6940, 6941, or 6942 days each. To start on the same day of the week, the days in the cycle must be divisible by 7, but none of these values can be so divided. This keeps the Hebrew calendar from repeating itself too often. The calendar almost repeats every 247 years, except for an excess of 50 minutes (905 parts). So the calendar actually repeats every 36,288 cycles (every 689,472 Hebrew years). The leap years of 13 months are the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and the 19th years. Dividing the Hebrew year number by 19, and looking at the remainder will tell you if the year is a leap year (for the 19th year, the remainder is zero). A Hebrew leap year is one that has 13 months in it, a non-leap year has 12 months. A mnemonic word in Hebrew is GUCHADZaT (the Hebrew letters gimel-vav-het aleph-dalet-zayin-tet, i.e. 3, 6, 8, 1, 4, 7, 9. See Hebrew numerals). Another mnemonic is that the intervals of the major scale follow the same pattern as do Hebrew leap years: a whole step in the scale corresponds to two non-leap years between consecutive leap years, and a half step to one non-leap between two leap years. A Hebrew non leap-year will only have 353, 354, or 355 days. A leap year will have 383, 384, or 385 days. Although simple math would calculate 21 patterns for the calendar years, there are other limitations which means that Rosh Hashanah may only occur on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, according to the following table:
Day of Week | Number of Days | |||
Monday | 353 | 355 | 383 | 385 |
Tuesday | 354 | 384 | ||
Thursday | 354 | 355 | 383 | 385 |
Saturday | 353 | 355 | 383 | 385 |
Basically, the Hebrew months alternate between a short month and a long month, for example: Tishri (30 days), Cheshvan (also spelled Heshvan) (29 or 30 days), Kislev (30 or 29 days), Tevet (29 days), Shevat (30 days), Adar (29 days), Nisan (30 days), Iyar (29 days), Sivan (30 days), Tammuz (29 days), Av (30 days), Elul (29 days). For leap years, a 30 day month of Adar 1 is added immediately after the month of Shevat, and the 29 day Adar is called Adar 2. This is to ensure that the months remain at the same season rather than continuing to drift earlier by about 11 days per year. The 265 days from the first day of the 29 day month of Adar (the last one of the year) and ending with the 29th day of Heshvan forms a fixed length period that has all of the festivals specified in the Bible, such as Pesach (Nisan 15), Shavuot (Sivan 6), Rosh Hashannah (Tishri 1), Yom Kippur (Tishri 10), Sukkot (Tishri 15), and Shemini Atzeret (Tishri 22). The festival period from Pesach up to and including Shemini Atzeret is exactly 185 days long. The time from the traditional day of the vernal equinox up to and including the traditional day of the autumnal equinox is also exactly 185 days long. This has caused some unfounded speculation that Pesach should be March 21st, and Shemini Atzeret should be September 21, which are the traditional days for the equinoxes. Just as the Hebrew day starts at sunset, the Hebrew year starts in the Autumn (Rosh Hashanah), although the mismatch of solar and lunar years will eventually move it to another season (but not in your lifetime). Karaites use the lunar month and the solar year, but determine when to add a leap month by observing barley, rather than a fixed calendar. This occasionally puts them a month out of sync with the rest of the Jews"
1272: Pope Gregory X condemned the ritual murder libels aimed at the Jewish people. In addition, since Jews could not bear witness against Christians, he refused to accept testimony by a Christian against a Jew unless it was confirmed by another Jew.
1349: The Jewish population of Krems, Germany, was massacred in the Black Death riots.(As reported by Aish)
1555: Hundreds of Jews in Cracow were killed during the Hakafot, the ritual trouping of the Torah connected with Simchat Torah.
1571: The Holy League (Spain and Italy) destroyed the Turkish fleet at The Battle of Lepanto. This was part of a centuries-long battle before European Christians and the forces of Islam, in this case the Ottoman Empire. Often the fighting was more about commercial gain than it was about religion. The battle was significant because it was the first naval defeat the Ottomans had suffered in more than a century. While the Jews were not directly involved, the fighting had an impact on them. At the time of the defeat, Selim II was the Sultan. He opened his kingdom to the Jews settling a colony of them on the Island of Cyprus. The Ottomans accepted the defeat as the will of God, and unlike some Europeans, did not use the Jews as scapegoats for their loss.
1665(28th of Tishrei, 5426): Chaim Auberach who served as the “assessor of the rabbinate” in Vienna and who was the brother of Menachem Mendel Auerbach and Benjamin Wolf Auerbach passed away today
1716(21st of Tishrei, 5477): Moses Mayer Schiff, the son of Meir and Chava Schiff passed away today.
1753(9th of Tishrei, 5514): Erev Yom Kippur; Kol Nidre
1763: George III of Great Britain issues British Royal Proclamation of 1763, closing aboriginal lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlements. This attempt to control the growth of Colonial America was one of the causes of the American Revolution, with all that that would mean for the Jewish people. More immediately, the closure had a negative impact on the fortunes of Moses Franks, Jacob Franks, Barnard Gratz, Michael Gratz, David Franks, Moses Franks, Jr., Joseph Simon, and Levy Andrew Levy each of whom dabbled in “western” land speculation.
1772(10th of Tishrei, 5533): Yom Kippur
1777:Under the date of John Adams wrote his wife that he was in York, PA, where "I am lodged in the house of General Roberdeau, an Israelite, indeed, I believe, who with his sisters and children and servants does everything to make us happy. We are highly favored. No other delegates are so well off." Fearing capture by the British, the Continental Congress had moved to York where it could meet in comparative safety. [Editor’s Note – Adams may have been in error since according there was a General Roberdeau whose father’s name is Isaac Roberdeau and they were Huegenots.]
1777: During the Revolutionary War, The Americans defeated the British in the Second Battle of Saratoga, also known as the Battle of Bemis Heights. This defeat led France to recognize the new United States of America and, more importantly, sign a treaty which brought the Americans much needed supplies, money and the support of the French fleet. It was the turning point in the war that would create the home of the most significant Jewish community outside of Eretz Israel. Col. David Salisbury Franks, the highest ranking Jewish officer serving with the Continental Army served with valor during the Battle. Franks would later be serving as an aide to Benedict Arnold when the general turned traitor. He was cleared of all charges and continued to serve with during the war. He is not to be confused with his uncle David Franks who was a Loyalist.
1786(15th of Tishrei, 5547): Sukkoth
1791(9th of Tishrei, 5552): Erev Yom Kippur
1803(2st of Tishrei, 5564): Hoshana Raba
1803(21st of Tishrei, 5564): Dob Bär ben Judah Treves the Hungarian rabbi who served as rabbinical judge in Wilvan from 1760 to 1790 who wrote “a commentary on the Pentateuch, in which, through cabalistic explanations, he endeavored to establish a connection between the written and the oral law” passed away today. (Some sources show the day of his death on the secular calendar as October 17 but then he could not have passed away on the 21st of Tishrei)
1805(14th of Tishrei, 5566): Erev Shavuot
1805(14th of Tishrei, 5566): Twenty-four year old Rachel Aaron was buried today at the Lauriston Road Jewish Cemetery.
1812: In Charleston, SC, Jacob Lazarus married Mary Hart, the daughter of the late Daniel Hart.
1814(23rd of Tishrei, 5575): Simchat Torah
1814: Yaakov Yitzchak of Lublin fell from a window today and suffered injuries that would lead to his death on Tisha B'Av, 5575 (August 15, 1815)
1824(15th of Tishrei, 5585): Sukkoth
1840: Willem II became the King of the Netherlands. He was the son of Willem I the first Dutch monarch who ruled after the defeat of the French. Unlike his Germanic counterparts, Willem did not rescind the rights the Jews had enjoyed and this policy of acceptance was followed by his son who did nothing to abrogate the rights of the Jews.
1842: Birthdate of Sir Phillip Magnus, the Reform Rabbi turned educational reformer and political leader who was the husband of Katie Magnus and the father of publisher Laurie Magnus.
1848(10th of Tishrei, 5609): As revolutions erupt throughout Europe, the Jews observe Yom Kippur
1845(6th of Tishrei, 5606): Author and linguist Samson Bloch who was an ardent supporter of the Haskalah movement passed away today.
