This Day, October 13, In Jewish History

OCTOBER 13 In Jewish History

1483: Isaac Ben Judah Abravanel (also spelled Abarbanel) started his exegesis on the Bible. Born in Portugal 1437, Abravanel was one of the most colorful and interesting characters of the final decades of during which Jews lived in Spain and Portugal. He was part of a distinguished family and he was well educated in Jewish and secular studies. Abravanel was a financier, tax collector and advisor to the King Alfonso of Portugal. When Alfonso died, Abravanel had falling out with his successor. It was at this time that Abravanel decided to give up his political duties and devote himself to writing commentaries. For reasons that are too complex for this brief entry, Abravanel was forced to flee to Spain where he returned to his tax collecting duties. He left Spain in 1492 and ended up in Naples where he ended up as financier and tax collector again. He passed away in 1503 leaving behind a body of commentaries on the Torah and the Prophets. According to some authorities, his work is solid, but not original. He is, however seen as being the last in a long line of Jewish commentators and philosophers who were part of the Sephardic culture that flourished from the 8th to the 15th centuries.

1654: (2nd of Heshvan 5415): On this date Isaac Rodriguez Cunha, a citizen of Curacao, writes a letter which is addressed “to the illustrious Gentlemen, the Mahamad of the Holy Congregation Mikvah Israel, Curacao.” This is one of the first written pieces of evidence used in fixing the dates for the founding of the Jewish community and the synagogue in Curacao. Mahamad is a term used for the “board of directors of a Spanish-Portuguese Congregation

1796: Censorship of Jewish books in Russia became official policy.

1843: B'nai Brith was founded under the leadership of Henry Jones at Sinsheimer's cafe on Essex Street in New York, to maintain orphanages and homes for the elderly and widows. It extended its work to many spheres of American Jewish life, including combating anti-Semitism. (A.D.L.) and working with students on campus (Hillel).

1880: Birthdate of Sasha Cherny, the pen name of Russian poet and satirist Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg

1881: Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and friends decided to speak Hebrew exclusively, marking the beginning of the revival of the language in modern times. Born Eliezer Perlman in Lithuania, Ben- Yehuda is proof that one person can make a difference. As a youngster, a rabbi gave Ben-Yeuda a Hebrew translation of Robinson Crusoe. That experience convinced him that Hebrew should be a modern, spoken language as well as a language of prayer. He devoted the rest of his life to the idea of living in the land of Israel where Hebrew would be the spoken language. He arrived in Jaffa with his bride In 1881 and he became associate editor of a Hebrew Language journal. His task of creating a modern Hebrew language was not an easy one. He was attacked both in print and physically by those who thought he was desecrating the holy tongue. At the same time, he had to keep inventing words since much had happened since Hebrew was last a an active language. Life was a real challenge for his children. It was difficult for them to have playmates since they were the only people who spoke Hebrew. Ben-Yehuda did not give up his dream. He lived to see Hebrew become one of the three official languages of Palestine under the Mandate after World War I. Such was his success that by the time he died in 1922, a majority of the Jews in Palestine listed Hebrew as their native tongue on the census forms

1891: Birthdate of Jennie Loitman Barron, judge, lawyer, and suffragist. Born in Boston's West End, Barron attended Boston University where she earned her BA, LL.B, and LL.M. degrees and was active in Boston University's League for Equal Suffrage. Barron started her own law firm after graduation and created a new firm with her husband Samuel Barron, Jr. when they married four years later. Barron was elected president of the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers and campaigned for uniform marriage and divorce laws, as well as for women's right to serve on juries. She also worked to mobilize women to exercise their newly established right to vote. Barron began her thirty-five year career as a judge in 1934 when she was appointed by the governor as a special justice of the Western Norfolk District Court. In 1937, she was named to be an associate of the Boston Municipal Court. She left this position when she became an associate of the Massachusetts Superior Court in 1957 -- the first woman to hold this position. Throughout her career, Barron remained active in the Jewish community serving as the first president of the Women's Auxiliary of Boston's Beth Israel Hospital, on the first board of Brandeis University National Women's Committee, and as the first president of the New England Women's Division of the American Jewish Congress. Barron died in March 1969, one year after her husband's death.