1851: In New York, a Hungarian Jew named Nathan Levins who has been in the United States for only two weeks filed a complaint at the Sixth Precinct claiming that Israel Steinhardt, another Hungarian Jew had robbed him of 940 pounds in Bank of England notes. The police went to the house on Pell Street where Steinhardt was living, placed him under arrest and took him back to the precinct house where he was to be held until he could be brought before a magistrate.
1852: In Nachod, Bohemia, Nathan and Julie Judith Josephine Mautner gave birth to Isidor Mautner.
1853: The ceremony of laying the corner-stone of a Jewish Educational Institute, in Greene-street, adjoining the Synagogue Bnai Jesharun, took place today. The Institute is intended as the beginning of a Hebrew College to be hereafter erected in this City. The religious services on the laying of the Corner-Stone were conducted by Rabbi Raphall.
1854(15thof Tishrei, 5615): Sukkoth
1854: William Wilkins gave a speech to a large gathering of Democrats in Pittsburgh, PA where he denounced the Know Nothing Party which is known for its opposition to foreigners and Catholics. “He argued that if the Know Nothings succeeded, no religious sect would safe – that next after the Catholic the Hebrew would be proscribed.” Jews feared the Know Nothings because of its views on non-Protestant religions and its animosity towards immigrants since many of the Jews were recent immigrants.
1858: In Bielitz, Austria, Anna and Isaac Leonard Zeisler gave birth to Dr. Joseph Zeisler and husband of “Theresa Feuchtman” who was recognized an expert in the fields “of skin and venereal diseases.”
1860: According to a letter written by the President, Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco has had a net gain of 49 members in the past year raising its numbers to a total of 227. In the past year one adult and eighteen Jewish children passed away in the last year. Monthly expenses have risen from $750 to $800. The sale of seats has grown by $2,000 and total over $5,000 this year. Dr. Elkan Cohn continues to serve as the Rabbi of the congregation that is growing so fast it will need a new sanctuary. In addition to which, the congregation needs to appropriate money for a school for the youngsters, including salaries for the teachers.
1863: A newspaper published in Petersberg, VA, reported that our readers have already been apprised of the recent extensive sales of gold, paid for in drafts as valueless as the paper on which they were written. The premium "paid" for this gold was $12. Since the withdrawal of this heavy customer the demand for the precious metals has measurably subsided, and, as the Jews are now keeping one of their protracted annual holidays, the transactions for several days past have been very light. The commission brokers are now asking $11 50 for gold. No silver in the market.” The “protracted annual holidays” referred to the Sukkoth cycle with Simchat Torah having ended the day before the article was written.
1864: Birthdate of Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk, the son of a Missouri governor who gained fame as a conductor and composer for musicals and movies.
1864: Joshua Pickering a member of the Cameron Dragoons, “a largely Jewish regiment” commanded by Colonel Max Friednman was killed today at Darbytown Road, Virginia during the Civil War.
1867: In Prescott, AZ, the 4th Territorial Legislature, which was attended by Phillip Drachman who had traveled 200 miles “by buckboard, stage and horseback” from Tucson adjourned today after it had voted to move “the capital from Prescott to Tucson” in 1868.
1868: Founding of Cornell University at Ithaca, New York. Today at Cornell, there are approximately 3,500 Jewish undergrads among the 13,500 undergraduate population and another 500 Jewish students among its 5,000 Jewish graduate students. In other words, Jews account for about 25% of the school’s population. The school offers a major and minor in Jewish Studies as well as a full panoply of social and cultural on campus designed to meet the needs of Jewish students.
1870: During the Franco-Prussian War, Leon Gambetta escaped from Paris by balloon. This was the only way that Gambetta could reach Tours where he was active in organizing further military opposition to the Prussians. Gambetta was instrumental in the formation of the French Third Republic. His father was Jewish. His mother was not.
1871(22nd of Tishrei, 5632): Shemini Atzeret
1871: Congregation Bethel was organized today shortly after the Great Chicago Fire.
1871: In Germany, Nathan Baruch Rothschild, the son of Baruch and Esther Rothschild and his wife Sophie Rothschild, both of whom settled in Columbus, GA gave birth to Gerson Rothschild
1871: It was reported today that “the Hebrew Feast of Tabernacles closes this morning…Offerings of branches of the palm tree, the myrtle, willow and the citron were made” yesterday during services held in the synagogues of New York.
1874: Moses Phillips married Julia Defries tdaoy.
1874: It was reported today the government of Romania is upset by an article published in a Jewish paper that portrays Benjamin Peixoto, the U.S. Consul in Bucharest as “the only protector of the persecuted Jews” of that country. The Romanians claim they have done everything possible to protect the Jews. The government claims that the increase in the number of Jews entering the country from Russia and Austria and the cessation of the exodus of Jews from Romania serves as proof of their contention.
1878(10th of Tishrei, 5639): Yom Kippur
1878: According to reports published today, a new group of people has been discovered in India who are supposed to be descendants of Jews sent there by King Solomon to capture elephants and work in the gold mines. Instead of calling themselves Jews, they refer to themselves as Sons Of Israel. They have prayer-books and Bibles written in Hebrew. They observe Shabbat but show no knowledge of Yom Kippur or Pesach. [Editor’s Note – While the connection with Solomon might be hard to prove, referring to themselves as Sons of Israel and not Jews would argue for their antiquity considering how much later the latter term came to be used to describe The Chosen People.]
1878: With the end of Yom Kippur this evening Morris Bloom a peddler living on Orchard Street and Sarah Greenberg of Hester Street can be married in a synagogue. The families of the couple had opposed the marriage and the youngsters had a Judge of the Court of General Sessions perform a civil ceremony. Once the families saw that the two were committed to each other, they relented which is the reason for the religious ceremony.
1879: Germany and Austria-Hungary sign the "Twofold Covenant" and create the Dual Alliance. This alliance had amazing durability. It was this alliance which helped trigger World War I and all the suffering for Jews and non-Jews that has flowed from this seminal event.
1879: Birthdate of Leon Trotsky. Born Lev Davidovich Bronstein to wealthy Jewish farmers in the Ukraine, Bronstein became a revolutionary committed to the overthrown of the Czar. After spending time in Siberia, he joined forces with Lenin. After the Bolshevik Revolution created the Red Army which defeated both the foreign armies that invaded the Soviet Union and the White Forces during the bloody civil war that followed. Trotsky would lose out to Stalin in the power struggle that followed Lenin’s death. Trotsky would be hacked to death by one of Stalin’s agents in 1940 while living in Mexico. Anti-Semites would use Trotsky’s Jewish origins as one source of proof that Communism was part of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. The joke among Jews was the Trostkys make the revolutions and the Bronsteins suffer the consequences.
1880: In Chicago, Julia and Bernhard Daniels gave birth to Julius Daniels, the brother of Max, Minnie, Samuel and Hattie Daniels
1881(14th of Tishrei, 5642): Erev Sukkoth
1881(14th of Tishrei, 5642): Seventy-one year old Lewis Jacob Marcus lawyer and political activist who moved to England after his retirement passed away in Manchester, UK.
1881: “Current Foreign Topics” published today described the trial of the chief editors and a reporter for two of Germany’s leading newspapers who had been charged with “insulting a police commissioner” by reporting on his attendance at an “anti-Jewish meeting” last year. The journalists accused him of “neglecting his duty” for not intervening when “a section of the audience attacked the Jews.” The reporter was acquitted but the editors were fined 50 marks.
1883: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew Association plans to offer a series of lectures every Saturday between now and November that will help with the Americanization of immigrants who have come from Germany, Russia and other parts of Eastern Europe. Starting in November, the YMHA will offer classes four nights a week in reading, writing and spelling. Among those leading the effort are M.A. Kuresheedt, M.W. Platzek and Rabbi Aaron Wise.
1884: In Bavaria,”the famous mathematician Max Noether and his wife Ida Amalia Kaufmann” gave birth mathematician Fritz Noether, the third of their four children who moved to the Soviet Union because the Nazis would not him pursue his career but ended up being executed in 1941 after the Russians decided the Jew was really a spy.
1884: “City and Suburban News” published today included a note that Hebrew teacher Gadalic Richter has been released from the Tombs after charges of arson against could not be proven.
1885: In Copenhagen,Christian Bohr,a professor of physiology at the University of Copenhagen, and Ellen Adler Bohr, who came from a wealthy Danish Jewish family prominent in banking and parliamentary circles” gave birth to Neils Bohr the physicist who is the Father of Quantum Theory and winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922.
1886(8th of Tishrei, 5647):Solomon Goldberg, a 34 year Jew from Poland who had been confined to The Tombs on charges of not supporting his wife, took his own life this afternoon.
1886: Joseph Rosenberg, who had passed away at the age of 102, was buried today in New Orleans, LA.
1888: “New Settlers Destitute” published today while many of the homesteaders living in the Dakota territories are suffering due to crop failure, the greatest suffering is found among the 300 Russian Jews who settled there two years ago. Some of the families are without food and the rest will need outside financial assistance if they are to survive. (My grandfather and his brother homesteaded in the Dakotas in the 1890’s and experienced hardship. After a winter of living on crackers, as soon as the roads were passable, my grandfather went back to Chicago to seek “fame and fortune.”)
1888: “Old World News By Cable” published today described the many contradictory stories going around Europe about the German scheme to rescue Emin Pasha. Those opposed to the plans point out that he really is a Jew named Isaac Schnitzler. (Emin Pasha had in fact been born a Jew but he converted and became a romantic Muslim leader).
1888: Birthdate of movie director Robert Z. Leonard.
1889: Driven by the effective and fervent lobbying efforts of activist Annie Nathan Meyer, Barnard College opened its doors. Although a number of northern elite women's colleges had opened during the 1870s, numerous cities, including New York, had little to offer young women of scholarly inclinations. At age 18, Meyer, who was largely self-educated, organized a reading circle and enrolled in the newly established extension program for women at Columbia College. Meyer married shortly before her 20th birthday in 1887 and soon began working to establish an affiliate women's college to Columbia. Meyer published a powerful letter to the Nation magazine and circulated a petition throughout the city to win the college's trustees over to her effort. Meyer achieved funding and support from the trustees on April 1 1889, leased quarters for the school, and began accepting applicants. Barnard became the first women's college in New York to offer the rigorous course work equivalent to that of male liberal arts colleges. Annie Nathan Meyer continued her work with Barnard throughout her life, becoming a member of the first board of trustees and remaining active in trustee affairs for the ensuing six decades. (Jewish Women’s Archives)
1889: In Berlin, the former Martha Behrendt and her husband, bank director and newspaper published Richard Jacob gave birth to author and journalist Heinrich Eduard Jacob “who also wrote under the pen names Henry E. Jacob and Eric Jens Petersen.”
1890(23rd of Tishrei, 5651): Simchat Torah.
1890: “A Great City University” published today described the meeting of the Trustees of Columbia University where a list of gifts to the school was presented including $1,000 from Jesse Seligman which is to be allocated to the Seligman Fellowships.
1891: In Berlin, “historian and socialist Ignaz Jastrow” gave birth to archeologist Elisabeth Jastrow who settled in the United States in the 1930’s who along with her sister “Lotte Beate Jastrow Hahn” successful rescued her mother Anna Seligman Jastrow from Nazi Germany
1891: A brief summary of the annual report of the United Hebrew Charities showed that the organization had spent $167,811.85 in the last year, $62,121.60 of which came from the Baron de Hirsch Committee.
1891: “Jews And The Russian Loan” published today described the concern among American Jews that two “Jewish” banking houses – Mendelssohn & Co. and Warschauer & Co. --- are willing to extend credit to a government that treats its Jewish subjects so poorly.
1891(5thof Tishrei, 5652): Seventy-two year old Jakob Eduard Poak, the Austrian trained physician who played a key role in bringing modern medical practices to Iran and served as the personal doctor to the Shah from 1855 to 1860 passed away today in Vienna.
1894: Rabbi Wintner officiated at the wedding ceremony of Ida E. Korne and John Bernstein, the son Nathan Bernstein, the wealthy Brooklyn merchant who is near death and insisted that he marriage take place so he could witness it before he passed away.
1896: Birthdate of Minsk native Shmuel-Ber Leykin.
1897: “Over In Camden” published today included a description of the observance of Yom Kippur in that New Jersey city just outside of Philadelphia, PA.
1897: The Bund (Jewish Workers Party) held its first conference in Russia. It was the first Jewish Socialist party in Eastern Europe. At first decidedly anti-Zionist and pro-Yiddishist, it was organized as a union of Russian Jewish socialist groups. The bund exerted a great influence on Jews in Europe and America. Interestingly enough, the Bund held its first meeting during the same year in which the Zionists held their first Congress.
1897: Professor Francis William Newman, the author of A History of the Hebrew Monarchy (1847) and Hebrew Theism (1874) who was the brother of the late Cardinal Newman passed away.
1897: It was reported today that the late Lewis Stark, a New York businessman who “was a member of a number Hebrew charitable organizations” will be buried in Baltimore, MD
1898(21st of Tishrei, 5659): Hoshanah Rabah
1898: Birthdate of Alfred Wallenstein, principle cellist for the Chicago Symphony from 1922 to 1929.
1899: It was reported today the Jewish poet and author Salomon Mandelkern has come from his home in Leipzig to visit his son Israel who is living on East Broadway in Manhattan.
1899: Abraham Cahan was described today as “the ‘Yiddish’ author” who “lives near the up-town ‘Ghetto’ and edits a Hebrew scientific periodical, besides teaching and writing interesting newspaper articles about the east side and its peculiar peoples.”
1900: Birthdate of Russian-born American muralist and painter Louis Goodman who came to the United States in 1910, studied at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and who did everything from creating “a comic strip called ‘The Kids on Our Block’” to painted “murals at the RCA Building” at the time of the 1939 World’s Fair.
1901: Birthdate of Ralph Reichenthal who gained fame as composer and pianist Ralph Rainger.
1903(16th of Tishrei, 5664): Second Day of Sukkoth
1903(16th of Tishrei, 5664): German Born mathematician Rudolph Otto Sigismund Lispchitz passed away. Born in 1832, Lispschitz was a professor at the University of Bonn for almost forty years and the man who developed the mathematical paradigm known as the Lipschitz Continuity.
1903: In San Francisco, a contract was entered into to begin building the new sanctuary for Congregation Sherith Israel
1906:The Sinai Temple congregation resolved to have Dr. Leon Messing, a native of Alabama, who was serving a congregation in Bloomington, commute to Champagne-Urbana every Sunday and on the high holidays.
1906: During his quest to get Cuban approval for the creation of a Jewish cemetery Manuel Hadida, Chairman of the United Hebrew Congregation (UHC) of Cuba, met with Rabbi Haim (Henry) Pereira Méndez, the spiritual leader of the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue, Shearith Israel, in New York. Hadida was looking to the United States to use its influence with the newly independent Cuba to move this project forward.
1909(22nd of Tishrei, 5670): Shemini Atzeret
1910: Louis-Norbert Carrière “the government commissioner who successfully pled at Rennes for Dreyfus's second conviction” returned to civilian life ending a career that had begun when joined the 38thInfantry Regiment in 1855 after graduating from St. Cyr.
1911(15th of Tishrei, 5672): Sukkoth
1911(15th of Tishrei, 5672): Nineteen year old Jankel Nissen Schattenstein, the son of Dov Schattenstein passed away today.
1912(26th of Tishrei, 5673): Thirty four year old Dobe Chatzkelsohn, the daughter of Josef Chatzkelsohn passed away today.
1912: Lionel de Rothschild M.P. married Mlle. Marie Louise Beer in Paris this afternoon. Mlle. Beer is the daughter of French banker Edmond Beer and her sister married Baron Robert de Rothschild.
1912: Opening day of the “Becker-Rosenthal Murder Trial.” Herman Rosenthal was a Jewish gambler in New York who was allegedly gunned down by Harry Horowitz’s Lenox Avenue Gang. Becker was Charles Becker, a crooked cop, whom the District Attorney believed had ordered the murder.
1913: On New York’s Lower East side a Russian immigrant tailor and his wife gave birth to Arthur “Archie” Kameros “a four year starting center for LIU-Brooklyn in the mid-1930s, graduate of Columbia University of Dentistry and Bronze Star winning WW II veteran.
1914(17th of Tishrei, 5675): Third day of Sukkoth
1914: Today “a morning journal reported the discovery of a shekel of gold, bronze and platinum, struck by the Jews of 3400 B.C., marked with Hebrew character signifying things that were never marked on shekels and with a representation of ‘the Start of Bethlehem’” and the article continues “there is a duplicate of the coin in the British Museum.”