1894: Alfred Dreyfus is arrested by Commandant du Paty de Clam, an assistant to the Army Chief of Staff and charged with treason. Dreyfus was left alone with a pistol, having been encouraged to do “the honorable thing.” When Dreyfus refused he was marched off to prison where he would be kept in solitary confinement for the next five days.

1898: The Zionist Delegation including Joseph Seidener, Moses T. Schnirer, Theodor Herzl, David Wolffsohn and Max Bodenheimer takes the Orient Express to Constantinople as they pursue Herzl’s dream of top-down Zionism.

1911: Multiple telegrams were received in London from Malta, Gabes and Djerba, appealing for help for the many thousands of Jewish refugees from Tripoli.

1913: According to legend, German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzwieg attended Yom Kippur services for what he thought would be his last visit to a Jewish house of worship before converting to Christianity. “But that prayer service moved him so profoundly that he gave up the idea of converting and became a committed Jewish philosopher, who saw his religion as preferable to Christianity.

1925: Birthdate of Lenny Bruce. Born Leonard Alfred Schneider he was a controversial comedian and satirist. He passed away in 1966

1937: The Palestine Post reported that a slight earth tremor was felt in Jerusalem. It lasted about a second, and caused in some cases a definite sway of upper stories of buildings. There were sporadic Arab attacks, accompanied by heavy firing, at Hadera, Safed and on Kibbutz Gordonia. A curfew was imposed on Safed. Robbers operated in the no-man's-land between the Palestinian and Lebanese French border posts at Nakura. The attackers were protected by other well-armed men in surrounding area.

1939: Chaim Kaplan, the director of a Hebrew School in Warsaw, described the Jewish reactions to the Soviet occupation of Poland with the following diary entry: “The Jews there looked upon the Bolsheviks as redeeming messiahs. Even the wealthy, who would become poor under Bolshevism, preferred the Russians to the Germans. There is plunder on the one hand and plunder on the other, but the Russians plunder one as a citizen and a man, while the Nazis plunder one as a Jew. The former Polish government never spoiled us, but at the same time never overtly singled us out for torture. The Nazi is a sadist, however. His hatred of the Jews is psychosis. He flogs and derives pleasure from it. The torment of the victim is a balm to his soul, especially if the victim is a Jew.

1940: Jews from Warsaw's suburbs were ordered into the Warsaw Ghetto.

1942: Birthdate of singer and composer Paul Simon.

1943: A revolt took place in Camp Number I at Sobibor. Alexander Pechersky distributed knives and hatchets to other prisoners. Nine SS and two Ukrainians were killed in the fighting. Three hundred of the prisoners from Camp Number I' escaped. The other 300 would be killed. However, as a result of this revolt, Sobibor ended its operation.

1944: The Soviet Troops entered Riga. Only a handful of Jews had survived in city where there were 30,000 Jews just ten years earlier.

1945 (6th of Cheshvan, 5706): On Shabbat, Leon Recanati, Sephardic leader of Palestine and formerly of Salonika passed away. Recanati was a "happy admixture of a learned Jew with his Biblical wisdom on the one hand and a man of affairs with a sense of reality on the other."

1948: U.N. “observers reported that the Arabs had fired with automatic weapons ‘for several hors, from an area under UN supervision, and with any provocation by Jewish Forces.’”

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the cabinet had appointed a seven-member Board of Directors of the German Reparations Purchasing Company. The board was responsible, through Foreign Minister Levi Eshkol, to a five-man ministerial committee which was aided by a 13-member Planning Committee and an Advisory Council of 25 members. You might recognize the name of Levi Eshkol. He would be Prime Minister in June of 1967 when Israel defended itself against its Arab neighbors and reunited the city of Jerusalem.

1953: An Israeli mother and her two children – the youngest of which was only eighteen months old – were killed by infiltrators from across the Jordan Border.

1960: Birthdate of Ari Fleischer, former Press Secretary for President Bush

1971: Birthdate Sacha Baron Cohen. This British born comedian is known for his highly successful comedy character Ali G.

1973: Jordan entered the Yom Kippur War. Thinking that initial Arab victories would spell the demise of Israel, King Hussein thought he would get back the West Bank and east Jerusalem. In the end he lost again and ended up having to surrender his claims to these lands to the PLO.

1973: During the Yom Kippur War, Egyptian reinforcements continued to cross the Suez Canal and began attacking Israeli forces.