1914: “Rabbi Levi Answers Ross” published today described the response of Rabbi Charles S Levi to an article written by Professor Edward A. Ross of the University in which attacks Jews, especially those from eastern Europe. (This is not is not Ross’s first brush with ethnic slurs. He was fired from Stanford for his attacks on Chinese and Japanese immigrants).
1914: Birthdate of Bernard Phillips, one of the UK’s leading insolvency practitioners whose expertise led to him being elected chairman and then president of the Insolvency Practitioners Association.
1915: In New York City, Harry Scherman and Bernardine Kielty Scherman gave birth to Swarthmore graduate Katharine Scherman an editor at “Book-of-the-Month Club and author who became Katherine Scherman Rosin when she married Axel Rosin with who she had two daughters.
1915: A letter written to the New York Times today notes that “the accounts that come to us and to the million or more Russian Jews in this country from their fathers, mothers and sisters in Russian Poland and Galicia unfold a chapter of horrors in the lurid light of which the past tragedies of that martyred race pale in their intensity and in their extent, affect no less than three million souls.”
1916(10th of Tishrei, 5677): Yom Kippur
1916: In “Rosalsky Pleads for Jews” Otto A. Rosalsky, a judge of the court of General Sessions in New York said that while Jews in American “are enjoying civil, religious and political freedom in the largest measure ever accorded to those who live in a land of liberty” “calamity has befallen our Jewish brethren” in Europe, where “over a million Jewish soldiers are on the battlefields fighting for the cause of countries that not only denied them civil, religious and political freedom but have subjected them to every form of brutal oppression.”
1916: At the Kessler Theatre, where Rabbi Herman Kiminester was conducting services, 2,500 people found their prayers interrupted when fire engines arrived in response to what turned out to be a false alarm.
1916: At Temple Israel, in Harlem, Rabbi M.H. Harris spoke on the origins of the term scapegoat, telling of how the Jews had filled that role in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in the actions of the “unspeakable Tom Watson of Georgia, and to Germany where “the anti-Semitic movement was ‘a cunning political move to diver the attention of the public from the autocratic powers and abuses of the Government by persuading the people that all of their social troubles were due to the Jews.’”
1916: At Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Joseph Silverman delivered a sermon on “The New Judasim” which included an appeal to his congregants “to do all in their power to aid Jewish sufferers in the war zone abroad.”
1916: Birthdate of economist Walt Whitman Rostow who along with his brother Gene was an architect of American foreign policy under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.
1917(21st of Tishrei, 5678): Hoshanah Rabah
1917: It was announced today that the Executive Committee for the American Jewish Congress whose members include Nathan Straus, Adolph Lewisohn, Colonel Harry Cutler, Louis Marshall, Louis Kirstein and Dr. Stephen S. Wise would meet in special session” next week to select a date when the full Congress will meet.
1917: “In making public plans for an anti-pacifist campaign in New York this week, the American Alliance for Labor announced” today “that the Jewish Socialist League would lead the fight on the East Side.”
1917: Birthdate of Jerome Pitkow, the native of Philadelphia and 1941 graduate of NYU Law School who became an executive with Supermarkets General Corporation and a leading New York Jewish philanthropist.
1917: In Vienna, Alfred Guttman and his wife gave birth to actor Helmut Dantine who was arrested after the Anschluss because of his anti-Nazi activities.
1917: Rabbi Abraham Cronbach, the Indiana born son of Marcus and Hannah (Itzig) Cronbach married “Rose Hentel, a teacher at the Free Synagogue in New York” who would adopt a daughter Marion, the future wife of Rabbi Maurice Davis.
1918:“A call for a final military effort on the battle field was published in the Vossiche Zeitung. Written by the Jewish industrialist Walther Rathenau, its aim was to give Germany the strongest possible position from which to negotiate a peace of equality rather than of defeat. ‘It is peace we want, not war --- but not a peace of surrender.’”
1918: In New York City. Arthur and Frances Landau Jaffa gave birth to Harry Victor Jaffa one of Leo Strauss’ first graduate students.
1918: Birthdate of Marcus Klingberg the native of Poland who took refuge from the Nazis in the Soviet Union where he graduated from Medical School. After serving doctor with the Red Army during World War II, he moved to Israel in 1948. Eventually he would rise to a ranking position at the Israel Institute for Biological Research. In 1983 he was unmasked as leading agent for the Soviet Union.
1919: Birthdate of Sir Zelman Cowen 19thGovernor-General of Australia and active leader of the Melbourne Jewish Community.
1919: It was announced today that Sir Philip Albert Gustave David Sassoon, 3rd Baronet, had been awarded the French Croix de Guerre for his service during World War I.
1920: Mrs. Eva Epstein and her son Edward who have spent the summer in Paris, London and Scotland are scheduled to return to New York today aboard the S.S. Olympic
1920: “Jewish representatives from all parts of Palestine” are scheduled to gather today for the first Jewish Assembly where they will elect “an independent executive composed of Palestine Jews to replace the present Zionist Commission.”
1922(15th of Tishrei, 5683): Sukkoth is observed for the last time during the Presidency of Warren G. Harding.
1923: In a major league career that lasted one week, Outfielder Mose Solomon played his last game for the New York Giants.
1923: Arnold and Ralph Horween “both scored in the same game as” Arnold “kicked two extra points and” Ralaph “ran for a touchdown as the Chicago Cardinals beat the Rochester Jefferson.”
1924(9th of Tishrei, 5685): Erev Yom Kippur
1925: First game of the 1925 World Series which saw Buddy Myer playing 2nd base for the Washington Senators.
1926: In Germany, Aaron and Rose Lubrani gave birth to Israeli diplomat and government official Uri Lubrani who began his career serving as the political secretary to Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and who has held several other positions the most rewarding of which may have been as the coordinator for Operation Solomon in 1990.
1932: Thirty-six year old Benny Leonard’s “career ended today when he was TKO’ed in 6 rounds.
1934(28th of Tishrei, 5695): Dutch painter Isaac Lazarus Israëls passed away. Painting must have been in his blood since he was the son of Jozef Israëls. For examples of his work see
1935: A memorial service for Jacob H. Schiff, Jewish philanthropist, was held today in the original building of Congregation Ohab Zedek at 18 West 116th Street in Manhattan. In 1906, Mr. Schiff had laid the cornerstone for this structure. A tribute by Morris Engelman, chairman of the congregation, included a plea for the establishment of a Schiff Memorial Fund that would aid Jewish social, educational and religious institutions throughout the world.
1936(21stof Tishrei, 5697): Hoshanah Rabah
1936: At Geneva, “Christian Lange of Norway expressed ‘great astonishment’ that Britain had not yet ended the Palestine disorders” and “criticized Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden for refusing the mandates commission’s request that Britain report to it on Palestine in November.”
1936: In London, the Home Secretary “invited his critics to pass a new law against ‘provocative’ demonstrations if they wished to prevent a repetition of the recent riots caused by the Fascists under Oswald Mosely taking to the streets in the Jewish section of the East End.
1937:The Jerusalem Post reported that Bronislaw Huberman, the famous Jewish violinist and the founder of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, was passenger on the Royal Dutch (KLM) plane which crashed in Sumatra. He escaped without serious injury.
1937: The Jerusalem Postreported that French troops stopped clashes between Arabs and Turks at Antioch.
1938: In London, UK, premiere of “The Lady Vanishes” co-starring Paul Lukas with music by Louis Levy.
1938: The Fascist Grand Council in Rome issues a set of new antisemitic laws designed for the "defense of the Italian race" and to suppress "world Hebrewism." Most of the laws target Jews,
1938: Germany decreed that passports of Jews were to be marked with a J.
1938: Judy Garland (who was not Jewish) made her first recording of "Over the Rainbow" is a ballad, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg, a ballad written for “The Wizard of Oz.”
1939: Hitler appointed Himmler head of the R.K.F.D.V., an organization responsible for the deportation of Poles and Jews from Polish provinces.
1939: “Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One, a comedy radio series hosted by Milton Berle aired for the first time tonight.
1939: As of today, it was reported that Rumania has a population of 20,000,000, a fourth of which are “classified as minorities” which include 770,000 Jews.
1939: “Speaking at the first Fall luncheon meeting of the Foreign Policy Association at the Hotel Astor” “Anne O’Hare McCormick of the editorial staff of the New York Times declared that “Hitler’s peace proposals as advanced in his Reichstag speech, constitute an ‘imperious demand’ that Great Britain and France accept the ‘new order he and Stalin intend to set up in Eastern Europe’ and leave the Allies with no alternative but to reject them flatly.”
1939: In England Edith and Heinz Krotoschiner gave birth to Harold Krotoschiner who gained fame as chemist Sir Harold Kroto, who co-discovered fullerene and shared in the 1996 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.
1939: Today’s occupation of Zamosc, Poland by the Nazis is preceded by Polish mobs attacking the town’s Jews.
1939: George and Isabel Schwartz Shenker gave birth to Joseph Shenker, who at the age of 29, became the youngest president of a college in the City University of New York system and one of the youngest in the nation, when he was appointed interim president of Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn in 1969.
1939: “U-Boat 29” produced by Alexander Korda , with a script by Emeric Pressburger, which had been related as “The Spy in Black” was released in the United States today, two days after its New York premiere.
1939: Penn St. led by its captain Sidney “Spike Alter defeated Bucknell in its season opening football game.
1940: German troops move into Romania bringing with them the horrors of the Holocaust. As can be seen from negotiations surrounding the 19th century Treaty of Berlin, anti-Semitism was an established part of the Romanian landscape. The Romanians, led by the infamous Iron Cross killed tens of thousands of their Jewish neighbors. Estimates as to the actual number killed range from 280,000 to 380,000.
1940: The Vichy Government “swept away the Cremieux Decree of 1870; a law that granted French citizenship to the Jews of Algeria. This act of anti-Semitism would echo in the world of 21st American politics when Virginia Republican Senator George Allen found out for the first time that his was an Algerian Jew; a refugee from the Holocaust who had never told her son of his Jewish ancestry for fear that someday the United States would turn on its Jewish citizens in the same that France had during World War II.
1941: At Rowne, Volhunia, the SS and local militia took over 17,000 Jews taken from their homes, marched them to open pits, and slaughtered them.
1943(7th of Tishrei, 5704): Sixty-four year old Lithuanian native Ephraim Caplan, the “religious editor of the Jewish Morning Journal,” long-time director of the Jewish National Fund of America and President of the Council for Orthodox Jewish Education who was the husband of Eva Caplan with whom he had one daughter, Martha and “three sons, Dr. Leon Caplan, Dr. Joseph Caplan” and Saul Caplan who served with the U.S. Army in WW II, passed away today in Brooklyn.”
1943: German convoys deported Jews from Morocco to the concentration camps of Europe.
1943: “Lassie Come Home,” produced by Samuel Marx and Dore Schary was released today in the United States.
1943: Jewish partisans fighting in Lithuania destroyed fifty telegraph poles.
1943: Paul Steinberg, Phillipe Hagenauer and “former world boxing champion Victor ‘Young’ Perez were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz together.
1943: One thousand Jews are deported from Paris to their deaths at Auschwitz.
1943: In an official report, the German chief of police in Poland recommends that Poles who aid Jews should be dealt with without benefit of trial.
1943: In a Yom Kippur radio message to Jewish service men, Vice President Henry A. Wallace said that "the names of those who have served in this war will be honored whether they belong to the so-called blue-bloods from Boston or Negroes from South Carolina…' We are not Jews or Gentiles, Whites or Blacks,' but people of the United States.”
1944(20thof Tishrei, 5705): Dutch banker Jacobus Henricus Kann who was a partner in Lissa & Kann and a co-founder of the Jewish Colonial Trust died today at Theresienstadt
1944: While the furnaces belched forth Jewish ashes, a group of Jewish members of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando revolted. They killed a number of their masters, destroyed one gas chamber/crematorium complex, damaged another, and - more than any other nation - stopped the slaughter of innocent Jews. One of the key participants in this little-known revolt was Rosa Robota, a young Jewish prisoner, who arranged to obtain the explosives, stored them, and turned them over to the Underground. Young Rosa and three other women prisoners were hanged for their complicity in this revolt a few days before the Germans abandoned the camp. She received the highest award from the Polish government, and is honored with a sculpture in Yad VaShem.
1944(20th of Tishrei, 5705): Today, the Sonderkommandos at Birkenau chose to revolt instead of being selected to be "sent away." Chaim Neuhof was the first to strike an SS guard. Then the rest of the Crematorium IV men surged forward with pick and axes against their guards despite the arrival of multiple machine gun units. After setting fire to the Crematorium, the SS machine-gunned all the men. Despite this Crematorium II Sonderkommandos and Russian prisoners followed their lead and joined in the fight. Many men from Crematorium III and V broke out through the fences. Almost all were caught and executed. [Editor’s note- this took place on the 6th of Sukkoth. You have to wonder why this event has not been memorialized in the festival liturgy.]
1945: During a press conference in Rome two Republican Senators, Karl E. Mundt of South Dakota and Frances P. Bolton of Ohio expressed their opposition to a reported request from President Truman to the British government 100,000 Jews into Palestine be allowed to move to Palestine immediately.
1946: Ben Hecht’s “A Flag Is Born” opened at the Adelphi Theatre.
1946: In the UK, “social worker and former communist Miriam Abramsky and Professor Chimen Abramsky the son of Rabbi Yehezkel Abramsky gave birth to Dame Jennifer Gita "Jenny" Abramsky, DBE the chairman of the UK's National Heritage Memorial Fund
1946: “The Jewish National Fund made a world-wide appeal today to Jews to contribute $20,000,000” during the upcoming Jewish year. Dr. Abraham Granowsky, chairman of the Board of Directors of the JNF said that funds contributed during the past year had made it possible for new settlements to be built in areas that extended the reach of the Yishuv.
1947(23rd of Tishrei, 5708): Simchat Torah
1947: British trade unionist Manny Shinwell begins serving as Secretary of State for War under Prime Minister Clement Attlee making him part of the civilian leadership controlling the British Army that was battling with the Jews of pre-state Israel.
1948:Just months after the state of Israel triumphantly declared its independence the town of Waltham, Mass. welcomed the nation's first non-sectarian, Jewish-sponsored University. Spanning a total of 100 acres, the original campus replaced the former Middlesex College. Prominent members of the American Jewish community, including Albert Einstein, founded the University in tribute to Louis D. Brandeis, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. The University initially comprised the School of General Studies, the School of Social Studies, the School of Humanities and the School of Science. First-years were to enroll in the School of General Studies and then choose a field of specialty. Heralded by its first president, Abram Sachar, the school’s first president said that the institution would follow those ideals of "academic integrity" and service, exemplified by its namesake.
1948: The Neutral Zone around Government House in Jerusalem was transferred to United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) protection.
1948: “Love Life” “a musical written by Kurt Weill and Alan Jay Lerner who provided the books and lyrics opened on Broadway at the 46thStreet Theatre.
1949: In response to the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany which was made up of the French, British and U.S. occupation zones, the Soviet Union for the German Democratic Republic known as Eastern Germany – the one part of Nazi Germany that never underwent de-Nazification or paid reparations to the Jewish victims of the Holoaust.
1951: In Baltimore, MD, Morton and Bettie Brenner gave birth to Barbara Ann Breener, who “became Breast Cancer Action’s first executive director in 1995, two years after undergoing treatment for the disease and a year before it recurred.” (As reported by Denise Grady)
1951: Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion presented his new government to the Knesset. The long drawn out process convinces Ben-Gurion that Israel needs to move from the multi-party system to a two-party system like the British use. But even Ben-Gurion cannot bring about this change. To this day, Israeli politics continue to chaotic due to its multiplicity of parties and shifting political alliances.
1952:The Jerusalem Post reported that Dov Shilansky tried to sabotage the reparations agreement with Germany by an attempt to bomb one of the Foreign Ministry buildings in Jerusalem's Hakirya. Emotions on this topic ran high on this topic. Many Jews felt that accepting money would somehow be a sign of forgiving the Germans. Others felt that it was “blood money” and it was tainted. Ultimately, a realistic view would prevail and Israel would use the money in a variety of ways designed to help the infant state survive.
1953(28th of Tishrei, 5714): Forty-five year old Dr. Elias “Ely” Abrahams, the son “Max and Fannie Abrahams,” “the husband of the former Violet Dreishpoon” with whom he had one child Paul and dentist who practiced in New York but lived in Brooklyn passed away today after which he was buried at Baron Hirsch Cemetery.