1973: Israeli forces confronted large numbers of Iraqi tanks both on the road to Damascus and on the Golan Heights. In both battles, Israeli forces destroyed considerable number of the Iraqi tanks while sustaining minimal losses. Israeli aircraft refrained from shooting down the Soviet transports that were landing at Damascus. However, Israeli forces did destroy at least two Soviet craft once they had landed sparking threats from Moscow.

1973: After much hesitation and despite opposition from America’s Western Allies, President Nixon ordered a massive airlift of supplies for the IDF. The material helped offset the tons of modern weaponry being shipped into the region by the Russians. Many Jews shifted their allegiance to Nixon and the Republicans based on the airlift. However, they seemed to have forgotten that if the Nixon administration had not kept the Israelis from conducting a pre-emptive strike against the Egyptians before they crossed the Canal, none of this would have been necessary in the first place.

1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that US President Jimmy Carter welcomed the Israeli cabinet's approval of a "working paper" on procedures for reconvening of the Geneva Middle East peace conference. "I am pleased with that," he said. His officials explained that what the US had in mind was the creation of some sort of a Palestinian "borough" on the West Bank and in Gaza which would be linked with Jordan. Asked directly whether he advocated an "entity," Carter simply replied, "I have never advocated an independent Palestinian state." These negotiations of 25 years ago provide a tragic-comical backdrop to the so-called peace negotiations that have been taking place since the Camp David Meetings hosted by President Clinton.

1977: Four Palestinians hijacked a Lufthansa Airlines flight to Somalia and demand release of 11 members of the Red Army Faction. Yes, twenty-five years ago, terrorists were interconnected, often sharing resources, training facilities and killing assignments.

1989: Israeli soldiers troops killed an 18-year-old Palestinian in a West Bank village, Qalqilya, after they were attacked by masked youths.

1990: Syria invaded Lebanon killing over 500. There was no noticeable protest from Arab states or the U.N.

1994: Fifty thousand Jews gathered at the Wailing Wall to pray for the life of Nachshon Wachsman, a nineteen year old Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped by Hamas.

1995: Henry Roth, author of Call It Sleep passed away. Born in 1906, Roth was ignored for most of his career and was reduced to holding a variety of jobs since he could not support himself as a writer. Later in life, he enjoyed a re-birth of interest which continued for at least a decade after his death.

1997: Syria Invaded Lebanon again. Actually, Syrian troops have occupied parts of Lebanon since 1977. Lebanon is more like a satellite of Syria, than a truly independent nation. The late President Assad had a vision of ruling Greater Syria – nation that would include Syria, parts of Jordan, Lebanon and Israel.

2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of special interest to Jews including The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, by Steven Pinker, Jackie Robinson and the Integration of Baseball by Scott Simon and Rereading Sex: Battle Over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century American by Helen Lefkowitz

2004: In London, Bernice Rubens passed away at the age of 76. The prolific British novelist drew on her Jewish uprbring to tell stories of vice and grimness with warmthn and humor. “She won Brtiains’ prestigious Booker Prize for fiction in 1970 for The Elected Member, the story of a Jewish family whose secrets drive one son insane.”

2005: Yom Kippur is observed by Jews all over the world.

2006: Hoshanah Rabbah, 5767

2006: Don Novick, an unsung pillar of the community, passes away.

2007: Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, 5768(Second Day) – First of Cheshvan

2007: Yaakov Katz the military correspondent and defense analyst for The Jerusalem Post, the Middle East's leading English daily speaks at Agudas Achim in Iowa City, IA.

2007: Haaretz reported that in Lakewood, New Jersey, a man wielding an aluminum baseball bat attacked an Orthodox Jewish rabbi walking to synagogue critically injuring the 53-year-old man and threatening to strain the already tense ethnic relations in a New Jersey city, officials and residents said. The beating of Mordechai Moskowitz, reportedly at the hands of am African-American man, has put residents on edge in Lakewood, a diverse city of 70,000 near the Jersey Shore that is home to a large Orthodox Jewish population, as well as black and Hispanic communities. An Orthodox Jewish middle school teacher was found not guilty this summer of assaulting a black teenager. And a few weeks ago, a group of Orthodox Jews was pelted with eggs by teenagers from another town, The New York Times reported Thursday. Authorities have arrested no one and have no motive in the beating of the rabbi, police Lt. Joseph Isnardi said.

2008: Erev Sukkoth, 5769