1954(10th of Tishrei, 5715): Yom Kippur
1955: Beat poet Allen Ginsberg read his poem "Howl" for the first time at a poetry reading in San Francisco
1956: The Israeli Cabinet expresses support for Ben Gurion’s decision to exercise restraint and not mount reprisal raids against Arab terrorists.
1956: “The Bespoke Overcoats” the Oscar winning British film “based on a 1953 play of the same name by Wolf Mankowitz” which co-stars Alfie Bass and David Kosoff was released in the United Kingdom today by Warner Brothers.
1957(12th of Tishrei, 5718): Sixty-eight year old Jekuthiel Ginsburg, the native of Poland and husband of the former Anna Bodsky, who came to the United States in 1912, earned his degrees in Mathematics at Columbia and founded the Institute of Mathematics at Yeshiva University passed away today.
1958:”The Old Man and the Sea,” a movie version of the novel with a screenplay by Peter Viertel and music by Dimitri Tiomkin premiered in the United States today.
1959: U.S. premiere of “Pillow Talk,” a comedy co-produced by Martin Melcher, with a script co-authored by Stanley Shapiro and co-starring Tony Randall.
1959: In the United Kingdom, Eric Selig Phillip Cowell a music executive who came from a family of Polish Jews and his non-Jewish wife Julie gave birth to American Idol Judge Simon Cowell.
1960: ABC broadcast the first episode of “The Law and Mr. Jones” created and produced by Sy Gomberg which had included guest star appearances by Sam Jaffe and Martin Landau
1961: After 607 performances the curtain came down on the original Broadway production of “Bye Bye Birdie” with music by Charles Strouse
1964: “Fail Safe” a film version of the novel by the same name directed by Sidney Lumet, produced by Sidney Lumet and Max Youngstein, with a script co-authored by Walter Bernstein and co-starring Walter Matthau was released in the United States today.
1964(1st of Cheshvan, 5725): Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan
1964(1st of Cheshvan, 5725): Seventy-six year old Abraham Joseph Alper, the son of Isaac and Lotta Alper and the husband of Lena Zion Alper, passed away today after which he was buried at B’Nai Zion Cemetery in Chattanooga, TN.
1964: “See How They Run” “the first made for television movie” with music by Lalo Schifrin was aired today by NBC.
1966(23rd of Tishrei, 5727): Simchat Torah
1969: “Battle of Neretva” a film based on the Axis attempt to wipe out the Yugoslav partisans in 1943 produced by Harry Weinstein and Steven Previn with music by Bernard Hermann was released today.
1968(15th of Tishrei, 5729): Sukkoth
1971: “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” a Disney musical with songs by Richard and Robert Sherman and a score by Irwin Kostal was released in the United Kingdom today.
1972: Birthdate of American screenwriter and film director Ben Younger who is responsible for a marvelous little film called “Boiler Room.”
1973: Today “Israel’s defense minister Moshe Dayan told prime minister Golda Meir to consider making preparations for the use of nuclear weapons, according to an interview with a ministerial aide now being published for the first time.” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
1973: On the second day of the Yom Kippur War, 100 tanks arrived on Israel’s border with Syria. General Hofi, the Israeli commander on the Northern Front had requested the tanks before the fighting started. This meant that General Hofi had 170 tanks to use against 1,400 Syrian tanks. To understand the immensity of the threat faced by the Israelis, consider the following, in World War II the Nazis used 1400 tanks to invade the Soviet Union along a 1,000 mile front. The Syrians had 1,400 tanks to use along a forty mile front.
1973: On the second day of the war the IAF lost six F-4 Phantoms over Syria during Model 5 a mission designed to knock the Syrian SAM batteries on the Gloan front – a mission that failed miserably.
1973: Caught by surprise and badly outnumbered, Israeli troops cling to front in the Sinai. In twenty four hours the Israeli force of 290 tanks had been reduced by two thirds. Dayan visited the Sinai front and called for a withdrawal to the Sinai passes, which he thought would be a better line of defense. General Sharon arrived with a reinforcing division and wanted to advance to the east bank of the Canal. As the generals debated, the soldiers on the ground were fighting a series of bloody holding actions. Egyptian hand held missiles were negating the edge that the Air Force and armored units had previously given the IDF.
1973: A discussion took place at the Prime Minister's Office that centered on how to enlist American support at the United Nations and head off a cease-fire that would hurt Israel. Mrs. Meir suggested putting together a list of requests. Mrs. Meir rejected a suggesting that the Israelis should present U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger with a partial, distorted picture exaggerating Israel's poor situation to win the Nixon administration's support. Meir rejected the suggestion out of hand. "We should telegraph him the details; he should get the real picture," she said. "We can't play hide and seek with him." Minister Yisrael Galili asked in response, "Do we sell him the fact that we've moved out of the populated areas?" Mrs. Meir replied, "I don't object to us saying, there's also risk to populated areas ... I want to give him the real picture. I'm not under the impression the situation is doomed ... We should tell it to him convincingly. Tonight was a bad night."
1973:Word of the stunning success of the Israeli missile boats brought crowds down to the Haifa breakwater this morning to welcome the returning squadron. Barkai, the commanding officer, had decided that there would be no brooms tied to masts, the traditional symbol of a naval victory. Any flaunting of the victory over the Syrians, he said, "wouldn't be respectful to them or to ourselves."
1973: Gad Smooch landed safely after the Syrians had fired a SAM at his F-4E
1973: Despite suffering “severe losses” the 162ndDivision under the command of Avraham Adan continued to attempt to throw the Egyptians back across the Suez Canal.
1973: “On the second day of the war, Maj. Gen. Shmuel “Gorodish” Gonen, a learned disciplinarian shouted at a recalcitrant General Sharon ‘I will dismiss you right now!’ when Sharon told him his attack orders were mistaken and would be ‘a disastrous mistake.’” (As reported by Mitch Ginsburg)
1973: Avikam Lif, Ami Elkelei, Shuki Wolfson, Avi Barber, and Zvi Afik were all taken prisoner when the F-4E Phantom Jets they were flying were shot down by Syrian Surface to Air Missiles (SAM)
1973: On the second day of the Battle for the Valley of Tears, “Syrians forces suffered heavy losses as the outnumbered Israeli tanks and infantry fought desperately to buy time for reserves forces to reach the front lines.”
1975: The “USSR Supreme Soviet Presidium” ratified an agreement providing for economic and technical cooperation with Syria that could only be seen as threatening to Israeli planners.
1977: “Black Martin Baby” a movie version of the novel produced by Milton Sperling and featuring Tom Bosley was released today.
1979(16th of Tishrei, 5740): Sukkoth II
1979(16th of Tishrei, 5740): Eight-four year old “Irving Maidman, a major owner of properties around Times Square, the dean of West Side Development,” “a founder of the Albert Einstein Medical School” and husband of “the former Edith Shvitiz with whom he had four children – Robert, Mathew, Rebecca and Ellen – passed away today in Upper Nyack where he was “a direct of Congregation Sons of Israel Temple.
1980(27th of Tishrei, 5741): Seventy-eight year hold hotel owner Hyman B. Cantor, the husband of the “former Gertrude Levinson” and philanthropist passed away today.
1981(9th of Tishrei, 5742): Erev Yom Kippur
1981: As the Jews of Cedar Rapids chant Kol Nidre, Abbie Silber, daughter of Laurie and Dr. Robert Silber arrives in the world. It is an appropriate and auspicious choice of birthdates for a young woman who has gone to become a “Sweet Singer in Israel” and whose parents are pillars of the Jewish Community.
1981(9th of Tishrei, 5742): Novelist Albert Cohen passed away. Cohen is a study in the multi-nationalism of Jewish identity. Born in Greece in 1895, Cohen wrote his novels in French, and became a Swiss Citizen in 1919.
1981: Egypt's parliament named Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. Much to the consternation of those who plotted Sadat’s murder, Mubarak continued to honor the peace agreement with Israel.
1983: “Never Say Never,” one of the films in the James Bond series, directed by Irvin Kershner and produced by Jack Schwartzman was released in the United States by Warner Brothers.
1985(22nd of Tishrei, 5746): Shemini Atzeret
1985: Palestinian gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean with more than 400 people aboard. “Four men representing the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF) took control of the liner off Egypt while she was sailing from Alexandria to Port Said within Egypt. The hijackers had been surprised by a crew member and acted prematurely. Holding the passengers and crew hostage, they directed the vessel to sail to Tartus, Syria, and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians then in Israeli prisons. When refused permission to dock at Tartus, the hijackers shot one wheelchair-bound passenger – an American named Leon Klinghoffer – because he was Jewish, and threw his body overboard. The ship headed back towards Port Said, and after two days of negotiations the hijackers agreed to abandon the liner for safe conduct and were flown towards Tunisia aboard an Egyptian commercial airliner.
1987: “Baby Boom” a comedy produced by Nancy Meyers and co-starring Harold Ramis was released in the United States by United Artists.
1988:Health Ministry officials began vaccinating all people under the age of 40 in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The vaccination was in response to concerns about a possible outbreak of polio.
1989: “Forever Your Girl,” the debut album from singer Paula Abdul “hit number for the first time” today.
1990: Israel begins handing out gas masks to its citizens as Sadam Hussein threatens to fire Scuds armed with chemical weapons on the Jewish state. In the Gulf War, Hussein will fire Scuds, but none of them will contain chemical weapons. At the request of the Bush Administration, the Israelis refrained from retaliating against the Iraqis. This is the first time that an Israeli government has entrusted security to another nation.
1990:By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer, “a nonfiction book by a former katsa (case officer) in the Israeli Mossad, Victor Ostrovsky and Canadian journalist and author Claire Hoy” reached number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.
1991(29th of Tishrei, 5752): Eighty-three year old Italian author Natalia Ginzburg, the daughter of histologist Giuseppe Levi, the wife of Leone Ginzburg and the mother of historian Carlo Ginzburg passed away today.
1992(10th of Tishrei, 5753): As Bill Clinton seeks to unseat George Bush, Jews observe Yom Kippur
1992(10th of Tishrei, 5753): Sixty-two year old Allan Bloom passed away today. (As reported by Keith Botsford)
1996: In a speech in the Knesset, Shimon Peres appealed to Benjamin Netanyahu to sign the Hebron agreement.
1999: In “Hanging In” published today Yehuda Lev described what it is like to be a 72 year old in a classroom full of Gen Xer’s at Brandies
2000(8th of Tishrei, 5761): Shabbat Shuva
2000: PBS broadcast a revival production of “The Man Who Came To Dinner,” a three-act comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart.
2001: Hamas claimed credit for today’s attack at the Erez Crossing.
2001(20th of Tishrei, 5672): Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for today’s bombing at Shluhot, a kibbutz located “in the Beit She'an Valley in northern Israel.”
2001(20th of Tishrei, 5762): Famed cartoonist Herblock passed away. [Words do not justice to this brilliant political artist and satirist. The following is just one of the many websites where you can see his work http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/
2001: The New York TimesreviewedMisconceptions: Truth, Lies, and the Unexpected on the Journey to Motherhood by Naomi Wolf.
2003(11th of Tishrei, 5764):Seventy-one year old Israel Harold "Izzy" Asper, Canadian tax-lawyer, media magnate and leader of the Canadian Jewish community passed away.
2003: In “Keeping His Foot In a Creaking Door; Radio Pioneer Clings to Imagination,” Joseph Berger chronicles the professional life of Himan Brown, the creator and producer of “such popular radio programs as ‘The Adventures of the Thin Man,’ ‘Dick Tracy,’ ‘Grand Central Station’ and ‘Inner Sanctum’.”
2003(11th of Tishrei, 5764): Ninety- one year old composer Arthur Berger passed away. (As reported by Alan Kozinin)
2005: U.S. premiere of “good night, and good luck,” a must see movie produced by Grant Heslov with a script co-authored by Grant Heslov.
2005(4thof Tishrei, 5766): Ninety-two scriptwriter Devery Freeman passed away today.
2005: Sarah Levy-Tanai, founder of the Inbal dance troupe and one of the country's most important choreographers was laid to rest. She had passed away at the age of 95.
2005: The legendary Israeli basketball guard Doron Sheffer announced his retirement. The Israeli native had played on championship teams at the University of Connecticut. He was the first Israeli to be chosen in the N.B.A. draft. Sheffer passed up a chance to play with the Los Angeles Clippers and returned to Israel where he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Jerusalem. He led Hapoel Jerusalem to its first European title when it defeated Real Madrid in the ULEB Cup final.
2006: Opening of the International Haifa Film Festival
2007(25th of Tishrei, 5768): Ninety-eight year old General Paul Alfred Cullen the WW II Australian war hero who served in several theatres most notably in New Guinea where he played a key role in the nasty fighting aimed at re-capturing Kokoda. (For more on the military of Jews in the “land down under,” see the newly published Jewish Anzacs by Mark Dapin.)
2007: The Jewish Museum of Florida presents an exhibition styled “The Art Of Rabbi Shoni Labowitz.” The artworks are inspired by the beauty and details of life, nature, women, spirituality and ritual. After a distinguished career as a rabbi, publisher and author, Shoni Labowitz is return to her lifelong dream of being an artist. The exhibit is an extension of her spirituality, evident in her style and subject matter. She says: “Whether it is feeling the bristles of the brush against the canvas, stroking color into shapes or feeling the clay beneath her hands, it is all a form of connecting with the spirituality in all things.
2007: Leonard “Slatkin announced he had reached agreement on a three-year contract, followed by a two-year option, to become the new music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, beginning with the 2008-2009 subscription season.”
2007:The Sunday Washington Post book section included reviews of The Israel Lobby And U.S.Foreign Policyby John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt and The Deadliest Lies The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish ControlbyAbraham H. Foxman.
2007: The Sunday New York Times book section featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics related to Judaism including Exit Ghost by Phillip Roth, The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever in which David M. Friedman examines the Lone Eagle’s love affair with eugenics that help explain some of his views about Hitler, the Jews and World II, You Can Lead a Politician to Water but You Can’t Make Him Think:Ten Commandments for Texas Politics by Kinky Friedman and The Journal Of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982, Edited by Greg Johnson.Oates “discovered late in life her own family's Jewish history: Her grandmother, who immigrated to the United States in the 1890s, kept her religion hidden for fear of persecution. So the question arises: Is Oates Jewish and can Oates' writing be characterized as distinctively Jewish?”
2008:Israeli Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger has issued a prayer for the safe return of captive soldier Gilad Schalit which he plans to distribute today, to be read in synagogues throughout Israel on Yom Kippur and weekly on Shabbat after the Torah reading.
2008(8th of Tishrei, 5769): Ninety-five year old Rabbi Leslie Hardman, “the first Jewish British Army Chaplain to enter Bergen-Belsen” when it was liberated in April of 1945 passed away today.
2008:A woman who admitted fabricating a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust as a child by living with wolves has won a court battle with her former publisher. Misha Defonseca's 1997 book, Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years was translated into 18 languages, made into a feature film in France, and drew interest from the Walt Disney Co. and Oprah Winfrey. After Defonseca admitted earlier this year that she had made up the story, her former publisher, Jane Daniel, sued to try to overturn a $32.4 million court judgment Defonseca and her ghost writer, Vera Lee, won against her in an earlier fight over profits. Daniel argued that because the story was false, Defonseca perpetrated a hoax on the trial judge and the jury. But this week, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley threw out Daniel's lawsuit because she did not file it within a one-year statute of limitations. The judge said that the truth of the memoire was not an issue in the earlier court battle between Defonseca and Daniel. Instead, the case was about claims of violations of the contract between the authors and the publisher, Feeley said. Defonseca's fraud, misrepresentations, and misconduct did not go to the heart of the case, he said in his written ruling, filed today. Daniel said the jury at the 2001 trial would not have issued a verdict against her if they had known that Defonseca made up the story.
2009(19th of Tishrei, 5770): Chol Hamoed Sukkoth
2009(19th of Tishrei, 5770): Photographer Irving Penn passed away at the age of 92. (As reported by Andy Grundberg)
2009: In the nation’s capital, The DCJCC presents “An Evening With Betty Buckley.”
2009:At Yale University in New Haven, a screening of "The Case for Israel: Democracy's Outpost," a feature-length documentary film followed by a discussion led by Professor Dershowitz.
2010: An exhibition of the paintings of Tel Aviv artist Tamar Rosen is scheduled to open at the Agora Gallery in New York.
2010:Former State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi, once considered a leading voice on corporate governance and ethics, stood before a judge today and calmly explained how he took part in a sprawling corruption scheme involving New York State’s $125 billion pension fund while serving as its sole trustee.
2011(9th of Tishrei, 5772): Erev Yom Kippur
2011: In University City, MO, the family of the late Edward Stix, Jr. whose family owned the Rice-Stix, Inc. received friends today at The Gatesworth.
2011(9th of Tishrei): Abbie Silber celebrates her first birthday as the wife of Rabbi Feival Strauss. This birthday is unique because it falls on the same dates on both the religious and secular calendars as it did the year when Mrs. Strauss was born. Abbie is the daughter of Laurie and Dr. Robert Silber, pillars of the Jewish community and two of the finest people you would ever want to meet.
2011(9th of Tishrei, 5772): Seventieth Anniversary of the end of the two day Nazi massacre of over 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar, at a ravine outside of Kiev, the Ukrainian city that was part of the Soviet Union.
2011: The European Union said today that the Middle East Quartet will meet on October 9 in Brussels as part of a wider effort to restart the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process. EU spokesman Michael Mann said today the focus would be to maintain momentum in encouraging the parties to return to negotiations.
2011: The IDF announced that the security presence in Jerusalem were beefed up today in preparation for Yom Kippur
2011:Silence fell over Israel at around 5 P.M. today, as the Yom Kippur fast began. Air traffic to and from Israel halted from 1 P.M. and is not scheduled to begin again until 9:30 P.M. tomorrw, while the border crossings to Jordan and Gaza have been closed down. The weather forecast bodes well for fasters, with comfortable temperatures. Tomorrow will be slightly warmer than today but not more humid, so the heat stress will not rise - good news for fasters.
2011:Over 1000 people attended a Kol Nidre Yom Kippur service organized by Daniel Sieradski at the Occupy Wall Street demonstration that had begun in September.
2012(21st of Tishrei, 5773): Hoshana Rabbah
2012: “A vandal scrawled graffiti on a mural by modern Jewish American master Mark Rothko at London’s Tate Modern today.”
2012(21st of Tishrei, 5773): In keeping with the minchag of Reform Judaism, Temple Judah is scheduled to host a Pizza Simchat Torah celebration in Cedar Rapids.
2012: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including The Revenge of Geography:What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate by Robert D. Kaplan, Subversives:The FBI’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfeld and All We Know: Three Lives by Lisa Cohen
2012: In Iowa City, Agudas Achim is scheduled to sponsor its second annual Sukkah Crawl
2012:Lorraine Lotzof Abramson, author, "My Race: A Jewish Girl Growing Up under Apartheid in South Africa is scheduled to appear on Channel 75
2012: In Venezuela, voters are scheduled to go to the polls and vote for either Hugo Chavez or Henrique Capriles, the grandson of Holocaust survivors as the next president of this major South American nation.
2012: French President Francois Hollande today promised the Jewish community a major increase in security after blank bullets were fired near a Parisian synagogue in the most recent incident in a wave of anti-Semitic attacks in France.
2012: After a month, curtain came down on The Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s revival production of Stephen Schwartz’s Tony Award-winning musical “Pippin.”
2013: Ben “Shapiro co-founded TruthRevolt, a U.S. media watchdog and activism website, in association with the David Horowitz Freedom Center”
2013: In Washington, DC, the Hyman S and Freda Bernstein Jewish Literary Festival is schedule to present an evening with mystery writer Walter Mosely.
2013: “In association with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, Ben Shapiro launched the website for media watchdog group TruthRevolt in response to the left-leaning Media Matters for America
2013: Jason Isaacs was chosen to play one of the “tankers” in the WW II movie “Fury.”
2013: Rabbi Moshe Arye Bamberger, the Head of the Bet Din of the Jewish community of Metz, France is scheduled to present a seminar on a new publication, Torat Chachmei Metz, or The Torah of the Scholars of Metz, which is based on an original manuscript in the YIVO Archives.
2013: From Cedar Rapids to Columbus, Ohio and points beyond friends and family of Abbie Strauss, the daughter of Dr. Bob and Laurie Silber and the wife of Rabbi Feivel Strauss celebrate the birthday of this accomplished musician, supportive helpmate and mother par excellence.
2013: Five more people are scheduled to on trial in federal court in New York in connection with Bernie Madoff’s massive stock fraud and con.
2014: The Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia is scheduled to host two seminars on “Iranian-Jewish Culture and History” presented by Isaac Yomtovian author of My Iran: Memories, Mysteries and Myths.
2014: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a lecture by Gennady Estraikh entitled “Farewell to Communism: Howard Fast and Soviet Yiddish Writers.”
2014(24th of Tishrei, 5776): One hundred year old Ralph Goldman who played a key role in the creation of the state of Israel passed away today.
2014: “Two Israeli soldiers were wounded in an explosion next to a tank near the border with Lebanon this afternoon, setting off the second border clash in the area in three days.” Hezbollah took credit for the explosion.
2014: “The Israeli Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi petitioned the High Court of Justice on Tuesday against a Knesset Ethics Committee decision to ban her for six months from parliament debates because she declared that the Palestinian kidnappers of three Israeli teenagers were not terrorists.” (As reported by Stuart Winer)
2014: In Dallas, TX, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is scheduled to host Do Words Kill? Hate Speech, Propaganda, and Incitement to Genocide.
2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center and the ADL presented a program marking the 50th commemoration of The Second Vatican Council of 1965.
2015: The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to host a “book talk” featuring Sasha Abramsky, the author of The House of Twenty Thousand Books.
2015: JCC Manhattan is scheduled to “Home Alone,” “Renewal,” “Glove Story” and “Reflections” – “short films relating to Israel’s celebrated modern dance scene.”
2015: A the latest wave of terrorist attacks continues that have left for Israelis dead from stabbings in Jerusalem, “an 18 year old Palestinian woman” “was shot and wounded by police” after she stabbed an Israeli man “in an alleyway near the Western Wall.”
2015: “A team of engineers from the Israeli nonprofit Group SpaceIL is the first to advance in an international competition sponsored by Google to send a privately-funded space craft to the moon, contests organizers announced” today.
2016(5th of Tishrei, 5777): One hundred four year old Austrian-born photographer and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky passed away today.
2016: Amiram Levin, “a former senior IDF officer who played a role in Israel’s daring 1976 rescue of hostages at Entebbe airport slammed former president Shimon Peres, who passed away last week, as a “crook” and “liar” who inflated his role in the operation.”
2016: Shimon Dotan’s “The Settlers” is scheduled to be shown at the 54th New York Film Festival.
2016: In the UK, JW3 is scheduled to host a screening of “Things to Come.”
2016: “Latin American Jews living in Israel added their voices to the chorus of congratulations sent to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on winning the Nobel Peace Prize” today.
2016: In Weimar, the Onion Festival, which will featuring a new offering – “Kosher Thurngian bratwurst” – is scheduled to open today giving observant Jews their first chance to sample what has been a “traif delicacy.”
2017(17th of Tishrei, 5778): Shabbat and Sukkoth Chol Ha’moed; for more see
2017: The Oxford University Jewish Society is scheduled to host Shabbat morning services followed by lunch
2017: The Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem is scheduled to host special Sukkoth family activities during Sukkoth Chol Hamoed.
2017: This evening, the University of Iowa Hillel is scheduled to host Havdalah and cookies in the Sukkah.
2018: Friends and family prepare to celebrate the birthday of Abbie Strauss, the sweet singer of song at Temple Israel in Memphis, TN, who along with her husband Rabbi Feivel Strauss provides one-two punch of Yiddishkite
2018: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including a graphic novel for children, The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler and the recently released paperback editions of The Ruined House by Ruby Namader and Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife by Pamela Bannos.
2018: “Blue Badge Guide Rachel Kolsky is scheduled to lead a walking tour that “commerates the centenary of the end of WW I” “that highlights the Jewish East End associations with the Great War including a remembrance of “poet and artist Isaac Rosenberg,
2018: Due to flooding at “The Center for Jewish History, the 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Strauss Historical Society” scheduled for today has been cancelled.
2018: “The internationally-renowned National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene is scheduled perform Mama’s Loshn Kugel” at an “event that will honor Atlanta’s Holocaust survivors” with proceeds going “to support restoration and preservation of the Memorial to the Six Million at Greenwood Cemetery, scholarships for Holocaust education to teachers and students, and programs to pass on survivors' collective experiences to succeeding generations
2018: Adam Maalouf and Lara Bello are scheduled to perform at the American Sephardi Music Festival.